Well, here is another chapter, hope you guys enjoy.
Chapter 6 - Lyn 3
The next morning, they managed to get up at six, which for Cassie was apparently a rare thing, as Lyn to shake her awake after she had done a great job at ignoring the alarm. After a quick shower and a small breakfast, they managed to find their way through the long halls to the pokemon healing station.
The man currently in charge of that, an older man with graying hairs, looked up from his newspaper when the two sisters entered after a hesitant knock.
"Oh, it's you two," he said, squinting distastefully at them, "Well, your pokemon are ready. Your ekans has been healed but a bit of rest wouldn't go amiss. The rest of them are back to full health." He paused for a second. "And so will be the flaffy and bellsprout your pikachu injured, in case you cared."
Cassie was about to assure him that they didn't, but Lyn intervened. "Thank you, we're glad to hear that."
I guess it's too early for her to function politely.
"If it's all the same, we'd just like to take our teams and be on our way," Cassie said, shooting Lyn a cross look which the man didn't see as he was plucking the pokeballs from the healing pad.
"It would be the for the best," he said, handing them over and they quickly placed them back where they belonged, Lyn on her belt and Cassie straps of her bag.
"Thanks, have a splendid day," Cassie said and turned around and just before they left the room, the guy from yesterday entered and all three froze on the sight of each other.
Perfect, just what I wanted.
"You!" he snarled after he got over the unexpected shock of seeing them, "You're fleeing?"
"In panic," Cassie drawled and she turned to Lyn, "If you volunteer me to one more fight, I will have Rush electrocute you."
Lyn raised her hands in mock surrender with a wry smile. Going to wait a bit before doing that again. And I wouldn't have done that against this guy, anyway. He wasn't good enough to bother fighting a second time.
Cassie turned her attention to the guy again, whose name she honestly couldn't remember. "So yeah, it was fun. Later days." And with that, she strode past him, with Lyn following her.
If there was one thing Lyn was sure her sister didn't want right now, it was drama at this time of the day. It wasn't even seven yet.
"I looked you up yesterday," he hissed as they passed him, "I saw that you'll participate in the Saffron tournament. Well I'll be there too, and I will pay you back for this. Not in front of your three viewers but in front of thousands of people, I will show you and your psychotic pikachu that someone like you shouldn't be a trainer."
"Looking forward to it," Cassie replied, waving her hand, not turning back and soon enough, they left him behind.
In ten minutes, they had left Pokemon Tech behind and were back on the road. Lyn was a bit annoyed that her hair was still wet, but it was already rather warm, and it was going to get warmer from here
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By now, they'd been walking for over an hour, at a leisurely pace. Empy was strolling along next to her, as was the spearow of Cassie. He had shown the weakest performance of her pokemon yesterday and had got taken out the quickest but Cassie still seemed to like it enough, Lyn found. She was cooing at him and petting him, whenever he returned from a short flight. It was useful to have a flying pokemon like spearow around, if only for scouting purposes, but Lyn hoped she'd rotate that one out of her team as soon as possible.
That said, her koffing and pikachu had been power-houses and they would be the backbone of her team. Fighting them now would be a folly, but once Lyn had her team the way she wanted it, she'd look forward to a match against her older sister.
Which didn't mean they wouldn't fight for training purposes, but those wouldn't be the kind of real fight she wanted.
The road was well-travelled. Countless pokemon trainers over the years, alongside their pokemon, had stomped out a relatively smooth path through the edge of the forest. The path was popular, as it avoided the dangerous depths of the forest while still providing access to most of its pokemon on one side and on the other, the mountains of Saffron stretched. By no means overly tall, they were still a hurdle to inexperienced trainers.
So far, they hadn't encountered that many pokemon. A few rattata here and there in the bushes and edges of the trees, a few spearows and pidgeys flying, but none of the more interesting ones.
There was making the best with the tools you've got and then there is being satisfied with shitty tools. Lyn was adamant to do the former, but she was also not going to make do with the first pokemon she saw.
Then again, they didn't have all the time in the world. Rereading the terms and conditions for the Saffron Youth Tournament, it seemed that it would be three on three matches throughout, which meant she didn't technically need a full team, but it would, of course, be better to have more options.
Whether it was better to make the three she had as strong as she could or if she should get one or two more and have more strategies available, Lyn didn't know. She needed pokemon that would be worth it, though.
Neither had they run into any rangers for that matter. She'd been expecting to run in a patrol eventually
"How long do you want to walk today?" Cassie asked, after watching her spearow take off once more with a craw.
"Already tired?"
"Nah, but we also need to get some training in. Walking all day is a nice enough workout for us, but doesn't do much for training purposes."
Lyn conceded that point with a nod. "True. I'd thought we would go until we want to have lunch and then practice in the shade for an hour or two, until the sun isn't quite as high and then we can walk until evening."
"Works for me." She then stopped, pointing at the underbrush. "Look at that."
Lyn turned and she found a meowth peeking out from the bushes, the golden plate on its head gleaming in the morning sun. "Yeah, there are quite a few of them in and around Saffron City. Didn't expect to see one this far from the city, though. Must be one of Pokemon Tech's strays."
What an ugly pokemon.
"Why didn't you ever catch one?"
"What for?" Lyn asked, raising an eye brow. "They aren't exactly the best fighters. Their speed isn't too shabby but otherwise, they don't really offer anything that a lot of pokemon don't as well, in addition to other stuff."
"Sticking to the meta, I see. That's boring." She let out a sharp whistle, and pointed at the meowth, who was looking with curiosity at the two girls. Spearow, having heard the whistle and his sharp eyes seeing where and to what Cassie was pointing, dove down with a shriek, slamming into the meowth's back, diving it out if the bush towards them. The meowth mewled in pain, turned around and started hissing at the spearow who was flapping his wings, hovering a few feet above the ground, crowing.
"Once more," Cassie ordered and the spearow went for another dive, but this time the meowth managed to avoid the attack.
"You're wasting your time," Lyn was frowning. "Your pikachu can do everything the meowth can and throw lightning on top of that. Why bother with that one?"
"Relax, I'm not going to capture it. If it had been stronger, maybe, but this one is too weak. Come back, Lancer, let it go."
Her spearow cawed, shooting the meowth one last glare that let it run away in relief.
"Why bother even with a stronger one though?"
"Because I want one. Not sure if I'd wanna keep it in my team rotation but better to have an extra pokemon then to lack them altogether."
"There is that," Lyn agreed, "but we don't have unlimited space for pokemon either and I would hate to waste a slot for a pokemon like that. Not to mention the time and effort to train all that many pokemon before the deadline."
And food.
"You do you, man. This is how I do things." Her voice was sharper now, looking Lyn directly in the eyes.
Lyn raised both hands in a calming manner. "Fair enough. Will shut up about it." After a few seconds of silence, she added, "Good job on the quick fight though. If you had wanted to capture it, you'd have gotten it."
"Thanks, I like to use Lancer for that. Wouldn't want to start things off by poisoning them. They tend to take that badly."
Lyn let out a dry laugh. "Probably. Next pokemon center is a while off as well. Might be a ranger outpost in the forest though." She paused for a second. "Was mom ever stationed here?"
"Think so? Not sure, to be honest. She never mentioned it directly."
"Any pieces of advice regarding rangers?"
"Yeah, listen to them when they tell you something and to not talk back."
"Sounds about right. What's she doing right now?"
"Stationed in Ilex Forest. Usual ranger stuff. Looking out for travelers, keeping an eye on dangerous pokemon, all that stuff." Cassie was running her fingers through her hair to allow it to breathe.
"That one is similar to Viridian Forest, right? Similar in size and varieties of pokemon and all. Mostly bug and poison types, but a lot of them," Lyn asked.
"Yeah, close enough. Difference now really is that Viridian also has a bit of a pidgey infestation, so, there is that, but I think they have more bug types. Anyway, mom's shifts in Viridian took roughly a week or two, so, probably the same there."
They walked for a few more minutes in silence, with only Empy's squeaks and the distance craws of Lancer breaking it up, next to the sounds of the forest. It was a dry and sunny day and it was still early.
"So, dad is still writing then?" Cassie asked and Lyn shot her a surprised look. Until now, Cassie had been rather uninterested in their father and rightfully so, Lyn figured. Compared to their mother, their father was relatively inconsequential for their careers in pokebattling.
"Yeah," she replied, "as far as I understand it, he has been working on that second book for a while."
"Sequel or what?"
"You know, I'm not sure. Whenever we asked a question, he'd get weird and change topics."
As if he had a second book in him.
"Ah." Cassie was chewing on her lower lip as she looked on the ground while they walked.
Lyn sighed. "Elyse has been trying her best and he does play with Amy from time to time."
"Uh-huh." She hesitated for a few seconds. "What's Elyse doing, by the way?"
"She's a math teacher in the local high school."
"Neat."
From then on, it was half an hour of silence and Lyn was starting to feel bad about this. She knew she wasn't making things easy for Cassie but other than poke-stuff, there wasn't much to talk about and she had the feeling that she was going to annoy Cassie soon enough with that.
"How is the streaming going?" Streaming was a safe topic, right? She had Cassie's channel running to the side from time to time but she'd been barely paying attention for the most part.
She brightened at that. "Well, good enough to make a living from it. Even got a real sponsor, who's shilling out for a storage slot and a bit of money. And I get their jackets and vests, as you can see. Well, the vest. Too hot for the jacket. "
"That's pretty good, actually." Lyn was impressed, the storage slots weren't that expensive per se, or rather, it depended on the pokemon in question. It was frowned upon to keep pokemon in permanent stasis so storage facilities were more like huge farms and sanctuaries who were rotating the pokemon frequently and depending on how much effort the maintenance and upkeep of a pokemon was, the higher the cost for a spot. A sponsored storage slot wouldn't do much if one stuffed something like a butterfree in it but it was a whole different story if the pokemon in question was something bigger, like a tauros or gyrados. Something that could be a huge advantage later on but was too costly to keep around all the time and would definitely give her an edge if she played her cards right.
It might even be one of those spots where they actually trained the pokemon on the top of that, next to providing care.
"How many viewers do you have?"
"A few thousand on the streams, have a few mods employed and all, to keep the chat in place."
Lyn's eyes widened in surprise. Her older sister was that famous? "Wow, that's quite a lot."
"Yeah, it was going well. Hoping that most of them will continue to follow me on this poke-battling thing as well. Streaming those things should get good views."
"Well, as long as you keep winning, that is."
Cassie laughed.
"So, for now you're just leaving text posts from time to time and a few vlogs?"
"Basically. And of course, I'm gonna stream some matches if I can and maybe the training when we're in a place with good enough wireless. A bit tricky to do in the middle of nowhere. Guess I could record a bit and edit it later."
And give any future opponent plenty of material to study about the strengths and weaknesses of our pokemon.
"Probably going to draft you as my cameraman from time to time."
Lyn nodded, a small smile on her lips, "I figured you'd do that. Was the way last night any good? Anything to keep in mind?"
"Nah, it was great, thanks. Just common-sense stuff, I guess. Not shaking it and whatnot. Can't do much about lighting and sound, really, so I'm gonna have to make due with what we have. Really, I just want to get as much material as possible and edit it to a cool video or two, those are always popular."
Lyn had seen battle compilations and music videos online and while some were indeed excellent, most…weren't.
"Yours any good?"
"Ha!" Cassie let out a dry laugh. "Well, I'd like to think so. Can show you one or two maybe tonight when we stop. Or rather, once we arrive at Celadon, whenever that is."
"Sure."
With that, conversation died once more and both sisters went back to walking silently, with only the occasional craw of Lancer when he had found an insect on a tree or in the bushes to eat or a mewl from Empy as it tried to keep pace with the group.
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It was later in the day, around noon, when they were on the lookout for one of the camping places on the path and had just reached one. Due to the very frequent use of these paths, over the decades, a few good camping spots had established themselves. Spots for campfires, with a small stream nearby, places that had a low chance of aggressive pokemon attacking, simply due to the fact that human stench and living habits had made these small flecks of land sanctuaries for trainers.
No need to occupy a place of the forest that was relatively untouched if there were more than enough that were.
Right now, they had reached a spot of the path that was more open, as the tree line had reclined on the right and the mountains on the left were looming high.
Eating didn't take long. In twenty minutes, they were all well fed, pokemon and humans alike.
"So, how do you want to do this?" Cassie asked her. Lyn was looking over the assorted pokemon. Nidoran, magnemite, abra, koffing, ekans, spearow and pikachu.
Rather heavy on poison types.
"How did you train yours? I figured we would for the start just do what we always did and then after a few days of observing each other's pokemon and training styles do some combination thing,"
Cassie scratched the back of her head for a second, mulling that over. "Well, sure. My team is so far mostly about poison and speed. Even Diva, despite being rather slow but being able to hover, and make most pokemon hesitate getting up close does the trick most of the time. Of course, fast and dangerous long-range attacks are kinda her weakness, same with things that are immune to poison and can come in close and hard. Either way, being able to dodge is rather important. Pretty much for all my pokemon, really, so usually have them work on speed, evasion and accuracy. The faster and the better they can aim while running and dodging, the better they'll do against most enemies. That goes for all of four of them. In terms of physical strength, only Medusa has something potentially to offer there. For the others, it's not like that will ever improve all that much. Well, we'll have to see first how having only one eye is going to work out for her, so, I'm gonna focus on that while the others are doing their usual thing." She gave the ekans a warm smile, who hissed back with some confidence.
The ekans hadn't impressed Lyn but she liked that it took such a horrible injury with that much spirit and she could respect its will to fight.
"And you?" she asked Lyn.
Lyn had nodded throughout her explanation. It was a solid strategy for the beginning. Seemed best for the pokemon at hand, only thing to do was really round up her team with pokemon who could take some damage and deal it back in close combat.
Then again, I'm facing a similar problem. More so, in fact. Empy had to do the same job as Cassie's koffing did only she was objectively worse at it, seeing she, at least so far, didn't have long range attacks and wasn't physically the strongest. Really, getting her to evolve was a priority, for anything to work.
"Well, things aren't much different there. Jolt has to train the same thing, to be on the move constantly and be able to aim and hit things whilst dodging, whereas I have Empy do a lot of dashes and weaves so she can get close to enemies. Carrie is meditating only, at least until she evolves. Abras aren't doing much before that."
Cassie nodded and was giving her a concerned nod. "So, you need to get two of your pokemon to evolve ASAP and one or two more to round things up. Well, seems we're overall in a rather similar position."
"Guess we'll see how it all works out. Let's start."
For the next two hours, they drilled their pokemon. Lyn had Empy and Jolt practice together. They would switch between Empy trying to dash towards Jolt whilst dodging its lighting strikes, albeit those with barely any strength in them whereas later on, Jolt would try to hit Empy who was doing her best to keep the distance to Jolt.
Checking over to glance at what Cassie was doing would show Lyn that her sister had apparently found her ekans state to be satisfactory to battle at least and had her and her koffing do a mock fight. Meanwhile, her spearow and her pikachu were doing a similar thing as her own pokemon, as the spearow tried to dive pikachu and dodge the more half-assed lightning attacks.
This was fine for now. She checked the time and decided that they would need to continue.
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It was later in the day that they encountered another pokemon, this time a growlithe. They had found it sleeping in the shade of a particularly large stone, almost a boulder. Empy was staring at it, whilst Lancer had landed on a tree not more than three meters away. The fire pokemon had orange fur with black stripes over its body and the fur on its stomach, muzzle and tail had the color of light cream. It wasn't a particularly big specimen though, leading Lyn to think that it was probably rather young.
Most importantly, it was alone, without a protective parent or trainer around. Lyn immediately took out her pokedex and scanned it, to see if it simply hadn't escaped its trainer. The pokedex told her that it hadn't and that it was in fact a she, not older than a few months.
"Dibs!" called Cassie, a tinge of glee in her voice. Lyn raised an eyebrow but didn't mind. She wouldn't have minded one. After all, a well-trained arcanine was a force to behold, not to mention immensely useful in a lot of ways. But she didn't have her heart set on one like her older sister seemed to have and she wasn't going to fight her on this, especially since she was well aware that the she hadn't made things particularly easy for her already.
However, she felt like she should mention one important thing that might have escaped Cassie in her enthusiasm.
"Be my guest," she said, and pocketed her pokedex again, "but are you sure? They have an extremely good sense of smell and your starter is a koffing and the way I understood it you also want a grimer later on. That's at least two pokemon who are rather incompatible with her."
The smile vanished from her face. "Fuck, you're right." She stopped to think for a moment. "That said, it's not unexpected. Pewter gym doesn't hand out trainer licenses to anyone like Saffron does and since I got lovely Diva, I got training in how to handle that. You know the poison course on treatment and stuff. You had to go to that as well for you nidoran, yeah? It won't be easy but I'm fairly certain I can train her through this. Already did so with Rush, even if his sense of smell might not be as good as that of growlithe. Still, same principle applies. Don't worry, I have enough antidotes and know how to deal with this, I just forgot for a second because look at her! She's so cute and her fur is so pretty."
She released Rush, the vicious pikachu looked at the growlithe with some disdain but nodded at the order to be as gentle as possible here. Lyn saw the value in the choice. Two of her pokemon would have poisoned the thing and being so young, the spearow might have injured it more than necessary. The pikachu, as mean-spirited as it was, could do better if he controlled himself, something Cassie seemed to have more confidence in than Lyn thought was sensible.
Cassie could have just thrown a pokeball on the little creature but being caught in her sleep would not make the growlithe more amendable to her new trainer, if anything it would make it worse. Beaten and captured in combat was better than be caught like that, though nothing was better than to win the friendship and trust before capturing one.
That was easier said than done and required food, patience, luck and time.
None of which we have.
In that sense, she was grateful at her sister that she chose to do it like this. She could have insisted on staying here for a few hours and capturing growlithe the slow but more rewarding way and Lyn felt like she would have given her that time, even if begrudgingly.
Lyn was rather sure Rush rolled his eyes but trotted to the sleeping pokemon and rudely poked his paw into her side, waking the growlithe. Her eyes snapped open and she groggily tried to get on her feet, looking around confused until her eyes took in the group of humans and pokemon in front of her.
She bared her teeth and started to growl, which made Cassie coo.
"Look how adorably fierce she is!"
Luckily, the growlithe didn't try to escape and was staring down Rush who was looking back with utter boredom and disdain. She was barking and growling, none of which really fazed the electric rat.
"A very gentle tackle, Rush. Not too much!"
Rush obeyed and jot forward slamming into her side, knocking her back a few feet. The fire pokemon howled in pain and before she could find her footing, Rush was already on her again, this time slamming his tail into her head. The yelp growlithe let out was enough to make Cassie wince and even Lyn felt a bit bad.
Growlithe, now seeing that a win against Rush was not that likely, tried to make a run for it, but Rush was too fast and darted around her, cutting off the way. It was then and there, when the realization set that it was thoroughly beaten, that Cassie reacted. She pulled out an empty pokeball, enlarged it and gently lobbed it at the growlithe. The ball hit her and her small body turned into red poke-energy and was sucked into the now open ball and landed gently on the lush grass. It twitched a few times, the dot in the middle still emitting red light before it dimmed out and the pokeball stood still, signaling the capture.
Cassie squealed in happiness and immediately took out her pokedex and scanned the pokeball, registering the growlithe as hers within the regional system. "Great work, sweetie, you did so good, here, have a treat." Rush stalked towards her with a gait in his steps and accepted the berries with such dignity and haughty poise that Lyn felt almost bad for the growlithe.
She petted the pikachu with great enthusiasm after she picked up the pokeball and the cuddled it to her chest. "Oh, don't worry you. Mommy will take good care of you and you'll grow big and strong and happy and burn all my enemies to ashes!"
And suddenly her pikachu makes a lot more sense.
Lyn leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Well, this should be interesting.
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The rest of the day was spent with marching. They had decided that they would walk until dark and make camp when they found a good spot. It would be then, that Cassie would release her growlithe for the first time and make the first steps in taming her. It was a process that required a bit of time and that was only possible once they settled down for the day.
Meanwhile, Cassie had been loudly pondering the names she was considering but hadn't found one she'd be happy with. Naming a pokemon was important and required some thinking. Long names were not sensible for pokebattlers and one would want names that could be taken somewhat seriously. Made-up names like Skorlash or overcompensating names like Destroyer or Death Wings were all equally bad.
"How about Moltres?"
"No."
"Ice? If said, my next pokemon is Ice, that could make them try to counter an ice or water pokemon but instead it's a fire dog the size of a small car."
Lyn considered that for a moment, glancing up for a second to see the sun slowly setting. "Would only work once, if at that. People at higher levels tend to research opponents and you'd get a reputation as someone who uses cheap tricks."
Not that Lyn minded cheap tricks in and off themselves, but this type was just not worth considering.
"Hmm, how about Fyrestorm? With an y instead of an i?" She was shooting Lyn a cheeky grin which made Lyn chuckle and shake her head.
"Blaze 2?"
"Don't you dare."
"Lady Fyre? Also with an y, by the w-"
"No!"
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Cassie had given up on finding a name shortly afterwards, deciding that it might be better to get to know the growlithe first, which was the right call to make.
By now, they had also found a good camping spot for the night. Next to a small stream, was a clearing with a prepared fire pit, the wood already lined up and ready to go. All they had to do was to pitch their tents, start the fire and eat. Of course, they would be expected to leave this spot as they found it, to make sure that the next person who came here would have the same comfort as them.
She had read on forums how some people didn't do it and since trainers tended to be rather active on such sites, more often than not, people were able to work out who had been the selfish asshole.
There was no fine or anything, but being on the shit-list of a ton of people for being a jerk did make life harder.
Besides, it was the decent thing to do.
In the meantime, Cassie had released all her pokemon but the growlithe and had started feeding them. Empy and Carrie were already eating but Lyn was still busy setting up the charging station, with Jolt hovering next to her somewhat impatiently.
The sun, by now, had gone, darkness slowly setting in. The fire was cackling, and Lyn had to admit, it wasn't as unpleasant as she'd expected it to be. Sure, there were annoying bugs and walking all day was rather tiring but there was a charm to it.
"It's ready, Jolt," she said after activating the device and stepping back. Jolt chirped in satisfaction and immediately touched it with the two screws sticking out of its lower head. It barely made a sound but there were some blue flashes of light as electricity arced from the device to the magnemite, making it hum in delight.
Leaving her strongest pokemon to its meal, she turned her attention to the now boiling water in the small pot over the fire. She took it off the fire and poured it into two cups with tea bags in them. Taking both, she stood up, walked to Cassie and handed her one, which her sister accepted with a warm smile.
"Thanks, Lyn."
Lyn nodded, holding the cup in both hands. It wasn't exactly cold now but it got fresher and soon enough, they'd need to take their blankets out. She'd never been too good at dealing with the cold.
"Are you going to tame your growlithe now?"
Cassie nodded. She put down the cup on the ground, stood up, stretched and then walked a few steps forward. She let out a sharp whistle, getting the attention of her pokemon.
"Okay guys, here's the deal. With a bit of luck, we'll have a new friend joining us, so make her feel welcome, okay? At the same time, Rush, Lancer, you're up to intervene if she does something unwise. But whatever, don't be too harsh. She's still young and I don't want her harmed, is that clear? That's why you two should stand back, okay? Medusa, you shouldn't stress yourself right now and Diva, I would rather not poison her just yet, so if you're finished eating, would recall you for the moment, girl."
Rush seemed miffed and just let out a grunt and plumbed down on the ground, not moving from next of the fire, but he was still looking at Cassie. Lancer had positioned himself on a branch on one of the trees surrounding them and crowed in agreement. Medusa let out an unimpressed hiss and returned to her coiled position next to Rush, basking in the heat of the fire whereas the koffing, already at a distance from the rest of the group, far away from the open flame and the others in order to not make anyone sick, just grumbled in agreement. She apparently had already finished eating.
"Yeah, I know, it sucks but don't let it put you down. I promise, the second we get to Celadon, you're getting a special treat."
The koffing cheered up at that, the bobbing up and down, the ominous cross and bones on its weird body flashing in the light of the fire.
What a creepy pokemon.
"Thanks a lot, sweetie." And with that, Cassie returned her to her pokeball and attached it back to her belt.
"If you don't mind me asking, what does she eat?"
"A different kind of processed food. Some kinda mix between garbage and poison, really. It doesn't so much as eat it as it does consume the gases it emits. Few other living beings can stand that and they don't really take to normal, generic poke-food. The upside is, that stuff isn't that expensive, just a bit more than the usual stuff. Not as terrible of a smell as you'd expect as well. Still, a bit tricky to handle though. Need gloves and the like."
She turned to Lyn and grinned. "She's a bit of a high maintenance girl, but you saw that she's worth it."
"That's one way of putting it but yeah, I have to admit, she's rather tough. How long until she evolves?"
Cassie thought for a bit. "Don't think it's something that'll happen that soon but shouldn't be too far off, really. Hopefully before the SYT." She then grabbed the other pokeball from her belt. "But now to this. The poor thing is probably starving at this point." With that, she pressed the button in the middle, the red top half of the poke ball opened and red poke-power was released, only to form a growlithe that was staring resentfully at Cassie.
"Hey, gorgeous, how're you?" Cassie asked, her voice sweet and bright, and she crouched down, getting closer to the fire pokemon. She then took out a small pouch filled with quality food, poured a bit of it on her palm and extended it to her new pokemon. "You're hungry, aren't you? Do you want to eat? Here, it's great."
She let the hand hover in front of the pokemon, who was staring at it and her while standing on all four legs, glaring and showing her teeth.
Rush, meanwhile, had stood up and was glaring at the growlithe. He trotted slowly next to Cassie and let electricity spark on his cheeks for a heartbeat. It wasn't much but it was enough to make the growlithe cringe in fear and step back.
"Easy buddy," Cassie chided, "We're all friends here." She then met the growlithe's eyes. "I know this sucks, but you were lost and I don't think we can find your family. How about sticking with us for a while. We're going to travel for a month or so and if by the time you say you don't wanna stay, we can try to find your family and I'll let you go. But how about giving this a try? We're a cool bunch, you'll be in my vids and we'll battle our way to the top, how does that sound? To get strong and win?"
The growlithe's expression didn't change, it was still an angry growl but it stood a bit more relaxed. Cassie's soothing tone had accomplished at least that much.
"Come here, girl, eat at least. Give your answer later. I'm not going to withhold food or anything."
The fire pokemon took a few tentative steps forward, sniffed the food in the now slightly shaking palm and started eating. Rush let out a satisfied squeak before walking off back to the fire.
Cassie exhaled, the tenseness leaving her shoulders and she reached out with her other hand, running her hand through her fur rather slowly and while the growlithe momentarily stopped eating, she continued after a few seconds.
"Thanks, cutie. I'm sure we'll be best of friends soon enough."
Leaving the two alone, Lyn walked to the fire, took a sip from the cup in her hands and enjoyed the black tea. Empy came to her side, and put her head on her lap. Lyn carefully touched her face, careful to not come into contact with any of her poisonous spikes on Empy's back.
"You did good against the horsea," she told Empy, who chirped happily. "And I know you wanted to try your best against the magmar but that was a bad match-up for now, even if you hadn't been tired." The thought of Faze and his blasted magmar sent once more a flash of shame and anger in her stomach. She really wanted that rematch.
Empy lightly bumped her head against Lyn's thighs, staring reproachfully at her. "I know, but tomorrow, we really need to work on a ranged attack." She pulled out her pokedex and pointed it at her nidoran. After looking at the readings for a few seconds, she smiled. "I think you're really close. We're going to take some time and train and when we walk into Celadon in a few days, it will be with you having overcome one of your greatest weaknesses."
Empy looked at her, a fierce expression on her face. She wants this more than even I do.
They also needed to work on a few more strategies, against the rarer kinds of pokemon at least. The magmar had caught them completely by surprise. Just because they were rare, didn't mean they wouldn't encounter them. And at the SYT, there would be people with all kinds of pokemon, from all over the continents.
They couldn't prepare for everyone, but they needed general plans for some types. Like what to do with pokemon who were on fire.
But for now, Lyn enjoyed the warmth, the tea and Empy's presence for a few minutes before Cassie sat down next to her.
"That went well," she said, her pokecom in her hands, her tea forgotten. "There is still work to be done and I don't think growlithe will be battle-ready any time soon but I'm hopeful."
"Good job. With a bit of luck, you might be able to use her in the SYT."
"That would be nice, a fire pokemon like that is always good to have. But first, let me update my followers."
And just as she was about to type, a murkrow swooped down and snatched the poke-com out of her hands.