Hard enough - Chapter 138 - Bonds revisited (Patreon)

I barely made it out the front of the Gym to meet Jenny. I arrived in time to see a blur racing across the landscape towards my gym that quickly closed on me.

Instincts made me reach for a pokeball and release Shin. He lifted his head, saw the oncoming threat, and raised his blades, a shine overtaking him as he performed Rock Polish without prompting.

A moment later the speeding blur resolved itself into an Arcanine that eased their pace into a trot, allowing the dust to billow in before losing its impetus. It fell away, and the Arcanine approached. It eyed me and my Kabutops before its tongue lolled out, and they barked happily.

“Alright, alright, settle down; you had your chance to run,” said a voice from slightly behind the Arcanine. It turned and allowed me to spot a woman locked into a saddle. Her hair was tucked under a cap, and her eyes were covered with aviator goggles. She swept both off and shook out blue hair that I was more than familiar with.

“Offi… Sorry!” I said as instinct made me address her as Officer Jenny. She shot me a sardonic look.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it.” She patted her Arcanine. “Dismount.”

Her Arcanine lay down and craned his neck around to watch Jenny as she unlaced the saddle that kept her legs locked in. When that was done Jenny reached into a saddlepack and drew out a metal frame that she flicked in a practised manner that unfolded until it formed a wheelchair. Arcanine leaned his head around slightly further and Jenny supported herself into the chair. She received a lick without comment and then tapped her pokemon. Only then did she turn her attention to me.

“Gym Leader Brock! As you know, I’m former Officer Jenny!” She brushed a loose lock of hair and smiled up at me from her wheelchair. “You can call me Jennifer to help make it easier on you, though. Does that sound fair?”

I rubbed the back of my head. “Sorry, and yes.” I blinked as I realised I hadn’t even offered to help her dismount. “I’m sorry I should have offered to help you down.” Erika would not be happy with me. Damn! I keep forgetting to ask her to tutor me on manners.

Jenny— No. Jennifer, chuckled. “I actually preferred it.” Her eyes flicked to the Gym. “I hadn’t heard that your Gym was wheelchair accessible.”

“I asked it to be one of the features when I had the Gym designed,” I said in an offhand manner. I walked to the front, and the door slid open for me. Jennifer nodded in approval.

“Arcanine, follow boy!” she said as she wheeled forward.

I gave the large fire pokemon a look over and hummed to myself. “Impressive pokemon. He was certainly fast.”

“It’s one of Arcanine’s best traits, but my boy has got fast feet along with having a serious bite to him.” Arcanine barked happily at this. Jennifer wheeled herself forward with a flick of her arms. “So, you want all of the pups? You expecting some serious problems?”

I wavered my hand in a so-so gesture. “I want some more security on site, but I also have another idea that would require as a professional breeder.”

“I only breed Growlithe,” she said with a raised brow.

“That makes it even better.” I kept walking and led her out the back towards my reserve, where my pokemon mostly resided. When I reached the back door, I opened it and the door swung back before locking in place, allowing Jennifer easy access. She nodded happily as she wheeled past me, and then she turned her gaze upon the reserve.

“Huh, nice set up, got some rocky terrain, lots of tunnels for your Aron, Geodude, Lairon, and Onix. Hmmm waterways? Oh Corsola and that’s the rare ancient type I’ve heard so much about?” she gestured to the Lileep that were busy sunning themselves near the water.

I nodded. “That’s some of them,” I said. She shot me a sharp look at that before humming.

“Word on the street is they got priced pretty high?” she said probingly.

“Oh, yeah. That. They went for a few million when I did the charity auction. Steven Stone and Erika got into a bidding war over them.” Jennifer hissed in a breath, but I waved a hand. “Don’t worry, your puppies aren’t the only security that I have. The other pokemon are all trained on defending this area.” I whistled, and a trio of Onix shot up out of specific tunnels. They turned like missile turrets, looking for threats, while other pokemon hustled into other tunnels.

Geodudes and Graveler’s rolled out. From atop the plateau, a number of my pokemon rose up, with Quirrina starting to glow as he drew in sunlight.

I blew another whistle, and they all relaxed. I heard more than a few pokemon clicking their tongues in disappointment as they returned to what they were doing. A few shot Jennifer and Arcanine hopeful looks, like they might suddenly turn rabid and need to be smacked around.

Jennifer nodded slowly. “Oh, that’s good… You…” She gaped. “You have TWO TYRANITAR!?” she said in shock.

I glanced up to find Titan stalking around the other side of the plateau, with Empress following him with a curious tilt of her head. She’d obviously seen the other pokemon reacting to my command, but as a pokemon that wasn’t actually one of my pokemon running around, she wasn’t aware what it meant.

“Ah, she’s a rescue,” I said, as this explained it.

Jennifer shot me a look. “A rescue is for a pidgey or a spearow that have injured a wing or a growlithe that people mistreat! Not a..” She waved a hand towards Empress. Empress approached and inspected Jennifer. Arcanine growled in warning when Empress got too close for his liking. Empress paused and inspected the fire type only to sniff and turn her head away dismissively as she walked off.

I shrugged, more amused at the by play. “She’s big, yeah, but she got hurt.”

The Empress, who’d heard my words, shot me a look before snorting at me. Her hot breath caused a few dust clouds to build up. I waved, not at all bothered by her posturing. She’d been hurting after having her nest destroyed. I knew that, and he knew it. She was just posing.

Titan nodded to her and turned to me. “Ty?” he asked.

“We’re beefing up our security,” I said in reply. “Also, we're going to look into some new variants.”

“Variants?” said Jennifer with a tilt of her head. “I’ve heard that your Geodude line have been able to become divergent to have an electric-rock typing.” She rubbed her chin. “You think that Growlithe has the potential to have something similar?”

I nodded and waved as Bianca walked out of the cave system beneath the plateau. “Indeed, I’d like to set up a side project with you to work with our resident specialist, Bianca.”

“Hello?” Bianca said as she jogged up to me. She nodded to Jennifer. “Ah, Jennifer, nice to see you again.”

I blinked. “You know each other?”

Jennifer nodded. “We’ve attended some conferences on breeding that Elm has set up for certain professionals. I’ve also read a few of her papers. I’m not sure I’m qualified to work with you on this,” she said demurely.

Bianca turned her attention to me. “Well having not heard the proposal yet, I will not cast any judgments.”

I smiled and opened up my transceiver. “If you’ll direct your attention to the following pictures, I would like to present a number of notable temples that all heavily feature a guard dog statue. Notice the body structure, the snout, and the size. There are also markings on all of these statues that are widely universal. Some of the more recent temples have even gone as far as to keep this pokemon as some of the main guard dog statue symbols.”

Bianca blinked. “Isn’t that Raikou? The Legendary cat? The swirly mane and the stripped markings all match.”

“But the size, foot structure, and use of this pokemon as statues symbolising guards?” I shook my head. “The Temples might not realise it, but they’ve kept the same symbol over the years. You can see it quite clearly in the foot sstructure,along with the ears. Also, the size of a Raikou is much larger than a Growlithe. These statues are just the right size to match!”

Jennifer eyed the images and compared them with a doubtful look. “It’s… not the silliest idea I've ever heard of, but wouldn’t hairstyles account for the difference in body shape? It’s not unusual for a fluffy pokemon to be born that looks different from its own littermates.”

“Ah, but the temple pictures are taken from temples not just in the Indigo region, a sizeable landmass, I might add, but also some pictures of ancient temples from now-lost continents.” I raised a finger. “Continents that don’t have Raikou on them.” I highlighted the pictures, with the most prominent being the Sinnoh region, which we still didn’t have a connection with.

That got both women to perk up with interest. Bianca gaped. “You got pictures of temples from before the war?! That! I’d never considered the implications of that!” She stared at the pictures avidly.

“You’re right! There would have to be a more widespread pokemon that was ancestral and widespread for there to be so many similar statues popping up!” Bianca did a happy dance.

Jennifer shot me an excited look, and for a moment her worry lines and age seemed to fall away, and I was looking at Officer Jenny grinning at me as she discussed Justice.

“So the puppies will be the starting population for the new variant of growlithe. Or rather, the old variant.” She rubbed her chin. “The original Growlithe, if you will.”

I nodded. “Now, things are not like when I set up the electrical field for my Geodude to get used to. I have a lot more responsibilities, and there is a lot more attention being placed on me. What I propose is that I set up a small volcano for you—”

“Every girl's dream,” sighed Bianca breathily.

I stared at her, caught off guard. “I… don’t think that’s right? I—”

Jennifer raised her hand and shook her head to cut me off. “No, she’s right, Brock. All little girls want a volcano to call their own.”

I opened and shut my mouth before deciding to just leave that statement alone for later examination. I made a mental note that I would need to watch Cindy, Suzie, Tilly, and Yolanda to see if this was true.

“Right… Uhm anyway, I’ll have an environment set up for them with the Slugma and Macargo.”

“I can get hold of some Magmar and a Flareon on loan from Professor Elm,” Bianca said before hugging herself. “Oh! He’s going to be so happy with me when I write this up!” Bianca turned to Jennifer. “As the supplier and a specialist breeder, I’ll need to have you as a consultant and part of the study if you’re interested.”

“Interested?! I’m absolutely on board for this!” Jennifer said, bouncing in her seat.

I nodded to myself, very pleased with this turn of events. With one fell swoop, I’d set up the next breeding program for a powerful fire type to join my Gym that I knew would be successful, drawn Jennifer into my circle and gotten a small in with her, built up my Professor credentials, and increased the security for all of my family. I had no doubt that the kids would love to have a Growlithe attached to them —for security purposes.

I’d need to talk to the school about that, but the veil of security would hide my true intentions of getting a rock-fire-typed Arcanine.

I crossed my arms, very pleased with myself. Jennifer and Bianca traded ideas on what a proper study into creating a variant of the Growlithe line would entail before they eventually drew up a list. The twenty Growlithe puppies were all assigned, but Jennifer also spoke of trading for a few other Growlithe for more genetic diversity and validity in the study.

“I should be able to fund that for you,” I said. Jennifer and Bianca smiled happily before deciding that they’d leave it there for today. Bianca headed back into the cave system to review my electrical setup, while Jennifer decided to wheel back into the Gym proper.

“Well, that wasn’t how I was expecting this day to go,” she said as she rolled along the hallway with my to my office.

I hummed. “Yeah, you get days like that sometimes, don’t you?” I said as I considered how my own day had developed.

Jennifer chuckled. “I’m going to have a lot of free time on my hands with having all my puppies accounted for.” She rolled a bit further with her arms working away at the wheels. “Oh, but this study is going to be so interesting to be a part of. You’ll be seeing a lot of me, I think, even if Bianca doesn’t need me too often as a consultant.”

“I think Bianca wouldn’t mind having you accessible,” I said offhandedly. “But this will free up a lot more free time, hey?”

When she nodded, I chuckled and opened my office door. “How would you like something to fill your time?” I offered as I sat behind my desk after pushing the chair on the other side out of Jennifer's way. She wheeled up to the desk and tilted her head.

“You have another task for me?” she asked.

I drew out the business card with her details that I had been given a while ago. “I wasn’t given your information due to your credentials as a Growlithe breeder, but rather your work in the community.”

“Really?” she said sceptically.

I nodded. “Yeah, believe it or not, you being a Growlithe breeder is a wonderful bonus but I wanted to talk to you mostly about what your thoughts are on the current political situation.”

“It’s shit,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “Jonathan is ponyta trading, but he’s fobbing off lame ponyta or burning everything he’s built up to try and make a leap to a higher position. The policies he’s set in place have made for a deck of cards, and we need more robustness set up with regard to the current administration staff. Too many of the departments report only to him and don’t have their own heads of staff. There needs to be a level of autonomy with generalised tasks and responsibilities set up instead of the current setup.”

I blinked, unaware of even a fraction of this. “So, you’re well aware of what’s going on?” I said lamely.

Jennifer tapped her wheelchair. “I might not get to the parties, but I’m still able to get around and pick up information. The policymakers all have known haunts as well as their own businesses. I don’t have to work unless I want to, so that gives me a lot of time to dedicate to my puppies and to talking to people around the community.” She brought her hands together. “Lots of people like to see puppies or will approach me when I’m running the dogs. Thanks to this I have contacts.”

She smirked. “Way more than people realise, I have a lot of contacts.” She pointed a thumb at herself happily. “I’ve got a finger on the pulse of the city you could say!”

I nodded; she had mentioned knowing what ‘word on the street’ was. I’d taken that to be a reference to her former career as a policewoman.

“How would you like to put that to use? I could make you my nominated representative for the Pewter City Gym? That be of interest to you?” I said, deciding to lay my cards on the table.

She rubbed her chin. “Huh, this trip keeps getting more and more interesting. You got an idea of things you want me to do?”

“Mostly look after the Gym’s interests, set up community support, increase local government integrity, and be champion for all things anti-corruption.”

“I can do that,” she said with a nod. “You know a Gym representative can sit in on a lot of different legislative processes, right? I get the right to have a vote on some of them as well.” She was sporting a rather fierce looking smile now. One that I was happy to point at others.

“That’s why I need someone for this. I’m mostly here at the Gym and in the past, I assumed I didn’t need it. Now I know better.” I put out my hand. “Want to join the team?” I asked, feeling good about my decision after speaking with her.

She took my hand with both of hers. “With this and my puppies getting a variant typing from you, I’m excited for what the future is going to bring!” she said happily.

From there, I directed her to talk with Lawrence, as the one most aware of the legal practicalities we needed to consider. When I shot him a message he shot me a reply saying he’d have a contract for her with duties and responsibilities in my inbox by tomorrow morning along with a bill for today’s work. I chuckled when he wrote a note about charging extra on weekends.

He knew I was good for it.

The rest of the afternoon passed with me making my way around the Gym and touching base with the various staff members, making sure they were doing alright. A few of them offered condolences to me for my draw, along with their outrage before talking up their favourite parts. I listened to them for a while before moving along.

Greta seemed a bit down, but I sent her towards Bianca, promising a surprise with something new coming to the Gym. I almost called it a day. I thought for a second that I had touched base with everyone before remembering that I’d taken on another trainer to teach. I searched around for A.J. and found him in the trainer's common room.

“Die die! Die! Go Donkey Kong!” he screamed at the screen.

I watched as he tried to unleash a charged-up smash against Professor Oak’s far too-nimble Starfox. “RAgh!” he screamed as his hit missed only to get blasted back with Oak’s follow-up move. “How?!” he howled as he lost he last life.

“You’re trying to rely on all-or-nothing abilities too much. You like unleashing devastating hits but they are highly telegraphed and not defended against. You need to set up your moment if you want to stick with that strategy,” Oak said with a lecturing tone. “Now pick another fighter and try again.”

“Come on Samus! He’s strong!” said A.J. cluelessly.

I snorted at his mistake, alerting A.J. and Oak to my presence.

Oak perked up. “Ah! Brock! Good to see you! I’ve just been talking with young A.J.!” He nodded his head towards the green-haired youth who grunted in my general direction.

“You took him on due to Agatha’s recommendation?” Oak said with an odd tone to his words that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Yeah, he challenged me at the fourth badge level with a gauntlet run, which was gutsy but didn’t have the legs to put his pokemon all the way through. I think he showed a lot of potential despite some hang-ups. I think I can see what Agatha saw in him,” I said neutrally.

Samuel smiled widely at me. “She always was a good judge of character.” He turned back to the screen. “Terrible at communication, though; she’d say one thing and mean another entirely most of the time.”

I nodded. “I know what you mean,” I said easily. Oak flicked his eyes at me and the screen. I shrugged and claimed a spot next to A.J.’s Sandshrew before joining the match. “Think I’ll play Starfox this time,” I said, eyeballing the Samus on the roster. Oak chuckled, knowing what I was going to do as he selected Luigi.

As the match started I grunted at A.J. “So, you watch the match yesterday?”

“Yeah, it sucked. Will was a coward that couldn’t face you head on. He also got lucky; I was watching a lot of the sports analysts before Professor Oak came in.” A.J. snorted. “They’re all stupid!” Then he smirked. “But I got to watch your press conference, not live of course, but people are replaying Gavin’s reaction to your challenge,” he said with a grin.

“How’d that go?” I asked curiously.

“Got all quiet while the female host did a happy dance,” he said. “They started doing other reviews but it started to get pretty trashy.”

“And that’s where I came in and saw a young man that needed to be challenged!” Oak chimed in.

I shot Oak a thankful nod. “Probably a good idea. Those people are talking heads that can talk an hour about a single moment. A battle is more than a single moment. There were plenty of moments where the outcome shifts.”

“You fought well,” A.J. said, and he left it at that.

“I’m going to have to implement a few changes and maybe broaden my team a little if I want to stop fights from playing out like that ever again.”

Oak dodged a blast from A.J.’s Samus on the screen, and I chuckled as A.J. growled in annoyance.

“Learning from defeats is essential to acchieve victory. If you are still able to learn and move forward, often you will find your way to victory,” Samuel said. “Hmmm that might sound pretty good as a Haiku…” he said thoughtfully as he dispatched A.J., only for me to start grappling with him in close with my character.

“Implementing that mindset can be tough, especially after close or significant matches,” I said idly. “Or just flat-out losses. Those can take you by surprise the worst and make you really work at just standing back up,” I said thinking of the times when I’d begun where I lost.

Oak nodded along and during a lul in the fighting he raised a hand. “Which can make it all the more important to learn now. Also, remember that the weight of expectations can be the cause of losses as much as victories. You will work harder for each, but the expectations should never be the goal, otherwise, you might lose sight of the end goal.”

I side-eyed Oak as he knocked me off. I was trying to teach A.J. from my defeat, but there was definitely some doublespeak going on here. He was mentoring me, and A.J. was getting double duty from me and the first Champion of the Indigo region.

“Losses aren’t why we do what we do obviously,” Oak continued, fighting off A.J. as he did so. “Pokemon battles are a wonderful method of testing our bonds, having fun, making money,” he said this option with a slightly disdainful tone, “thrills, or even for defence, some of these can have greater meaning to them.”

Oak gestured to me. “Your match against Will… it’s good that you can draw some positive from it, otherwise, it would poison much of what should be a marvellous activity.”

“The match poisoned a few more things than just that. Dennis, the Gym trainer I had as the referee, tried to turn in his resignation for how things went down. I tore it up and told him I thought he did the right thing.”

“Yes, he was in a hard position,” Samuel said.

“He couldn’t have just called Will out on his cheap tactics?” A.J. asked.

“No, no, he couldn’t have,” I said with a long sigh. “That was the problem. Will was cheap, but everything he did was perfectly legal. If Dennis had penalised or infringed him, there would have been worse drama.”

“That’s stupid,” A.J grunted.

“Such is life; at least sometimes it’s like that,” I said.

“Sometimes you can do everything correctly and still lose,” said Oak at the same time.

“So get stronger,” A.J. said, unleashing an attack with his character only for mine to reflect it back onto him.

“Sometimes it’s not a matter of strength, as you saw yesterday,” I reminded him. “It can be depth, technical skill… or understanding strategies and exploiting them. But you’re not wrong, I am going to get stronger, as well as those other things.”

“You handled it well,” Oak replied. He glanced at me. “Good show shaking his hand at the end as well.”

“Thanks,” I said with a chuckle.

“Expectations,” he said with a nod.

I nodded back, he must have noticed that I’d glanced at my family before shaking Will’s hand. It was tough sometimes doing the right thing when all you wanted to do was anything else. Then again, I could imagine that he knew more than a thing or two about that, having once been the Champion that ended a war.

“I must admit that I saw you with your pokemon this morning talking through the loss and what it meant.” Oak watched me as he spoke. “You demonstrated the strength of your bond wonderfully. You will have affirmed it to them, and they will grow from this I have no doubt.”

“Thanks,” I said deciding to leave it at that. I wasn’t sure where to go with it.

Oak wasn’t happy to leave it there, though, as he hummed. “It was very moving, I certainly know I wasn’t the only one to pay attention to your bonds and be impacted by what you were showing.”

I glanced at him. What was he hinting at? Had Yolanda seen me talking with my pokemon? I decided to nod as though I had half an idea what he was talking about. He nodded back, pleased, but I felt like the meaning of what we’d spoken of had shot over my head.

We turned our attention to the game in front of us and spent a while playing Smash quietly.

“So, you’re going to broaden your pokemon team?” Oak prompted me after a few minutes of us clashing and A.J. processing everything we’d been saying. I shot Oak a look. I knew what he was doing.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got my eye on a few pokemon to be caught, while I have three that could feature in my Elite team I think.” While saying this, I smacked his character away from a hammer, causing him to pout as A.J. took hold of it.

“Anything I should know?” he asked.

“I’m setting up Bianca to potentially find another variant pokemon for me,” I said conversationally.

Oak blinked and turned his attention from the match, allowing A.J. to catch him and beat up his character. “Tch! A distraction? Really?” Oak said with a growl.

“Hey, who said I was lying?” I said with a smirk.

That rattled Oak, and for the rest of the Smash match, he played in a distracted manner. I knew he was just waiting to race off and quiz Bianca on what I’d discovered. He was more than willing to throw himself into the technical discussion.

A.J. slumped “Aw man, Samus and I only came second! He’s my best character!” he said dejectedly.

I snorted. “You know Samus is a girl, right?”

He shot me a look. “What do you mean Samus is a girl?”

Oak, who’d been standing, sat back down. “Well actually, it's very interesting, you see! If you play—” I chuckled and stood, more than happy to leave them to it.

I had no doubt that A.J. had gained a lot from our little gaming session beyond just how to play Smash better. A ping on my messages had me glancing down.

“Are you free?” read a message from Sabrina. I shot back an affirmative along with my location.

She appeared and paused. “Are you aware your emitters aren’t working?” she said with a frown. That had Oak snapping his head around and stopping the deluge of game trivia.

I nodded. “I’m aware, and I’m on top of it. It's one of the things that I discovered yesterday that has raised some serious questions.”

“Ah,” Sabrina said shifting. “Will snuck a lot past me.”

I hummed. “In a way, he saturated the field and had someone else working during those moments.”

“Huh? Woah, so Will did actually cheat?!” said A.J. standing and clenching his fists.

Sabrina shot him a glance before ignoring him. “You spoke to the League?”

“Lawrence says the evidence is far too circumstantial. It raises a lot of questions, however.” I patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. It was that pokemon we saw during the Moltres encounter, and also, Lance knows. Any future matches Will has will be much more closely monitored by a lot of people now,” I said referencing the Guardians as well as the League.

“Ah,” Sabrina said as she registered this new information.

I tilted my head. “Where have you been today?” I would have expected her to stick around.

“You needed some space and I have been helping my father with a project. I’m sorry I haven’t been around, while I helped pick your mood up this morning—” I shot Oak a look when he whistled lowly, “— I knew it would only be temporary for you. While I worked with my father I was also working on discovering a Team Rocket base.”

“So I can let loose on something?” I said.

She nodded and I grunted in thought for a moment. “Huh, that… would work.”

I nodded as a mulled the thought over some more. “I think I would like to raid it, but we’d need backup,” I said indicating we should walk and talk. Before we could depart, however another person, or rather a group of people, announced themselves.

“If you’re looking to tangle with those crooks! I know I’m down!” said Brawly as he walked into the room. “I only heard a little, but if you need some backup, I’m there!”

“Count me in for criminal beatdowns!” said Flannery.

At her side, Roxanne bobbed her head. “I too would like to assist.”

I opened my mouth to wave them down. While they were all Gym Leaders, or rather, they would be in canonical game events, they were still very green as to what sort of fighting this would involve.

A polite cough and a flex of energy had us all turning to find Professor Samuel Oak standing politely with a fist raised to his mouth.

“My goodness the friendship on display is precisely what I love most about pokemon. They bring us all together in ways that defy our understanding. I too would like to come along and bear witness to your wonderful bonds,” he said politely.

I blinked. Oh, the former champion was going to come along?

Yeah, yeah that worked for backup.

A.J. stood up and opened his mouth, but I shook my head. He glared defiantly but sat down after a moment.

I turned towards Sabrina with a smirk, suddenly feeling a thrill of anticipation work its way through me. “What have you got for us?”

She smiled. It looked like it was time to start throwing some punches once again.