Searching Far and Wide - 9 (Patreon)

Pewter City III

“Doing much better, Narcissa!” Pierce called, grinning widely as he watched his pokemon doing her usual dance with Talon, the spearow, in the air. They were sparring once again and it was going about as well as it usually did. Not to say that the bird wasn’t improving, but any progress the flying type got, the bug type matched if not surpassed, making sure that the gap remained about the same. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how things go after he evolves into a fearow.’

In all honesty, Pierce expected he and Narcissa would get their ass kicked whenever that happened.

As it was though, he could still watch his partner dominate the match, zooming around while attempting to use her defensive moves. They were taking a little less time than before, but she still needed to stop moving to charge them up, which sucked. The part that was improving much more noticeably though, were the attacks. Fury Attack and Twineedle were definitely going to be his pokemon’s main attacks, much to his dismay.

He’d have much preferred her to go for range options like String Shot and Poison Sting, but it wasn’t to be. With that in mind, he’d definitely have her work on her defense. Be it dodging while in close quarters and keeping up her Harden and Iron Defense training. No way he was letting Narcissa just go all up close and personal without a way to keep her out of harm's way.

As much as was reasonable, that is.

“Aerial Ace!” Lily called, making Pierce’s eyes widen. He was no pokemon expert still, but that was one move that he knew what it did. A flying type move that greatly increased the speed of the pokemon together with their overall ability to move. So much so that it was known as a move that rarely missed. Certainly a change from the positively 100% certain hit he remembered from the games, but dodging it was certainly out of his and Narcissa’s capabilities.

Which wasn’t to say he’d just have his partner take the hit.

“Stop and hit him with a String Shot!” Pierce called, narrowing his eyes. If he couldn’t dodge, he could try to stop it. Up in the air, the beedrill froze, eyes locked onto the flying type’s form, or so he guessed since her eyes didn’t really give much away. “If you can’t hit him, then use Iron Defense as quick as you can before he hits!” he added, gulping down. Aerial Ace was a strong attack after all.

Narcissa gave it her best to land her strings, Pierce could very clearly see that. Some of the shots were quite close too, but none of them hit, sadly. Grimacing, he started mentally recalling where he kept the potions in the Storage Box in his backpack. He didn’t want to be scrambling for the thing if it became necessary.

As the bird drew closer though, the beedrill stopped and instead was covered in a nice shine of silver that made Pierce let out a breath. Not quite relieved, since this meant she’d be hit, but at least she had defenses in place for it. Thus, he witnessed his partner getting hit for the first time, solidly at that.

It made him grimace, even if he’d known it would happen if he continued going for a battling career. That didn’t make him feel better when he saw his partner being pushed back and crying out because of the hit. It twisted his insides and it pained him, almost like he’d been hit himself.

At the same time though, it woke up something in Pierce to see that. His partner was hit. His partner had just been dealt damage. His hand balled into a fist and his eyes narrowed. No, that wouldn’t do, at all.

“Twineedle! Rush him!” he called, noticing that Narcissa was raring to go even after the attack Talon had landed on her. His partner flowed into the attack as soon as the command was issued, as if she’d been waiting for it and maybe she had. It hit a very surprised spearow right in the chest before it could do much else or Lily could order anything.

It didn’t send him straight to the ground, but it certainly was enough for the flying type to decide the spar was over, if reluctantly.

“Well, at least we know Aerial Ace works,” Lily commented, already moving towards her pokemon as Pierce did much the same with Narcissa. “You ok though? You sounded angry there at the end,” she asked, throwing him a concerned look as he took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied, deflating a little as he checked over Narcissa. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her, but he might just spray a little potion over the scratch that Aerial Ace had left on her. It was probably unnecessary, but it’d make him feel better. It was a shame that the Pokemon Center only offered one free check up and treatment on arrival. “It’s just… the first time she’s been hit like that.”

“Ah, yeah… It’s quite the… experience, that,” Lily said hesitantly as she picked Spearow up in her arms. “I didn’t like seeing Root get hit during my first battle too. I guess you were kinda lucky it took this long… or not, maybe.”

“I don’t feel very lucky,” he replied, sighing. “But at least she had ways to defend herself, so that makes it a bit better, I guess.”

“You get used to it,” Lily reassured him with a sad smile. “It’s awful at the start, but most of them love battling, some more than others or differently, but it’s what they do. Sometimes, it’d be crueler to not let them battle,” the girl offered, getting an agreeing chitter from the beedrill next to Pierce.

“I know that, I just… I guess it’ll just take a bit to get over that shock,” he replied. “So, since when does Talon know Aerial Ace?” he asked, trying to change subjects. It worked, because the girl had instantly shifted into her usual cheerful self.

“We started working on it just after our first spar, really!” she announced with a giggle. “Talon didn’t like how easy she beat him, so we started working on something that would give him a way to hit her. It’s not quite ready yet, that’s the best it has worked so far, but we are getting there.”

“Guess it’s time for us to start working on something ourselves, huh?” Pierce mused, and he could swear he saw a glint on Narcissa’s red eyes for a split second. Judging by the chittering he got, she definitely liked the idea.

[}-o-{]

“Stun Spore,” the opponent next to him in the battlegrounds called out.

“Fucking hell,” Pierce whispered under his breath. “You know what to do, Narcissa!” was all he could say, because really, he’d been shouting to dodge entirely too much for his liking. It wasn’t like his opponent had given him much else to do though.

The damn kid was throwing powder move after powder move, not leaving him or his beedrill any room to do anything. He was starting to get frustrated and so was Narcissa, he could tell. Her buzzing was getting louder and more erratic. That was bad, the last thing he needed was her getting any wild ideas that would probably end badly.

“Sleep Powder,” the kid called then, sounding entire too smug as he did so. Evidently, he was an annoying little shit and he knew it. “Gust!”

“Out of the way, fast!” Pierce called, feeling like a dumbass but not really knowing what else to do. ‘Come on, there has to be  away to hit the fucking butterfree, Pierce. Think of something,’ he told himself.

They’d already tried String Shot and Poison Sting, but the thing had plenty of room to dodge, with as far as Narcissa had to be to be able to react to any of the area attacks the thing shot at her. It was annoying, very much so. ‘Beedrill doesn’t learn any area of effect moves naturally. Pretty sure of that. I think there are some things we can learn with some more effort though. If Narcissa could get Iron Defense on her own, I can help her pick up something else,’ Pierce decided.

The battle reminded him that no, pokemon battles were most decidedly not just throwing moves at each other and dodging. There was area control too, combos and so much more to it. He needed to get started with some actual strategies or his partner would be the one to suffer if he didn’t. He couldn’t let that happen. ‘Think Pierce, think. He’s gonna keep up with that strategy until Narcissa tires herself but how do we throw an attack ourselves? It’s not like we can… Or maybe…’

And then an idea formed.

“Come on, Narcissa! It’s going to get tired eventually, you just have to outlast them!” Pierce called, obviously lying through his teeth. There was no way they were going to win the battle of attrition as it was, but he was going to shake the board a little bit. He just needed…

“You really think that?” the other trained asked, laughing out loud. “Come on, show them, Butte-” he started calling out, but he’d taken too long. Those few seconds of pause were all that Pierce needed.

“Fury Attack!” he ordered, and Narcissa followed to the letter.

“Stun Spore!” the opposing trainer called, less confident all of a sudden.

“Charge through!” Pierce called. Maybe it was a bad idea, but it was all or nothing for them. If the attempt didn’t work then he’d just surrender. There was no need to keep the battle going forever when all it would do was make him and more important Narcissa feel bad.

Stingers shining, zoomed right up to the butterfree’s face before starting to hit it all over. Obviously, the poor thing wasn’t very used or even good at close combat, which made sense considering the battle style they’d been going for so far. That only made the moment all the sweeter for Pierce and he was sure it did for Narcissa too.

“Wowow, Gust! Get out of there!” the trainer called, now panicking. It brought joy to Pierce's heart to see that and he’d have loved to drag things out as he’d done, but he really couldn’t. “Confusion!”

“Twineedle!” Pierce called instantly, hoping that the bug type attack would disturb the psychic energy required for the move Butterfree was attempting. Sure enough, Narcissa only wavered the smallest bit before hitting the butterfly pokemon with her stingers. Her movements were getting more and more stiff as the seconds passed, due to the Stun Spore no doubt, but her opponent was faring much worse. “Come on, finish this quick, Narcissa!” he told her, getting a nod as the stingers shone brightly.

Soon enough, the referee of the battlefield they’d chosen for their battle called the match. Pierce wasted no time in recalling his partner though, not before congratulating her, however. He’d be rushing right to the Pokemon Center. She hadn’t taken much damage in that fight, besides another attempt at Confusion that had hit her against the ground. She had been fighting with the effects of Stun Spore though and he wanted to get rid of that quickly. He’d have to pay for the treatment, of course, but it would still likely be a monetary win regardless, so he wasn’t too worried.

‘I need to prepare for battles like this. Not everything will be a simple brawl,’ Pierce thought to himself. While Narcissa was getting checked, he’d look through information on the computer some more and start brainstorming strategies. He needed to have at least a semblance of a plan for most common things they could come across. Or that was the idea, at least.

[}-o-{]

“We already battled once, Narcissa,” Pierce told his partner with an unimpressed look as she protested, waving her stingers around for emphasis. “Yes, I know it didn’t get you all that hurt, but you still got hit a few times and the nurse said it’d be better to take it easy. There might be some lingering Stun Spore, after all. There’s no need to risk anything,” he argued, rolling his eyes. “We are taking this job, I’ve already decided. It’ll give us some more money to work with and it shouldn’t be too difficult. If I think you are fine and we finish it quickly enough, then we can have another battle. Sounds fair?” he said, offering that last part in order to be done with the conversation already.

That seemed to be enough to placate the overeager beedrill, which made him roll his eyes. Honestly, would it kill her to relax a bit? He knew she liked battles, but Narcissa was taking things to a whole new level. Pierce would have to get used to it though, because – if anything – she seemed to be getting worse as time passed.

“Great,” he said after she replied with a positive chitter, even if it sounded very, very reluctant. “Now, let’s get moving. The job is on the outskirts of what can be considered Pewter, so we’ll have to walk a whole lot,” he informed her, checking over the paper he’d been given when he accepted the job on the Pokemon Center’s board.

Apparently, people around the area were free to post little jobs for trainers to do if they were in the area and felt like it. From what he’d seen, the range of things was quite wide. He’d seen people that needed certain types of pokemon to lend a helping hand here and there or that had some wild pokemon causing trouble somewhere and needed them to be dealt with. There were also families that wanted someone to give some training classes to their children, which usually required more experienced trainers.

As it was, Pierce had taken a simple job from a farm close to Viridian Forest. They were having trouble with the beedrill in the area, apparently, so he felt like he had a decent chance in helping them. From what the paper said, it was mostly that the bug types got a little too agitated whenever they were working on the parts that were closer to the forest. A few talks here and there and some pokemon food thrown around should solve that, Pierce felt.

He just hoped the whole thing took enough time that there wouldn’t be time for more battling when they came back. There was no such thing as overkill when it came to looking after one’s health, and that applied even more so to Narcissa. Pierce wasn’t sure how pokemon physiology worked, but he wanted to make sure that his partner was always in as good health as he could have her.

The beedrill wanted to be a battler that went far? Then he’d take her there, but on his terms. The last thing he wanted was for her to fall short because she’d pushed herself too hard. ‘How am I having this much trouble with only one pokemon?’ he thought wryly as he walked down the road, his mind drifting off to one thing or another as he did.

“I really hope you won’t give me all this trouble when we have more members in the team, Narcissa,” he commented, having let the beedrill out of her pokeball once they were out of what could be called the actual city parts. It was mostly houses sprinkled here and there at that point, all of them surrounded by farmlands. Occasionally they’d see a store or such, but those were the odd ones out, really.

As a response, his partner gave his neck a squeeze with her stingers and chittered something that sounded very annoyed.

“It’s always a bit nostalgic when your grumpy side comes out,” he commented, wiping a fake tear from his eyes. “Reminds me of the old times, you know? When we were the Grumpy Kakuna and the Foolish Pierce. Now we are the Clingy Narcissa and the Foolish Pierce instead,” he said, chuckling when she gave him a smack with one of her stingers. “Now, there’s no need for violence, young lady.”

He was fairly sure that what followed was the beedrill equivalent of an exasperated sigh.

“Honestly, don’t know why you are so annoyed,” he commented, rolling his eyes. “This will make more money than we’d have if we battled one more time, even if we battled twice, which would be as far as I’d go so you don’t push yourself too much. That’s a good thing because I might be able to get you a teacher to learn a few moves that will be hard on our own, or would take too much time,” he explained, getting more grumbling in response. “Honestly,” he muttered.

It was interesting to learn that there was no such thing as TMs in the world he was in. It all seemed to go in a similar mechanic as with what he thought Tutor moves were like in the games. There was a list of moves that pokemon could learn naturally and without much trouble. And then there was another that they could learn but had a lot of trouble getting. That’s where the “tutors” came in, pokemon that already knew the moves and could help a pokemon that wouldn’t normally use a move get the hang of it. Granted, there were levels of quality in the “teachers” but that was something for future Pierce to deal with.

“You’ll be thanking me when we get some cool moves added to your list,” Pierce commented, shaking his head. “People will know you as one of the strongest beedrill around, that’s the goal we have for ourselves, isn’t it? I’ll do my best to get you there.”

Narcissa chittered something much more positive at that, which made him chuckle.

“You liked the sound of that, huh?” he asked, grinning. “I did too. Now, bear with me, will you?”

[}-o-{]

“They should start soon enough,” the man that had welcomed Pierce at the job site told him as they walked through the plants of his farm. It was a berry farm, it seemed, and there were bushes and plants and trees all around the place. The particular area they were walking into had the latters. “It’s a nightmare, I tell you. We try to come to this part and collect the berries and they’ll just start their ruckus. We can’t really do much about it. I have an old weepinbell but it’s, as I said, old and I was never that good at training as I was taking care of plants.”

“Understandable,” Pierce replied, looking around. It was evident that the guy wasn’t lying, at least. As they continued walking, the trees had more and more fruits on them. Fruits that the man’s family hadn’t been able to pick up due to- “Ah, there they are,” he mumbled hearing a distant buzz that got louder and louder.

“I won’t go any further,” the man told him then, standing rooted where he’d been when the sounds started. “I hope you can do this, young man. A few trainers have come and all that they did barely worked for a few days at best.”

That was interesting to hear, Pierce thought.

“I have a few plans, but I think it fair to warn you of something,” Pierce told him, walking back towards the man to talk about what he was going to do and how he was going to try to get the beedrills off the man’s back. “I got through Viridian Forest the day before yesterday,” he started explaining then, getting the man’s attention instantly. “I met a lot of beedrill looking for trouble and such. I got them off my back easily enough with some help from my own beedrill and some food,” he said, waving a hand to the beedrill clinging to his back.

“Food?” the man asked, visibly confused by that last tidbit.

“Yep,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “The weedle line is full of gluttons. You throw some food their way and they’ll happily let you be. They even become quite friendly if you do.”

“Friendly,” the man repeated, as if he couldn’t believe that word being associated with the beedrill.

“Indeed.” Pierce nodded. “So, what I wanted to know is if I can try to negotiate with them. There’s a lot of fruit here that you just can’t come and collect. Maybe if you part with some of them or maybe some others if they like those better, you can get them to leave you alone, is what I was thinking.”

“I… It’d depend on how much,” the man told him, visibly conflicted.

“Of course. I’m not trying to make you lose business and such. But I think it’s better to get at least some of the fruits you aren’t getting due to the beedrill instead of none of them.” Pierce reassured him before clarifying. “If that’s not something you can do, then I just won’t offer that to them. I won’t even do it straight away if you are willing, I just thought it’d be a nice option to have if all else fails,” he explained, running his finger through his hair.

He was getting a picture from the farm and what may be going on with the beedrill. If he was right, then things would be a little more complicated than he thought. With some luck, he’d be able to resolve the issue. If not… Well, he just wouldn’t get paid, which would suck, but wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“I… Yeah, if it’s some or nothing, I’ll take some,” the man told him, looking pretty dejected. “We can make due with any of that, honestly, but it’s ours. Not being able to get it is… frustrating, I’m sure you understand.”

“I do. I’ll make sure that you can at least access it, even if you have to… Well, pay food taxes to the beedrill,” Pierce said, drawing a chuckle from the man. “Tell you what, I’ll try to do you one better, actually.”

“Oh?”

With a grin, Pierce walked off towards the buzzing of the beedrill.

“Beedrill,” he greeted once he saw the first one of what became many in just a few seconds. “I’ve come to bargain,” he added, his lips twitching.

[}-o-{]

[Donald Bouknight]

“So, that’s about the deal I got out of them, you mark a few trees so they know which ones are “theirs” as it were and they’ll leave you alone,” Pierce, the fourth trainer to pick up his job to deal with the beedrill told him. “I also got them to agree to keep other pokemon out of your land though, so there won’t be any stray caterpie and the like eating from your things, or there shouldn’t be, at least.”

“Are you… certain that’s what they… er, said?” Donald asked, barely believing what he was hearing.

“Negotiations were a bit… awkward, but we managed to understand each other. I made sure to double check and all,” the man told him with a confident grin.

If what he said was right… This might actually turn out to be beneficial for him. After all, land close to the forest was cheap for a reason. The wild pokemon were very likely to raid anything that they could get. If he now had a swarm of beedrill protecting his farm, then sacrificing a few trees would be more than worth it.

“What did you say your name was?” Donald asked, wanting to make sure. “And I need your account number to make the payment.”

“Pierce Lawson,” the young man replied, all smiles as he carried a beedrill on his back. Then he took out his ID with his account number on it and rattled the number as Donald wrote it down. “Feel free to leave me a message at the Pokemon Center if anything goes wrong, yeah? I’ll probably be here for around a week.”

“I will, don’t worry,” Donald said absently as he considered what he had just been told and what it would mean for him. “I’ll send you a message even if things go well.”

“I’d appreciate it. So, good luck, I hope business goes well and take care,” Pierce told him, giving him a wave before making his way back to the road.

“Good luck to you too, young man,” Donald called. “You’ll be hearing from me soon.”

Oh would he hear from Donald. If what he said and did worked then… Well, Donald would have to get into contact with his neighboring farms and their owners. Maybe they could do something with this information. And Pierce… Well, it always paid to have a good trainer on speed dial, or so Donald supposed.

‘Pierce Lawson,’ he read the name on the piece of paper in his hand.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Going a little deeper into the trainer's life. I always thought it was somewhat weird how it’s supposed to work, as in, just earning money from battles. What do you do if you aren’t an absolute beast that never loses? Not everyone can be an OP MC, everyone else gotta make a living somehow, right? So I thought doing odd jobs like they are D- ranks from Naruto or low level quests from Fairy Tail and such would work to keep things going. What do you guys think?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What do you prefer, Fire type, Grass type or Water type? Personally, tough question. Fire type for me, probably, but they’d all be pretty close to each other. All three are pretty neat.

See you.