Searching Far and Wide - 42

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Cerulean City III

“Good to know that it fits your refined tastes, Vaporeon,” Pierce commented with a grin as the water type evolution of eevee gave him the approval to his latest pokeblock attempt. Little Poliwag gave a little celebratory dance as he had with every one of his successes. He was a great guy like that, the small pokemon. “And that’s the last one too, so, I think we’ve had enough of eating for the moment, huh?” he added, looking around.

He’d already fed the small gathering of pokemon plenty and he’d even managed to come up with some pretty solid combinations for them too. Granted, there were a few misses here and there, but few of them had been truly bad. He was still convinced that the previous attempt he’d done with Vaporeon really hadn’t warranted the Water Gun he’d received to the face.

Fortunately, she’d toned it down quite a bit.

He imagined a move like that could take his head off if she really tried.

Quagsire whined beside him and Pierce gave the water and ground type a grin before throwing one piece of kibble at him. The pokemon caught it mid-air but otherwise remained pouting. He was a glutton, as it turned out. If Pierce had let him, he’d probably have eaten about as much as the rest of the little group put together, he was sure.

“Come on, I don’t want you guys to get sick because you ate too much,” he told them, pulling his legs out of the water and standing up. Moving to where he’d set up his preserving box with food, he went to close it and shrink it so he could put it back in his backpack for the moment. He was interrupted, however, when a pokemon call was heard from beside him. Turning, he saw a goldeen had joined the one from his group, followed soon by another one. That wasn’t all though, there were a handful of other creatures that were approaching too. “Everyone wants some food, huh?” he asked, grinning.

There were some sounds from the new arrivals… and Quagsire, which made Pierce deadpan at him. The ground type grumbled something under his breath, but otherwise let the rest of the pokemon have their moment , slumping down. Pierce had a moment of amusement when he saw Tentacool pat Quagsire on the shoulder though.

“You are having a good time, huh?” a new voice said, making him turn to see another of the sisters… Violet? Yes, he was pretty sure that was her name. The one with blue hair. “Just so you know, you can ask for food if you are gonna be feeding them. We have plenty of supplies. Likely more than we’ll need for this,” she informed him, making him pause.

“Ah… That’d have been good to know before,” he commented awkwardly. “I guess I should have asked though.”

“You should have, but it isn’t a bad thing to get so excited about cheering this lot up that you forget that kind of stuff,” the sister told him, looking amused. “So, you were the one Lily was talking about?” she asked, giving him a once over and then turning to see the gathering of pokemon by the pool. “I guess I can see it.”

“I’m gonna try and take that as a compliment,” he commented, running his fingers through his hair. “So, about those supplies? They might riot if I don’t hurry up,” he asked, glancing towards the pool where the pokemon were. There were a bunch of them, but thankfully they seemed to be mostly interacting with each other. “Give me a minute, guys!” he called, when he noticed that several of them kept glancing his way.

“Over here,” Violet told him, waving for him to follow as she walked to one side where several preserving boxes were set up. Pierce did wonder if those could be shrunk too or they were more of a permanent fixture. “You can take what you need from here. Our pokemon keep watch though, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to take more than you need,” she told him, somehow managing to keep her voice friendly even with that last part.

“Sounds fair to me,” Pierce replied, not even bothering to acknowledge the warning. It was fair, and that was that. There was no need to make a big deal about it, one way or the other. He wasn’t planning to take more than he’d need for the water types, so there was no need to worry. “Is that a staff member or was I not the only one that wanted to visit?” he asked when he saw another man enter the place, accompanied by Daisy. He thought it was a fair question, since he wasn’t wearing the staff uniform he’d seen a few people walk around with.

“Hm, oh, it seems you weren’t the only one, no,” Violet mumbled, turning to regard the man. Then Pierce saw her narrow her eyes and tilt her head. Confused, he turned to regard the new arrival again, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary with him. Not even with the Sensational Sister by his side, really. Was something going on that he was missing? “Well, keep up the good work, yeah? Those pokemon looked pretty cheerful when I looked at them.”

“That’s the idea,” Pierce replied with a slight smile, still trying to piece together what was going on with the trainer that had come for a visit. “It’s the least I can do, really. Do you know what’ll happen to them now?”

“Well, for the moment we are keeping a close eye on them and making sure nothing unexpected happens,” the sister told him, turning her attention back to him. “While we are at that, the League is looking for shelters to take them for some time while they recover and are prepared to either be brought back to the wild or given to trainers that have the qualifications to take pokemon in their situation.”

“And those qualifications are?” Pierce asked curiously. Adopting a pokemon in such a situation seemed like a nice thing to do. He’d never had a dog back in his old life, but he’d always known that if he did decide to have one eventually, he’d adopt one.

“Well, there are some courses you can take to increase your chances of being picked, but more or less the League has lists of trainers and coordinators with a track record of being good with…” Violet continued explaining, trailing off as she frowned and snapped her fingers as if she were looking for the right word. Eventually, she gave up. “No offense to any of these pokemon, but I meant to say with people that are good with problematic pokemon.”

“Hm, I guess that makes sense,” Pierce replied, considering that new information. Was he in that list too? He guessed he could be, if he went by some of the things the League surely had on his file somewhere. He hoped he was, if he were honest.

“If you are interested, even if you weren’t in a list like that before, you’ll be after this,” Violet told him, making him blink and turn to look at her. “You’ve been doing a good job with these pokemon. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve had to intervene in a situation where a pokemon was attacking the people that were treating them or just had a panic attack out of nowhere. From what Lily told me, you’ve had no trouble at all. On top of that, we are always watching, and when we aren’t, our pokemon are,” she explained, glancing towards where the gathering of pokemon was still waiting for him. “Anyway, keep up the good work. I think I’ve avoided work long enough. Lily might come to hunt me down if I stay much longer.”

“See you around then.”

“Same, and take care of those pokemon,” the woman told him as she started walking away.

“That’s what I’m here for,” he told her, although he might have spoken too low for her to hear him. Regardless, he meant it either way.

[}-o-{]

“Nice to see everyone doing well,” Pierce commented, sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water and his back and head resting on Quagsire. A few more people seemed to have come back to visit their patients, from what he saw, which was nice. It was one of those moments that returned a little of one’s faith in humanity, really.

After seeing a low point such as the state in which all those pokemon had been left, it was good to see people doing their best to make pokemon feel better. It was… soothing, in a way, Pierce supposed. Certainly helped with how bad he’d been left feeling after the whole thing.

Poliwag mumbled something from where he rested on top of his chest.

“Something the matter, girl?” he asked, noticing that Vaporeon was staring off to the side rather intently. Slowly, carefully, he laid his hand on top of her head and simply left it there. When she didn’t shake him off, he started patting her head. “Vaporeon?” he said when she didn’t respond at all.

The water type then barked something that Pierce didn’t quite know how to interpret.

With a groan, he pulled himself up, carefully holding Poliwag so the little one didn’t fall off as he did. Quagsire let out a whine but he went back to silence when Pierce absently placed a hand on top of his head. Looking in the direction Vaporeon was, he saw a man talking with a fish in the water. He couldn’t quite distinguish what the pokemon was, since they were off in a far corner away from most of the other people.

“Something I should know about?” he asked Vaporeon then, finally making the water type look away from those two and back to him. “Is there a problem?” She let out an unsure sound and he looked back at the duo, trying to discern what could possibly have gotten the attention of the eevee evolution. Unfortunately, he got nothing.

Just in case, he glanced around to check for the sisters and their pokemon. He wasn’t sure he knew which of all the water types around were parts of their teams, but he’d identified a few from the way they acted. Daisy was around, but on literally the other side of the pool from the duo. Lily was nowhere to be seen. Violet was closer, but she seemed to be checking the supply boxes.

The pokemon were all over the place, but there were a lot of things to keep track of. Pierce wasn’t even sure if something was going on for them to notice, really, but… Vaporeon was looking for a reason, he supposed.

“I’ll come back in a bit, yeah?” he said, placing Poliwag next to Quagsire. “Keep a look on him, ok?” he asked, getting the part ground time to mumble an affirmation. “I don’t want Quagsire to get into trouble,” he added with a grin, patting Poliwag on the head as the little water type hopped in place excitedly. As for Quagsire, he just whined something but otherwise didn’t move much, the lazy bones.

As he started walking, Vaporeon followed.

Eventually, they walked around the pool all the way towards Violet, who was the one closer to the duo in question

“Something the matter?” the woman asked, noticing him approaching. “Do you need something?”

“I think?” he replied, unsure, before crouching so he’d be next to Vaporeon. “She seems to think something’s going on over there,” he told her, nodding towards where the man was with the water type off to the side. Violet followed the sign, narrowing her eyes slightly. “I don’t know if something really is going on though. I just thought I’d point it out since it seems like Vaporeon won’t look away from there.”

The Sensational Sister hummed.

“Thanks for pointing it out. I’ll check to see for myself,” she told him. “I’d appreciate it if you left it to us though.”

“Sure. As I said, I don’t even know what has Vaporeon so curious or whatever,” Pierce replied with an uneasy smile. He really hoped he wasn’t wasting her time. The three of them seemed to be very busy, after all.

“Good. You wouldn’t believe the number of people that can’t seem to keep their noses out of stuff they have no business butting into,” Violet grumbled, running her fingers through her hair, an annoyed expression on her face. “They are just… ugh… Doesn’t matter,” she grumbled before huffing. “Anyway, I think your group is missing you,” she added, looking over his shoulder.

Turning around, he saw Quagsire and Poliwag waving at him.

Pierce grinned.

“Yeah, I guess they are. If it turns out to be nothing, then I’m sorry for bothering you,” he said, with a nervous smile.

“Don’t worry about it. Pokemon can have great intuitions. You’d do well to continue listening to them. It’s good that you use your brain too though,” she told him with a grin before waving him off.

With that done, he walked back to where he came from with Vaporeon. Here was hoping that things were fine and he was worrying for nothing. ‘Oh well, they’ll take care of it, so that’s that,’ he thought with a nod to himself.

[}-o-{]

“Great job, everyone,” Pierce said, as he called it a day in the training grounds he’d rented for his team and himself. He couldn’t spend the whole day at the Cerulean Gym, after all. First because it’d probably be more work for the sisters, but also because it’d be unfair for his team. They couldn’t be out there, after all, and while he liked the water types well enough, his team was more important.

Besides, he didn’t want to put off another Gym. He had a feeling that if he kept doing that, then he wouldn’t challenge any of them until he had a full team or something like that. So, he’d gotten out of the Gym and gone straight to the training grounds he’d seen while exploring.

“You were with me this morning, Narcissa. It’s Cygnus’ turn,” he commented, and the psychic sent a smug feeling out as he teleported to his shoulders. Judging by the bug type’s reaction, he’d projected it towards Narcissa too, the little rascal. “Tomorrow, the three of you will start your training with the tutors, ok? Gotta prepare for that Gym challenge, right?”

All three of them gave him a determined look. Or, Narcissa and Orion did, but Cygnus expressed it his own way brushing his mind against Pierce’s. ‘Yeah, they definitely wanna do this,’ he thought wryly, but that was just his team. So, it was his duty as a trainer to do his best for them.

He had plans to set in motion for their eventual challenge during their stay at Cerulean. They’d likely be cutting it a little close, since he didn’t want to stay all that long in the city. He wanted a water type, of course, and he wanted to enjoy the place too. However, they’d stayed longer than necessary at Pewter and he didn’t want to delay Lily again, even if the girl was probably ok with that.

So, he’d set his team up with tutor moves that would help them prepare. He’d work on their personal training out of that too. He’d study, he’d plan and he’d prepare. He wanted to be at his best for this. It was his first badge, which meant it wasn’t gonna be all that hard, but Pierce couldn’t give his team less than his best, when they were as motivated as they were.

This was important to them, even if it was likely to be easy. They’d be giving it their all, their 110%. Pierce would be insulting them if he did less than that, so he wouldn’t. No, if he had any say in the matter, whichever of the sisters that took his challenge would get their ass kicked so hard she’d thought she got confused and it was a higher badge tier.

“For now,” he started, taking out Narcissa’s and Orion’s pokeballs. “It’s time to go back to the Pokemon Center. We can spend some time doing nothing there and then you can rest and I’ll do some research on the computers before going to sleep,” he told them, getting some affirmative responses before the bug type and the rock type were taken by the red beams and put inside the pokeballs. “Just the two of us, buddy.”

“Good,” Cygnus said in his mind, nodding. Pierce smiled a little wider at that. He was getting better at pronouncing the words without sounding weird or downright unintelligible. Progress was being made on several fronts, evidently.

The psychic type wasn’t only getting better with that, after all. Teleport was less uncomfortable to go through, although that might be a group effort, as it were, but Cygnus was definitely better at using it in a combat situation now after using it so much. Soon, they could start focusing on distance, and who knew? Maybe they’d be teleporting around in no time instead of trekking through the wild. Although, to be honest, Pierce thought he might miss nature if that happened.

Then there was Focus Punch, which was getting a lot of work done on it too. Cygnus really liked the move, even if for the moment it was next to useless. Slowly, he was pushing it to the point where it might even be battle-ready. Although, there’d always be the rather glaring weakness of having to spend time preparing it.

Pierce had some ideas for that though, but he needed Cygnus to perfect the move.

Orion’s training was going well too, but it was less time sensitive than Cyngus’s and Narcissa’s. That only meant that he could focus on preparing for future fights though. Pierce wasn’t sure which would be the next gym, but he thought he might give Saffron a try. It was supposed to be very difficult, but it was a regulated place, so there was no way for it to be a mess like in the anime, at least.

At worst, he’d get his ass kicked, he supposed.

There was the rather worrying presence of the psychics there, but it wasn’t like Pierce would get anything by avoiding them. Eventually, he’d have to go there. Hell, Lily and him would have to get through the city even if they didn’t want to challenge the gym so soon. Ultimately, it was an unavoidable place. Pierce would just have to pray that whatever seemed to keep psychics from picking up in his… strange situation would keep it up.

Back to Orion though, the onix didn’t have many options against a psychic gym. Well, he had a bunch of them, but there were few in regards to effective moves. Ground moves for the Vermillion Gym though? There were several options there and they were likely to be the ones Pierce would focus on for the moment with Orion. However, there was the fact that Orion could work on that with less trouble than he otherwise would, since he already knew ground type energy and was learning how to use it.

And last, but not least, there was Narcissa, who was pushing forward like the mad pokemon she was. Giga Drain was looking pretty good the last time she tried it. She might even have it ready for the Gym challenge, together with the move she’d get tutored in. If that wasn’t enough to give a pretty good impression, then he wasn’t sure what would.

He was almost afraid that Narcissa would go through the whole challenge herself. Almost, but not quite. Cygnus wasn’t quite battle ready, even if he could probably participate by then. The abra would go and fight if he needed to, and he’d do it gladly, Pierce knew, but still… ‘Yeah, I know, you can pull it off,’ he told the abra in his mind, who seemed to have taken offense to his train of thought.

And Orion would have a terrible time in the pools that made the Cerulean Gym battlefield.

So, maybe it would be a good idea to try and sweep the gym with just Narcissa, Pierce supposed. He didn’t want to plan for that though. It’d feel like he didn’t have faith in his other pokemon, and nothing was further from the truth than that. So, he’d prepare all three of them. If need be, he’d even consider sending Orion if it sounded like a good idea. Weirder things had happened, after all.

‘For now, it’s time to do some studying and for you guys to relax a bit,’ he thought, aware that Cygnus was reading him. ‘I’ll go over my books and you can take a nap, Orion can curl up and Narcissa can do whatever she wants,’ he mused, walking through the door of the Pokemon Center and making his way to the field out back so that his team and him could find a corner to lie on and do their thing for a bit before going to sleep.

“Long time no see,” he commented with a grin as he let out his pokemon. They greeted him as if he were serious though, which had him chuckling to himself, even as he patted Orion’s head. “So, I’ll be reading for a bit while there’s still light,” he told them. “You can do whatever you want now, but remember the Pokemon Center rules. If you cause trouble, no pokeblocks for you.”

Immediately, all three of them gave him looks of utmost seriousness as they pledged to behave. It was a little funny to see them so serious about food that they likely knew they’d get anyway. At most, he’d just cut them back on it a little bit, but apparently that was serious enough.

Pierce just rolled his eyes and pulled some books from his backpack to study.

About an hour later, they had dinner and he sent his team back to their pokeballs. Once that was done, he went to the computer room of the Pokemon Center and started looking up information. He needed all that he could find to better plan for his team’s training. Sure, he had plenty of notes from previous research at Pewter, but he had new information now that he needed to take into account.

There was a lot to look up and learn and note down, but Pierce did it.

That is, until he got a message to his pokegear that distracted him for a bit. It was Lily, telling him that she’d probably arrive to Cerulean the next day if everything went well and asking how things were going. He’d already sent her a message that morning to tell her about the previous day, but it was time for an update, it seemed. So that’s what he did, send her the things that had happened that very day while she told him about her day.

Well, more like while Lily complained that things were a lot more boring by herself, although her team made up for it. Apparently, Star didn’t find it nearly as fun to swim alone and Talon was missing his spontaneous sparring partner. The others seemed to be fine, mostly, but everyone seemed to find it weird to be by themselves all of a sudden.

Pierce understood.

He’d had a lot of distractions and things to do through the day, but when he wasn’t occupied, he’d often miss their random talk. Hell, there was one time when he’d turned to say something to Lily before remembering that she wasn’t actually there. ‘Guess, we got used to that,’ he mused, which made perfect sense in his opinion. He’d spent almost two months together, after all.

“Until tomorrow then,” he sent in the end.

“Until tomorrow.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Nobody cares, but I just wanted to complain that not a single time did I get Violet’s name right while writing this. Every single time I had to correct some mistake I made. “Violent”, “Villet”, “Viloet”, “Violette”, “Viollet”... Ugh…

With that said, this chapter was fun. I imagine not much happened here for most people, but people seem to be liking the more Slice of Life-ish style of this story (if it can be called that). That’s very nice to know, honestly, but I honestly love to write this kind of story.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: How’s the weather over there? Sunny and growing increasingly hotter by the day here. Summer weather is coming and I’m not a fan.

See you.