Searching Far and Wide - 80 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)

- Andromeda, Vaporeon

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Route 5 V

“Everything hurts,” Pierce mumbled, shoulders dropping and looking up at the sky. He wondered, to himself, where he’d gone wrong in life. Surely there was something he could have done to avoid such a fate, right? If karma existed, what had he done to deserve that. “Exercising fucking sucks,” he grumbled.

Then he received a Water Gun to the face courtesy of Andromeda.

“That was mean,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face before moving them up and pushing his hair back. Well, the water was refreshing, at least, so maybe his vaporeon wasn’t so mean… If he wasn’t sure that she hadn’t done it as a favor, that is. It was written all over her unimpressed face. “Don’t look at me like that. You guys are the ones that want to battle. I didn’t sign up for all this exercising,” he complained.

Not that he wanted to stop, really. It was nice to train alongside his pokemon and he had to admit that looking a little better was nice… Nevermind the fact that it was healthier and such, of course. However, that didn’t mean that he enjoyed the burn of the exercising or how his everything hurt afterwards.

That was definitely not his cup of tea.

Alas, there was no way around it.

“Shut up,” he muttered after Andromeda yipped something at him. “Let’s go check on everyone, ok?” he asked and the vaporeon dutifully moved to walk beside him. “Orion is fine, right?” he added, getting a quick nod.

Apparently, his onix had wanted some alone time training, for some reason. Pierce was assuming he was kind of rebelling against being treated like a child or something of the sort. Not that he wasn’t a child, but such were the antics of kids, he supposed, both human and pokemon. Fortunately, he had the ever reliable Fighter-Watcher, aka Andromeda, who was more than capable of keeping an eye on the onix from a distance so that Orion wouldn’t throw a fit.

“Good to know, and sorry for the added work. I know it must be annoying,” Pierce commented, getting an indifferent shrug from the vaporeon.

That tracked, he supposed. Andromeda was a bit of a handful in her own way, but she was very dependable when it came to watching out for others. He hadn’t gotten Cygnus to tell him what the weird name/titles psychics used were all about, but it was difficult not to see the connection between Andromeda’s overall self and her being called Fighter-Watcher.

“Ugh, hopefully nobody needs special attention right now,” he grumbled as he walked, stretching this and that way. Not that it did much, but his whole body felt awful after his exercises, so he wanted to try and do something about it. Alas, he was not that lucky.

Andromeda had no mercy in her little water-like heart for him, evidenced by the roll of her eyes.

“You are mean,” he commented, getting an affirmative yip and she preened proudly. “That wasn’t a compliment,” he added, but his words were thoroughly ignored. “Whatever,” he said in the end, sighing.

By then, he’d already reached the river they’d stopped close by, so he could see how Bellatrix was doing. Crunch was almost done, really, by the looks of it. His gyarados just needed to hash out the last details and that’d be that. Not surprising, considering how relatively simple the move was once one already knew Bite. It was a shame that Andromeda couldn’t learn that, but such was the weird nature of pokemon moves.

“You are doing great, girl,” he praised, getting Bellatrix’s attention and making the shiny pokemon wiggle happily as she always did. She was just too cute for her own good, honestly. “You are definitely earning some nice pokeblocks,” he added with a grin, moving closer so that he could pat the gyarados. “Don’t push yourself too much, ok? You feel a little tense,” he commented then, feeling the area around her jaw as he petted her.

Bellatrix growled something shy as she turned away from him.

“Don’t give me that or there won’t be any pokeblocks for you, young lady,” he chidded, making her turn and pout at him. He almost wanted to do an Andromeda impression by rolling his eyes. Alas, his gyarados was just too adorable for him to be that mean. “Take care of yourself, Bella,” he told her softly, getting the smallest nod in response. “That’s my girl,” he added with a smile, giving her some more pats. “I’ll check on the others now, ok? But I’ll drop by after that.”

Andromeda took that moment to yip something at her fellow Water type, and Pierce looked at them and held a short conversation in which the vaporeon looked less than impressed and the gyarados looked kind of sheepish. He wondered what was up with that, but he didn’t want to be nosy. If it was important, someone would bring it up to him.

“Keep up the great work,” he told Bellatrix, who let out a cheer that probably would have scared some poor pokemon shitless… if most of them hadn’t ran away as soon as he let her out, that is. ‘I just can’t be in a bad mood with this one around,’ he thought to himself, smiling widely as he looked at his gyarados for a long moment even after she turned back to training.

Eventually, he turned and walked towards the tree line once more, except in a different direction from Orion. Checking on Cygnus and Narcissa was a much more tame affair, really. Foul Play was frustrating his abra to no end, but he was making progress, however slowly.

It was actually a bit of a group effort, really. Because Cygnus needed spar partners to more effectively train the move. Thus, Pierce made it a point to rope in any wild pokemon that he could find into helping his abra train the new move. The power of bribes held true for them, fortunately. Some berry salads and some pokeblocks were usually enough to get at least a few pokemon to help out.

If that didn’t work, then Pierce just had to add some training help of his own in exchange. Sure, it was a little tiring to add another pokemon or two on top of his own team, but it wasn’t like he was going as in depth as he did with his team. He felt a little bad for it, but he just didn’t have the time to do full research on every single pokemon they came across.

As it was, he felt like he barely had enough time for his own team and his studies for the First Aid License.

“Ok ok, stop buzzing so loud,” he told Narcissa, rubbing his ear with a grimace. His beedrill was a little overexcited and neither him nor Andromeda appreciated that. Alas, it wasn’t like the Bug type didn’t have a good reason. “Fine, we can move on to a new move. But I want you to pay extra attention to Pursuit when you are working on your other moves, alright? You just got a handle on it.”

He was going to be firm on that. The last thing either of them needed was for Narcissa to move on too quickly and mess up the move she thought she knew well enough during a battle. Let alone what it would do to his starter if she failed during a Gym Challenge, which was what they were kind of working towards.

“Will you?” he added, because Narcissa hadn’t replied yet. When he got a curt buzz in response, he brought a hand to massage the bridge of his nose. “I know you are excited, girl, but we need to do this right,” he said before trailing off. He wasn’t getting through her at all. She was too focused.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t let her participate in the Pewter challenge, or maybe it was because of some other reason. The fact was that Narcissa was getting a little out of hand as of late. Not too much, he supposed, but he didn’t want to let things escalate until it became an actual problem. Now, she was pushing for more and more moves.

Next she might train too hard for her body to handle, or go too strongly in a battle, or pick up a fight with someone.

Pierce wouldn’t let it get to that.

“Girl,” he said, putting some steel in his voice. He wasn’t usually one for such, but he wasn’t above trying to instill order. Immediately, his beedrill looked up at him. “You chose me as your trainer for a reason, didn’t you?” he asked her, some of his firm tone bleeding out. She was his starter, after all. Sue him for going a little easy on her. “Listen to me, alright? I’m trying to do what I think is best.”

After a long, stubborn moment of silence, Narcissa deflated. With a smile on his face, Pierce crouched next to her and patted her between her eyes and antennae. She was a little rough around the edges, he supposed, but she’d been his first pokemon. He honestly didn’t care and didn’t want to know how his life in that world would have gone if she hadn’t caught him with String Shot and basically demanded he bring her with him.

“We are going to the top, right?” he asked her, getting a buzz in response and he was sure she was staring intently at him, despite how little expression her line showed. “There are no shortcuts to get there. We’ll have to work for it, but we’ll get there, even if it takes time.”

Narcissa nodded firmly.

“Great. Thank you for trusting me. I promise I’m trying my best,” he told her, bringing his hand to rub the back of his neck. “I might mess up, but I really am.”

Annoyed, his beedrill poked him lightly with her stinger.

“I know, I know. I’m not allowed to berate myself,” he said with a wry smile. “Sorry,” he added, rubbing his face with his hands to gather his thoughts. “Anyway,” he continued, deciding to ignore the previous things and get to the part Narcissa wanted him to get to. He would still keep an eye on her regarding her hyperfocus, just in case. “What I think you should work on next is Pin Missile.”

From there, he proceeded to explain what he knew about the move to her and how to go about learning it.

His logic was that Narcissa already had physical attacks for both Bug and Dark type energy. She also couldn’t learn any Ghost type moves. Thus, he decided that he might as well help her get a ranged option for one of those. Bug type energy came easier to her, so that was the way, he supposed. Well, that and she couldn’t really learn Dark type ranged moves.

If they could get Pin Missile down by Saffron, Narcissa would be almost guaranteed a spot in the challenge team. Her repertoire would be good enough to cover for the Poison weakness to Psychic. Not like he had anyone with straight out resistance to Psychic other than Cygnus, so he’d have to fill the team somehow anyway.

He was still thinking it over though. Ultimately, he was sure it’d mostly depend on what Sabrina decided to throw at him. It was kind of why he was training his whole team for the Gym. Well, that and because he imagined there’d be a lot of Psychics in Saffron’s battlegrounds. Cities just seemed to have that kind of trend going, in Kanto at least. Not that two cities was much of a sample size, but it was what he had to work with and some light research seemed to confirm that.

“What do you think, girl?” he asked, already knowing the answer. He grinned widely when Narcissa shot up, ready to get started. Sharing a look with Andromeda, who looked more exasperated than anything, Pierce got ready to spend the next few minutes going over how to train Pin Missile with his beedrill.

Once it was all set up, he could do the rounds with everyone else.

“You can go keep an eye on Orion and train a bit, if you want,” he told Andromeda, cracking his neck. The vaporeon’s answer was to just sit where she was and tilt her head. Well, it seemed the Water type was also feeling a little tired herself.

He could give her some rest, he supposed.

Having some more company didn’t hurt either anyway.

[}-o-{]

“By the way, Misty wants me to tell you that she’s been keeping up with her… would it be training?” Daisy told him over the pokegear and Pierce took a moment to consider the question. Was it? It felt more like it was therapy, but maybe that comparison was a little extreme? Then again…

“Training works, I guess,” he commented with a chuckle. “Is she doing well?” he asked, leaning back on the fallen tree he was using as a backrest and watching Orion playing with Lily’s pokemon by the river. Narcissa and Bellatrix, for their part, were playing fetch with the ring between themselves and Talon, surprisingly enough.

It made for a cute scene, if it weren’t for the fact that the beedrill and the spearow were just doing that for some aerial practice. At least his gyarados was having fun, Pierce supposed. Still, he’d probably join them later once he was done with his call. He could use some R&R after having his brain scrambled via reading medical books.

Off to the side, for her part, was Lily herself, preparing a meal for them with Cygnus’ help. He’d usually be around too, preparing meals for their pokemon, but he’d prepared extra the last time so that he could take a break then and there. It’d taken a bit more work, for sure, but it was nice to have some time to just do nothing.

“Yeah, she’s doing fine,” Daisy answered, bringing him back to the present. Idly, he started petting Andromeda’s head on his lap again. It seemed he’d gotten too distracted in his musings. “Thanks again for that.”

“You guys gotta stop thanking me for that everytime we talk,” he told her, more than a little amused. Sure, he got it. Misty was important to them and the gyarados phobia thing was just as important to all of them, but mostly the little sister. However, it was getting a little out of hand. He was starting to feel a little embarrassed, quite honestly.

“Never,” Daisy told him with a laugh. “Anyway, yeah. She’s working with the gyarados over here at least. Not much, but she talks to them and she’ll occasionally pet them or feed them. Sounds like little but it’s huge, honestly. That’s why we won’t shut up about it. She used to not even be able to be in the same room without getting twitchy,” she explained further, her voice turning soft and Pierce could almost imagine the look on her face.

“Well, happy to help,” he replied, taking a deep breath in and letting his head fall back against the tree trunk. “How are things going with you?”

“I’m not missing you too much,” she said jokingly before giving him an actual answer. “Things are good. My sisters and I are trying to apply your advice for future shows. Your performance is a great motivator for our own gyarados, I have to say. I imagine it’d have been much more difficult if we couldn’t lit up the competitive flame in them with that.”

“They can be rather simple if you have the right motivation,” he commented, getting a giggle from the Sensational Sister.

“You can say that again. It’s rather cute, but don’t tell them I said that,” Daisy told him conspiratorially. “Anyway, we are checking if we can apply similar approaches to similarly troublesome pokemon. So far, we’ve gotten some mixed results, but it’s been fun anyway,” she continued, sounding like a kid explaining how their favorite sport practice had gone. “It’s been a while since we’ve done something so… different. Without it involving some new pokemon from abroad.”

“Happy to help,” he repeated, smiling. “Anything that stands out?”

“What doesn’t stand out?” Daisy answered with, giggling once more. Thus, Pierce just sat back and listened to her going on and on about how things were going on her side, with all the pokemon she’d worked with and such. There were gyarados, of course, but also sharpedo, crawdaunt and even some less expected pokemon like the totodile line.

Secretly, Pierce took note of many of the things she said. He might be good working on the fly and understanding pokemon, but Daisy was the Gym Leader, so when it came to water types, he was inclined to believe her if she said something. At least in regards to many aspects, which were the ones he tried to learn from her to the best of his ability.

“But enough about me, how are things in Route 5?” Daise asked and he was a little caught off guard. He’d gotten in the flow of her talking about her own side of things, he supposed. “Have you already replaced me?”

“You say that like we were in an actual relationship or something,” he replied with an amused smile on his face. “Either way, no, we’ve been just training, battling some people we come across and all that. Regular trainer routine, I guess, but I like it. It’s… peaceful. The forest here is kinda nice too. Oddish are adorable.”

“That they are. You adding one as your last?”

“I mean, not looking for one, but one never knows, or at least I don’t,” he answered, shrugging even though she couldn’t see him. “Being on the road is great, honestly. I just miss having a nice place to shower and sleep at… And that you guys were around. Lily is great, but just the two of us can be a bit much.”

“Yeah, that's why the boat is great. Can have that natural peace without any of the drawbacks,” Daisy replied, sounding a little wistful. “And you can be back in civilization whenever.”

“If I keep making money like I am, I might be able to afford my own boat eventually. That’d be nice,” he said, mostly thinking out loud.

“Well, in the meantime we can use mine whenever you are around.”

“You don’t have to convince me to come back, you know?”

“I know. I was that good,” Daisy said, drawing a laugh out of him and joining a second later.

“Food’s ready, Pierce!” Lily called at that moment, making him look up. Well, it seemed like his break was over. Giving Andromeda a last pat before the vaporeon stood up, he followed suit with a groan.

“Pierce?”

“Sorry, sorry. We are going to eat over here now,” he answered, stretching a little. He might have stayed on the ground a little too much, he supposed. “I’ll call some other time, alright? Take care.”

“Same. Don’t get eaten by anything.”

“No promises.”

[}-o-{]

[Lillian Dale]

She sat on a rock further down the river from where Pierce had let out Bellatrix for a bit, looking at the screen in her hands.

Like most times they’d stopped for a bit, Lily had taken some time to explore the area. She wasn’t really looking for pokemon, but if she happened to stumble upon something interesting, like a vulpix, all the better. Lily was pretty sure she’d spent all her luck getting Star though, admittedly, and she was actually fine with that.

Getting a cleffa might very well be the highlight of her year, or maybe even her trainer career.

It’d be something she wouldn’t forget, that was for sure.

Still, she had two spots – at the least, that is – to fill in her team, so she was kind of on the lookout for pokemon that might want to join her. Sure, they were in the initial stretch of the region, really, but getting a pokemon on the last few routes was… questionable. If she did that, then she wouldn’t have much time to train them. Thus, if she did that, she’d have to try and get a pokemon that was already strong.

Not impossible, but certainly complicated.

So, Lily would rather get a decent team before being halfway through the circuit. Maybe she needed to be less picky? She didn’t want to try recruiting every pokemon they came across, but she might have to do that, at the rate things were going. She rather doubted that she’d find the kind of motivated pokemon she’d need to reach far as a trainer that way though. All that left her in an awkward spot.

She couldn’t recruit quickly enough if she continued to be picky.

She couldn’t get a competitive team if she wasn’t picky about it.

‘Life just can’t be easy,’ Lily thought to herself, taking a deep breath in and continuing to look at the screen of the device in her hands. She was currently taking a break and reading through comments from Pierce’s channel. More importantly, she was looking at the comments about her. There were more positive ones than negative ones, but her mind insisted on giving those latter ones more importance than the formers.

Yet, Lily found herself growing more confident as she read them. Even with that, the good feedback was still much better than the bad, and the validation was great for her self-esteem. Something that she’d sorely needed as of late, if she was honest with herself.

Her slump had been short-lived though, apparently. Not that she was complaining, but she’d been kind of… expecting it to last long. ‘Guess Pierce is a better comforter than those two,’ she thought with a small smile. No surprises there. Red and Blue were great trainers and even great friends, but they weren’t what one would call good with people.

Not that all the credit went to Pierce, really. As stated, the video comments had been a great pick me up for her and her team had done a whole lot for her too. They’d kept her company, comforted her too and made extra sure that she always had some support. Truly, Lily might be far from home and her family, but she felt better than ever.

… No offense to the people of Pallet and her family though.

A babbling sound pulled her attention away from the comment section and her own drifting thoughts and towards Star. Her pokemon were all around, relaxing a bit while she sat there. Looking at the Fairy type, Lily expected her baby pokemon to have gotten bored and be demanding attention. Instead, she found that her whole team was looking in the same direction.

Following their eyes, she saw a pokemon at the edge of the forest further down the river.

“Hey there,” she greeted with a smile. Idly, Lily noticed that before, she’d have been a little nervous about scaring the pokemon away, or angering it. Maybe she’d have pulled one of her pokemon close just in case or something like that. Now though, after watching Pierce in action for so long…

‘It’s just curious,’ she noticed, looking at the pokemon up and down.

“Do you want to play with us? Star here is always looking for new friends,” she offered and her adorable little cleffa greeted the pokemon with a babble and a wave of her stubby arm. The pokemon took a few steps forward, but started eyeing the rest of her team warily. “Don’t mind them, they are all harmless. Except Talon, but he’ll behave,” Lily reassured and her spearow huffed and looked away. “You want a berry?”

Yep, the Pierce school of dealing with pokemon worked wonders, even if it was still very nerve wracking.

It seemed she’d made a new friend.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Some training, some interaction and some Lily. All in all, a pretty chill chapter of just our duo of trainers journeying. Par for the course, really, and right up my alley. I love writing regular Slice of Life like this.

Hope you guys enjoyed it.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any guesses what pokemon approached Lily?

See you.