Searching Far and Wide - 6 (Patreon)

Viridian Forest IV

“All I’m saying is that some pokemon can’t dodge that fast, if at all,” Lily explained, letting out a groan out of exasperation. “So, they are more likely to tank a move if you leave them to it. Some trainers like to get that kind of pokemon started on listening when they call for a dodge,” she added then, giving him a glare.

“I mean, I get that,” Pierce nodded, before continuing, much to his companion’s frustration. At least Beedrill seemed to take some amusement from that. “But what about those that can still dodge just fine after they evolve? Why would the trainers still call for a dodge then?”

“Well, I mean…” Lily mumbled, her eyes starting to dart around. He was guessing that he was winning the argument, which wasn’t good for her because it had all started after her last battle. Pierce had been curious as to why she, and most people, really, called for dodges from their pokemon. The fact that she’d done so for Talon, her spearow, wasn’t helping her excuse too much, really. “In some cases, it can be useful to point it out, especially if it’s part of a strategy or if they have to look out for more attacks to dodge.”

“I understand that too,” he replied with another nod. He could see in her defeated look though, that she knew there’d be a follow up statement and that it would be the last nail in her coffin. “But you didn’t call for a strategy or anything. You just told Talon to dodge.”

“Fine!” she surrendered, throwing her hands up. “I got a little nervous, ok? That girl’s pidgey was tough, it evolved, in the middle of the battle!”

“That’s fine, and I knew that, I was there,” he told her, grinning widely. “I just wanted to clear that out, is all.”

“You are an asshole,” Lily grumbled under her breath, drawing a chuckle from him.

“Fair,” he agreed, still laughing. “Girl, you better dodge stuff even if I don’t say anything. That’s first priority unless I tell you otherwise,” he said, turning to look at Beedrill, who was once more hanging from his back. Pierce rather doubted he’d ever tell his pokemon to tank a hit if they could help it, but one never knew. Regardless of his feelings on the matter, the bug type nodded against his shoulder, immediately and completely seriously.

‘She’s a bit too into fighting,’ Pierce thought, more a resignation than a realization. He’d held out hope that it wouldn’t be the case, but after getting into another fight that day, it was difficult to keep his denial going anymore. Sadly, it was all but confirmed.

His first pokemon was a battle maniac.

Pierce honestly didn’t know what to think about that. On the one side, it meant that he could have an income through battles for a bit, sure. However, he didn’t think he had what it took to really make it as a trainer. It was better to get settled somewhere and start building a new life. That was the logical decision to make, really.

‘But that would suck for Beedrill and I’d feel bad,’ he thought, holding back a grimace as he continued walking. It’d be very shitty of him to deny his first friend in this new world the chance to shine as she wanted. To take her away from the thing that she seemed to love the most. ‘Guess I can give being a trainer a shot. Worse comes to worst… Well, I’ll come up with something if it comes to that,’ he decided, rather weakly but it was a decision still.

“Everything alright in there?” Lily asked, breaking him away from his thoughts and making him turn towards her. “You looked like you were thinking about something really hard over there, care to share?”

“Just… thinking about the future, I guess. I don’t think you’ve told me your plans after Pewter, besides your team plans, at least,” he came up with on the fly. It was mostly true anyway, which was the best way to lie, he knew.

“Hm, I think I’ll be staying at Pewter for a little bit to- Do you hear that?” She asked, interrupting herself as she turned to look at the path ahead of them. Indeed, he could hear it. The familiar sound of beedrill. However, this time… His pokemon partner chittered something next to his ear and she didn’t sound happy, nor really angry. It was honestly more… nervous, if anything, which made the whole thing worse.

“Well, I think it’s clear something’s going on over there,” Pierce commented.

“Why are you still walking in that direction then?” Lily asked, hesitantly following after him, even if she was a good few steps behind. “I know you are fond of your bug types in here, but beedrill are dangerous when angered, you know?”

“I do, but I’ve done nothing and I’ve got Beedrill here to mediate if something happens,” Pierce replied with a slight shrug. His partner gave a response that he was pretty sure was meant to be some kind of affirmative statement. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Don’t you know you aren’t meant to ask that?” Lily told him, anguished.

“You can stay back here if you want. It’s not like I’m forcing you to follow me, Lily,” he pointed out with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, but the bugs in here seem to really like you back so… I think I’ll take my chances with you,” she mumbled as she got a little closer, nervously looking in the direction they were going. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.”

“Honestly, the bugs are nice, you just gotta, you know, not be an asshole to them and that’s it,” Pierce said, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s not that difficult. Right, girl?” he asked Beedrill, getting a nod. “See?”

“You are weird, Pierce,” Lily replied, making him blink.

Further talk was stopped as they started to get a view of what the commotion was about. First came the beedrill swarm, buzzing around and drawing a messy cloud around something. Once they got closer, they saw trainers and pokemon. A ponyta was spewing flames at the bugs. A mankey was jumping around, punching at anything that came even close to it or the trainers. And, perhaps the most noticeable of all, a graveler stomped around, doing its best to cover the trainers with its arms.

“Beedrill, can you see if you can calm down the swarm?” Pierce asked hesitantly. The fact that his partner didn’t immediately respond was telling, even if he didn’t know exactly what message it was transmitting. After a few seconds though, she chirped something and then she took off. Once that happened and he watched his pokemon approach the group of bug types, he grew nervous.

She should be fine, he knew. She’d talked a lot of pokemon from her line out of being hostile, after all. Even those that seemed particularly hostile quickly turned away once she spoke a few “words” to them. Sure, these were a whole lot more and were already in attack mode, but they wouldn’t attack one of their own out of blind rage. ‘Right?’ a corner of Pierce’s mind couldn’t help but ask.

“Seems like you were right,” Lily said next to him, still keeping her voice low just in case. He was very relieved to see that, indeed, Beedrill had succeeded. The swarm was calming down.

However, that wasn’t as good as it sounded. The beedrill were still buzzing around and pointing at the group of trainers menacingly. Something was going on there. Surely the bug types hadn’t just randomly decided to charge at them. Especially since they were weak to Fire and Rock, even if they resisted Fighting.  ‘What’s going on here?’

In the spirit of maybe helping so that nothing would happen, Pierce approached the area. It didn’t take long for a few beedrill to turn their stingers towards him and Lily, but he just passively raised his hands and waited for his own bug type to explain things a bit. Once that was done, they returned to glaring daggers – or stingers, in their case, Pierce guessed – towards the group of trainers.

A group of trainers that was currently gathered together back to back, looking warily towards the swarm around them. ‘Huh, I missed the meowth,’ Pierce thought as he continued walking, getting a little closer to the people.

“Hello there,” he called once he was close enough, trying to sound like he was confident in what he was doing and he was a social person. He was neither, but he could try, he supposed. “A bit of a tough spot, huh?”

“You don’t say,” the boy that seemed to be the graveler’s trainer replied with a snarl, which only caused the swarm around to buzz even louder. The girl, which seemed to be the ponyta’s trainer, yelped and hid behind the ponyta.

“Look, everything’s fine,” Pierce reassured softly, gulping down his nervousness. “I just, did you do anything to anger them? I’ve been traveling here for a few days already and they’ve been… Well, not friendly, but they haven’t attacked me if I didn’t do anything,” he said, making sure to explain that last point in case they wanted to try to bullshit him with an excuse about the beedrill being aggressive. “As you see, they aren’t that unreasonable,” he added, signaling around them before his own beedrill approached him and he gave her a smile.

“Well, they did!” the graveler boy all but shouted. “Just because you have one of the little shits to calm the rest of these fuckers down doesn’t-” He couldn’t even finish whatever nonsense he was saying because the swarm didn’t quite like what he said, shockingly. They started flying fast, stingers raised in front of them as if they were knights raising their lances and charging in a competition.

“Girl, please?” Pierce called, a little louder than he’d liked to get his voice across the buzzing to his partner. “Ok, let’s not… be antagonistic, yeah? I’m trying to help here. You obviously angered the swarm, so, please.”

“Just let them have the thing, Josh, for God’s sake,” the other boy, next to who were probably his mankey and meowth, hissed. “I’m not gonna die here because you can’t be assed to release a worm.”

“Shut up, Mike! Just shut up,” the first boy, Josh, was definitely shouting already.

“Josh, please,” the progressively more terrified girl whimpered. “We… We can’t leave here.”

“The rangers will come and we’ll be able to get away from here, you don’t have to-” Josh was interrupted with his reassurances as a member of the swarm shot a Poison Sting to the ground at his feet. “Fuck!”

“Man, I don’t know what you got and I frankly don’t care,” Pierce said, trying to keep his voice calm and peaceful. “But I’m sure it’s not worth whatever may happen if you don’t do what the beedrill want.”

“No, you shut up!” the teenager shouted, glaring at him. “I caught it, it’s my pokemon now. Fuck you, and fuck this stupid- Fuck!” he cursed, as a bunch of purple needles buried themselves around them. The swarm was getting impatient and things would get out of hand, Pierce knew. It was a matter of time as it was. He had to do something though, but what-

“Hello, hello. This is a telepathic message. If you hear me, please do your best to loudly think yes,” a voice said, although he couldn’t quite tell where it had come from, which was all sorts of weird. That certainly wasn’t how he expected telepathic talking to be like. He’d thought it’d be like the words popping in his mind or maybe a voice, but it was like someone’s voice was reaching his ears from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Weird indeed.

‘Yes?’ he thought, feeling more than a little silly. He wasn’t very sure how he was supposed to think loudly but he did his best. He was also a little nervous about having to deal with this on top of the situation with the beedrill, if he was honest.

“I’m a ranger, call me Riggs,” the voice, a woman’s voice to be exact, said then. “We got a call about a swarm of beedrill. Normally, I’d have appeared closer and calmed them down the old fashioned way. But since we try not to do that if possible and seeing as you have a measure of control on the situation, I need you to make sure the beedrill don’t attack when I appear out of nowhere.”

That was a bit much to take in, but Pierce did his best. With a frown, he took a deep breath in. He wasn’t sure how the woman thought he had any control over what was going on, but sure, he could try to do what she wanted.

‘I’ll try,’ he replied, like he had before. He wasn’t sure if the woman was still listening, but… Oh, well.

“Girl,” he called, getting angry chitter from the bug type. He was sure she was chastising him for getting them into that situation which… Fair, he supposed. “Can you calm them down once more? Only once. There’s someone that can help with this but they can’t come because the beedrill are a slight twitching away from causing… quite the disaster.”

Beedrill’s red eyes stared at him for a long moment and he was sure she was glaring at him. Eventually though, she buzzed her wings loudly before chittering something when the swarm quieted down for a bit. Then the many a beedrill started turning around, waiting for this arrival he spoke of.

‘Uh, done?’ he thought out loud, not sure what else to do at that moment. He hadn’t really gotten a manual of how the ranger procedure worked, after all. ‘Should probably see if there’s one of those,’ he noted to himself.

Regardless of his doubts and future decisions, a woman with black cargo pants and a red jacket appeared some distance next to him. Not very far, but not close enough for him to reach her, the woman looked around and Pierce could see the stiffness of her shoulders. There was some disgruntled buzzing from the swarm, but otherwise they only responded to the new arrival with a few of them turning their stingers towards her.

“So, do you know what happened?” the woman asked, turning towards Pierce. She was either very brave or she actually had defense covered in some way with a hidden pokemon. It didn’t make that calmness she carried with herself seem any less impressive.

“Uh, the guy next to the graveler, I sort of gathered that he caught a weedle and somehow angered the swarm,” he explained, drawing a groan from the ranger.

“There’s always an idiot that catches the wrong pokemon, why oh why?” she muttered under her breath. “Alright, kid!” she called loudly towards the group of cornered trainers. “You are gonna let the pokemon go and everyone’s going to go on their merry way, am I clear?”

“What? No!” Josh rejected the idea immediately, seemingly shocked that the ranger wasn’t taking his side. If he was honest, Pierce… didn’t much care. He was already tired with the whole thing and just wanted to be done with it. ‘Maybe I could have gotten away with just ignoring them? The ranger was probably on her way, I guess,’ he mused. “I caught it, it’s mine!”

“And those are generally the rules, unless they threaten to cause a major event that you can’t deal with yourself, as is the case. As a rule of thumb, kid, don’t bite more than you can chew,” Riggs told the kid. “Now, you are going to release the pokemon or I’m going to have to be drastic about things. Either way, you won’t keep it.”

“But I, But it’s, fuck!”

“Yeah, yeah, cry me a river. Now do it before the swarm of very angry beedrill decide that they are tired of humoring us all, yes?” Riggs urged the boy as he took out a pokeball like it was a physically painful thing for him to do. Looking around, as if waiting for someone to support his “cause” Josh eventually gave him and let the pokemon out.

‘Huh, no wonder he didn’t want to let it go,’ Pierce thought almost instantly. After all, the weedle was bright yellow instead of dull brown like the rest. ‘That’s a shiny, isn’t it?’ he mused. Maybe it was because he’d never gotten a shiny in any game he played, but he’d never quite gotten what all the fuss was about. Most of the time the shinies didn’t even look good. ‘Sucks to be him though,’ he mused.

A beedrill then immediately flew by, picking up the weedle with its legs and then disappearing into the forest. As for Josh, he turned towards the ranger, who nodded, took out a device and started doing something with his pokeball. ‘To make sure the weedle is actually free? I thought you had to destroy the ball,’ Pierce noted to himself. Maybe that was only anime stuff, or maybe it was an alternative but not one used very much. He could get it if it was the latter. Pokeballs were a bit too high tech to just be destroyed on a whim, in his opinion.

“Well, that’s that,” Riggs said, looking at the three trainers with an unimpressed expression. By that point, the rest of the swarm had moved away too, but Pierce was pretty sure he could see a few peeking through the branches at times. Evidently, they weren’t quite willing to trust them much now. “Joshua, sorry to say, but this will leave a mark on your record. Not a very bad mark, but I’d be careful not to turn it into one, yeah?”

With a stiff nod, the boy started walking away.

“Goodbye to you too,” Riggs muttered before looking at the other two, who shuffled on their feet.

“They were actually trying to make their friend see sense,” Pierce commented, drawing the attention of the three.

“Hm, good to know,” Riggs replied with a nod. “Guess I’ll let you go, but be very very careful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy – ‘Mike, was it?’ – said, sounding very nervous.

“Of course, we are sorry,” was the girl’s subdued response. With equally subdued byes from both of them, the two teenagers went on their way, probably to look for their third group member. Pierce looked at them go for a moment before the girl paused and turned around. “And, ah, thank you. Could… Um, could I have your name?”

“Pierce Lawson, and it was nothing,” he replied with a slight smile to which she nodded and then continued walking.

“Well, Pierce Lawson, thank you for stepping in. By the time I arrived you were already there in the middle of things, so I’m guessing you are the reason things didn’t spiral even more out of control,” Riggs said, making her way up to him.

[}-o-{]

[Lillian Dale]

She looked in slight awe at her traveling companion as he talked with the ranger. His pokemon partner, Beedrill, for her part, was already wrapped around his neck as she usually was. As she watched them, she was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she’d seen her traveling companion walk straight in the middle of an angry swarm of the bug types.

Sure, Lily had seen him do some slightly odd things, like feeding random pokemon in the forest and casually talking to the occasional beedrill. This though? This was a completely different matter altogether. There was nothing even remotely normal about this.

One just didn’t approach an angry pokemon, of any kind. Even less so if they were in a group, let alone a big group. However, Pierce had done just that, like he couldn’t help himself. To top all that bundle of incredibleness was the fact that he’d succeeded in calming the beedrill down… Somewhat, at least.

‘Definitely made the right choice,’ Lily thought to herself. It had been a bit of a gamble, when she’d asked the stranger with a Kakuna to accompany her. However, she’d taken several things into account before that though.

For one, Pierce had only had a Kakuna, which was about as harmless as one could be, while she had Talon and Root. For another, from what she’d seen, he had looked very, very lost and lonely. It was a bit of an exaggeration to say that she was great at reading people, but she wasn’t too bad either. On top of that, if he’d been weird or suspicious in any way then she’d have bolted from there as fast as she could.

One only needed to spend the smallest amount of time with Pierce’s bug loving self to know that he wouldn’t harm a fly if his life depended on it, possibly literally. It was quite humbling, in a way. Lily liked to think that she was nice but there was nice and then there was Pierce. She’d heard tales of trainers having fantastic encounters with pokemon in the wild and sharing moments with them but those were always talked like they were a rarity.

Lily had a feeling that Pierce would have those everyday, if her time traveling with him was any indication.

And she was oh so in for that. If she could get away with it, she’d travel with him through her journey. He’d been great company too, especially after the douchebags she called friends ditched her at Pallet. See if she gave them the time of the day again, assholes.

On top of all that… Well, her parents, particularly her mother, had instilled the fear of pokemon in her. While trainers didn’t usually have too hard a time unless they made stupid decisions, there was still a risk of randomly encountering a rampaging pokemon, being stuck in the middle of a territory battle, being targeted by a hungry carnivore or such situations. It was always better to err on the side of caution, and especially so by traveling with someone that would have her back.

That was the reason why she was so annoyed with her friends, really. She’d told them what she thought about traveling alone and they’d dismissed her. Hell, they’d even left without saying goodbye because they knew she’d insist on traveling together! Oh, she was so gonna smack them the next time she saw them.

She was snapped out of her grumbling thoughts by Pierce walking back to her. Behind him, the ranger gave her a cheeky salute before she teleported away. Turning questioningly to look at his traveling companion, she saw that he looked… baffled, for some reason.

“Everything ok?” Lily asked, confused.

“Everything’s fine, yeah,” Pierce mumbled, looking down at his ID that she just noticed he was holding in his hand. “She was just telling me that my work was appreciated and that I’d have a good mark on my trainer record… And that there’d be a money compensation transferred to my account.”

“Huh, that’s great. I don’t know why you are so surprised, Pierce,” Lily replied, beaming proudly at him. Sure, she’d been very scared and nervous before, but now that it had all gone well? It was the best moment to enjoy the win! Sure, he had done most of the work, but she was the one that called the rangers with her pokedex, so she’d done her part too! “It’s natural that they’d reward stuff like that. You probably saved, at the least, one of those trainers from getting pierced by a stinger or getting hit by Poison Sting,” she explained.

Judging by the paling of his face, he found that picture as disturbing as she did. Good. Maybe that would set his mind straight. The guy just didn’t have much in the way of common sense most of the time, honestly. Although, she guessed it was somewhat balanced by the fact that sometimes his uncommon sense helped him too.

“I guess…” he replied dubiously.

“Ok, let’s go. I don’t want to be here if the beedrill decide they aren’t done yet, ok?” she asked, getting a quick agreement from the man and they started walking again. As they did, Lily had to wonder what would be the next oddity she’d see Pierce be part of and if she’d get to share a bit more of that next time. She hoped so, it’d sure make her journey interesting.

On that note, her mind drifted the smallest bit.

‘Wonder how Red and Blue are doing,’ she mused.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Didn't see that coming, did you? Did you?!... At least, I hope it was a surprise… And that it was a good one…

Anyway, our boy, Pierce, doesn’t have as much common sense as he thinks he does, at least not for the world he’s in and probably not for our world for that matter. But that’s just the kind of thing that makes everything more fun, don’t you guys agree? I wonder what he’ll get into next time.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What do you think Pierce will add to his team next?

See you.