[PKMN FULL] TRAINERS (IC)

moon · Apr 12, 2020

Chapter 5: Lavender Town
Starting date - May 23rd (Thursday)

Spoiler:

Lavender Town has always been known for being small and peaceful. In the past, it's magnificent Pokémon Tower was a spiritual temple where the souls of departed pokémon friends were honored, especially those buried in the vast Pokémon Graveyard to the east. In later decades, the temple has fallen silent due to insufficient funding and interest from a more and more modern and secularized population. Until just recently...

Two years ago, the rapidly growing organization Tomorrow Foundation purchased the old defunct Power Plant just northwest of Lavender. The old area had been part of an effort to harvest geothermal power from the mysterious Rock Tunnel area a couple of decades ago, but turned out to be futile. The industrial efforts had long lasting effects on the peaceful town though, and the Pokémon Tower business never quite recovered when tourists and immigrants to the town became more scarse due to the unattractive atmosphere the Power Plant efforts brought. All in all, it had been a devastating chapter for the town and not something anyone had been keen to repeat. However, Tomorrow have somehow found success with the Power Plant and are now delivering power to Saffron as well as to new factories that are still being built on the town's western edge. It's still much cheaper to build here, than to build closer to Saffron City, see.

In defiance, the granddaughter of the last Warden of the Pokémon Tower recently took up the title for herself and refurnished the ancient building with the help of family and friends, turning it into a Ghost type pokémon gym. At least, that was her plan. Unfortunately, Tomorrow had other plans, and much, much more money. They built a completely new gym and ensured that the son of the Foundation's Director was hired by the pokémon authorities as Lavender's new official gym leader... Instead of the new, young Pokémon Tower Warden. Needless to say, this has caused quite a lot of friction among the industry workers and the traditional inhabitants of the town, most of which are on the Warden's side.

The town itself is luckily still very picturesque. It lacks crowded streets and multistory buildings and feels more like a very traditional Kantonian village than a functional town, even though it has several shops and features such as barbers, schools and a popular bar. Not that Palm's young trainers are allowed in there, of course! Nor are Safari Academy trainers, not officially at least.

In the north is just the exit/entrance to Rock Tunnel and the short road down to the town. To the east is the Graveyard and then mostly forest for miles. To the west is a growing industry landscape and the Electric Type Gym, with a short road to the Power Plant just to the north of there. There is a large, heavily trafficked road with mostly motor transportation going to Saffron there too. It's not the route Palm has instructed you to take. In the south from Lavender is your next leg of the journey, and it begins with a short forest road and a mellow coastline; you won't visit this until you're leaving Lavender.

WHAT TO FIND HERE
- A pokémon center where you can always heal your pokémon for free and use the computer at. You can also borrow a room for the night here. Lavender's center is situated close to the city center, near a large market square.

- Quite skeptical townfolks as well as overly friendly ones, from all age ranges. You can almost feel the tension in the air when long-time residents encounter industry workers though. There is quite some dampened animosity.

- A Pokémon Tower in the east. It has many floors, most which are unused. The first floors make up the unofficial Ghost Type gym.

- An Electric Type gym in the west.

- A hilly, rather barren but bushy road leading up to the northwestern Power Plant. You'll get stopped by many security guards with threathening pokémon before you can get close, however.

- A few trainers from Safari Academy currently passing through Lavender. They started their graduation journeys several days ahead of the Cape trainers, and their journey path isn't as strictly planned out as Palm's is. Hence, some have reached Lavender via a long perilous hike through the southeastern Kanto road and is challenging Lavender as their first gym, but others have visited Celadon or Vermilion as well as Saffron before coming here.

- A gated pokémon exclusive Graveyard with ancient history. It is impossible to see the whole Graveyard from any singular point inside of it; it is that big. Some graves are faded and forgotten. And most definitely haunted. It's open during the day (battles are forbidden though) but closed shut during the night with a rather tall metal bar fence warning intruders to keep out.

- Wild pokémon! More on that below.

EVENTS

PICK COLORS: Friday/Saturday (24th or 25th May) / OPTIONAL
- If you visit the Pokémon Tower, its followers (and their Warden) will try to get you to sign a petition for making the Ghost Type Gym Lavender's rightful official gym. If you do this, it might help the town to get its traditional atmosphere back. Your name will be visible online in the public petition list, however.

- Reward? The Pokémon Tower followers - and their Warden! - essentially become your allies. Expect to meet them again on your journey.

- Downside? The Electric Gym workers will have seen your name in the list, as they do keep track. Regardless of if you have already challenged the Electric gym when you sign the Tower petition, this will likely affect the impressionable Electric leader's judgment on you when he writes his review to professor Palm. Negatively.

- Alternative 1? Decline the offer. This will make the Tower followers less amicable towards you and might cause them to not want to help you later on.

- Alternative 2? Only way to not get particularly disliked or liked by any of them is if you avoid the Pokémon Tower alltogether (hi casey lol)

BRIGHT EVENING: Afternoon of Friday (24th May) / OPTIONAL
- Today is the Pokémon Tower Warden's 20th birthday! The whole town is celebrating. Well, most of them, at least. There will be festivities such as food stands and musical, theatrical and dance performances on the market square right in front of the Pokémon center. Several pokémon are participating, and plenty of them are ghost type or electric type. This is a great opportunity for mingling with the townsfolk, to see the industry workers, Electric Gym trainers and even the Warden herself be less uptight, and to also hang out with other Cape (or Safari) trainers.

However, there will be several annoying (possibly drunk) people trying to start trouble throughout the evening! You can help the police and trainers from either or both of the gyms to calm things down and apprehend the troublemakers! Trouble can mean trying to cause accidents on purpose, picking fights verbally or physically etc.

- Reward? A good time + extra recommendation from the Gym Leader and/or the Warden towards Palm in your favor.

- Alternative? You can try to avoid the party alltogether, or refuse to help out with the troublemakers. Nobody will really think less of you for it.

GRAVE ERROR: Nighttime after Friday (24th May) / OPTIONAL
- Ther are tales of a rare Rotom living in the vast pokémon Graveyard to the east of the Pokémon Tower. Some Safari trainers have formed a few small groups to go after it and are whispering in the pokémon center during the Friday. If you overhear them, they'll dare you to come along. They clearly don't believe you're capable, as you're "just a Cape trainer". It's not at all as if they just want to bolster their numbers because they're actually a bit afraid of the dark, mist and ghosts, no, no...

- Reward? You will not find any Rotom, but you can find other pokémon. If you go with them and either capture a pokémon yourself or help them capture some, you'll actually earn an ounce of respect from some Safari people. This can help you when you reach Fuchsia City!

- Alternative 1? If you can't stand the thought of breaking rules together with Safari Trainers, you can sneak into the Graveyard on your own during nighttime, perhaps because your character hopes (and fails) to find Rotom, or because they just want to catch some other pokémon. No extra reward for that though.

- Alternative 2? You can actually try to find some pokémon during the daytime when the Graveyard is open instead, but it will be hard to spot them and they might be weaker (lower level) than those found during the night. Plus, if you start any battle in the Graveyard grounds during the day, the watchers will notice and you'll have to pay a fee along with Palm being notified of your rulebreaking.

POKÉMON AT THE GRAVEYARD
Hover for movesets. All are approximately Lv 12-14 if found during the night. Pokémon found in daytime are Lv 12 if you battle, and Lv 10 if you capture them without a battle.

POKÉMON AT THE HILLS WEST OF ELECTRIC GYM / SOUTH OF POWER PLANT
Hover for movesets. All are approximately Lv 12-14.

LAVENDER TOWN OFFICIAL GYM: Electric Type
At the western edge of town, before the industry area begins, Tomorrow Foundation built a completely new building with the latest technology to make the pokémon battle arena inside hyper modern. Complete with digital screens on each end of the main battlefield keeping track of the chosen teams for the battle, and an AI judge to precisely judge who wins and who cheats.

The leader's name is Beaumont Tayloz, aged 26. His complexion is fair, his hair almost platinum blonde and he is of average height and build. Usually, he is seen dressed in bright unicolor suits. He is generally seen as a positive, friendly and helpful person, even though many of Lavender's residents claim it's just for show. He tends to be easily excited by complicated machines as well as beautiful sceneries, but in battle he switches to a calculating, more quiet persona, showing that he is worthy of the Gym Leader title and not just got it by money and his father's influence. This switch in behavior is part of why some doubt his genuinity though.

His gym battles uses 3 pokémon for each battler. In battle, your whole team (6 pokémon if you have a full team) will be displayed on the digital screen behind you, and you don't have to announce before the battle starts which 3 pokémon you want to use. Once you have sent a pokémon out, however, it counts as one of your chosen 3 and you can only choose 2 more etc. No items are allowed, but switching in and out between your chosen 3 is allowed freely, by both the challenger and the Gym Leader. The battle is over once one trainer has 3 fainted pokémon.

If you have less than 3 pokemon, he will use the same number as you.

Regardless of if you win or lose, Beaumont will report back to professor Palm afterwards with his review of you! While a sensible victory is great, a ruthless victory can lead to an unfavorable review, and a mature loss can give you good words still.

LAVENDER TOWN UNOFFICIAL GYM: Ghost Type
This "gym" is situated inside the renovated lower floors of the old Pokémon Tower. The tower is very intimidating from the outside, tall and made of stone with pokémon gargoyles decorating it here and there and few windows. Inside, it is dark and maybe not extremely well ventilated. But there are some living quarters, offices, restrooms and on the bottom floor an arena for "gym battles" which is quite plain but will do the trick. At least there are lights to turn on.

The new Warden's name is Jarmie Katalan and she turns 20 on the 24th of May. She is very determined to get Lavender back to its roots and prove herself a better gym leader than the fake, bought electric boy. She carries herself with style and arrogance, but is very intelligent, which her followers know and admire. She also isn't at all cruel, her followers say, mostly just bitter at how things have turned out. Some defeated challengers say differently though... Her complexion is a dark olive, her eyes a chocolate brown, and her hair is cut extremely short, letting her golden and teal dangling ear-jewelry shine visibly. That's where her non-traditional style stops though; she almost always is seen in traditional kimono clothes, and favors dark uniform colors.

Her most trusted partner is a golden Sableye, but she has several more pokémon she uses for gym battles. In battle, you are only allowed to use 2 pokémon, and so is she. No switching out is allowed, so choose your pokémon well. Luckily, Jarmie reveals to you in what order she will use what pokémon, beforehand. You, however, only need to declare which 2 pokémon you intend to use, but not the order.

Tidbit: Jarmie likes to play music during her battles. She often lets the challenger pick, unless it turns out she hates your taste.

Regardless of if you win or lose, Jarmie will report back to professor Palm afterwards with her review of you! Even though... it doesn't count... Since she's not an official gym leader. She'll call him up anyways and since he's a complete doormat, he'll listen.

WizardOfOdd · Apr 27, 2020

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Morning

Chapter 4 - 3
Memories of the Old Man

Affected by the rough terrain, Gordon and Richard decided to take a short break. Even while he was drinking a bottle of Fresh Water, his mind was still focused on his two Pokemon. Looking at the unilluminated tunnels everywhere around the main area didn't help him one bit, what if they already entered a hole he passed before? What if they were unable to get out? Those thoughts kept surfacing on the mind of the young trainer.

The thoughts of the young man were interrupted by the older male, inquisitively asking the absent-minded Richard.

"Hey, you okay Kid? I know you're still worried about your partners, but letting your mind goes somewhere else while traversing this rough terrain is not a good idea." Gordon pat the back of Richard to ease up his mind.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it." Richard bowed slightly in gratitude. Looking to change the subject to keep his mind straight, he finally asked more about the things that pique his interest. "If I'm allowed to ask a question, Mr.Gordon. You are an archeologist correct? What kind of research you usually do? "

"Hmm? Oh, you don't have to be that polite with me. Yes, I am, although I'm recently turned freelance I am still an archeologist alright. As for my research subject, it's very broad I guess... It's kind of hard to describe it since a subject usually overlapped with another one."

Richard paused briefly as he hesitated to continue his questioning "...By recently you mean?"

"Oh no, no, no… I'm not fired or anything of the sort." Gordon quickly interjected when he saw Richard's face grimaced thinking the worst possible scenario. "I just walked away from my old firm, it ain't that easy but it's something I had to do anyway." Gordon took a huge sip of the beverage he kept inside his flask.

"If I may-"

"Ehem." Gordon abruptly cut off Richard to remind him to stop being overtly polite in front of him.

"Sorry... But, why did you quit?"

"Let's just say, my passion didn't lie there anymore."

Richard tilted his head in confusion, but he thought that it wasn't an outlandish idea for someone to suddenly quit their job, but Richard was still curious about why Gordon lost his passion.

Seeing Richard's expression, Gordon laughed before spilling the beans. "Haha, curious eh? Well before I answer, I guess I'll entertain you with my story… I originated from Johto and I used to live with my parents and six siblings. We're ain't that rich, but still, it was happy times you know? Eating together at the dining table was one of the occasions I was most excited for…" Gordon smiled as he reminisced his old days.

"That must be nice…" Richard smiled, happy seeing Gordon's warm smile. But deep inside, he was sad as he remembers hazily about the memories of good times he had with his late parents... It was a very joyful occasion indeed, but it was even sadder to think that it was robbed from him since his early childhood.

"Yup, it sure was… But those good days didn't last forever. One day, pops fell unconscious during one of his work shifts and he had to be rushed to the hospital, long-story-short… When the doctor finished examining him, they told us that he had cancer… a nasty one at that..." Gordon took another sip of his drink before continuing his story.

"At the time we're just barely making it through. The fact that our breadwinner was unable to work and the fact that our bills didn't stop piling up was a very grim situation. My mother had to take part-time jobs here and there, working from morning to night just to provide for her seven children. She steeled herself every single day, keeping a strong face in front of her children just so they could live their life as usual. In my eyes she was my hero, I never saw a stronger woman ever in my life… But all of my thoughts were a foolish presumption. One night, I heard her crying in her room… It was heartbreaking… It was apparent to me that she was barely keeping herself going, all for the sake of her foolish kids who were oblivious to her struggle."

"As the eldest sibling, I immediately felt like a moron… And at that moment, I finally realized that I had to find a job to support my family. Both of my parents weren't having any of that though, both of them urged me to continue my studies and that our financial condition was fine, but heh, I wasn't that stupid, with the condition our family was in, I was pretty sure I couldn't even able to finish my studies at all. With not much of a choice, I decided to run away from my house… I stowed away on a ship bound to Hoenn. My mom was extremely furious when I called from Hoenn, but at least I knew that she wouldn't be able to stop me from working there. I was doing all sorts of low-paying jobs just to survive there. After all, there weren't many job opportunities for people unskilled like me."

"My lucky break came after 6 months and uh… around dozens of jobs later. I managed to grab a job at a museum, there I first saw how interesting ancient history was. I was a janitor at one point, so I could watch those exhibit closely. One day, a man came to visit a museum and had a long chat with me. He was an archeologist, and I dunno, and he said he was intrigued by my knowledge even though I'm a janitor, he offered me a position as his assistant and in exchange, he taught me with everything he knew about archeology. And I eventually become his first employee when he made the firm. And that's my story of how I become an archeologist like this." The old man proudly smiled.

"Uh… And why did you quit?" Richard appreciated the story, but it still didn't answer the question in his mind.

"...Silly me and my incessant rambling… Well, archeological efforts aren't cheap you know… So we had to ask a few investors to invest in our company, and after my partner passed away they bickered a lot about projects… They wanted quick bucks without a lot of risks, which was a load of crap… Archeological projects aren't that easy to deal with, and you had better ready to deal with some losses if you wanted to invest there… The fact that they didn't care about their employees and only care for their own benefit was even more sickening... " Gordon's face turned irritated as he finished the content of his flask.

"Ah… So that's why you quit…"

"Yeah, I'd rather quit than trapped in a room translating ancient scripts for every single day for money-grubbing bastards just because it's 'the most profitable method of earning money', I mean where's the adventure? God, it was a living hell, trapped inside a small room with just dusty parchments and paperwork everywhere… If the old man was there, he would've probably flipped the table before chastising those guys for god knows how long haha..." Gordon laughed as he reminisced about his days with his mentor.

Richard smiled seeing Gordon's laugh, he's glad to see the old man laughed so merrily. For a moment he even forgot about his worries of finding his Pokemon, it lifted a lot of weight from his head. "Thank you, Mr. Gordon, I owed you a lot." He bowed his head in gratitude.

"You finally smiled that wide eh… You should show that smile more, it's too early for you to be a grumpy old man… Well, I don't have something fancy to give you so I'll just give you a little bit of my wisdom. The difference between dream and delusion is this." Gordon pointed at his chest.

"The heart?"

"Yup… No matter, what's your past or your background if you have ambition, perseverance, and passion, everything will work fine. Sure reality is not that sweet, but if you aim for the stars at least you would be on the sky, no longer you would be on the ground just thinking about what could have been. I saw a lot of people having a dream of wanting to be rich, successful, well all sorts of stuff… But most of them never reached it, they're hoping those things would come to them but they never put the extra effort to attain what they wanted. Look at me, they all laughed at me when I was just a janitor with a pipedream of becoming an important people of some sort… They can't laugh at me now, can't they? Hahaha…"

Gordon continued his speech. "If you do have a dream as a Pokemon Trainer, then chase it with all your might. You're a good person, Richard. I'm sure you'll be able to become a great trainer as long as you keep chasing it with all your might haha. Well, enough chatting… Those artifacts aren't going to show themselves if we stayed here, besides we still have to look for your Pokemon so let's keep going." Gordon slowly stood up with the help of his walking cane, he immediately checked his equipment to make sure nothing was left behind.

Richard wryly smiled from the sidelines. His eyes gazed downward filled with sadness.

A good person... If only that was the case…

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Juno · Apr 28, 2020

[a id]menu14[/a id]

background art cred

Chapter

Pokédex

Chapter 4: The Light at the End // May 23rd
ft. Vera Hill & Casey Holt

Jordan traces the creases of the torn page he is holding with a finger as he quietly studies the directions that were written down on it by Harper. They're close. As soon as Casey's good to walk, they can keep going. He glances up to where the boy is sleeping and smiles, relieved he's back with them now and relatively okay. Right on cue, Casey makes a loud, hacking noise as he coughs up some orange sludge. It was quite startling the first two times he did that, but it seemed to be his body's way of reacting to and getting rid of the toxins he had inhaled. He had curled around Ginger and fallen asleep again almost immediately after, which was reassuring.

Jordan's smile turns into a slight grimace as he folds the paper back up and reaches for his bag, but a certain Skiddo catches his attention and he swiftly smacks her over the head with the folded paper instead. Sage had been wandering dangerously close to whatever Casey had coughed up and was trying to sniff it, and Jordan did not want to know why. "No! Bad. Just… go play with Parsley," he sighs, pushing her towards the other Skiddo.

"It's probably fine." Vera speaks up from her perch. She'd found a rock to sit on and wait while Casey slept off whatever the Morelull had done to him, but she looks bored. "I mean, ew, yes, but Grass types are immune to spore and powder moves for some reason." Sapphire is curled up in her lap, while Iggy happily chases Parsley around the chamber. The little Rockruff is overjoyed when Sage comes to play, wagging his tail with all his might.

"Yeah, that's true. I just don't want her to be so… well, ew, as you put it." Still he can't help smiling at the Skiddo as she knocks Iggy into a puddle and the two roll around in it.

"All things considered, he's lucky." She gently sets Sapphy beside her on the rock before standing and stretching. "Sure, he's not feeling great, but his Pokémon care about him, and so do his friends. And I'm sure paralysis was scary in the moment, but recovering from that is better than the vomit soaked agony Poison Powder would have inflicted."

Jordan nods in agreement as he settles in his seat. He sighs. "Boy, what a day," He pauses, before asking something he probably should have asked a while ago. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm…" Vera crosses her arms, taking a second to think it over. "I'm feeling pretty good, surprisingly. Today didn't start out very well, sure, and I still feel bad about that, and it's definitely had its rough parts… I mean, we've taken our share of spills, and it's not as glamorous as I thought it would be…" she gestures at herself, at her goofy shirt and makeshift skirt, before brushing a lock of hair away from her face and idly twirling it around her finger. "But I'm on an adventure. And I'm… making some new friends…"

Friends. The word takes him aback for a moment. Jordan thinks back to just a day ago and how… utterly awkward he was around her, how he had absolutely no idea how to interact with her. He briefly considers apologizing to her for some of his weirder behaviour when they were camping and all that, but he cringes just remembering some of it, and decides not to take her down that memory lane with him. Some things are best not brought up again. Still, it's quite remarkable how far they have come already, and how much more comfortable they are with each other right now, considering their personalities.

He glances over at Casey again. He has kind of been the "glue" of their group and Jordan is certain he would have never gotten to know Vera better without him around, but even now, with the boy zonked out, it didn't feel weird or uncomfortable between them anymore. It feels nice to have her around, but not that way. He smiles. "Yeah, friends."

Before Vera catches his little sentimental moment, he speaks up again. "Well, I think it's getting late, and we should really try to wrap up this adventure soon - we've taken too many detours already. I know how to get out of here, only problem is…'' he juts his chin out, gesturing towards Casey.

Vera follows Jordan's gaze, frowning in thought. "Could we…" she makes a sort of lifting gesture, "...carry him? If we each took a side? Just drape him over our shoulders?"

Jordan shrugs. "He is a pretty big boy, but we could try. I hauled him out earlier with the Skiddos' help, but it was a shorter distance compared to the route out of here. Still, let's give it a shot." He takes a moment to retrieve the paracord from Casey's backpack and lash all three bags to Parsley. The reasoning is twofold- first, Parsley might be less inclined to run with more weight on him, and second, Jordan trusts Casey's Skiddo rather more than his own. That taken care of, he moves to Casey's side and lifts one arm, refusing to flinch as Ginger hisses at him and scurries to perch atop Parsley. "We'll take short breaks along the way, provided nothing else… adventurous happens."

Vera follows suit, rounding up the rest of the Pokémon. She grabs Casey's other arm, crouching down and getting her shoulders under him. "Can't believe I'm doing this… Ready when you are, Jordan."

Surprisingly, they're able to pick Casey up between the two of them. It's slow going, and Vera looks a bit shaky, but they make it a few yards closer to the exit.

Until Vera's foot catches a loose rock.

Unable to support Casey's weight, she falls, and Jordan can't hold the big boy by himself, so he finds himself being dragged to the ground as well. Luckily for him, he at least has a soft landing.

"Oof—!" Jordan exclaims as he tumbles on top of the now-tangled human pile.

Vera tries to push herself up, but can't lift both of them. "Guys, get off of me!" Her complaint draws Iggy's attention, and the little Rockruff rushes over to lick at her face. Vera lowers her head, covering it with her arms. She lets out a muffled but despondent groan, which Casey echos.

"Wh- ugh. What is this? What are we doing?" A halfhearted attempt to extract himself from the pile does little and Casey abandons the idea in favor of crossing his arms over Vera's calves and laying down again. "I was sleeping."

"Why did I wish for this adventure?" Vera mutters darkly, starting to turn red in the face.

Casey is responsive. That's good. Jordan takes this opportunity to hopefully get him moving on his own. "Hey, buddy, how are you feeling?" he taps him lightly on the shoulder. "We could use some help getting you to the entrance, if you're feeling up to it now. We should get out of here… you know… sometime this year."

Casey mumbles unintelligible complaints. Vera kicks her legs ineffectually, which at least makes Casey uncomfortable enough to get him off of her. From there, they're able to get him standing with Parsley's help. "Come on, Casey. We're not far from the exit, and then the Pokémon Center should be right down the road. Just put up with it for one hour, and you can get into an actual bed instead of hard ground."

"An hour," Casey breathes, voice tight. He doesn't look at Jordan, even as he hooks their fingers together. Jordan instinctively opens his mouth to protest this, but seeing as Casey is still really out of it and probably doesn't know what he's doing, he shakes his head and closes his fingers around Casey's hand in return.

"That's right, an hour."

"...Okay."

It doesn't take quite that long. The three tired teens and their Pokémon make their way out of the tunnels, avoiding further complications by sticking exactly to Harper's routes. The open sky over their heads glows a dull orange as they step into its fading light.

It would be a pretty sunset if any of them were looking.

Pokédex

Pokemon on hand:

Tangela // "Tangles"

Ingrain
Constrict
Absorb
Vine Whip
Sleep Powder
Poison Powder

Pidgey // Hop

Headbutt
Sand Attack
Gust
Mirror Move

Cubone // Spirit

Leer
Growl
Bone Club
Headbutt

Skiddo // Sage

Tackle
Growth
Vine Whip
Play Nice

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Aquacorde · Apr 30, 2020

Casey Holt

Friday, May 24, 2019
Lavender Town
Early Morning, Day 5

5-01: too many variables

The gentle click of the latch cuts off Casey's own barely-audible "goodnight". His hand doesn't leave the handle; he simply rests his head against the doorframe, wood patterns blurring in the face of his blank gaze.

It's been a long day.

Several minutes tick by before he finally moves, slow and methodical, eyes yet unfocused. Sets the PokéBalls on the nightstand. Shucks his backpack. Hangs his jacket, drops the rest of his clothes on the floor. Steps into the shower, lets the hot water rinse away the flecks of Stun Spore yet sticking to his skin. Goes through the motions.

Reality edges back in as Casey sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the still PokéBalls. He doesn't know what emotion this is. He's too tired to figure it out. Reaches towards them, hesitates. Would they help?

No.

He clicks off the light. Presses his face into the pillow.

Lets himself cry until he falls asleep.

---

Where is Jordan?

Casey's eyes snap open and dart wildly around his rented room before his brain fully catches on to being awake. A spike of adrenaline ain't a great way to start the day, he thinks as he lets the tension drop from his frame and sinks back into bed, scrubbing hands over his face.

Wait.

Casey knows himself, and therefore knows he's more inclined to focus on his own problems. Yesterday was long and difficult and scary for him. Being thrown around by Vine Whip. Unknowingly battling side-by-side with a Jellicent. Being paralyzed, sapped of energy, unable to lift a finger to help himself...

So why'd he wake up worryin' about Jordan?

Jordan, clever and levelheaded Jordan, who held his own against every Pokémon they ran into. Jordan, who braved a hostile mob and found a cure to rescue Casey from his own personal hell. Whose only struggle yesterday wasn't even his fault. Who could've died in a cave-in nonetheless…

Casey hugs his pillow, staring at nothing. He hadn't been able to do anything. If the Geodude hadn't been there- if their baby hadn't been caught up in it- Jordan woulda been… stuck. Alone, for a long time, if he and Vera had to go get help- no. He wouldn't have left. But Vera couldn't have gone alone; she can't deal with Zubats. If she got scared, with him and Jordan waiting for someone that would never come…

Casey slaps his own cheeks. Stop that! This is why he doesn't sit around thinking about what-ifs. Too many variables. He swings himself out of bed and finds his workout clothes. He'll just… he'll just be there next time. Yeah. Nothing can happen to Jordan if he's always there!

He pauses, one leg through his shorts. That's a ridiculous solution, and therefore not actually a solution. He's good at a lot of things, sure, and he's strong, yeah, but he can't prevent every bad thing that might happen. Obviously. Yesterday is proof enough of that. He can't always be with Jordan, anyway. It's not logistically sound, or realistic, or anything. And Jordan doesn't need protection.

Besides, Casey knows himself. He knows he can't just hang out with one person all the time. There's too many people in the world! Too many things to experience! Can't just spend all his time with one guy.

Even though Jordan's really great.

They'd get sick of each other. Probably end up fighting and stuff. Maybe not being friends at all.

Casey's suddenly a bit nauseous.

He's probably hungry.

Pepper Bomb • Charmeleon • lv19 | Ginger • Buneary • lv14 | Parsley • Skiddo • lv14
Casey's Profile | Extra Characters | TRAINERS Art

budube · May 2, 2020

Bruno Dillinger
May 23, Thursday

Chapter 4, Part 4: The Hall

Afternoon, Rock Tunnel

They walked through a long, narrow path. It was surrounded by stalagnates and stalagmites from one extreme to the other one, mostly, which could make one feel as if they were walking across the main hall of an old castle by the way they were ordered. The ceiling was full of small but still notorious stalactites from which the Zubat hung, resting or simply sensing the two trainers walk, occasionally fluttering their wings or flying to a neighbouring rock. At this point, the heartbeat of the kid was strong and the hunger of adventure was rising by each step.

That's how Deborah would feel like. The girl popped into Bruno's mind after he thought of how much she'll bother him after seeing that all of his clothes were completely wet. She wouldn't stop bothering him for it for the rest of their journey, so he could only wish not to run into the girl until tomorrow since his spare clothes also got wet the moment he fell in the Orb Room. In that sense, he felt safer with the purple-haired woman.

"We're stopping here." the woman said after many minutes of nothing but the sound of the Zubat squeaking and the shoes of both trainers stepping on puddles, leaning against one of the stone columns and putting her backpack on the ground. Since they got out of the Orb Room, she was much calmer and not in an intimidating way. Bruno actually felt she had eased up to him for reasons as simple as not having Sableye holding a blue flame on his back anymore. It was also hard treating her as some kind of kidnapper now because this time she was actually helping Bruno get outside of the cave. However, Bruno still couldn't help but get a little nervous when she suddenly said to stop there.

"W-what are…?"

"Eating." she answered. "We still have a long way to go before we reach the exit, and it's been long since lunchtime. If we don't eat something soon, we'll collapse and don't think I'll take you on my arms if you pass out."

Oh, right. Food. He was too concentrated on getting to Lavender soon that he forgot he didn't have any breakfast except for a can of lemonade… which he could hear Casey's reprimand on even if he wasn't here at the moment. He totally forgot about looking for the electrolyte ones while he was stocking on food in Rock Village. Maybe in Lavender.

"What's with that face of yours, kid?!" she asked annoyed. "Don't you have any food on you or something?!"

"I- N-no. I mean, y-yes! It's just that…" I forgot I was hungry. It was a miracle that he didn't collapse before.

"You should work on that stuttering of yours. I can't understand a thing of what you're saying." she said. Bruno didn't answer, as expected. "Sit." Maybe she wasn't in that much of a good mood as he thought.

Both of them had water, many bottles of water. The woman also brought dried fruit, nuts and a few sandwiches. Bruno only had sandwiches and some cereal bars. His food thankfully didn't get wet because his clothes absorbed all of the water. He also had one last lemonade left, but if Casey was already scary enough with them, he didn't want to imagine her.

Bruno was a bit shy with the food at first but it wasn't until the woman yelled "Are you going to eat something or not?!" that he started to eat until he was good enough. He didn't want to eat too much either. The three Pokémon were also very hungry, it seemed: Shiinotic was eating some of the dried fruits while Bumblebee took Bruno's last can of lemonade and a cereal bar. Sableye, on the other hand, was trying its best to take some of the gemstones the woman had inside her bag, just to be pushed away in each attempt; in the end it ate a single cereal bar and a bit angry, it also ate a big part of the Pokémon Food the others were supposed to eat too.

"You know, kid? I like you." she said. "I thought you were a weak, dumb one at first, but you really proved yourself out there. Turns out you were only weak."

"... T-thanks?" was that supposed to be a compliment? Because it felt like it at first, but that last remark made it feel like it wasn't. She wasn't lying, but it was still rude.

"You can call me Amber, by the way." she said. "What about you? Since we're going to travel together for the rest of the day, I think it's safe to know at least each other's names."

Bruno raised an eyebrow, and frowned. She was weird. He couldn't understand how someone could be… no, he couldn't even find a way to describe her personality. He just knew she didn't hate him. Bruno snapped back out of his thoughts after seeing how Amber stared at him with a serious expression as she waited for an answer, realizing that he made her wait for a long time.

"I- B-Bruno… Bruno Dillinger."

"Dillinger? All right." she said "Are you finished eating? We still have a long way to go, so don't eat too much either."

Bruno nodded in response with a low "mhm". He found her attitude very puzzling to even answer correctly. It would probably take him more time to get used to this.

Amber and Bruno kept walking in silence to the other end of the path he liked to call 'The Hall'. The Hall eventually opened into another square room with weird shaped rocks.

For a moment there, Bruno thought they ran into another trap, but there was none of those in The Hall. However, what was there wasn't better than being stuck with another puzzle: Camouflaged within the rocks, a wild Tyranitar was resting. Weren't it because of its heavy breathing, the two trainers wouldn't have realized it was there. Around five Larvitars were by its side, all of them in a deep slumber as well.

Amber blocked the boy's trail with her right arm, and with a finger over her mouth, she whispered: "Watch your step. It would be very bad for us if we woke up that Tyranitar." to which her Shiinotic agreed shaking its head vehemently.

They walked in a slower pace, Bruno behind Amber, trying not to make a lot of noise. Bumblebee's bouncing was the strongest noise right now, but the sleeping Pokémon didn't seem to be bothered by it. It was probably used to louder noises. They had no problem reaching the other side of the path, in fact, the problems started then. There was a weak tremor inside the room and a deep groan coming from behind. Bruno shook, feeling shivers down his spine, shocked because of the sudden noise and made the mistake of looking behind him. He saw that the Tyranitar started waking up, and immediately, the boy froze.

"Kid."

The Larvitar were starting to wake up too, one by one.

"Kid!"

Their movements were slow. Bruno had his chance to run or at least walk away unnoticed. If only his legs answered now.

"Dillinger!" Bruno snapped. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Someone was calling him. It was Amber. She didn't leave him as she explained before. "We are at the exit of this gate already! This is no place to stay in!"

"I- I'm sorry…" he answered. He could barely take those words out.

"It's okay." she said, but her expression said otherwise. "Can you move?"

Bruno nodded. He lied. He didn't know why, but that's what he did.

The boy tried to turn around, but since he was unable to raise one of his legs, he tripped and fell. Amber was quick to crouch and grab him before he hit the ground. Sableye held tight to her bag before falling, and there was also a desperate, loud squealing from a scared Bumblebee.

"Shut up!" the woman shouted at the bouncing Psychic-type. Bumblebee's squealing wasn't loud enough for the Tyranitar to notice them, but her shout was enough for the Pokémon to turn its head at them.

The Pokémon's growl echoed inside the whole room, and the deep sound of the weak tremors rumbled for each step it took forward, as it cluelessly glanced around the whole room, looking for where that shout came from.

Bruno didn't know what was happening. He tried rising his head from Amber's shoulders, but she locked it there with her hand.

"Don't move." she whispered. "It knows we are here."

Bruno's Party:

WizardOfOdd · May 9, 2020

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Afternoon

Chapter 4 - 4
Mysterious Tremor

Richard carefully looked left and right, even with the help of his trusty flashlight he wasn't able to find anything that could be an object for interest for either him or Gordon. There were only several small Pokemon passing by in the tunnel that considerably getting darker and darker as much as they go.

"Are you okay, Mr. Gordon?" Richard turned his back towards the old man walking behind him, the constant panting he heard from behind him made him warier of his condition.

Gordon immediately tried to look strong when he realized that Richard was looking at him. "I… I'm fine… It's just been quite a while since I... Exercised properly. Phew, do you find anything yet?" Gordon tried to quickly change the subject, but it was so easy to see that he's completely frazzled by the terrain.

"No, although I think we should just rest again. I don't think it's wise to continue in our current condition." Richard glanced towards the road ahead of them, it's pitch-black and with the trail kept descending downwards, he was not even sure that they could get out of this cave easily.

"And… Delaying our progress? You knew well that we… Need a lot of time… To arrive on the other sid-" Gordon's words were cut off by his own coughing, the man immediately wiped the dripping sweat from his forehead.

Seeing the miserable state Gordon was in, Richard was more than eager to take another quick rest on the place they were in. But he also realized that Gordon might be too stubborn if he said that he wanted to take a rest due to the old man's condition. Fortunately for him, a seemingly great idea had suddenly appeared in his head. Unwilling to waste more time, Richard quickly sprung to action.

"Argh…" Richard crouched while holding his ankles.

"W-what? Are you okay!?" Gordon rushed to Richard's aid.

Richard was flustered at how fast Gordon came to his aid, but he quickly composed himself so his ruse didn't get blown. "I.. I'm fine, I think I just sprained my ankle… Um… Can we take a lunch break here? It seems safe and I think I need some time to apply some medication..."

"Of course, there's always time to rest. Let's stay here for a bit." Gordon put his bag down to the ground and rummaged his bag for his lunch.

"Yes" Richard muttered happily, he couldn't believe that the only thing he needed to make Gordon do a 180 on resting was moving the concern from Gordon to himself. He even fist pumped in the elation of his success.

"Did you say something?" Gordon glanced back as he overheard that Richard was saying something.

"O-oh nothing... I'm just speaking out my own thoughts… Don't mind me…" Richard immediately took a cold spray from his bag and sprayed it on his ankle to maintain the act.

Both of them took out their lunches, due to the 'lackluster' cooking ability he had in his disposal, Richard brought out the Curry Breads he already prepared as his meal, just as he about to chomp down on his favorite bread he heard a weird noise from Gordon's direction. Curious, he immediately turned his gaze towards the direction of the sound.

"Uh... Mr. Gordon, isn't that?"

"Cup Noodles, yes… This is my connoisseur pick, based on my 32 years of eating these, this one is the best from the 12 available variants. You know why? It's be-"

Gordon's enthusiastic lecture about the wonders of the noodle word was cut off when the ground suddenly shook.

"What was that!?"

Not long after the tremor, a lot of Pokemon ran through their resting area. What made the pair even more worried was that it was clear that the Pokemon were running from something, one Pokemon even hid behind Richard's body.

"Yikes…" Gordon gritted his teeth, expecting the worse… He immediately rushed his eating just in case

Meanwhile, Richard turned his attention towards the scared Pokemon. "Hey, little guy. What's wrong?" Richard asked the Pokemon while rubbing its head.

The Pokemon was barely able to compose itself, it was still shaking even after Richard tried to calm it down.

"You must be terrified... Do you want this? Relax, you can take your time." Richard held out an Oran Berry he took from his backpack.

The Pokemon initially hesitated, but it eventually accepted the berry from the young man. While the Pokemon busy munching down on the berry, he pulled out his Pokedex to scan the Pokemon.

Ah, so this is Bronzor… Interesting. Although I can't help but wonder, why the hell all of those Pokemon ran away from that direction… I guess I'll have to find out for myself.

With his curiosity triumphing his hunger, he couldn't help but want to explore inside. However, he was also worried that Gordon wasn't in good enough shape to continue venturing inside. With not much of a choice, Richard eventually stood up.

"Mr. Gordon, I think I'll go and check what's going on..."

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Juno · May 10, 2020

[a id]menu15[/a id]

background art cred

Chapter

Pokédex

Chapter 4: Daybreak // May 24th
ft. Casey Holt

Plink. Plink plink.

Jordan hungrily eyes the selection of candy bars and chips inside the vending machine as he drops his coins in. He'd had nothing but trail mix, water and other bland, healthy food during their time in Rock Tunnel. He deserves some real snacks, after all they'd been through.

Let's see… A2, D1… he frantically punches numbers into the keypad, and one by one, the snacks fall into the receptacle below. He grabs a few extra bags for when his Pokemon finally wake up, too. And maybe something for Casey… He hesitates, holding the coin up to the machine, as he looks up and down the glass display. No, Casey definitely doesn't want chips for breakfast. He cocks his head to the side, thinking.

But Vera might.

Plink.

Satisfied with his selection, he grabs his haul and plops himself down at a window seat. The Pokemon Center is fairly empty at this hour - just the way he likes it. Jordan leans back and opens a bag of chips, gazing out the window to watch the sun rise. He would have waited for the others to join him, but he is starving. He looks at his watch. I'll give them another half hour.

Minutes tick by before he hears something other than the crunch of his own chips. A quiet clinking from the breakfast bar catches his attention. Casey has somehow snuck by him- or maybe he was down here already?- and that's kind of strange. Casey takes every opportunity to talk, and Jordan can't think of a time in the last two years he hasn't been bothered as soon as the boy entered the room.

So Jordan watches curiously for a moment. Casey has his back turned, quickly selecting a variety of much healthier foods than Jordan's pile of snacks. Given his delicate closing of containers and shushing of cutlery, he seems to be deliberate in his attempt at silence.

Does he… not know I'm here? Jordan glances at the path between the rooms and where they were - there was no way he missed him getting to the breakfast bar. As he tries to make sense of what he is witnessing, Casey glances around, and they unmistakably lock eyes this time. Casey stiffens and very slowly swivels on his heel to face Jordan, one arm full of breakfast goods.

"Um. Hi?" Jordan smiles and waves slowly, unsure of what to make of Casey's strange reaction. Casey's cheeks flush when his voice cracks on his own greeting.

"Uh- yes. Hi. Good morning. What're you… doing? Here. Now."

He seemed a lot more… jittery than usual. Very unlike Casey. But Jordan shrugs and chalks it up to him recovering from the day before still. "Breakfast," he responds, shaking his bag of chips in Casey's direction. "Care to join me with your… that?" he gestures towards the food Casey is holding, and kicks out the chair opposite of him at the table. Casey takes a step in his direction but shuffles to the side instead, aiming toward the door while still fully facing Jordan.

"I would love to- uh- except- I have to go. Run. Not away but, uh. Running. I still wanna hang out with you! Of course! But. Later? Yes? We'll talk- we'll do things later. After… other things."

He's walking completely backwards now. Drops an apple and curses under his breath as he swoops down to grab it.

Jordan leers suspiciously at the boy fumbling out of the room. "I- okay… later." he had a few questions, to say the least, but Casey has already retrieved his apple and is again making for the exit. That was weird. He looked like he had seen a ghost or something when he looked over. Well, we are in Lavender Town. Wait a minute… Jordan quickly glances around himself, as a slight chill runs down his spine. No, wait- that's just a draft from sitting next to the window. He shrugs and cracks open a can of soda.

"That's disgusting." Casey says bluntly. He's nearly out the door, but health-consciousness has apparently overridden whatever else is going through his head at the moment. "It's five in the morning. Go get a fruit."

"Ah-" Jordan replies, holding up the can and squinting at the back of his 'Watermelon Fizz'. "It's 'infused with real fruit', it says."

"Poured over a fruit salad and dumped into a can, that's what that means." Casey grumbles, then abruptly remembers what he was doing. "Anyway-" he starts backing up again- "get something real and, uh, eat it before I come back. 'Cause I'm coming back in a little bit. So I'll… see you then. Don't go anywhere. Uh, well, you can go where you want, obviously, but. Don't… do anything? No, I mean…"

The whoosh of the automatic doors saves him from coming up with anything else. "I'm going! Goodbye!"

"Oh. Bye-" Jordan responds, several moments too late, as he processes the bizarre exchange. Huh. Did I do something? ...Did he do something? He shakes his head, unable to come up with an explanation. He glances back at the breakfast bar, considering Casey's 'suggestion'. Hm. I'll think about it.

Pokédex

Pokemon on hand:

Tangela // "Tangles"

Ingrain
Constrict
Absorb
Vine Whip
Sleep Powder
Poison Powder

Pidgey // Hop

Headbutt
Sand Attack
Gust
Mirror Move

Cubone // Spirit

Leer
Growl
Bone Club
Headbutt

Skiddo // Sage

Tackle
Growth
Vine Whip
Play Nice

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Aquacorde · May 12, 2020

Casey Holt

Friday, May 24, 2019
Lavender Town
Early Morning, Day 5

5-03: is "fine" something?

What was that?!

Casey furiously presses palms into his heated cheeks as he leaves the Pokémon Center behind. Since when can't he talk to Jordan like a normal person? Why'd his brain just give up? He's usually so good at showing what he wants to show! Did he just completely forget how to filter?

Maybe. He's been having issues with that lately. Wednesday mostly. When he and Jordan were-

Oh, a common factor.

He's forgotten how to filter around Jordan?

Why?

Because he hasn't felt the need to for a long time.

That's something to think about. Not the current issue, though. The current issue is… what? That he forgot? Yeah. But that's not the question. The question is- why's he trying to put up barriers again?

What changed?

Well, that's an easy answer. He's been thinking about it all morning. That's weird, in the first place, thinking about Jordan all morning. And he wasn't done thinking and therefore wasn't ready to say anything. In retrospect, he probably should have resolved that before going downstairs. He knows Jordan's morning habits. They're basically friends because of them.

But that's not entirely it. He's been thinking about Jordan all morning because Jordan almost died. And that's unsettling. Not because Casey's suddenly realized that there's a potential for death on this journey- he'd started thinking about that in Cerulean, almost getting his head taken off by a Hitmonlee and all. Thought about it again under the terrifying effects of Stun Spore. That's not new. No, what's new is being unsettled because it's Jordan who almost died.

He doesn't want that.

Casey rolls his eyes at himself. Of course he doesn't want his friend to die. That's not the weird part here. The weird part is the nausea every time he thinks of it, the heart-pounding adrenaline spike, the sudden, intense desire to protect, defend, keep close...

Keep close?

Wait, but- he decided this earlier- they can't just be together all the time. Jordan would get sick of that.

...Only Jordan would?

They've seen each other almost every morning for the last two years. Plus classes, plus… whenever else. He hasn't ever gotten tired of spending time with Jordan.

That's weird. Everybody gets sick of each other sometimes. Don't they? Well, maybe not if they're in love. But everyone else does.

Uh.

No, nope, he's not in love with Jordan. That's ridiculous. There's more to "being in love" than enjoying their company. Like…

That does seem to encompass a lot of it, actually. Maybe there's… wanting to do romantic things? Like… holding hands? They did that yesterday, walking out of Rock Tunnel. It wasn't romantic.

Was it?

Casey frowns around the bagel in his mouth. It wasn't. He knows that, at least. There's gotta be something else, something bigger, he knows it. ...Oh! Physical attraction. Yeah. He's gotta be physically attracted to Jordan if he's in love with him. And he's not. So he's not. Jordan's pretty and all, with his bright blue eyes and fluffy red hair and constellations of freckles, but…

But he can't finish that thought. Because he doesn't have anything to finish it with. Because he thinks Jordan's pretty, no caveats. Uh.

That might've thrown his argument out the window.

Well, no, thinking someone's pretty and being attracted to them are two different things! Attraction is… well, wanting to… uh. Kiss them?

He tries to picture himself kissing Jordan.

It's… fine.

Is "fine" something?

He pictures himself kissing Vera for comparison. That's also fine. So if that's not different, then… he's probably not attracted to Jordan. Unless he's attracted to Vera, too? Is that something?

Does it make things different, if it is?

Casey shakes his head quickly, as if doing so helps to dismiss this whole train of thought. This is weird and embarrassing to think about, and he's not getting anywhere with it anyway. He can't spend the whole day wrapped up in his own confusion! Gotta pay attention to the rest of the world!

He would have benefited from having that thought about ten seconds earlier.

It's a good thing he's out so early. Nobody's around to see the dirty look he shoots at a tree root as he dusts himself off.

Pepper Bomb • Charmeleon • lv19 | Ginger • Buneary • lv14 | Parsley • Skiddo • lv14
Casey's Profile | Extra Characters | TRAINERS Art

Aquacorde · May 14, 2020

Casey Holt

Friday, May 24, 2019
Lavender Town
Early Morning, Day 5

5-04: good pokémon

His flustered escape from the Pokémon Center has overridden several other things that should have been on his mind. For instance, that for the first time since being attacked in Cerulean, he is fully on his own. He's letting his Pokémon out even before the thought finishes crossing his mind, and wonders as well: is this paranoia? Or is this reasonable caution?

It's hard to define, he thinks, watching Ginger settle herself on Parsley's back. He'd been ambushed twice in Cerulean, a place known to be fairly peaceful. And the second incident hadn't been an isolated one. An argument could be made for reasonable caution, but adding in the idea that these things that happened in Cerulean and he is now in Lavender, it looks more like paranoia.

Uh.

"We're in Lavender," he says out loud. Pepper looks at him inquisitively. "There are Ghosts here." The Charmeleon seems to understand. Parsley doesn't. Ginger gives no indication either way, but Casey knows she's aware.

So maybe his… wariness isn't paranoia. Because this is Lavender, and Casey knows what Ghosts do. To him specifically. He shouldn't be out here on his own. Yeah, his Pokémon are here, but they can't handle everything. If he'd been thinking instead of reacting then he'd have asked Jordan to come because Jordan knows what Ghosts do and Jordan knows what Casey does and Jordan can handle all of Casey's nonsense with a certain amount of grace and Casey turns on his heel and starts back toward the Pokémon Center.

Wait.

Parsley runs into him, not expecting the sudden halt. Casey presses his palms to his cheeks and sighs.

Turns back around.

He'll be fine for an hour or so. He has to be.

He jogs amongst the hills at the northwestern edge of the city, Pepper and Parsley keeping pace, until they find a nice little clearing. The morning sun drops down through leaves and branches to bathe a sheer rock wall in warm light. Ginger immediately directs Parsley to said wall and they lay down to doze. Casey rolls his eyes. Parsley's not lazy by any means, but boy, does he like to snooze. And Ginger… well. It's hard to tell what she wants from life. Control, maybe. She seems to be enjoying bossing Parsley around.

Casey faces the sun and closes his eyes. Shoulders back, palms out, core engaged.

Inhale.

Pepper mimics him, and Casey recalls Kel's advice. To figure out the limits of their physical abilities… He knows a lot, a mix of formal education and observations of the last four days. But he needs to know more. He… doesn't exactly know where to start. He folds forward.

Exhale.

Watches as Pepper copies, the crown of his head completely on the ground. Proportions are very different, obviously.

Lift. Inhale.

Step into plank.

Exhale.

Pepper can't get his hips in line with shoulders; his legs aren't long enough. Arching the back, he doesn't flex very well that direction… and again, a struggle with hip positioning…

"I don't think yoga works for you," Casey says, releasing his last pose. Pepper makes a disgruntled noise. "It's not your fault. Yoga's designed for humans. And human-shaped Pokémon. Ginger can prob'ly do it when she evolves."

Ginger makes deliberate eye contact from the sunny patch of grass she and Parsley have settled in. Her expression clearly says "even if I could do that, I absolutely would not." Casey shrugs. Pepper complains loudly and genuinely. That's unexpected. He's usually good-natured. Casey stops himself before he gets too lost in wondering why. Now's not the time to go spiraling into another tangled mess of what-ifs. Besides, Pepper can just tell him. In a way.

"Let's find out what does work for you! You don't know yet either, do you?" Pepper shakes his head, refusing to make eye contact. "Oh. You're frustrated 'bout that?"

It takes Pepper a moment before he nods a sullen admission, shifting his weight from foot to foot self-consciously. There it is, there's the "why". Gaining a foot and a half in height and doubling your weight in an instant- yeah, that's gotta be disorienting. Pepper will get comfortable in his body quick enough, it's only natural, but he hasn't had much time outside his PokéBall since evolving. Just dozing two nights ago at camp and being abruptly tossed into battle yesterday. Casey sits down and drags Pepper backwards into his lap. Pepper complains briefly but accepts being pet.

"Look," he says, gently scratching Pepper's neck, "we just gotta take a minute to figure it out. Let's see… you got sharper teeth, longer claws on your hands and feet, and a horn on your head now." Casey pokes at them as he speaks. Pepper huffs, but tolerates it. "You're heavier, but less squishy. You're less flexible, but more powerful. You can prob'ly move better on two legs now. Which means you can use your sticks more effectively! That'll be fun."

Pepper considers this. Casey considers his education, and immediately realizes that many of the things he'd like to know have never been addressed.

"Hey, how'm I supposed to use you effectively in a fight if I don't know what you can do?" Pepper looks up at him with an inquisitive noise. "I know how fast I am. I know how high I can jump and how far I can reach. I know the right distance to maximize the impact of a punch. Stuff like that. I dunno any of that about you. Or Ginger, or Parsley. I've been gettin' by with uh, estimations. But if I know more, then we can do better!"

Pepper nods once, slowly, then a few more times as he scrambles off Casey's lap and turns to face him, bouncing in place. Casey laughs. "Yeah! Let's figure it out! Starting with… whatever you did yesterday." He consults his PokéDex. "Dragon Breath? That's got some range on it. How 'bout you… just blast it that way, see how far it goes?"

It goes far.

Casey tells Pepper to stay put as he jogs alongside the trail of freshly-tilled dirt. Forty feet, sixty, eighty… about a hundred is where it trails off, flattened grass proving it went further than that, but the hundred-foot mark is where it seems to have lost most of its force. Right…

"Pepper! Do that again, same direction!"

From this angle he can see the shape of the attack- it's more of a cone than a beam, surrounded by whirling wind that drags more dirt up with it as it goes. He braces himself and sticks his hand into its path. The wind slaps his wrist and pushes his arm back a little, but it doesn't even unbalance him. The next time, he stands fully in the way. It's kind of like cycling into the wind. Annoying to make headway against, but nothing more.

They test again around sixty feet. Here, Casey can walk forward, but it's difficult. At forty he can only take a few steps. Twenty he can't move at all, and ten is where he's finally knocked over. Pepper scampers over worriedly, but Casey's already on his feet. "No, don't worry about it! I wouldn't be doin' it if I was gonna get hurt." He brushes himself off. "That's where it knocks me over, but I'm heavier'n a lot of Pokémon. But I have more surface area, too, and that prob'ly makes a difference. We'll try that on Parsley later… and Ginger, but she'll prob'ly only let us do it once. Gotta make that count."

He hums, thinking. "I got a good sense for how your Ember works but we'll have to see 'bout its new range. Smokescreen is what it is; just gotta figure out the best way to use it. You've got more range and power on Scratch, now. Hey, can you put that power through your back claws?" Pepper kicks at the nearest plant, glowing claws severing it easily. "Cool. That's more options. Fire Fang… show me that, will ya?"

Pepper opens his mouth to show off the flames licking across his teeth, creating a shifting illusion of longer fangs. "That's good when things get close. Same as, as Bone Rush. Do we get to call it Bone Rush? You don't use a bone." Pepper shrugs. "We'll just call it Bone Rush, I guess. 'Cause you can basically use it with anything. It's just energy channeling."

"...Staff Rush, maybe," Casey says after a pause. "That's cute. We should find a good, sturdy staff for your size. 'Cause your sticks keep breaking and my walking stick doesn't work for that."

"That's it for your actual moves, I guess. How 'bout you just… play around for a while? Try climbing, and switchin' directions quick, stuff like that. You still gotta put in the work to figure out how your body feels now. Then you can show me what you can do." Pepper complains even as he goes off to comply, but this time it's got his usual theatrical tone behind it. And that's really nice to hear, because Charmeleon are notoriously unruly and prone to aggression. But Pepper seems to have retained his cheerful personality. That's really good, actually. He doesn't know what he'd do with another "problem child", as Jordan likes to call them.

Speaking of.

"Parsley!"

The Skiddo bolts up and Ginger tumbles off his back, chattering angrily, but Parsley isn't swayed by her argument. Instead, he trots over to Casey and noses at his hand. "Hello, my sweet boy! You're gonna have to learn to listen without the promise of treats," he coos, petting Parsley's snout. The Skiddo huffs into his hand. "Hush. You get fed plenty at meals. I'm not gonna have you gettin' fat. We got stuff to do." Since Pepper's training and all. May as well do something with the others while he's at it.

The bruises that criss-cross his ribs twinge. Right. There's that. Casey sighs, running his hands through Parsley's mane for a moment before committing. "I don't like bein' tied up. Or pinned, or paralyzed… that kinda stuff. So pullin' me around with Vine Whip… that's, uh. Very scary for me."

Parsley looks up at him. Looks upset, ashamed. Casey winces. "No, baby boy, I'm glad you pulled me outta there. Both times. Better scared than actually hurt. You did a good thing. I know you'll listen if I tell you to let go. But that doesn't stop me from bein' scared. I guess…" Casey hesitates. He doesn't wanna say it, let alone do it, but… "we gotta practice. I gotta practice. Bein' moved around like that. 'Cause if I'm in trouble, I want you to help me. And I don't wanna be scared."

Parsley butts his head into Casey's stomach, which is very cute. Casey sighs again, then shakes himself. "Okay. We already know you can fling me. But it was hard, right? You had to brace yourself and put a lot of force behind it. I don't think it'd work if it was a controlled lift… and you all had to work together to get me when. When, uh. The second time. So you can rescue me like that if you have to, but it's hard on both of us. Maybe… go up on top of that ledge? Can you lift me from above? Like we had to with Jordan?"

He refuses to think any more about Jordan right now. He's busy.

The wall is a few feet taller than Casey, which means that they should be able to do a decent test here. Parsley trots above and Casey takes measured breaths as the vines wrap around his ribs again. The pressure on the bruises is not good, but figuring this out will only take a minute. Parsley firms up his stance and pulls; Casey's feet leave the ground and it's hard to breathe, he really really doesn't like that at all, especially not after spores, paralysis, helplessness and he barely registers that his eyes come level to Parsley's hooves before he's abruptly lowered, vines retracting and letting him gasp for breath as he slumps down. Parsley doesn't bother with coming all the way back around, no- he jumps the ten feet down to get to Casey as quickly as possible, shoving his face into his trainer's neck so Casey can clutch at him for what comfort he offers.

He didn't like that.

Parsley whines and nuzzles him. "It's okay," Casey assures shakily. "Told you- gotta practice. Flingin' me is good enough. 'S over quick. You don't have enough weight behind you to lift me well. That's fine. You will when you evolve, so we'll try again then."

"For now," he says, getting to his feet and shaking his arms as if that will oust the tremors from his body, "we've got other things to figure out. I pretty much know how fast you are. And you get an extra burst when you use Pursuit, which is cool. Growth… that works better in sunlight, right?" Casey pulls his PokéDex out of his pocket again. Takes longer than he should to hit the right buttons. "Yeah. And you learned Razor Leaf yesterday, which is- wait, you know Leech Seed too? When did that happen?"

Parsley shrugs, as much as a goat can shrug. They'd found out about Razor Leaf some time after meeting Harper and Emmy- Parsley started to shed leaves as they walked, which Casey had been too deep in conversation to notice until Jordan and Vera complained about "treacherous footing". Figuring out why hadn't been too hard; a Skiddo's body produces different leaves for Razor Leaf than their regular leafy pelt, ones that are both sharper and sturdier. Using the move a few times had gotten Parsley's body used to understanding when to make those secondary leaves.

But he's still not especially good at aiming. Which isn't so much a problem when there are a bunch of targets, like with yesterday's Aron horde, but for future use…

Wait. Leech Seed first.

"The way Skiddo do Leech Seed is… you make it with your mouth, right?" Parsley opens his mouth and lets a spherical seed drop from his mouth with a "bleh". It bursts when it hits the ground, little vines creeping along the grass. "Right. So you gotta… spit them?"

Parsley spits one with as much force as he can. It doesn't land very far away.

"Okay, well-"

Casey is cut off by Parsley forming another seed and this time firing it; it goes a good twenty feet before hitting the ground and bursting open. These vines are much thicker; they could probably restrain a small Pokémon. "Huh. So that depends on how much power you put in to start. Maybe you'll be able to fire 'em further with practice? Guess we'll find out as we go… uh, what else was I thinkin'- oh, right, Razor Leaf. Aiming. Just show me a regular Razor Leaf, will ya?"

Parsley complies, pelt rustling as some twenty or so leaves are flung towards the wall. "Now aim for uh- that reddish rock?"

One leaf clips the edge of the target, but the rest… not a great spread. Kind of a horizontal pattern, which is interesting and potentially useful. Maybe the move is better on a moving target than a stationary one, but maybe… "Is it easier to aim with less leaves? Well, actually, can you make less leaves in the first place?"

Parsley rustles, and Casey counts. Sixteen. "Again?" Fourteen. Then eleven, then thirteen, then ten. No, nine? It's harder to tell now for some reason- oh! "Fewer leaves go faster! They prob'ly hit harder too, 'cause of y'know. Physics. Can you do even less?"

Seven, and they're getting really fast, but Casey's forgotten the original point of the exercise. "Do that but aim," he says, and Parsley whips eight leaves toward their target. Three hit and the other five cluster fairly close around.

Nice. That's what he was looking for.

"I want your usual Razor Leaf to be uh… between eight and twelve leaves. That's a good speed an' a good spread. I think there's more we can do with it but for now you should just make that a habit. You practice that while I, uh…" Casey glances to Ginger, sunning herself pretty much where Parsley had dropped her, and purses his lips. "Well."

She acknowledges him with a lazy glance as he sits down next to her, leaning against the wall. "Ginger."

She doesn't respond. Casey opens his mouth again, but hesitates. It's weird. Parsley and Pepper are easy to talk to, easy to handle. Easy to get along with. Most people are, for Casey. But Ginger's... difficult. Difficult to work with, difficult to manage. He knows she didn't appreciate being caught. He thinks he knows why. And she's still volatile and willful, even if she's less angry. It's hard to tell if she's warming up to him at all, actually-

Wait.

He chuckles quietly. Ginger looks at him, cool eyes tinged with mild curiosity.

It's not hard to tell.

"We're really gonna have to figure something out soon," Casey says, trying very hard to keep a straight face. Ginger makes a small noise, a reluctant question. "With your moves, y'know? You don't have much range or variety."

Ginger's body language says I'm bored, but that curiosity lingers in her eyes. She's paying attention, wondering where he's going with this. "You're agile and you jump really well, but," and Casey can't fight the grin finding its way onto his face as he continues, "you've lost a lot of power off Frustration."

Ginger bolts upright and starts yelling, fueled by Casey's giggling. He holds his palms out to accept her demonstration, her attempt at convincing him that no, Frustration's still powerful! It hits way harder than Pound! He can tell the difference in the energy by now; Casey's right arm takes the former and his left the latter and he still laughs. "They're basically the same!" Ginger stomps her feet, turns her back on him and rants to the sky, kicking pebbles and tearing up the remnants of some Razor Leafs.

Casey waits.

Eventually her shouting dissolves into grumbles and she plops down next to him with a huff, little arms crossed and ears curled in. It's very cute, but they do have to face the reality of the matter- Ginger really doesn't have much power at her disposal. They're gonna have to figure out how to maximize what she does have, and that's gonna take some testing. And testing is going to take some convincing. At least he's gained something by taking those hits. "Frustration's still more powerful, but not by much."

Ginger radiates smugness until the conversation takes a sharp turn.

"I basically know what you're sayin' all the time. It's like I can almost hear human words. And that's… I mean…" Casey sighs. It's necessary, but that doesn't make this any less difficult. "You communicate way too well to have lived in the wild your whole life."

Ginger flinches, refuses to make eye contact.

"No, look at me." She doesn't, so he picks her up. "Stop that," Casey says placidly, taking her punches and kicks in stride. She sinks her teeth into his wrist and is vindicated when he winces, but he doesn't drop her. Instead, he sticks her comfortably in the crook of his opposite arm and waits until she gets sick of tasting blood.

It takes a few minutes.

She lets go, finally, and sullenly stays put when Casey rests his freed hand on his knee. "I'm not gonna make you tell me about it."

Ginger flicks her ears and glares at him. Then why did you even bring it up?!

"I'm not gonna tiptoe around it. Only fair that you know that I know. And it was an important part of your life and prob'ly uh, influences you. What you do. How you do stuff. How you think about stuff? Y'know."

Ginger gives a single, cautious nod. Go on.

"Workin' together as close as we have to doesn't work real well if we don't know those kindsa things."

She crosses her arms, jerks her head to the side, and huffs. We don't have to work together at all.

"Stop that. I already know you like me, at least a little bit." Ginger looks incredibly upset, but he plows on before she can retaliate. "And I like you too, and I'm not gonna give up on bein' a team."

Ginger stares at him, and for the first time since he's met her she seems at a loss for words.

Maybe she's having trouble processing.

That's pretty heartbreaking.

He swipes his thumb across her mouth. She's gonna need an actual wash. So will he, though. He has a topical antibacterial in his bag. Will that be good enough? Maybe he'll just leave it 'til they go back to the Pokémon Center. It's probably fine.

Casey relaxes as best he can, bathed in morning sunlight with Ginger cradled motionless in his arm. Pepper joins Parsley in dutifully focusing on the target he'd chosen earlier. Pepper finds the point where Ember's aim starts to struggle and stays there, practising. Parsley's playing, perhaps, but in a way that's close enough to training that Casey doesn't bother to redirect him. An Ember flies and a Razor Leaf follows, usually bursting against the rocks just after the fire dies. Once in a while, though, a leaf is fast enough to catch the flame. Those are fives or sixes, Casey notes, and Parsley struggles with throwing so few. That's okay. They've got plenty of time to learn. No need to perfect a move in a day.

He wonders how quickly Aurelia's Pokémon learn things. Her expertise is in the technical side of moves, according to Kel. And her TM collection is extensive. She's gotta be good at teaching them, right? Maybe her Pokémon do perfect things in a day. Maybe he should…

No. Even the thought of asking his sister for advice is uncomfortable.

Besides, he should figure it out mostly on his own. That's part of being a trainer. And leaning too heavily on others who can leave you at any time… that's a recipe for disaster.

Jordan and Vera, though, they said...

A lack of motion catches Casey's attention- the drills have stopped. But Pepper is hopping excitedly from foot to foot as he explains something to Parsley. A cluster of leaves- twenty?- fly toward the wall. At the slower speed, Pepper can burn seven or eight before they fall. Both Pokémon dance and cheer before starting another round of their new game. Cute.

Ginger shifts and Casey glances down, but her only goal is to turn her face in and curl into his chest.

Casey grins.

He's got good Pokémon.

Pepper Bomb • Charmeleon • lv19 | Ginger • Buneary • lv14 | Parsley • Skiddo • lv14
Casey's Profile | Extra Characters | TRAINERS Art

Eleanor · May 15, 2020

Lavender Night Race
🍀🍀🍀
Arianne, Courtney and Coralie
Lavender Town - Day 4 - May 23^rd

Joint post with MysticalNinetales

♫ - Blink-182 - Darkside
"U-um.. miss Courtney, I-I just w-wanted to let you know… that you battled incredibly well.. and, well, it w-was an h-honour to battle alongside you." Francis croaked, playing with the collar of his shirt and looking down anxiously, a pink blush spreading across his cheeks.

"Hey, I already know I'm good! It's you who should have been more careful. But…" Courtney replied, grinning. "But thanks for battling with me, it was fun in the end." she got closer to him and playfully pushed his head up with her finger.

Francis's blush deepend and fell to the ground as Courtney pushed his head up. He recovered quickly and hopped to his feet and seemed to be in some sort of romantic daze.

Coralie giggled. "Oh, Francis! You're a peculiar one, aren't you? Now, let's go get some ice cream! Remember, you two are buying!" With that, Coralie excitedly skipped off in the direction of the ice cream parlour, beckoning the others to follow her.

Arianne didn't speak for the time being, but just followed her battle partner with a smile. Courtney, on the other hand, seemed to have almost forgotten their agreement. "Oh, right… this could be a problem." she whispered, shuddering at the thought of spending who knows how much for a lost bet of all things. After a moment of reflection, though, she followed Coralie as well.

"D-don't worry, miss Courtney, I-I'll pay… I can b-buy you ice cream, too." Francis stuttered, avoiding Courtney's gaze as he followed a ways behind the group.

Upon reaching the ice cream parlour, Coralie could barely contain herself.
"EEK!! Look at all the flavours! OH, there's so many to choose from?! How am I supposed to pick?" She studied each flavour carefully, her eyes dazzling with joy. She was a kid in a candy shop! "What are you thinking of, Arianne? Rocky road? Cookies n' Cream? Butterscotch? The possibilities are ENDLESS!"

"So true!" Arianne looked at the assortment of flavors with sparkling eyes herself. "There's also peppermint, lemon, strawberry… anything really! We just need to make the perfect match!"

Courtney arrived as well and started to examine the flavors as well. "I already tried a small ice cream from here today… but now I wanna go bigger!" she whispered to no one in particular. If her ears didn't fail her, Francis was really willing to buy her the ice cream too. So, why not go for it and get the best ice cream of her journey so far?

Arianne, meanwhile, raised her head enough to notice all of the available decorations. "There's cream and sprinkles too!? Amazing! Right Coralie?" she chuckled.

"OOOH! Sprinkles!?!? Ok, I've come to a decision!" Coralie proudly announced, smiling at the ice cream worker, an overweight man who seemed inconvenienced by the group's presence. "I'll have a scoop of Bubblegum and a scoop of Cotton Candy, too, with extra sprinkles on top and in a waffle cone, please!" The ice cream man scooped both ice cream flavours into a large cone and dashed it with colourful sprinkles, before handing it to Coralie who seemed as if she was about to burst like a firework from pure exhilaration. "Thank you." She cooed as she took the ice cream before giving it a taste. "OHHHHH, IT'S FABULOUS! SO YUMMY!" She screamed, giving her icy treat another lick.

"Next!" The parlour shouted, casting Courtney and the others an impatient glance.

"Alright, a cone with Dark chocolate and sour cherries! And some cream on top, please." Courtney exclaimed confidently, before eyeing Francis who stood still beside her… just to make sure he wouldn't suddenly change his mind, perhaps. She then received her rather unstable ice cream and started to eat rather quickly. "Yes, it's even better than last time!" she cheered.

Now it was Arianne's turn. "Peppermint and chocolate, with sprinkles!" was her order. She also had a taste, and quickly agreed with Coralie and Courtney. "It's really a great place you've found! This is SO good!"

"I'll take mint chocolate in a waffle cone. I'm paying for everyone." Francis handed his card to the ice cream man who ogled him skeptically before processing the payment and handing him his cone and his card. Francis fumbled with his card, nearly dropping it, and took his ice cream. He then turned to face the group and eyed Courtney admiringly. "H-how does it t-taste, miss Courtney?" He asked, hiding behind his own cone anxiously.

"Thank you for paying Francis! Maybe I should battle you everyday to get a never ending supply of ice cream!" Coralie teased, giggling. "Anyways, we should probably head back to the pokemon center, it's getting dark out."

"True… plus, today has been quite rough, as you know!" Arianne grinned, replying to Coralie.

"No rush, there's still people out after all! Plus, we can finally stay out at night without having our parents complain, isn't that exciting?" Courtney chimed in, before turning to Francis. "It's just great! A match made in heaven, as they say!"

"Sounds like fun!" Coralie commented. Arianne, not as keen on that proposal, just shrugged it off instead. "Is there anything interesting we can do during night time? Because I don't think I can resist much longer…" she said, before chuckling one more time.

"I didn't remember you being this boring!" Courtney shut her friend up with a laugh. "We're all a bit tired, I suppose, but this will be worth it. Because… this town is haunted!"

"H-haunted!?!? Miss Courtney.. a-are y-you sure?" Francis questioned, nearly dropping his ice cream out of fear.

Coralie took another lick of hers frozen delight before chiming in. "I've heard the rumours that this place was haunted. Apparently there's a tower here where the souls of departed pokemon are said to linger." A gust of wind picked up suddenly, blowing about a few leaves from a nearby tree. Coralie shuddered.

"P-pokemon s-souls!?" Francis yelped and began to shiver as he looked about suspiciously.

"I've heard those rumors too, yes, and now I want to find out!" Courtney answered confidently. "Plus, there's just something special about going around at night, don't you think?"

"Heh…" Arianne rolled her eyes. "It can't be that different, just more dangerous! Brrr…" she whispered, as the gust made her feel slightly cold and uneasy. Luckily, there were still a couple lamp posts giving out an orange, faint light. "Can't we just hang out near the… Center?" she finally asked. To tell the truth, she was already hoping that she wouldn't have to stick by Courtney for much longer.

"Someone sounds scared… should I sing you a lullaby to help you sleep?" Courtney teased the other three trainers.

"Well, i-if you insist." Francis blushed deeply, taking Courtney's words literally.

Coralie giggled. "Oh please! we're not scared, right, Arianne? We can stay up all night if we want to." Coralie wrapped her arm around her friend and challenged the redhead.

Arianne's eyes spoke a thousand words already, and there was no way she could hide it. And in spite of that, after thinking about it for a while (or at least, that's what it seemed), she nodded her head. "I'm coming with you, yes!" she said, with a fairly unsteady voice. "Just… where are we headed?"

"Anywhere we want! The whole place is haunted anyways! But I really wanna start from the tower." Courtney eagerly announced. "Follow me!" she added, walking further away from the Pokémon Center.

Coralie turned to Arianne and whispered into her friend's ear. "It's ok. Let's just go with it for now. Maybe we can scare Courtney and teach her a lesson!" Coralie giggled, a mischievous smile written on her face, before heading after Courtney.

"M-miss Courtney! I advise that we return to the center! I-i don't think t-this is a good idea." Francis stammered wringing his hands together anxiously before adding. "I'll take you up on that lullaby!"

Coralie's idea actually did not entice Arianne as much as the younger girl was probably hoping. Getting on her bad side even more than she was already wasn't really desirable either. "Thanks, Coralie! But I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Let's just see what we run into…" the girl whispered back to her previous classmate.

"What good would my lullaby do if we don't scare you a bit first?" Courtney giggled in the meantime, as she finally took the last bite of her ice cream (which admittedly she had gone through quite quickly). "But even then, how bad can it really be?"

Francis hung his head in defeat, as he realized that reasoning with Courtney was futile.

Coralie sighed before gobbling up the rest of her waffle cone. "Oh, Arianne! You're such a bore! But, maybe you're right. We may not need to be the ones scaring her. Who knows what kind of ghost pokemon we'll run into?" Coralie was a tad afraid herself but tried her best not to show it. She continued on behind Courtney as the group was moving towards the outskirts of town. She turned around to glance at Francis, who was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. "Poor Francis! If he sees anything remotely scary, he'll jump out of his skin." She murmured.

Courtney took a quick turn into a narrow staircase, then stopped for a bit and waited for the remaining three trainers. "Just a couple steps and we'll be even closer to the tower. Let's keep going!" she cheered as soon as they caught up, before starting her unrelentless ascent.

"Wait, please!" Arianne called out. "A staircase!? Really?" she pouted, the tiredness starting to get the best of her. "Can't you at least slow down or find another path?"

She eventually realized that splitting up wasn't so bad of an idea… it still was one more little moment without Courtney, and by how things were going, it was better to take the chance.

"What's the problem? Think you'll trip and fall?" Courtney made a sneer, only making the older girl even less inclined to follow her.

"Let's take another path." Coralie suggested, gazing at the staircase wearily.

"I-I'll come with you, m-miss Courtney." Francis blushed at the thought of being alone with Courtney.

"I'm alright with that!" Arianne chimed in, loud enough so that Courtney could hear. She also replied immediately. "Looks like it's another Safari versus Cape run, then! First team to the Tower wins!" she grinned, already smelling the victory.

Coralie giggled. "Sounds like fun! You're on! Get ready to lose twice in a row!" She then turned to Arianne and flashed her a determined smile. "Alright, let's go Ari!" With that, the petite bubblegum-haired girl headed in the direction of a winding path surrounded by rolling hills and tall, dark trees.

"D-don't worry miss Courtney, there's no way we'll lose. We have the power of love-I mean, f-friendship!" Francis stumbled over his words and tried to play off his blunder by chuckling nervously.

"Do you also have the power of climbing? Because I sure do!" Courtney teased the boy once again before resuming her climb, trying her best not to care about the darkness, the cold breeze, the steepness of the staircase.

Francis was struggling to keep up with the red-haired girl and was huffing and puffing as he ascended, though the stairs were never ending and his legs were beginning to feel like noodles. Francis wasn't exactly the most athletic individual yet he didn't want to show any weakness in front of Courtney and so he pushed himself onwards. "Oh, t-this is nothing!" He declared, breathing heavily.

"N-now, miss Courtney.."

"Huff- yes?" the girl turned around, eventually giving in for a moment and stopping in the middle of taking another step. "For your information, we're not slowing down."

"O-oh, of course not, miss Courtney! Why would we do such a thing!? What an absurd suggestion." He was somewhat startled as he didn't expect her to respond so abruptly. "U-um, anyways, I-I just w-wanted to s-say…. that I...I-uh, is it just me or is it getting chilly out?" He shivered suddenly, breaking out in a cold sweat. It surely wasn't caused by any sort of breeze.

"Is it all you have to say? You've just discovered hot water." Courtney turned around once again and kept climbing the staircase.

"N-no! Oh, m-miss Courtney, wait!" Francis squaked, hurrying after his fellow Safari Academy graduate, stumbling as he went. "I-I have a confession…"

A confession? Courtney's eyes brightened up as she tried to imagine what Francis could have wanted to tell her. Another cold gust made her shiver as she stopped once again and turned around, waiting for the boy who was still a couple steps below her. "What is it this time?"

Francis yelped! She's intense, he thought. Courtney was like a raging Gyarados and he was a lowly Sunkern. Yet, he had to be bold! It was now or never. He read somewhere that women were attracted to ambitious, assertive men, anyways. "M-miss Courtney… from the m-moment I first saw you….. I-I…" He stuttered, his heart beating a million miles per second. He closed his eyes and then gave Courtney a determined look, his eyes aflame with passion. "IlikeyoumissCourtneyyouarebeautifulgorgeousandfunnyandi'vealwayswantedtotellyoubutyou'resoscarythatIcouldntworkupthecouragebuthereIamconfessingmyadorationforyoupleasedon'tbitemyheadoff." His words came out all in one long incoherent slur, as he was so nervous that he had forgotten how to structure a basic sentence and spoke as fast as a jet plane.

"You… you what?" Courtney stared back at him, visibly puzzled. She couldn't quite understand what Francis was saying, but at least had an idea of what it could have been. After all, him nearly falling to the ground before was surely enough of a hint!

The girl though, had never really taken a stance on the matter. She thought back at her own comment about, well, "Cinnamon girls getting all the boys", but still unsure how to react. Say yes or no, yes or no, yes or… well, why not both yes and no at the same time?

"You're too far Francis! Say that again when you get closer to me!" she shrugged. But instead of waiting for him on the staircase, she dashed up the steps as fast as she could, laughing. No more trying to save energy for later: the race she proposed was still her main focus, after all.

Francis, deflated as a result of his failed love confession, hung his head. He dragged himself after Courtney, now feeling more exhausted than ever. But even she was very tired by that point. Or at least, much more than she expected. By the end of the staircase, the boy was able to catch up with her.

Francis observed how fatigued Courtney externally appeared and was a bit taken aback by this. His perception of the redhead was that she had a never ending amount of energy. He gazed at her boldly. "I-I like y-you." The words came tumbling out of his mouth and his face turned tomato red as he awaited her reply.

"Uhm, thank you Francis." was all that Courtney could say, in between heavy breaths. She smiled slightly. "Let's keep going together then, alright?" she added, essentially giving in to her own body's complaints, as her smile turned more playful once again.

"A-alright." Francis stuttered, pushing up his glasses. He took a deep breath and moved onwards. She didn't flat out reject him, which was a bit reassuring, he thought.

The race was no longer Courtney and Francis's main thought at that point. Even the girl, the one who proposed it, realized that it probably wasn't a good idea. But, luckily for the two Safari trainers, this was also how Arianne had been feeling since the start.

"A race after all we went through today? Can't we just… I know you want to win, Coralie, but I'm not sure it's worth it." she complained to her former classmate, once her opponents were just out of earshot.

Coralie giggled. "But isn't it exhilarating? Oh, Arianne, this has been such fun! Who knows what we'll discover?"

"I'm not saying we shouldn't go but, do you really wanna race to the tower, Coralie?" the older girl sighed. "I'd rather just go at our own pace."

Coralie smiled at her friend. "Sure! I'm sure those two will get lost anyways!"

"Alright then! I… suppose we need to go this way instead, don't we?" Arianne smiled back, pointing not towards the staircase, but at the road they were already in. "I can check on my Pokégear to be sure."

Arianne's team:

Eric •

Mulan •

Alice •

Mizar •

Lulu

WizardOfOdd · May 15, 2020

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Afternoon

Chapter 4 - 5
Disaster Behind The Beauty

"Wait! Your legs i-" Just before Gordon finished talking, Richard already stood up before realizing in horror that he had just revealed that his injury was just a mere act.

"Umm… Mr. Gordon, I can expla-"

Gordon closed his eyes in irritation before throwing the spoon he used to mix the cup noodles. "Whatever, little rapscallion! How dare you deceive me!"

With the hot spoon thrown at him, Richard eventually was irritated enough to raise his tone "Well, what choice do I have!? You wouldn't stop at all costs, yet your hips were trembling even worse than an erupting volcano! I couldn't just stand by and watch that!"

Gordon looked at Richard's eyes, before breaking out in laughter. He couldn't believe all it took to make Richard spoke casually with him was only a hot spoon. However, he also realized that this tremor was no laughing matter.

"Fine, fine… But only a peek. You see what's going on then return and plan here with me, alright? No crazy decisions made on a whim, alright?"

The boy tried to hide his nervous smile. Looking at the track record of his journey, the possibility that this was nothing to be worried about is second to none. Besides, even if it's trouble ahead, he wanted Gordon to take as much rest as possible. With no choice, he relented even if it's just upfront with Gordon "Okay, I promise."

"Good… And before you leave, you better take that Bronzor with you! Traversing this deep without a Pokemon would be suicidal."

Richard turned his head toward the ground, Bronzor looked at him expectantly seeming to be eager to follow him. "...Fine, I guess it's up to you and me, Pal." He smiled towards the Bronzor.

With flashlight and a handy rope in hand, Richard quickly grabbed his backpack and left the temporary camp towards the source of the tremor alongside his newfound partner. The road forward declined even further, Richard didn't know what to expect but he had to go there as quickly as possible. Maybe he could even find clues about the whereabouts of both Uri and Eileen.

After walking for quite a while, Richard found something interesting on his walking path. There was a hole in the tunnel that didn't fit quite right with the rest of the tunnel.

"Strange… This hole doesn't seem natural to me at all, there must be something that caused it." Richard gazed towards a big hole with cracks surrounding it. However, the branching path caused him to be unsure about his choice of path. Should he took the larger tunnel path? Or should he took this unnaturally made hole?

As he mulled over his final decision, Bronzor decided to help Richard by entering the hole first.

"Ah, I forgot you've already known what is going on… It's a bit unfortunate that I can't understand what are you saying. But I guess we can handle anything we found in the end, maybe…"

Richard walked together with the Bronze Pokemon through the smaller path, unlike what he initially thought the road was apparently much easier to traverse. Not only that but the beautiful cave scenery caused him to gawk in awe.

"Woah…" The small tunnel was filled with multiple beautiful gemstones surrounding the insides. Blue, green, red, and even purple gemstones were abundant in the ceiling and walls of the cave.

"I guess not many people knew about this, otherwise they would've mined it all." The young man continued to gawk over the natural beauty, however, it didn't last long as another tremor could be felt from ahead. On one side, he felt relieved that he managed to choose his route correctly, but whatever lies ahead would not be so easy to surmount.

Just before he managed to steel himself, Bronzor stood in front of him, still shaken due to fear. It wouldn't let its new friend face the terror he had experienced before, it tried to dissuade Richard from going further.

Richard understood what the Bronze Pokemon was trying to do, however, it was not the time to hesitate, even if he decided to run away now, there was no guarantee that it wouldn't hinder their journey out of the tunnel. Richard sighed accepting his fate.

"Sorry pal, I don't think I can turn back now. I know whatever up ahead might not be able to be handled by us but whatever happens, I'll be with you, I promise." Richard pat the head of the Bronze Pokemon while wryly smiling, in an effort to calm his own nerves.

Bronzor hung it's head down, realizing that there was no way to persuade the young man to stop moving forward. It was tempted to flee instead of risking its life, however, it didn't have the heart to let Richard march alone to his demise. Bronzor decided to follow the man to face the very thing it's fleeing from.

After running at full speed, Richard quickly reached where he suspected to be the source of the tremor. He arrived at a beautiful cave chamber, adorned by beautiful gemstones everywhere he looked. It was a majestic sight that he never saw even once in his lifetime. However, his gaze was locked elsewhere when he saw familiar faces standing on the corner of the huge chamber.

"Uri! Eileen!" Richard screamed at the sight of his partners. However, little he knew that he just did a horrible mistake as he didn't realize that they were fighting the source of the tremors. The Pokemon in question turned it's back towards Richard with its mouth firing a Hyper Beam.

"Oh No..." Richard's eye opened wide as the powerful beam approached him, in that split second he realized that his travels might be over for good.

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WizardOfOdd · May 15, 2020

Important notes, please read before continue reading.

Spoiler:

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Afternoon

Chapter 4 - 6
Sacrifice

Just before the beam hits, Bronzor shot a Confusion powerful enough to launch Richard away from the blast zone. The beam hit the ground and exploded causing chunks of rock to flew everywhere.

"Arghh!" Richard winced in pain due to the stone shards, he slowly looked back in terror as he saw dust clouds surrounding the place where Bronzor once stood.

"No way, right? T-that was a Hyper Beam…" Richard couldn't believe that the attack would instantly knock out Bronzor, he knew that Bronzor had the advantage in typing to tank the attack since it was a normal-type attack, not to mention that it was a Pokemon that highly powerful in its defense. To be knocked out in one hit is…

Thankfully, Richard managed to shake away some of his terror when he saw that Bronzor was still on the battle. However, it was still apparent that Bronzor is definitely affected by the powerful move.

Seeing his partner in danger, Uri dashed using his psychic powers towards Richard with Eileen in his clutches.

"I'm glad you all save… If you didn't then…" Richard smiled in relief seeing both of his partners save from danger, to make things even better both of them seem to have reconciled. He didn't know what happened to make things that way, but the fact that it happened makes him very happy.

However, reality soon smacked him hard. The reunion was indeed joyful but it would be all for naught if he couldn't stop the Pokemon in front of him. Using the time he obtained from the Hyper Beam, he suppressed his fear as much as he could and used his Pokedex to scan the data of the said Pokemon.

Tyranitar!? This was the Pokemon the townsfolk warned me about. Darn it… No Richard, you can still win, no… You have to win this! The young man steeled his nerves, as strong as a Pokemon could be, there must be something he could exploit to turn the tide to his favor.

Richard didn't have much time to think, as the Tyranitar had finally recovered from shooting the Hyper Beam earlier. This time it launched Stone Edge towards the party.

"Bronzor, Gravity!" Bronzor erected a gravity field in front of the party causing the stones to plummet downward, helping them to be unharmed.

"Now, scatter!" Uri, Eileen, and Bronzor spread out their position to split the raging Armor Pokemon's attention. Seeing this the Tyranitar instead opted to use Earthquake, but before it managed to land after jumping.

"Uri, Disable! Bronzor, launch Eileen now!" Uri canceled the move, causing the Tyranitar to land without causing any damage towards the party all while Eileen was launched by Bronzor's Confusion. "Double Kick!" With the extra velocity, Richard expected the Tyranitar to flinch and create another opportunity to attack, alas…

"Rawrr!" To his complete surprise, the Tyranitar was almost unaffected by the attack, instead, it quickly conjured a circle of rocks around its head which it quickly launched towards the prone Eileen.

Sensing this, Uri dashed with his psychic powers to shield Eileen from the Stone Edge, he used Confusion to bounce the rocks away from both of them, but not all of them managed to be dealt with as several rocks hit Uri who stood in front of Eileen, hurling him backward crashing to the nearby wall. Seeing this, Eileen desperately fired a Thunder Shock to protect her and Uri to no avail.

"No...No...No!" Richard screamed in horror seeing the bleak sight, his strategy should've been perfect. Tyranitar had a quadruple weakness against Fighting-type moves, but the fact that Eileen couldn't even flinch the Armor Pokemon was not what he expected at all. He was at loss at what to do, his body was completely shaken with fear that there was nothing he could do to defeat the Tyranitar especially with the current condition of his Pokemon.

The poor boy closed his eye and took a deep breath, in his mind, there was no way they could all flee from the rampaging Pokemon, left with no choice he sadly smiled as he prepares to execute the best scenario he could possibly think off.

I guess in the end, I couldn't even redeem myself at all. But at least, If my sacrifice meant their survival, then so be it... Richard gritted his teeth to gather his courage.

"Uri! Take Eileen and Bronzor with you and run! I'll hold the fort here..."

Uri who was barely standing at this point was shocked beyond belief, he and the others screamed as loudly as possible to dissuade their trainer to no avail, he was already resolute in his choice.

"It's an order, damnit!!" Richard raised his voice even higher, silencing his Pokemon's cries. "I'm sorry Uri, but please take good care of them..." He smiled towards his first-ever partner.

The Tyranitar attempted to launch another attack towards Uri, but this time it was interrupted by a small pebble thrown by Richard.

"Your enemy is me alone, you little-" Richard threw another pebble to distract the Armor Pokemon's attention towards him.

The Tyranitar was totally pissed, it was determined to put an end on Richard's antics once and for all. With a blazing mouth and a strong killing intent, it ran towards the young man as fast as it could.

Richard wryly smiled, accepting his fate.

Sorry Keith... But I guess I was indeed destined to die as a horrible person.

As he was readying himself to buy some time for his Pokemon to escape, suddenly a bright yellow flash struck the Armor Pokemon before it managed to gnaw on the trainer, it was powerful enough to send the Tyranitar crashing backward. Surprised, he turned his head towards the source of the flash which apparently came from the entrance.

"Idiot… Do you really don't understand what scouting means?" Said Gordon fuming, standing beside his Lurantis.

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Ninetales · May 22, 2020

Coralie Summers, Francis Beauregard, Arianne Chandler, & Courtney Nair

Lavender Town, May 23^rd

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pokémon

♡

Coralie's team:

Florian the Bulbasaur
Stella-Luna the Noibat

Theme song:[/tab]

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Late Night Fright

The dimly lit screen of Arianne's Pokégear displayed a small route with a dotted line perpendicular to it. Further ahead, the road continued, relatively straightforward, until it merged with another path. Looking more closely at the map, one could see…

"Yes, we're totally on the right path!" Ari whispered, gesturing Coralie to come close and watch with her. "The dotted line, this road and that other path make some kind of a… very rough triangle. We'll just follow these two sides while Courtney is on the dotted side, which is the staircase, and we'll meet up! Right Coralie?"

Coralie beamed, somewhat relieved to know that the two of them were not completely lost, wandering about amidst a void of darkness. "Sounds good! Ari, look above us! The constellations are dazzling tonight." She gazed up at the bright stars that were scattered about the night sky, her eyes wide with a sense of wonderment. "There's the big dipper! Oh, it's magnificent, isn't it! I could stare at this view all night!"

"I wonder if Courtney and Francis are marvelling at them, too." She giggled, as she considered this. "Most likely not, I bet Courtney's too preoccupied with bossing Francis around."

"Oh, it's… stunning…!" Arianne timidly said. She wasn't really a stargazer herself, and was somewhat struggling to find the big dipper Coralie was talking about, but that wasn't necessary to appreciate the beauty of the night sky. "Oh, Courtney? You may be right." she chucked.

Coralie smiled. "You know... Elliott, Amika, and I used to observe the constellations together late at night. We'd all sneak out and sit on this grassy hill on the outskirts of Cerulean. It was our hangout spot and it made for a wonderful place to lay out beneath the stars." Coralie recalled the fond memory. "Anyways, let's go! I want to see this tower up close and personal!"

"Sure, let's get there! And… return to our rooms at a reasonable time…" Arianne replied, before giving in and letting out a yawn, all while trying to hide it from Coralie. "I'm… not exactly a stargazer myself, but that sounds great!"

"Amika, our friend sure was. Her dad was an Astronomist and he taught her all about the stars and the millions of galaxies. Naturally, she shared some knowledge with us and she showed us many different constellations. From Cassiopeia to aquarius, you name it." Coralie felt proud talking about her childhood companion. Amika was not only adventurous but she was brilliant, too. Coralie missed her deeply.

"It's reassuring to know we're under the same night sky." She added envisioning where Amika was, where Elliot was, and if they were thinking of her as much as she was thinking of them.

Arianne kept listening to her friend, fascinated by her words. "Being outside at night is something I'm not really used to. I used to hang out with my friends mostly during the day, so that we could go swim or play on the beach without really getting in trouble…" she reminisced. "And yeah, while most of them are very far from here tonight, they can see the same stars we see."

"Were your parents strict about you going out late?"

"As long as I was hanging out with my friends, not picking fights in dance clubs and stuff, and coming back at a reasonable time… it was alright! But even then, going out late at night wasn't something I was so keen on doing myself!" Arianne explained. "The Cinnamon girls' island is also unlit, just saying!"

"That makes sense. My mom is an anxious sort and if I was out she always wanted someone accompanying me, so, Elliott for the most part. We'd sneak out sometimes, too. We'd hop on our bicycles and ride to Amika's place and we'd go adventuring around town," she explained. "Although, as far as I'm aware, there's nowhere haunted in Cerulean, thankfully."

"Bicycles? Cinnabar was too small and uneven!" Arianne chuckled. "But living on Cinnabar meant I could never get out of there so easily! When I wasn't home, my parents were still sure that I was somewhere in Cinnabar. I think I've explored most of the coastline by now!"

"The coastline! Oooh, I'm sure it's beautiful!" Coralie beamed. "I've never seen the ocean before! I've always wanted to just dive into the ocean and float around and gaze at the clouds! I've swam in lakes, ponds, even rivers, but the ocean is foreign to me."

"It's really something else…" Arianne laughed, more memories of her hometown coming back to her, before pausing and stopping. She pulled out her PokéGear once again.

"We were supposed to turn there, weren't we?" the black haired girl turned around and pointed at a different road, which merged with the one they were on with a sharp angle. "Sorry, I've missed the intersect- Wait, let's see here…" Arianne's mind had a different idea. "Lavender should be quite close to the ocean now that I think about it! You won't have to wait much longer, Coralie, look here!"

The PokéGear's map was now zoomed out, and displayed the entirety of Lavender Town, plus a small patch of blue on a corner. "Let's… let's get back on the correct path too, actually."

"Oh, I think I can hear the waves crashing in the distance!" She gazed intently at the pokegear. "I see it! Wow, we are quite close! I can't wait to see it up close one day!" She squealed.

"That's right! We should almost be at the tower!"

"Finally…" Arianne sighed, still slightly embarrassed. At least she noticed her mistake before it was too late! But… "Well, this means it's already time to meet up with Courtney, right?" she pouted.

"Well, if Courtney and Francis haven't wandered off somewhere." Coralie giggled.

The pink haired girl was actually proven wrong as she and Arianne arrived at their destination. The tower overlooked a grassy hillside, with a couple dusty paths and ornate lamp posts, with some houses further away from the building. Some fences were scattered around the area and, sitting beside each other on one of them, were Courtney and Francis.

"It's definitely them…" Arianne stated, turning to Coralie, before shaking her head. "A-alright, let's go!"

"Hey, guys! I'm surprised you managed to get here before us!" Coralie waved cheerfully, catching the attention of the duo.

"O-of course we did… we tried, you know what I mean?" Courtney raised her head as she heard the other girl's voice, her breath still heavy.

Francis was so exhausted from the trek that he was on the brink of collapse, yet he tried to conceal how fatigued he truly was. "Yea… M-miss C-courtney and I got here in a flash." He sounded so out of breath that Coralie silently questioned how true his statement was.

"We had a lovely little stroll, didn't we, Ari? We were appreciating the stars, too! OH! They're so beautiful at night!" She looked upwards once more and spun around, her arms raised to the heavens above, emphasizing how grandiose it all was.

"Yes, definitely!" Arianne chimed in from behind her former classmate.

"Well, we haven't climbed that staircase just to see some stars, did we? Stars are cool, yeah, but that is cooler." Courtney commented as she slowly got back up, pointing at the imposing tower nearby. "Come on, let's get c-closer!" she suggested, as another cold gust made everyone shiver.

Coralie followed behind Courtney but turned to Ari and offered her a reassuring smile and the two walked alongside each other, as Francis scampered to keep up with his redheaded love interest.

As they neared the old building, Coralie saw the silhouette of a person, leaning against the entrance. "T-there's someone there!" She stuttered to Ari. The group came to a halt as the individual was now glaring at them with amused, dark eyes.

He took a drag of a cigarette, a cloud of smoke concealing his porcelain face. He flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with a sandaled foot.

"Well, well, well, who do we have here?" He drawled, smirking at the group. Coralie looked at him carefully and saw that he wore a simple black yukata and had flowing jet black hair that trailed down his back.

Arianne didn't say a word and stood still somewhere behind Coralie, her hand slowly reaching for a Pokéball. Too bad there was a certain other person in her group. "We're people. Now, who are you and why are you dressed like that?"

He chuckled loudly, which caused Coralie to shudder. "Who the hell am I? Well, since you asked.. I'll tell you." He stood up and walked towards Courtney, and he grinned at her mockingly. "Name's Mav. Now, I wouldn't talk about clothing when you look like that." He retorted, laughing in Courtney's face. "Now, scram, I don't have time to babysit children. Go home, I'm sure your mommies are worried about you."

"My home's a bit further than you might expect, dearie. Looks like you have no choice." the girl replied, a smug expression still on her face… somehow. Arianne still kept quiet, looking at Coralie with a puzzled look.

"Well, in that case, let's have some fun, shall we?" He laughed mischievously before walking towards the tower's entrance yet again. He turned to the group and scowled. "Well, what are you waiting for? Don't start crapping your diapers now! You haven't even come inside yet." He thrust the door open with a slam and entered the building, a gust of wind howling as he did so.

Courtney was the first of the group to enter the tower. "I've heard this place is haunted… haunted by annoying people, I suppose."

"Well, this is what we came for, right?" Arianne echoed as she followed her, before turning to Coralie and Francis. "Let's do this quickly, I guess?" she asked to the pink haired girl.

Coralie nodded as she gazed into the tower's entrance. She stepped in hesitantly, leaving Francis on his lonesome.

"M-maybe I'll s-stay out here and be the lookout.." He suggested, his voice shaking.

"Yeah, cold and alone… in a town full of ghosts!" Courtney said menacingly, ending her sentence with her best impression of a maniacal laugh.

"M-miss Courtney, I-I…."

"Suit yourself." Mav chuckled. With that, the door slammed shut as if on command.

Coralie gasped audibly in shock and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"You see this tower is exceedingly old and has a lot of history in this town." Mav began as he led them into the centre of the room. This floor serves as Lavender's pokemon gym, the real gym." He added, a hint of bitterness present in his tone.

Both Arianne and Courtney looked at him perplexed. "But what about the Elec-" the red haired girl began, only to be interrupted.

"I said this is the real one. The only valid gym." Mav replied sternly.

"Alright. But that doesn't explain what you are doing here." Coralie asked, trying her best to sound affirmative. Truthfully, she was quite anxious. Between Mav and the dark, supposedly haunted tower, she was unsettled.

"Good question, pinkie. I guard this tower, see? I make sure no stupid kids come, such as you three, and vandalize the place."

A turbulent breeze could be heard outside and the entrance door shot open before slamming shut again. Coralie jumped in her skin and huddled close to Arianne.

Mav laughed boisterously. "Scared, hmm? It's nothing but the wind."

"Then your door is bad, have you ever heard of locks and keys?" Courtney giggled.

In the meantime, Arianne hugged Coralie. She was scared and uneasy as well, but tried her best not to show it, and instead started to look around the place restlessly. "Wait, are you also the Gym Leader maybe?" she asked.

"I think you need to lock that mouth of yours and throw away the key. The sound of your voice is like nails on a chalkboard, it's unbearable to listen to you yap." He glared daggers at Courtney before scoffing. "I'm not the gym leader but I am related to her." Mav then moved towards a staircase tucked in the corner of the room. Mav began to head up the staircase, beckoning the others to follow his lead. "Come up, if you dare.." With that he disappeared into the darkness, the creaking of the stairs fading as he ascended.

"Those stairs look like they'd collapse from underneath you." Coralie observed, still holding onto her friend. "I don't know about this."

"They held up Mav, so if we're careful…" Arianne reassured Coralie as she examined the steps. "I could try first and see where he's trying to take us."

In the meantime, Courtney let out a growl. "Have you heard yourself!?" she muttered, but the boy was already too far. "I'll be going first if you don't mind, I have someone to catch."

"Ari, I think I'm going to stay here. I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach." Coralie whispered to her friend as she gazed skeptically at the stairs.

"It'll be ok, we are a great team, Coralie…" Arianne replied as she held onto the staircase. Courtney was also coming, sure, but leaving Coralie on the lower floor not only didn't seem right, but made her more scared herself.

"Are you really going to stop now, girl?" Courtney added from above, after overhearing the Cape College trainers.

"S-sorry, I'm just a tad nervous is all." She smiled at Arianne and clutched onto her hand as the two approached the stairs. "Promise you'll stay by my side?" She asked, her ocean eyes filled with worry.

"Of course, of course! Together, we can do anything." the black haired girl replied. "Except climb this staircase, it's too narrow! Sorry…" she added, as she got up onto the upper floor herself.

Coralie was overcome with fear and she froze midway up the staircase. She clamped her eyes shut and tried to regain her composure. "It's ok, I'm ok." She murmured aloud as a means of self-reassurance. She finally forced herself up the stairs and instantly cowered behind Arianne, fearfully. "W-where did Mav g-go?"

"He's still-" Arianne turned around, expecting to find him close to her, but he wasn't in that spot. "W-what?"

Courtney instead walked further away from the staircase, trying to follow the boy. "It's you who wants me to follow you so why make it so difficult? What's wrong with you?"

Just then a loud creaking could be heard, though the direction in which it was coming from could not be deciphered. "W-what was that?" Coralie whimpered, as she peaked from behind Arianne's back and gazed around the room anxiously.

"Yeah, w-why'd you bring us here?" Arianne - this time - asked timidly. There were no lights on that floor, except for the faint orange light from outside breaking through the tiny windows. Definitely not enough to spot Mav's silhouette. "It can't be... " she whispered, keeping an eye on Coralie behind her.

"Don't tell me, even the lights are faulty here! Is this how you take care of this place?" Courtney asked with poison in her words. Given what Mav had said earlier, given the girl's tone... it was easy to see that being fun was the last of her priorities.

Just then a shadow appeared on the floor across the room, illuminated by light from a window. The shadow disappeared momentarily.

The group fell silent. Just then, Coralie looked up and saw a horde of ghost pokemon floating near the ceiling, waiting to spook the unsuspecting girls below. She froze in horror as she brought a shaky hand to her mouth, wishing to alert her friends but failing to do so, she was unable to make a sound. Fear had stolen her breath. A Misdreavus screeched and the gang of ghosts launched themselves in the trainers direction, all wailing eerily in what sounded like an orchestra of terror.

"AAAAAHHHHH!" Coralie shrieked, as she regained control of her body and raced down the stairs without a second thought.

Courtney also dashed for the stairs as quickly as she could, letting out a "Nooooo!" that made her sound like a Ghost type Pokémon herself. Arianne tried to assume a defensive stance at first, but soon realized that it was completely futile. She let Courtney pass in front of her, but immediately climbed down the staircase after her, stumbling clumsily as the creaking wood added one more instrument to the creepy orchestra.

Coralie was tempted to turn around to ensure that her friends were following her, though the pounding of their footsteps against the creaky stairs was enough reassurance for her. She booked it to the door and attempted to thrust it open, but to no avail. It wouldn't budge.

Courtney immediately ran up to the door and started to help Coralie, trying her best to get the door to open. "This is way too haunted of a place, not fair!"

What other choice do we have? Arianne thought, her fear skyrocketing after noticing that the door was immovable. She fiddled with her bag in search of a Pokéball, this time trying her best to pick someone useful, and eventually called out Mulan. She couldn't hear the thud of another item of hers landing on the stone floor, nor see what it was, and in a situation like this, she had no time to think about it.

"Oh, I have an idea!" Coralie yelped excitedly before banging on the door with as much force as she could muster, which all things considered, wasn't a lot. "FRANCIS, FRANCIS! Please open the door!"

The boy had returned to the bench, though he heard Coralie's cries very faintly and stood up curiously before jogging towards the door. He pushed up his glasses as he now understood the situation. "They're in trouble! M-miss Courtney..!" He huffed as he pulled on the door until it flung open.

Courtney was still pushing the door with all of the strength she had left. So, as soon as the boy succeeded in his effort, he was rewarded with nothing but his love interest ramming onto him. They both fell down on the ground, as the other two girls tried their best to avoid them as they ran out of the haunted tower.

"Uh-uh, M-miss Courtney, are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?" He asked the redhead as he hopped to his feet and reached his hand towards her to help her up.

"Could be worse, but at least I landed on you! And, thank you." Courtney smiled lightly as she got back up with Francis's help.

"The question is, are you ok, boy?" Arianne asked, once she got to a safe distance from the tower. "But even then, all that matters is that we all made it out." she added, as a startled Mulan slowly jumped towards her.

"I'-I'm fine. I was just worried about Miss Courtney. I do advise that we return to the pokemon center at once. Although I'm confused as to what exactly happened in there!"

"Oh! There were a bunch of ghost pokemon that were chasing us! It was TERRIFYING! It was like something out of a horror movie!" Coralie cried dramatically before she gazed back at the tower in the distance. "I wonder what happened to Mav? Do you think those pokemon belonged to him?"

"Either that or…" Arianne shivered. "Mav was an illusion made by them… Ghost types are really that powerful?" she continued whispering, as if she was talking to herself.

"Hmm, now that you mention it, something about him was a bit... off, you could say. He was quite a character. Perhaps he is the spirit of someone who perished in the tower long ago and is now guarding it?" Francis speculated, his hand on his chin as he considered this theory.

"I… don't wanna know, ok? We've found out the hard way that the place is haunted, that's more than enough for now." Courtney chimed in, still trembling.

"An ILLUSION?! A FALLEN SPIRIT?! EEEK! How scary to think about!" Coralie squealed. "Pokemon center, HERE WE COME! I want to get as far away from these ghosts as possible! Come on, Arianne!" She grabbed her dark-haired friend's hand and began to pull her in the direction of the pokemon healthcare facility.

"Yes, let's go and not look back…" Arianne reassured her friend as she pulled her arm over her shoulder. "Let's talk about something else."

Meanwhile, Mav was watching from the entrance as the four began to disappear over the horizon. He snickered to himself before closing the tower's door and vanishing into the darkness.

WizardOfOdd · May 23, 2020

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Afternoon

Chapter 4 - 7
Final Tactics

"Mr. Gordon, I-"

"Shut up, do you actually think that you had to sacrifice yourself for your Pokemon to survive? How would they feel after that, huh? You almost put a lifetime of burden on the shoulders of those poor Pokemon."

"But, it's…"

"Impossible!? Bullshit! If there's one thing I learned all this time, it's that those who gave up too soon will always lose in the game of life. Besides, you're not alone, Richard, you have your trusted partners with you. Trust them and trust yourself, they agreed to be your partner for a reason, Richard… Don't throw the towel like that…"

"You're right, it was foolish… I'm sorry Mr. Gordon." Richard hung down his head in embarrassment.

"You shouldn't apologize to me, just apologize to your Pokemon... Also, I don't think it's the appropriate time to mop around and be all sappy." Gordon smirked seeing the Armor Pokemon who managed to recover from Solar Blade. The Tyranitar roared once more, this time while whipping up a powerful sandstorm with its ability, Sand Stream.

"Okay genius! I know this is irresponsible after all that speech, but strategizing is not my forte! I'll try and buy some time, I leave the final planning to you!." Screamed Gordon, all while covering his mouth with his jacket sleeve.

The sandstorm heavily roared on, obstructing the view of all parties involved. However, it was not enough to stop Richard and his reignited determination. The Tyranitar was visibly more aggressive than before, but in Richard's mind that could be easily exploited.

Before Richard finished formulating a strategy, Tyranitar mounted another offensive by launching another Stone Edge.

"Welp, I guess it's the time to do my part! Petal Blizzard!" Lurantis conjured pink petals around its body, the petals circled the Bloom Sickle Pokemon before it was launched toward the rocks, blowing up the rocks to smithereens. "I only have one Pokemon, Richard, and that Tyranitar is definitely much stronger, so make it quick! Lurantis, X-Scissor!"

The Bloom Sickle Pokemon lunged towards the angered behemoth with both sickles glowing green. Both of the Pokemon seemingly clashed pretty evenly at the time.

Stay calm, Richard… Nothing is invincible, not even that hulking beast. Even if Eileen couldn't hurt him, there must be a way to temporarily put it out of commission. Richard squinted his eyes, he looked carefully at his surroundings for any clues.

Unbeknownst to him, the Armor Pokemon was starting to overpower Lurantis, much to the fear of Gordon.

"Richard!" Gordon yelled at the young man, putting more pressure on the man who was trying his best in finding a solution.

Urgh… We don't have enough resource to escape successfully, beat it into submission is not an option, either... If only- Wait… Darn it, why didn't I think of this earlier. Richard's face brightened up, as a plan finally showed up inside his head.

"Mr. Gordon! I did it!"

"Do you have the plan to escape already!? Great! Because Lurantis won't hold up much longer at this rate!"

"Yes! We'll have to bring down the cave!"

"We need to what!?"

Richard pointed at the ceilings of the cave. There was a large gemstone embedded in the cave ceilings above the Armor Pokemon, and with the visual cue, Gordon finally understood what Richard was planning.

"Okay! Now, buy me some time! Lurantis, pull back and charge your Solar Blade!" Lurantis dashed as fast as it could to safety, but the Tyranitar wouldn't let it fleeing scot-free and was preparing to use Hyper Beam.

"Oh no, you don't! Uri, Disable, follow up with Kinesis!" The Psi Pokemon's eyes glow blue, preventing the Tyranitar from shooting its most devastating attack. It then threw its magic spoon using psychic powers, which caused a loud noise when it bent behind the Armor Pokemon's back.

"It's your time now! Eileen use Quick Attack, then follow up with Thunder Wave!" With its head turned back, Tyranitar couldn't anticipate Eileen's attack. Eileen ran through the powerful gust of wind laden with sand to shoot yellow rings of electricity at point-blank range, paralyzing the Armor Pokemon.

"Great! Mr. Gordon, now!" Richard desperately yelled towards Gordon.

"Lurantis, aim for the ceiling!"

However, the paralyzation wasn't enough to immobilize the Tyranitar, soon enough it slammed its tail with full force, smashed Eileen hard towards the wall.

"Eileen! Gah, Uri, freeze it!" Richard wanted to rush towards his poor Pokemon, but he had to be patient. One more mistake would be fatal to his and Gordon's safety.

Uri conjured a light blue ball of energy that shot out freezing beams, locking the Armor Pokemon's torso down in a chunk of ice. While the launched Solar Blade destroyed the cave ceilings, dropping down the giant gemstone right on a collision course with the Tyranitar below it.

Desperate to survive, the Armor Pokemon conjured another array of stones using Stone Edge to try and break free from the ice.

"Oh no, you won't! Gravity!" Bronzor conjured another gravity field around the Tyranitar, rendering it's last attempt to resist futile, as the Stone Edge fell straight to the ground instead it's intended target.

With no further resistance from Tyranitar, and the acceleration caused by the gravity field, the gemstone crashed hard on the Armor Pokemon, seemingly ended up the fight.

"Did we do it!?" Richard was waiting with anticipation, Eileen was definitely knocked out and both Bronzor and Uri were visibly struggling to stay in the battle.

But soon his questions were answered, the sandstorm finally stopped roaring, dropping the young trainer to his knees in relief, signaling that the terror was finally over for good.

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WizardOfOdd · May 26, 2020

Richard Wolstenholme
Rock Tunnel, May 23^rd, Evening

Chapter 4 - 8
End of The Tunnel

"We won… Yeah! We did it! Wooo!" Gordon celebrated in pure joy, he pumped his fist while jumping around before his hips reminded him to act like his age.

He eventually came to Richard who was still sprawling on the ground.

"You okay, Richard? Dang that was rough." Gordon busily patting his clothes, cleaning the sand from his outfit.

Richard sat up, holding his left rib. "I'm fine, just feeling a little uncomfortable, that's all."

As the adrenaline wore off from his body, Richard started to feel the pain on his ribs. He was told to be careful about his last injury, but he guessed that he forgot to be careful during the heat of the moment. If he had to guess, it must because the rock splinters from Hyper Beam's aftermath.

"...Lurantis, Aromatherapy!" Lurantis released soothing fragrance towards the air around them. "I don't know much about medical treatment, but I hope this helps…. Darn it, I should've watched closely when Craig treated Stu…" Gordon muttered the last part, lamenting the fact that he was too lazy to learn first aid back then.

"Haha, it's okay Mr.Gordon, honestly it's not my first time dealing with bruised ribs, I'll be fine." The boy slowly stood from the ground, while cleaning the sand from his pants.

"If you say so, don't push yourself, alright?"

"Hahaha, it's me who supposed to say that, Mr.Gordon. After all, I don't want to see another display of belly dancing from you again."

"You little rascal." Gordon shook his head before both of them shared a hearty laugh.

Uri and Bronzor both came towards the pair, with Uri holding the unconscious Eileen in his arms. Richard immediately pulled Eileen's Pokeball to gave some needed rest for the Mouse Pokemon. Then he's looking eye-to-eye with the cause of all of the fiaschi that had gone down.

"Dabra…" Uri hung down his head in shame, his jealousy had blinded his judgment and caused Richard to be dragged to another dangerous situation. He was prepared to be left behind by the young man, even if it's hard for him to forget the trainer that had been with him for years. He immediately closed its eyes in fear.

Instead of a reprimand it expected, Uri was utterly surprised when he was at the receiving end of a hug from his trainer.

"I'm sorry Uri, I was clueless… I didn't try to understand you at all… I'm really sorry." Richard hugged Uri tightly to express his remorse.

Uri reciprocated the hug while shaking his head to express that it's not Richard's fault.

"Ouch…" Richard jolted out of the hug due to his bruised ribs, eliciting a concerned look from Uri.

"Haha, I'm fine… A bit of rest will suffice." Richard smiled, trying to hide his injury. Realizing they're not completely in the clear yet, he quickly turned his sight to Gordon.

"No need to worry about me, just finish your business first." Gordon was checking the pulse of the Tyranitar, he was quite happy that it was in a safe enough condition to leave it alone.

"I've already done with everything, I think we should leave now."

"You sure? We can take more time resting if you want to."

"Haha, I would love that, but…" Richard shifted his gaze towards the fallen Tyranitar. "I'm not willing to take my chances, haha…"

Gordon sighed, "I bet you won't take no as an answer, huh? But before that, catch!" Gordon threw a colorful rock towards Richard, who was bewildered before barely catching it.

"What was that for!" Yelled the young man in irritation, before realizing the real identity of the stone. It was an important item he read on a book during his free time back at the school. "Mr.Gordon this is!?"

Mr.Gordon smirked as the young man fascinatedly stared towards the beautiful rock enveloped in light blue light.

"I think you already know what is it. It's a Dawn Stone… I don't have much use for it." Gordon used his hand gesture to tell Richard to just take the stone.

"But I didn't do anything, do I? We didn't find any archeological remains that you wanted." Richard felt that he couldn't accept the stone until he helped Gordon finding something that would be useful to his research.

Gordon tilted his head in confusion. "I couldn't believe you're this oblivious with your surroundings." He opened his phone gallery app to show a picture of an ancient scribbling of some sort.

"But how!? We didn't find anything whe-"

Gordon coughed before pointing out the wall near them. "Does that seemed familiar?"

"Ah… Well… Uh…" Richard tried hard to find an explanation for his negligence.

"Geez, lighten up would you? You don't have to feel responsible for everything. Just take it easy," Gordon playfully ruffled Richard's hair which still had a lot of sand stuck on it.

Both of them immediately started walking again, but this time they decided to use the normal tunnel road instead due to the risk of following the random path. After a bit of detour, they continued to walk through the tunnel into what seemed to be the exit.

Just before they walked away however, Richard remembered that he forgot to do something important.

"Argh, silly me. I forgot to give you a name... Or do you want to go back to inside the tunnel? Sorry, I forgot to ask, it was kind of hectic haha..." Richard rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed that he forgot something so important.

The Bronzor shook its head vehemently.

"Yeah, I thought so… I'm not a very good trainer, but I promise I'll take care of you. About your name, how about Victor? That's should be good enough, no?"

Bronzor smiled before rushing towards Richard, accidentally ramming its sturdy metal body on its trainer's shin.

"Ouch! Sheesh… I'm counting on you from now on, Victor." Richard gently patted the head of the newly named Victor, much to his delight.

"Hey, come on! How long are you going to keep me waiting?" Gordon yelled from outside the tunnel.

"Coming!" Richard walked towards the exit, right beside the new addition to his party, Victor.

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Juno · May 31, 2020

[a id]menu16[/a id]

background art cred

Chapter

Pokédex

Chapter 4: Okay // May 24th
ft. Casey Holt, little bit of Vera Hill

Unsurprisingly, his Pokemon were still sleeping when he returned to his room. He smiles, watching them snore away in a heap on the bed for a moment. Gently, he places a hand on Tangles, shaking her. "Hey, time to get going." He says lightly. She's always the easiest to wake, and also helps him get the rest of them out of bed. One by one, they groggily respond. It's a team effort to drag Sage out of bed, but by a quarter to 7, everyone is ready to leave, and Jordan checks the room one final time for any stray socks or Poke Balls that might have slipped under the bed or behind the dresser.

Humming, he walks by Vera's door first. Checking the time to make sure he won't get yelled at for waking her up too early, he lightly raps on her door. "Hey Vera, it's almost 7 - you good to go soon?"

There's a muffled thump, followed by excited barking. Apparently Iggy was already up. "I'm up, I'm up!" Vera sounds like she'd just woken up. "Just give me ten minutes! Maybe fifteen..."

"Okay! I'll be waiting in Casey's room." He calls back.

Casey's room is next to hers, and Jordan knows for sure he's up already. Wonder if he's back from his… whatever he ran off to this morning. Still a bit weirded out from their earlier encounter, he knocks on the door anyway, curious to see if he's in a better mood now. "Um, it's me - open up."

Something hits the floor on the other side of the door and there's a long pause before Casey's actual response. "Yeah, uh. Yeah. Okay."

The door swings open. Casey's hair is wet and he's only wearing jeans, but he pulls his shirt on as Jordan walks in and plops down on the bed. There's gauze around Casey's right wrist. Jordan frowns, reaching for his arm without thinking. "Hey, what happened? Don't think you had that this morning."

Casey flinches at the touch, which is worrying. The boy never shies away from physical contact. "It's- Ginger bit me, it's fine."

"Wh- I knew that would happen eventually, that thing is-" Jordan suddenly stops himself and glances around the room, then drops his voice. "-not out of her Poke Ball, is she?"

"No. Be nice to her anyway." Casey says sullenly. He's still not looking at Jordan, just lightly tracing the bandage with his opposite hand.

Jordan shrugs. "Um, I believe the word I was looking for was 'feisty'. You know, spirited." He studies Casey's face, openly staring at him. A moment later, he sighs. "Okay, what gives? Is everything alright? Like, in general. Or not so generally. I mean, with us?"

"Yes! Of course! Everything's fine, nothing's changed, we're good, we're…" Casey scrubs his hands over his face. "Ugh."

Jordan squints. "'Ugh'?"

Casey, finally, looks him in the eye. "Am I in love with you?"

Jordan opens his mouth, bewildered. Nothing comes out for a good seven seconds, but then he finds his words. Sort of. "I- what- No? I mean, I don't know- where did this come from?!"

Casey ticks things off on his fingers as he speaks. "I want to stay with you? Make sure you don't… yesterday. I don't want you to get hurt. An' I like you a lot. I don't get tired of hangin' out with you."

"And you're pretty," he adds, as an afterthought. Five things.

Flustered, Jordan turns pink as he continues to flounder for words. "That's just- I mean, you can probably say that about a lot of people, I know I can-" Well, maybe not the pretty thing... He is unsure of how to process that, from Casey, no less.

"But I can't say all of 'em about anyone 'cept you. That's the sticking point." Casey is very matter-of-fact about this.

A little more composed now, Jordan quietly contemplates this, and everything it would mean for their friendship. If Casey's not jumping to conclusions the way he does…

Jordan likes girls. He's always known that. But do I like boys, too? Admittedly, he's never really thought about this. That must mean no, right? Now he isn't really sure how he's feeling. He certainly did not come in here thinking this was how the conversation was gonna go, to say the least. He looks up. Casey is waiting, expectantly but patiently.

"I… don't know," Jordan says truthfully. He doesn't have the answer, for Casey or for himself. He thought he did, a few moments ago, but he isn't so sure anymore.

"Don't know what? If I'm in love with you? That's fair, I guess."

"Yeah, that, but also… for myself, too?" Jordan frowns. "Yeah, how do[i/i] you know if you love someone or not..? I-" This is kind of embarrassing to talk about with Casey, but who else is he gonna talk to about this? Strangely, it still feels more comfortable than, say, asking his brothers about stuff like this. Maybe it's because they're both confused, and his older brothers have all this figured out. Seems that way, anyway.

Casey gives a quiet laugh. "Thought you would know better'n me."

Jordan laughs back nervously. Maybe he knows his Pokemon typing better and what to do in a battle, but not this.

But suddenly, an idea hits him. He turns to Casey and grabs him by the shoulders. "Uh, what-"

"Trust me, it works in TV and stuff. You know, when people kiss for the first time? They feel… something. But they know. When they kiss. You know?"

Casey opens his mouth. Shuts it. Looks contemplative for half a second. "Sounds right, yeah."

"Right, yeah." Jordan repeats awkwardly. They slowly lean in towards each other. Jordan closes his eyes, and he sees nothing else until their lips part again.

And he felt… nothing. Romantically, anyway, he supposes. He felt like he just kissed his best friend, but no sparks or butterflies or however else they describe it on TV, he's pretty sure. He is slightly relieved to have a more definitive answer on the Casey question, at the very least, but apprehension washes over him again when he remembers he is not the only one who needed an answer to that question.

Casey's back to looking contemplative when Jordan works up the nerve to glance at his face. He catches Jordan's eye and grins. "That was nice. Prob'ly better with practise though."

"Y-yeah? So did you feel…?"

Casey shrugs. "Nothin' much. Just nice."

Jordan breathes a sigh of relief, since Casey was the first to say 'nothing'. "Okay, same, good. Good, right? We're good?"

"Well yeah, always."

"Right! Yeah, good." He winces. Stop saying 'good', Jordan. But Casey seems a lot more… himself now, or at least more comfortable. And that was all he wanted when he first came in here. He glances at the time. "Well, now that that's… sorted. Should we get a move on?"

"Yeah! Is Vera up? I wanna go shopping. I had an idea earlier; I mean, I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I'll know it when I see it-" Casey continues talking, though Jordan spaces out momentarily as he goes over their bizarre morning in his head. I can't believe I almost died yesterday, and this might have been more stressful.

He wasn't really sure if the kiss was the right thing to do. It seems like they both have their answer now, at least, but would it make things awkward between them now…? Jordan hopes everything will be okay between them now. Back to normal. He watches Casey gather his things as he chatters on energetically.

He thinks everything will be okay.

Pokédex

Pokemon on hand:

Tangela // "Tangles"

Ingrain
Constrict
Absorb
Vine Whip
Sleep Powder
Poison Powder

Pidgey // Hop

Headbutt
Sand Attack
Gust
Mirror Move

Cubone // Spirit

Leer
Growl
Bone Club
Headbutt

Skiddo // Sage

Tackle
Growth
Vine Whip
Play Nice

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moon · Jun 7, 2020

~~Ralph~~

Rock Tunnel, Thursday May 23nd

You open your eyes, and they sort of hurt. Strange. What's even stranger is that you feel the cold earth against your body, and you're definitely lying down. Fumbling, you get up, and manage to steady yourself against the cave wall. Not that you can see it well; it's very dark, but there is some light coming from... Above?

You look up and quickly deduce that you must have fallen from above. And the more seconds you spend awake, you realize that the hurting isn't just in your eyes, but elsewhere in your head, and you reach up and touch it. Yeah, that's not good. You might have a concussion, and slight memory loss to boot. How did this happen, again?

Struggling a bit, you start moving along the narrow cave you've fallen into. There is some kind of light further ahead. As you turn the corner though, the winding tunnel just goes on. The light comes from another hole in the ceiling, way too small for you to squeeze through even if you could reach it.

This isn't good. If only you had.... Oh, but you do, don't you! Yes, you are a trainer, and you have pokémon. You reach for your belt, only to find nothing. Huh. Don't you usually keep your pokéballs there? That's a pity. Maybe they are in your bag. You take it off and rummage through it and find some medicine, and a whole lot of food. But no pokémon. Nor a flashlight. You spray your own head with a Super Potion just to try to keep the worst of the damage at bay, even though synthetic pokémon medicine usually isn't doing much for humans.

You'll have to get through this on your own, then. This doesn't bode well. And there's something else, something missing, but you have a hard time remembering, and thinking hurts. Oh, right. Where is Ralph?

Ralph

She dashed around another corner before she stopped, heart in her throat. Three pokémon were gathering around her feet, on edge, looking back for any pursuiters. One of them was looking up at her with concern in its green eyes though. After a minute, Ralph finally allowed herself to relax, lower her tensed shoulders a bit, and slide down against the cave wall to sit on the cold stone floor.

In her arms were five pokéballs. Lycanroc and Zorua had basically frenzied when Joseph disappeared, and Ralph hadn't been able to convince them to turn and flee instead of frantically fight. So she had picked up the stray balls and recalled them, along with the three pokéballs that still contained Joseph's other pokémon. While still calming her breath down, she took off her backpack and put the five balls in there. She didn't have space for all of them on her belt, and she wasn't sure it was ok that she used any of them anyways without Joseph being here.

Was he alive? She found herself thinking that horrible thought. It had looked dangerous. What if he was just, like, gone now? Leaving her here with five extra pokémon in a dark cave. She saw Greeny's eyes glimmer in front of her again and gave the Rattata an absent-minded pet on the head. Sandsy walked up to her and put a paw on his trainer's shoulder also. Coldy seemed to still be standing guard at the corner they came from. Softy had been called back when she was overwhelmed by their assailants, and Edgy had refused to back down, similar to Zorua and Lycanroc.

"We can't go back there," she thought out loud. "I can't defeat them all on my own. I can't."

There would be absolutely no point in trying.

"We have to get help. Somehow. There's gotta be more travelers in the tunnel, right? More cape trainers if nothing else."

The thought of approaching Ari or Casey or someone and begging for help made her frown, but then she remembered what she needed help for. She couldn't just flee and leave Joseph completely now. Not if there was a chance that he was still alive. God, this was unreal. Did all pokémon trainers end up in situations like this? Should she tell Palm about this later, or keep quiet?

She managed to get up, and the four of them started walking through the ominously softly lit tunnel they had ended up in. In the opposite direction from where they came, of course.

The strange light turned out to come from some kind of mushrooms up ahead. They were blue and glowing. Bioluminescence, Ralph found herself thinking, although she couldn't for the life of her understand how she could have picked up such a fancy word and remember what it meant. That would be more that Jordan guy's topic, Casey's friend.

There was something else here too. She could see something moving in the shadows. Coldy and Greeny were both sort of at edge, while Sandsy walked more calmly next to Ralph. Did they took turn being on watch duty, or was this just their different personalities? Coldy was always serious. Greeny seemed to flip between super nice and cuddly, and super dedicated to perishing evil. Sandsy was mostly relaxed all the time, but that didn't mean that he didn't care or couldn't get serious too. Pokémon truly had as many different personalities as humans had.

Something squeaked behind them, making Ralph jump. A flood of something flew past her head, making her throw her hands up to shield herself. They didn't seem to be attacking her though. They being a flock of Zubat, as she soon realized when putting the noises, the behavior, and what little she could see together. Ralph merely grunted at them in annoyance as they circled up above the group.

Coldy didn't appreciate being startled though. Without Ralph's command, she suddenly fired off Ice Shards upwards. They mostly missed the Zubats, and seemed to get stuck in the cave ceiling.

"Hey don't do that!" Ralph said sternly. "We don't want another horde coming at us now. Gotta keep moving."

But the Zubats had been angered at the attack, and one of them came down towards Coldy when Ralph didn't see. It used Wing Attack on the icy Sandshrew, who fell over from the impact. Offended, the pokémon got back up before Ralph could think of what to say, and she fired off another Ice Shard into the dark. There was no noise from the Zubat to indicate that the attack had hit its target this time.

"Would you stop!" Ralph said. "Let's go!"

She urged Sandsy and Greeny on, but Coldy refused to let up. As a couple of more Zubat came into the faint blue light next to her, she opted for a broader approach than trying to shoot icy daggers at faded targets; she sprayed them with Powder Snow. It seemed to have a much better effect, as the Zubat screamed and back off when hit. Flying pokémon didn't do well in snowy weather, after all.

"Are you done?" Ralph turned back and said, clearly dismayed at Coldy's disobedience. Seemed that the pokémon valued its own pride more than Ralph's demands.

With the Zubat retreated and quietened down, they could hear another sound now though. It was a moaning, no, several even? Coming from the dark corner of the cave where Ralph thought she had seen things move around before.

"Who's there?" Ralph called out. "Are you alright? Shit, maybe you hit somebody else with that attack," she added towards Coldy.

She suddenly had an idea, and called out Softy.

"Hey girl," she said, instantly calming the Venonat down as the pokémon seemed worried that they were still in the middle of a warzone. "Can you use your Supersonic to try and see if there's someone in that corner?"

Softy, always easy to trust in her trainer, obeyed and started surveying the darkness while Ralph and the others covered their ears. Softy didn't go all in to try to damage or confuse with this move now though, so it wasn't too bad. After a few seconds of it, Softy seemed to perk up and started hopping into the darkness.

"What, what did you find?" Ralph asked, but followed. If Softy dared to head in, it surely couldn't be too dangerous.

She stopped when her legs hit the round, furry body of the Venonat, who seemed to gesture for her to crouch and reach out. Ralph could only faintly see that there was something else in front of her, several somethings actually. Something then poked her in the hip, and she swung around to see her little Rattata carrying a big glowing mushroom in her fangs. It spread a surprisingly good amount of light around her.

"Oh, you're clever! Why didn't I think of that?" Ralph said, shining up inwards as well now and giving the rat another affectionate pat on the head before she turned back towards Softy.

Then she saw, several Geodude, down close to the floor right in front of her. One of them was practically covered in ice, and shivering. Oh no.

"You did hit someone!" Ralph said. "Oh no, I'm sorry little pal. She was only trying to chase off the pesky Zubats!"

A tiny Geodude, which was weird to see, floated up to the one who was harmed, and tried to hug it. But the other Geodudes around them kept the baby away. They seemed afraid that the frost would spread. Geodude was a ground and rock type, which meant that even if they could break fragile ice pokémon with rocks, they would still get utterly devastated if the ice actually reached them.

"I don't have any potions..." Ralph muttered, cursing herself for not swallowing her pride and going back for them when she was still in Rock Village and Joseph pointed it out. What's the point of pride anyways? Stupid.

So what could she do? If she left the Geodude here, there was a chance it would thaw out and heal and be fine, of course. It might also be rejected by the herd or just have such a hard time getting food now that it eventually died though. Like Joseph.

No, what was she thinking? Stop that. She wouldn't give up on him yet.

"I can take him with me," she heard herself say. And she realized that it wasn't a bad idea. "I'll bring him to a pokémon center, and I'll bring him back here to you guys again! Some day." She added the last bit realizing that she might not want to head directly back all the way into the cave again when she was on her graduation journey. But that was selfish, wasn't it? She really should just quickly head to the center, and then back again. Yeah.

She put one hand on the shivering Geodude's unharmed but clenched fist, and tried to reach out for the small baby Geodude with her other. Most of the Geodudes cowered, but the baby moved forward and actually grabbed Ralph's hand with all of its small, hard fingers. It was a really strange sensation. The frozen Geodude saw the baby's action, and something sounding like a sigh came from it, before its own hand closed around Ralph's other.

What a sickeningly icky sweet moment, Ralph couldn't help but thinking, but the baby was so cute, and she felt so guilty for the result of her pokémon's wayward attack, that she buried that thought quickly.

Retrieving her hands, she took out an empty pokéball and pressed it gently against the bigger Geodude. It didn't protest nor make it hard for the ball to do its job and capture it.

"We'll come back. I promise," she said to the small baby, who just wordlessly kept staring up at her in the faint blue light.

Then, Ralph thought of something else. "Oh. By the way! We need help! There are many pokémon back that way, and they separated us from our friend. Person. Thing. You guys are many! Maybe you can help us fight them?"

But that just made the other Geodudes reach out and grab the baby, and they all moved away without any more noises in Ralph's direction. Figured. Why would they want to help someone who just randomly hurt one of them and then stole him to take with her? Yeah. Was a stupid request really.

"Let's go now," she told her own pokémon. "And you?" She added the last bit towards Coldy, who stood stonefaced closer to the center of the tunnel still. "You're gonna ride this one out inside of your pokéball."

The Alolan Sandshrew didn't protest as she was recalled. Perhaps she did feel a bit guilty after all.

budube · Jun 7, 2020

Bruno Dillinger
May 23, Thursday

Chapter 4, Part 5: vs Larvitar

Afternoon, Rock Tunnel

Bruno could feel the Tyranitar was just behind him, but even if he had to, he was unable to run. Bumblebee was at his side, also terrified and so was Amber's Sableye which he noticed was hiding behind her. Shiinotic was not too far into the exit, however its purplish glow was barely visible, without it, Bruno could barely see inside the cave.

"Dillinger." Amber called again in a quiet voice. "These Pokémon know we are here. If we try to escape,they won't hesitate in following us. You know what we have to do, don't you?"

Bruno nodded.

"I'll make the first move. Take that time to gather all the courage you can." she added. She snapped her fingers, looking back at her Pokémon. Sableye backed off, looking at her with a frown, legs trembling, before stepping in front of its trainer and looking back at her every two seconds. Amber nodded and Sableye let out a blue flame out of its mouth. It levitated across the chamber and the Larvitar started crying at it and followed it until it reached the Tyranitar, who let out a loud roar of pain at the Pokémon after being burned. "Get up now!"

Amber turned on the light on her headlamp and got up, gently putting Bruno on the ground and stepped in front of the now enraged Tyranitar. The Pokémon charged at her once it saw the light and as it slowed down to attack her, it was pushed back by a Sableye jumping from the shadows. The Tyranitar didn't seem to feel much, but the impact was enough for it to change target, now aiming at Sableye.

Bruno, still on the ground, limited himself to watch the battle. It was the only thing he felt he could do; he felt safer that way, and he wanted to be safe; however, that safety didn't last long. He heard screeches and felt something hard hitting his leg… a rock? It felt like a rock. Bruno pointed the flashlight at ceiling and slowly moved it down, eventually pointing the light at one of the huge rocks at the middle of The Hall, were one of the Larvitar was standing, waiting for its chance to attack. The Pokémon jumped at Bumblebee, mouth open, showing a pair of sharp fangs, just for it to be shot back against the rock it jumped from.

"Bumble-!" the Pokémon stood by his side, holding his trainer's arm and looking away from the danger; however, his pearl was shining a weird, white light. The Spoink opened his eyes, just to look with bewilderment at the Larvitar struggling to get up. Bruno exhaled in relief all the air he had accumulated on his chest, looking at the Larvitar as astonished as his Pokémon. "Can you do that again?"

The Psychic type exchanged glances between Bruno and the Larvitar before jumping forward. He started punching at the air ferociously while grunting at the Larvitar, trying to taunt them.

The four Larvitar grouped around their fallen partner to check if it was able to get up. Bruno pointed the light at them and Bumblebee shot another Psywave. The attack, while still strong, didn't do as much damage as it did before. It only managed to hit one of them that lost its balance and fell over the other Larvitar. The ones that were unaffected by the attack turned their attention at Bumblebee; one of them took a small rock and threw it at him, knocking off the Pokémon's pearl which rolled to the exit. Bumblebee squealed alarmed at the sudden loss of its only weapon and hopped his way behind his trainer once more who started crawling backwards while the wild Pokémon followed them. Without the pearl, there was no way to damage them with full power.

Bruno stopped the moment his hand touched something soft behind him. A greenish light was now glowing over him, and he saw how three green fingers took the pearl from the floor and put it back on Bumblebee's head. It was Amber's Shiinotic that was guarding the exit.

Shiinotic grabbed Bruno's arms and helped him get up. He stumbled a bit and almost fell again, but he was able to stay on his feet. Shiinotic smiled at the boy and used Flash once again to illuminate the cave and stood in the exit, pointing at the Larvitar.

Bruno turned his flashlight off and tried to maintain his position. His body was shaking and he felt once more all the air accumulated on his chest. All he could think about was: 'I want to flee.'. He looked back at Bumblebee; he was scared too.

"Come one, Bruno." he muttered to himself. "It's only Larvitar… five of them… A Tyranitar too, but leave that to Amber, you're only battling the Larvitar."

Bruno kept quiet for a second. He took a deep breath gathered all of the courage he could and looked back at Bumblebee. The Pokémon was frightened by the idea, but he then nodded. "This will be over soon." Bruno said. "... I hope."

The Psychic type shot another spiral of psychic energy and one of the Larvitar crashed against the same rock than before with the same force as the first one.

Another rock flew through the air, smacking Bumblebee on his forehead, and nearly knocking him down, but he managed to stay on his spring, keeping his pearl on the top of his head with the help of his psychic powers and answered with another Psywave at the Larvitar that tossed the rock… He missed.

"Bumblebee, watch out!" Bruno shouted once another Larvitar pounced at the Pokémon preparing a biting attack. Bumblebee jumped high and dodged it . The Larvitar tripped and crashed with Shiinotic who sprinkled some spores on it and made it fall asleep at the cost of turning the lights off for a second.

The next thing Bruno saw was the other four Larvitar, all of them on their feet, closer to Bruno's group more than he would like to. Bruno knew Bumblebee couldn't win this, not on his own at least.

One of the Larvitar charged at them, but it was forced to brake after being hit with a PokéBall. A white light flashed, and the PokéBall opened. Bruno didn't see which PokéBall it was, he just took the first one his hand touched.

'Gas!' Gospel cheered with a big smile as it floated to his trainer, sticking his tongue out and-

"No!" Bruno complained, covering his face from the Pokémon's licking. "If you're going to lick something, lick those Pokémon over there, not me!"

Gospel turned to the Larvitar and smiled at them, greeting with a friendly 'Gas!'. The Larvitar stared at him with sharp expressions and one of them tossed a rock at him. Gospel frowned and shook his head letting out a low cry.

"What do you-?" he said, his patience was reaching its limit, but he tried focus. There were more important things to think about now, like an strategy… ranged moves would be useful here, but he picked the wrong Pokémon and Hyper Voice would get Tyranitar's attention; Bruno wouldn't like that… Gospel was fast, though. That could work!

Gospel swiftly moved around the group of Larvitar, laughing at them and licking them too, making himself the center of attention. The Larvitar's Tackles and Rock Throws were all directed at him, and with all the space that The Hall had, he had little to no trouble dodging the attacks.

The Larvitar were too busy fighting Gospel to even notice Bumblebee bounced up high. The Pokémon landed on top of one of the wild Larvitar, redirecting all of the attention to himself once more. Gospel distracted them the same way as before, and now that Bumblebee was closer, he shot another Psywave.

The Larvitar that took the attack rolled down The Hall and fell upside down, on the ground, without moving. The other Larvitar looked at it concerned while Bruno and his team didn't let their guard down. The Larvitar got up a few seconds later, barely being able to keep its balance and called the rest of its team; they cried at each other, nodded and agreed to flee.

Bruno sighed in relief, and took Gospel back into his PokéBall, but just in case, Bumblebee stayed outside. Amber was still battling the Tyranitar, but probably it was better not to disturb her.

Suddenly, something pushed his leg, it was the Larvitar that had fallen asleep before, it walked to where Bruno's battle took place and after seeing there was nothing else there it attempted to flee.

"No, you're going nowhere!" Bruno shouted, PokéBall in hand. The Larvitar covered its face after seeing the ball flying against it, just to have it blocked by a flying Sableye coming from Amber's side, giving it time to flee.

Amber's Sableye layed defeated on the ground. That could only mean one thing…

"Dillinger! Sableye is down! Run now!"

Bruno's Party:

moon · Jun 8, 2020

Ralph

Rock Tunnel, Thursday May 23nd

Ralph, Sandsy, Greeny and Softy kept walking urgently until they came out into a quite beautiful setting. It was a big pond, with a waterfall, and the area above was open to let a lot of light in. And wasn't that a power cord along the cave wall? The main path! They had found it, finally. As Ralph was about to head into one of the biggest tunnels leading away from the pond hall though, she heard voices from another cave. Voices belonging to people, and people were exactly what she needed to find now. She opted for that instead of the main path.

The small gang followed a winding tunnel leading away from the pond, and came to a tent. There was a tent inside a cave? That felt so weird to Ralph. There was already a ceiling here, and if a monster came to attack you, thin textile walls would hardly help you. Nevertheless, it looked like it had been here for a while, judging from all the things laying around outside of it, and there were two humans there. Arguing.

"You never know when to give up! I've had it!" a tall woman with a face like a lemon shouted.

"Please, Lavoise! Just this one more expedition, it's not even far from here! I'm certain it will yield something good this time," a shorter man responded.

"You have been certain so many times before, Niels. I'm done."

As Ralph got closer, she saw that the woman was wearing a backpack and looked ready to leave.

"Hey!" she called out and broke into a half jog to reach them, her three pokémon just behind.

"Oh, look Lavoise!" Niels said with a happy grin. "It's a trainer! That's perfect! Young lady, would you like to have an adventure? There is treasure involved!"

"Don't listen to him," Lavoise interrupted, with a dry gaze upon Ralph.

"I'm having enough adventures already," Ralph said and stopped when she reached the adults. "I need help! Tons of wild pokémon started attacking us, and my friend fell down a hole in the ground, and there were boulders all around him, and I don't even know if he's alive."

Niels' grin disappeared. "That sounds... Terrible, I'm sorry to hear."

"He's not dead yet!" Ralph snapped.

"Are you sure? It sounded very dangerous," Lavoise said, an eyebrow raised.

"I... I'm not sure, but I have to try to reach him, right?" Ralph said, feeling like she was trying to convince herself too.

Lavoise shrugged. "Closer to Lavender or Rock Village?"

"We came from Rock Village."

"Good. I can come with you, and help you on the way. Good-bye, Niels," the woman said and started walking the way Ralph had come, without further ado.

Ralph looked from Lavoise to Niels and it looked like the man wanted to say something more, but in the end he just sighed before offering: "I hope that your friend is well and that you find him so."

"Thanks," Ralph nodded, and turned to follow Lavoise.

They walked in silence back to the waterfall, where Lavoise suddenly turned around with a scoff. "Must you keep all your pokémon out? Isn't one enough, or how about none?"

Ralph was taken aback by that. "Excuse me, lady? My pokémon are my companions, okay? They are traveling her as much as I am, and they have a right to be out if they want to."

"They attract wild pokémon. Or might accidentally agitate or even hurt them without meaning to," Lavoise responded, without retort really.

That caused a blush to creep onto Ralph's cheeks. That's exactly what had happened with Coldy before... A bit ashamed, but not planning on admitting it, she picked up her pokéballs from her magnetic belt.

"Whatever," she just muttered, and returned Sandsy and Softy with apologetic looks. Partly for the sake of defiance though, she picked Greeny up into her arms to carry her rather than return her to the pokéball. She hoped that Lavoise noticed.

Ralph led them all the way back through the area with the Zubat and bioluminiscent mushrooms (this time without incident), until they reached the point where Ralph had paused before after fleeing. She felt her heart rate rise slightly. Weird. It's not like she was afraid of those wild pokémon. It had just really been a bother to meet them. Plus what had happened to Joseph.

Well, maybe what had happened to him was the main worry.

"So are we gonna keep walking the main road then, so you don't get afraid of the dark?" Joseph asked after an hour or so, and fully expected the hard gaze that was fired at him from the girl who walked a few steps ahead.

"I told you, it's not that," Ralph grunted and turned away again, still walking along the path under the hanging electrical lanterns. "I just don't feel like wasting time."

"I'll let you in on some advice. The award for being the first person to finish the journey isn't really worth much when you listen to everybody else's cool stories and dangerous adventures that happened because they allowed themselves to get lost."

She didn't stop at those words, but her mind did, for a second.

The true reward lies in the journey itself. Perhaps there is glory in speed. But enjoying the ride and living in the moment is the most important thing of all. That is how we truly grow.

Ugh. All these adults trying to push their own experiences onto her. Why couldn't she just get to choose her own route?

"So what, you won that award and got jealous?"

"I did yeah."

It took a moment for Joseph's short response to register with her, and she forced herself to not glance back around at him. He had finished first? Did he beat all the gyms too? But he had regretted it. Well, fine. Maybe she shouldn't rush at least. But she was going to choose the route.

"What's that?" she said only a minute later, pointing at some strange red glow coming from a side tunnel.

"I don't know," Joseph replied, and didn't seem to be in a bad mood from earlier at least. "Wanna find out?"

"Yeah," Ralph said and finally diverted from the main path.

They entered a relatively big and round cave, with several holes in the ceiling where daylight shone through. The most spectacular part of the scene was on the ground all over the cave though. Flowers. And they were the most intensively crimson red Ralph had probably ever seen. When the light from above bounced agains their crisp petals, a red glow spread through the air, leaking out between the stony cave walls to the adjacent tunnels like the one they had come from.

"You can see why they call this place magical," Joseph said and bent down to smell the flowers. It made him sneeze.

Ralph giggled involuntarily, but quickly turned away. Joseph thankfully didn't acknowledge the slip-up in her demeanor.

"Let's take a little break?" he said and sat down on a rock in the midst of the flowerbed.

"Sure," Ralph said and put her backpack down.

She reached for her pokéballs and unprompted let all of them out.

Sandsy was curled into a ball but quickly unraveled and stretched himself out happily when he materialized. Coldy appeared standing, and started surveying the area immediately. The Rattata that Joseph had been calling Greeneyes appeared with a happy smile and immediately ran up to a flower to sniff it, but then ran back to Ralph for cuddles. She decided there and then to name her Greeny, for the sake of consistency.

Softy was overjoyed a microsecond after exiting her pokéball, and practically jumped into a particularly thick patch of flowers, spreading some poor loose petals flying into the air. Edgy actually seemed to enjoy the setting too, because after giving Ralph an affectionate pat on the head with the back end of one of his lancers, he started buzzing around and visiting flower after flower with surprising serenity. Perhaps a touch of their favorite nature was what both bugs needed every once in a while. Ralph could have guessed that for any pokémon, but made a mental note about Softy, Edgy and flowers in particular.

"So that's the full troupe," Joseph said with an appreciative nod. "A nice group so far!"

"Do all trainers catch more than six pokémon?" Ralph asked before she could stop herself. She was admittedly more interested in learning now than she was in appearing tough.

"Most do, honestly. At the very least seven or eight. Some pokémon just don't like the battling life as much as others, and they can get sent back to live at the college with professor Palm. He takes good care of them, and if you allow him, he'll let them train together with students."

That made sense. Palm and the other teachers had mentioned several times that some of the pokémon were Palm's, and others belonged to graduated trainers. She just hadn't really reflected on what it meant until now. She tried to imagine an eleven year old student trying to control Edgy in a battle against an equally matched opponent. The thought made her snicker.

"You have more pokémon too, right?" she asked her travel companion.

"I do, but they wouldn't like these caves," Joseph said with a wink, but he still took out five pokéballs and held them in his arms with a soft smile. "They're kind of... Larger."

"Oh? And evolved?"

"Yes, all of them!"

"That's cool," Ralph said, and meant it. Joseph was kind of cool. Even if he was an annoying know-it-all adult.

"I could let the two rascals out, of course," he continued, and put three of the orbs down on the ground while raising two in front of himself. "Come out, Zorua, Lycanroc!"

The small fox and the werewolf appeared and immediately faced one another. Lycanroc's growl didn't wait, but Zorua's response was to quickly create a mirage to look like a mirror copy of her. Surprised, Lycanroc's growl died off and was drowned by Zorua-roc's giggling. Greeny ran up to them as well, and gave a friendly smile to the Lycanroc. Thankfully, the wolf seemed to be similarly tsundere to Edgy, and turned away with an angry blush rather than try to attack the two smaller pokémon as Zorua's mirage disappeared.

"Yeah, they're more than enough," Joseph confirmed, but squeezed those two pokéballs affectionately before putting them down on the ground next to the others.

That was when Coldy decided to let out a growl. Both trainers turned towards her, where she stood with her claws ready at the edge of the flowerfield, near a couple of stone pillars. Stalactite? Stalagmite? Not something Ralph had bothered really learning. Although these didn't really look like those stalagthings. It looked almost man-made. A piece of a ruin?

That wasn't what Coldy had reacted to though. Suddenly, a spinning grey and green orb flew up from the growth on the ground and launched spikes towards the ice pokémon. She shielded herself instinctively with Defense Curl and avoided most of the damage.

"What's that!" Ralph exclaimed and dashed towards the Alolan Sandshrew.

"Don't get too close!" Joseph called out from the middle of the field. "It's a wild pokémon. Use your pokédex?"

Just as the spinning orb sunk down below the tall flowers again, out of sight, Ralph took out her pokédex from a side pocket in her backpack, which she put back on just to keep track of it. The pokédex still caught the signal and identified the culprit even though they couldn't directly see it with their own eyes anymore.

"Ferrothorn," Ralph said. "But the pokémon in this picture looks a lot larger and has like, arms with little extra balls on them."

"Oh," Joseph said from behind her, and it was not the kind of 'oh' that ever meant anything good.

"What?"

"Those are just Ferroseed! Back off!"

But just as he said that, several more spinning grey orbs shot up from the flowerbed and rained Pin Missiles down onto them all (as Ralph's pokédex diligently pointed out).

"Sandsy, Rock Slide! Coldy, Powder Snow! Softy, Supersonic!" Ralph called out as she picked Greeny up in one hand and grabbed Edgy's foot in the air with the other to prevent him from diving in and getting friendly fired.

The Sandshrew both lined up in front of Softy as the Pin Missiles didn't harm them much, and when the orbs stopped flinging spikes, they both launched their respective ranged attacks. Coldy quickly sprayed the Ferroseeds with the snow, while Sandsy stomped the ground and sent chunks of big rocks sliding down from the ceiling. As if that wasn't enough, Softy in rapid succession assaulted them with a nasty Supersonic wave.

"That should keep them down!" Ralph cheered.

"No, I bet that just woke it up," Joseph groaned from across the flowerfield and started moving towards the fight with his two pokémon at last.

"Woke what up?"

The monster replied by rising up from the growth just then, flinging its spiky vine-orbs directly at the exposed male human. Like tentacles, they grabbed him and pulled him in, slamming him back first against the stone pole. Luckily, his huge backpack might have absorbed some of the impact.

"Joseph!" Ralph called out, momentarily shocked by the sudden turn of events.

Zorua leaped into action at the same time as Ralph shouted, disguising himself as a matching Ferrothorn and rushing forward. It startled the wild pokémon and caused it to let go of Joseph. Several more Ferroseed flew up from the flowerbed also, but instead of using only Pin Missile now, several of them used a move Ralph was very familiar with: Rollout. Zorua was easily struck and the mirage fell. Lycanroc jumped in after that, and used a very fast move Ralph thought she had seen once on TV, if that was what it was. Accelrock? She slammed the Ferrothorn back into several of the Ferroseeds, and close to where Joseph was. He hadn't gotten up yet.

He was still lying down. Oh no. Was this really happening?

Some semblance of awareness returned to Ralph then and she was half impressed and half annoyed that her own pokémon had just been standing by her and not tried to save Joseph on their own.

"Edgy!" she called out, and he tapped her on the head with the back of his lance to let her know he was there and ready in the air. "Use-"

Ferrothorn charged again, aiming at Lycanroc who had been jumping to Joseph's side. But Lycanroc dodged with a side leap in the nick of time, and the iron monster's Iron Head attack struck the pillar instead. The noise from the impact reverberated through the cave and grew into a rumbling, until the pillar and the rocks near it suddenly cracked and vanished, leaving a dust filled hole in the ground, larger than the Ferrothorn by far. The monster had managed to cling on though, by grabbing hold on safe footing with its vine-orbs.

But Joseph was nowhere to be seen.

Ralph felt as if she had gone deaf for a moment. She didn't at first register Zorua getting back up and uselessly throwing himself at more Ferroseeds, or the two Sandshrews, Greeny and Edgy all throwing themselves into the fray alongside Lycanroc. Snow and rocks and Pin Missiles flew to the right and left, and a shockwave from something pushed Ralph back so she had to kneel among the irritatingly red flowers. Softy purred nervously in her ear and made her twitch from the surprise of the close sound. Softy was okay.

Ralph forced herself to look up and get a grasp of the situation. But it was really hard. Sandsy and Coldy fought side by side best they could, and managed to take down quite a lot of Ferroseeds (how many WERE there?). Edgy and Greeny and Zorua weren't doing too well unfortunately, and when Ferrothorn had gathered its strength again and lashed out anew, even the Sandshrews were thrown to the ground. It must be such an old pokémon, Ralph heard some distant, detached part of her brain think. It must have been living here for years and years, growing and honing its skills. She and her rookie team were just ants to this cave monster. They didn't stand a chance. There was no point in trying.

"Run," she said, but only Softy heard her, of course. "Run!" she repeated, with more force behind her breath.

The Sandshrews listened, and managed to get away, and Softy was already in her pokéball by now. Greeny was trying to get Zorua, Lycanroc and Edgy to listen, to no avail.

Joseph's pokéballs.

Ralph frantically began searching the dusty flowerbed, all too aware that the persistent trio would not be able to hold the Ferro-pokémon off of her for much longer. Hadn't Joseph been sitting down on a big rock? Yes, there it was! And right next to it were five pokéballs.

"Well?" Lavoise said with her annoying bitter face look.

"Well, are you a trainer?" Ralph said, clearing her throat. "There were... A lot of angry wild pokémon. Ferroseed and Ferrothorn. A really large, strong Ferrothorn."

Lavoise actually straightened up and smiled a strange smile. Proudly?

"I am. I only have one pokémon though."

Ralph un-straightened down at that, but before she could comment, the woman continued. "Don't worry though. It is exactly what we need."

moon · Jun 10, 2020

Ralph

Rock Tunnel, Thursday May 23nd

The two trainers (the Rattata in Ralph's arms) entered the big cave where the red flowers still stood quietly in the light from the holes above, looking angry with their soft glow in Ralph's eyes. There were rocks strewn here and there, and patches where the flowers were trampled or cut down, as evidence of the battles earlier. And Ralph knew that underneath the tall, deceivingly beautiful blooms, there loomed vicious metal seeds ready to strike if one got too close. And a big monster.

Lavoise walked straight up towards the flowerfield.

"You fancy dying?" Ralph half-whispered out, several meters behind the cave-dweller.

The older woman stopped then, a mere couple of meters away from the flowers. She scoffed, and took out a pokéball. It looked differently though, and Ralph recognized it from school. It was an Ultra Ball, for capturing stronger pokémon in the wild. She clicked it open, and a pokémon started materializing next to her. Ralph wondered what kind of single pokémon Lavoise thought could stop a whole flock of Ferroseeds and an ancient massive Ferrothorn.

It was a Magmar, and a pretty large one at that, nearly as tall as Lavoise herself. No wonder she had needed an Ultra Ball to capture it. The very ground below it singed as it came into focus and let out a strange sigh.

"A fire type... Of course," Ralph mumbled, backing up against the cave wall and clutching Greeny closer. "Ferrothorn is a Steel and Grass type. It will be super effective. So you'll lure them out and strike easily?" she added at slightly higher volume in the other trainer's direction.

Lavoise just shook her head. "You're complicating things," she replied, before turning to Magmar. It was clear that the heat emanating from the volcano pokémon was almost too much for even its own trainer to be close to. She pointed towards the center of the vast flowerbed. "Magmar, Lava Plume."

Magmar started walking towards the targeted area, while Ralph realized what the plan was.

"You're gonna scorch the whole area?" she said in disbelief.

"It will be most effective, I assure you," Lavoise answered nonchalantly.

That was true, for sure, but... That would seriously harm all the wild Ferroseeds there, even though the Ferrothorn might be strong enough to withstand it. Ralph knew that she should maybe want revenge for what had happened earlier, and a part of her admittedly felt like it would be fair. But burning them out of the blue like that? She recalled how the wild Geodude tribe had reacted when only one of them were suddenly struck by a dangerous freezing move. Scorching a whole clan of Ferroseeds all at once?

"I don't think it's a good idea," Ralph said sternly and took a step forward. Greeny leaped from her arms and squeaked in defiance too, seemingly agreeing with her trainer.

But Magmar engaged the move. A warm wave of air shot out from him, and Lavoise backed away a few more meters before what really looked like a lava plume erupted upwards from his beak, and then plunged down to spread all around him.

The flower field was instantly replaced by a flaming inferno, and screams Ralph was not prepared for reached her, from the numerous Ferroseeds that tried to get away. Many of them fainted from the sudden burns and intense heat, before they could escape from the field.

Ralph had felt chocked when Ferrothorn grabbed Joseph and slammed him against the rock pillars before. But this was if possible even worse. This was sheer evil, what she was witnessing. Rage built up inside of her, and her eyes fastened onto Lavoise's back. The other woman just stood with her arms crossed, barely out of reach for the licking flames, and watched Magmar spout embers at any Ferroseeds who nearly got away.

Finally, Ferrothorn awakened, with a metallic roar. It raised itself up above the flames, and then suddenly flung its heavy body straight at the Magmar. Wrong move. While the impact was hard and tossed the Magmar back into the flaming flowers, coming into contact with its hot body just hurt Ferrothorn even more. Desperate, its bloodshot eyes darted around rapidly and settled onto Ralph, who had walked even closer without thinking. The old, wild pokémon started gathering the last of its energy into what looked to be a beam-attack. Greeny dashed forward as if she thought she could stop the attack in some way, futile of course-

A Fire Spin enveloped Ferrothorn before its energy had finished gathering. After a few seconds, it dissipated, and a burnt body of a fainted Ferrothorn was left in a pile where it had been.

"You're welcome," Lavoise said with a wrinkled nose.

Ralph had to blink a few times and process what had happened, and also hurried to pick Greeny back up before she ran into the flames to check on their former enemy or something selfless like that.

"Put it out!" the girl demanded. "The fire!"

She pulled out Coldy herself and asked her to use Powder Snow, but that spray had little effect as it turned into steam before it reached the base of the flames. Coldy also didn't fare well at all in the heat, so Ralph quickly apologized and returned her again. Ice and Steel pokémon, right, also one of the worst combos to send out against fire.

"Alright, we need to get in there and reach your friend," Lavoise admitted. "Magmar, Smog!"

Magmar blew out a thick cloud of gas that quenched the fire all around him after a little while.

"Clear Smog!"

Clumps of some kind of mud were produced (Ralph did not want to know exactly what they were) and spat out from Magmar's beak. The smog dissipated where the clumps landed, and soon what lay before them were a scorched, black field of ash and injured Ferroseeds. Greeny tore herself away from Ralph's hold again and ran up to several of the pokémon with anxious squeaks. Again, Ralph knew that in a way, they deserved it. But... No, this was still too harsh. And evil.

As if that wasn't enough, she turned back to Lavoise just to see her recall Magmar, pick up a new Ultra Ball and toss it towards the Ferrothorn. The elderly creature was sucked into the ball which shook a couple of times from side to side before finally going silent. She had captured it.

"Quite a good addition. I should thank you for this opportunity!" she said without looking at Ralph, with a satisfied grin on her face. Ralph thought then that it was the ugliest face she'd ever seen.

"And what do we have here?" Lavoise continued and moved towards the crushed stone pillars above the hole in the ground. "My... These are ruins! Remnants from the ancient Rock Tunnel civilization! Marvelous."

"Great," Ralph said, biting any more honest words back as she strolled through the sad area to follow Greeny's frantic dashing.

"You might think so, actually. Because, look at this."

Lavoise held something up, where she was crouched down near the crumbled pillars. "It's an evolution stone! You'll want this for your team, I'm sure."

Still filled with resentment, but determined to not let this all be in vain, Ralph marched up and practically snatched the shimmering rock from Lavoise's hand and stashed it away without even looking at what kind of stone it was. She turned away immediately again and started carefully manuevering around the hole where Joseph had likely fallen down. It was pitch black down there though. She'd need a rope, or maybe Sandsy to help her find her way down safely by climbing the rocks that were safely lodged.

She stumbled over a rock as she thought that, and cursed loudly, letting some annoyance spill out. The rock looked weird.

"There's fossils or something here too," Ralph groaned and picked it up, about to toss it down the hole to see how deep it went.

"What?!" Lavoise exclaimed and shot up. "Let me see!"

She dashed forward to Ralph and plucked the rock out of her hands. "Oh... Oh it is indeed a fossil! My. If I had known that there would be this great finds this close to where we set up camp, I wouldn't have given Niels such a hard time."

Ralph frowned at that. Maybe the stupid lady should have thought of that before. She abruptly snatched it back from the woman's hands.

"I found it, so it's mine," she said smugly.

Lavoise gave her a quizzical look. "I found the evolution stones, yet I gave one to you."

"Well, there were several, so that's different. Plus, your choice what you do with the stuff you find."

"You aren't even really interested in the fossil, child," Lavoise said coldly.

"I'm very interested," Ralph said with a fake yawn, and started turning away, rock in hand.

"I challenge you for it. A pokémon battle, one against one. The winner gets the fossil."

Ralph slowly turned back. "You expect me to fight your Magmar after I saw you slaughter half a city of wild pokémon?"

Lavoise smiled smugly now. "I see you really are too weak to be alone in this cave. Maybe you should turn back and run to the college before a scary bat eats you up."

Ralph scoffed now. "I don't care about whatever you say. But, you know what?" She glanced for a few seconds out over the beaten Ferroseeds, some of which had started to move and try to help each other up at last. "I will fight you. Because I think you are a bitch."

No smile returned that statement. But Lavoise just nodded and walked back to put some distance between them and get away from the smoldering ashes of the ex-flowerbed. Ralph followed, until an area of empty ground was in between them, enough for a battlefield. Greeny took place next to her feet and started growling as intimidatingly as she could.

"Not today, brave," Ralph said and recalled her to her pokéball. "You'd just get burnt up. I only have one pokémon who stand a chance against Magmar."

As Magmar materialized anew a few meters in front of its trainer, Ralph's starter, the Kantonian Sandshrew appeared in front of her. It might not be an even fight, and Ralph didn't really care much about the fossil in the end - what even would she do with it, after all? It would just be heavy to carry around. All she really wanted was to teach the witch a lesson. Or to hurt her and her pokémon a bit, at least. Turns out they were the real monsters in this cave.

[PKMN FULL] TRAINERS (IC)

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