Searching Far and Wide - 12 (Patreon)

Pewter City VI

Pierce practically fell on the Pokemon Center’s chair once he made it back. He’d barely gathered enough energy to look for a cup of tea before he took a seat and that was about as much as he could manage. From there, he just sat there like his whole body was made of lead. It certainly felt like that, after all.

It was night outside already and long past the hour Pierce would normally go back to sleep. Somehow though, despite how much he wanted to just rest… he couldn’t bring himself to go take a shower and then just drop on his bed. The events of the day kept his weary mind reeling despite how tired he felt. It was annoying, for sure, but he’d deal with it.

For a long minute, he just sat there, drinking his tea slowly while feeling like a zombie. After a few deep breaths, he slumped a little as his mind came back to him from Zone 5 and what he’d seen there. There were many things for his mind to consider and many things that he wanted to completely forget about. One in particular stuck to him though, ever since he’d heard the ranger mention it back there in the field.

‘First Aid License,’ he thought, leaning back on his chair as he finished the last bit of his drink. Dragging his feet, he moved towards the area where the Pokemon Center held the computers. Soon after, Pierce found himself reading on that particular permit.

It was a certificate that one could get to signal that they did, indeed, know what they were doing to patch up pokemon. The “laws” about it were vague to say the least, to the point where Pierce didn’t even know if they could be called such. It basically boiled down to the fact that normal people weren’t supposed to heal wild or other people’s pokemon if they were over a certain level of damage. The wrong procedure could just make things worse, something that Pierce had learned while working with Roy.

It was certainly a lot less complicated than what he imagined medical procedures were like back in his own world, but the sheer number of different pokemon and their very specific needs made up for that simplicity. Getting one of those licenses allowed one to treat pokemon of any injuries before either setting them back so they could recover by themselves in the wild or patch one up before taking them to a Pokemon Center if the injuries were bad enough. That was the gist of it, basically. While someone without a license could do that too, if things went wrong, a license would at least offer some sort of back up that someone without it wouldn’t get.

It was basically a way to cover one’s back, basically.

‘Hm, maybe I can try to get one of those,’ Pierce mused. It’d certainly be a handy thing to have. Hell, even without the prospect of it and some of the advantages, like the opening of some trainer jobs or jobs in general, learning how to treat pokemon had no cons and lots of pros. With those thoughts in mind, he made a list of the reading material that was “mandatory” for those that wanted to take the exams for the license. From there, he looked for other books and such that were related and some that weren’t only very tangentially so.

As he did, he worked on that, he glanced to the side when a nurse passed by in front of the door. The Pokemon Center was a busy place, despite the ungodly hour of the night that it was. They were likely having to deal with some of the severely damaged pokemon that were spread through the Zones. Even without those, many of the people that had been involved in the mess likely had to bring their pokemon for a check up.

Pierce wasn’t thinking about that though. Instead, his mind took him to his various, if vague, thoughts of the future. ‘Maybe I can work in a Pokemon Center, it’d be nice to have pokemon around often,’ he mused. While patching up the creatures out in Zone 5 had been hard, it had also been very rewarding. Watching a pokemon that could barely move, if at all, make their way by themselves after Pierce treated them had been very nice.

‘Then again… I liked moving around, being out there in the forest… Maybe Lily got the right idea about me being a ranger,’ he mused, looking through information on those. Then again, being thrown into places like the Zones even more than a normal trainer did sounded like a nightmare. In the end, he could only sigh and slump against his chair.

He really should make a decision on that, or so he felt. He could put it off, there was no rush, he supposed, but that felt wrong. And yet, every option had things that he didn’t like. Being a trainer depended on his ability to actually get good at it, being a ranger involved more danger than he was comfortable with, being a nurse felt more confined than he’d like… ‘It’s like the end of highschool all over again, damnit,’ he grumbled internally before sighing again.

Taking his things, he stood up and stretched his stiff limbs. Groaning, he moved out of the room. It was time to shower and be done with the godawful day, he supposed. His mind had finally calmed down and he felt his eyes grow heavy. Yes, going to bed sounded glorious right about that moment.

He could leave the thinking for another time, he supposed. At least he had some plans for the near future with the First Aid License. It was a start, from there… Well, he’d take things one step at a time and see where that led him.

[}-o-{]

“So, how did things go in your Zone?” Lily said as they sat in front of each other the next morning for brunch. Many people seemed to be in the same boat as them, since everyone had either been too tired or had gone to bed too late for an early morning. Or both, really.  By the looks of his traveling companion, Pierce guessed she was in the first group, since she’d likely arrived before he did.

“It was a fucking mess,” he muttered, holding his mug with both hands. “I don’t know what was worse, having to contain the wild pokemon’s rampage or having to see and treat them in the aftermath.”

“Sounds awful, yeah,” Lily mumbled, taking a sip from her own drink. “On our side, clearing the passage was relatively easy, but there were a lot of wild pokemon rushing at us. Even when we managed, the ones inside weren’t doing much better. On top of that… There were Rockets there,” she explained to him, only barely whispering the last part and making him tense up. He’d already known that, or at least suspected, but it was another thing entirely. “It was… stressful, but I guess it wasn’t as bad as your Zone. I got lucky.”

“No luck involved in this mess,” Pierce said then, turning to look at one of the screens in the hall. “How long do you think it’ll take for things to calm down?”

“For pokemon? They’ll probably be more jumpy and aggressive than normal for a while. Especially those that live in Mt. Moon… There goes my chance for a Clefairy, I guess,” the girl commented dejectedly. “Mt. Moon itself should be open again in about a week, I guess, unless something delays it or the like. I’m not very sure myself. As for the people… Well, the rangers and the police will be wary for quite some time and the trainers will do much the same too. Pewter should be mostly fine already, even if anyone with a pokemon will be ready for another call just in case.”

“That… was a lot more detailed than what I expected, honestly,” Pierce commented, drawing a sheepish expression from Lily as her cheeks dusted with pink. “Good to know though,” he said, throwing his head back as he tried to organize his thoughts. “Guess we’ll be stuck for some more time than we thought.”

“Yeah, the tournament will either be rescheduled or canceled altogether so it’ll be mostly just training, is what I’m guessing,” Lily replied with a sigh. “Honestly, I’m fine with that. Sure, there won’t be much traveling for a bit, but I think I prefer that to going to Mt. Moon right now.”

“Can’t say that I blame you,” Pierce commented, deflating on his chair. “God, I just want to go to sleep again…”

“Same,” his traveling companion mumbled, looking about as done with life as he imagined he did and just like the rest of the people inside the Pokemon Center. “You got your cash transfer already?” she asked then, to which Pierce shrugged.

“Haven’t checked, honestly,” he replied.

To be honest, if it weren’t for the people at Zone 5 that had asked the rangers for when they could expect their payment, he wouldn’t have even known that was a thing. Somehow, he hadn’t found that part when reading about trainer duties. Basically, while trainers were required and heavily encouraged in a crisis such as the one they’d just gone through, they were also incentivized with monetary gains.

He’d had to search that specifically to get more information the night prior.

When one asked for a Zone to go or where otherwise directed somewhere by a Pokemon Center, there’d be a record in place about it. Later, rangers would confirm that you were, indeed, there to begin with. If that wasn’t possible, one could appeal saying that they had been there and a Psychic would be brought to verify. From there, according to how much one did during the whole event, one could earn more than the basic reward and such.

All very interesting stuff, really.

“You think you might have managed more than minimum pay?” Pierce asked, leaning back against this chair. “I stayed to help heal pokemon, so I guess I did.”

“I guess so too,” Lily replied with a slight shrug. “Everything was basically done when we cleared the entrance, there was no need to stay and try to make it safer and such. So, I think that’s a no for me.”

“Makes sense,” he mumbled with a sigh that his companion copied. “God, I might actually go to sleep again after this,” he added, sitting up straighter for a moment before continuing with his meal.

“I know what you mean,” Lily said with a bitter expression on her face. “We probably shouldn’t though.”

“I know,” he groaned. “Guess I’ll see about that job with the ponyta and then… might get some training done or some reading… I got a list of books that I want to get to study.”

“Anything interesting?” Lily asked, perking up a bit, which Pierce hadn’t even realized he was missing. After traveling for days with the girl’s cheerful self, he wasn’t used to seeing her so… down.

“I think I’ll try to get a First Aid License,” he told her, smiling slightly at the excited look on her face. “Sounded useful enough.”

“I might join you on that. It definitely could come in handy down the line,” she commented, her expression turning into a thoughtful one. “You think I could go with you for that job?”

“I mean, I’m not sure Arnold will agree to pay twice as much, but maybe we could still earn some more money that way. Not sure you think being paid less is worth it though,” Pierce answered, considering how much work there was at the ranch and what he knew of his employer. “Although, with this mess, Arnold might need more help than usual, so there’s that.”

“Guess we can see,” Lily replied with a slight shrug, her previously subdued demeanor coming back again. “I’m fine with less pay if you are, I just… don’t want to be alone now.”

“Sure, that works for me. The more the merrier, right?” Pierce said with a smile that widened when the girl returned the gesture. Yeah, it was definitely better to have his traveling companion be her usual self.

[}-o-{]

“Don’t get me wrong,” Lily said, dragging her feet on the ground next to him, not that he blamed her honestly. “Arnold is nice and the ponyta are cute and beautiful, but that was so tiring,” she whined, to which he could only agree.

“At least he agreed to pay us both full fee, right?” he pointed out, receiving a half-hearted hum in response. “But yeah, at least it had the added bonus of actually helping the pokemon, right? They were quite spooked when we got there, but they were looking much better when we left.”

“I guess that’s true enough,” the girl conceded with a huff. “You are not dragging me back to work like that again though. I’d like something less draining for a few days,” she added a moment later.

“Understandable,” he told her with a slight grin. “I’m guessing you won’t do much for the rest of the day?”

“Yeah, probably go to the Pokemon Center, get some light training done and that’ll be it,” she answered with a shrug and a sigh. They were sighing a whole lot that day, Pierce noticed. “What about you?”

“Well, I’d like to get some of the books I looked up so I can get started on that. I’ll look around to see if I find those, after that… probably the same as you, really,” he replied, looking as the more urban part of the city came closer the more they walked. “Don’t feel like doing much else, to be honest.”

“Sa-” Lily started, before stopping mid word. Not that Pierce could really blame her for doing that. As far as he knew, it wasn’t everyday that a pokemon appeared in front of you in a flash of light. For a long second, the two of them stared at the yellow, humanoid creature with fox features. “Did… Did an abra just teleport in front of us, Pierce?”

“I think so?” he replied, baffled, yes, but not quite as much as Lily seemed to be. “Pretty sure this isn’t supposed to be a normal thing,” he added wryly.

“They are supposed to teleport away from trainers,” Lily told him, as if he should already know that, which… Was probably the case, he guessed.

“Eh, any reason you are here, little one?” Pierce asked, crouching in front of the thing as it sat on the ground. As he did, he heard the creature let out a soft yip. Then, slowly, it raised its small arm in his direction. That’s when a picture flashed through his mind, like a thought or a memory, but one that he hadn’t seen himself. “Woah that…”

He, for lack of a better word, looked at the picture for a long moment. It was an image of a gargantuan onix the size of a building, and not even a small one. That wasn’t the important part though, at least not to the abra. Instead, the focus was the much smaller rock serpent that was coiled next to the bigger one. It was wounded, and a lot. Pierce could also recognize the signs of poisoning amongst the rest of the “normal” damage.

“Ok… We can get the rangers, they can probably help if that’s what you-” Pierce started, but he was interrupted by a sudden, sharp and strong feeling of… rejection. Yeah, the little psychic wasn’t a fan of that idea. Then it proceeded to point at him with its little finger and more pictures, unclear but still understandable pictures flashed in his mind. Many beedrill were shown and some other pokemon too. Pierce wasn’t too sure what that meant, but he did understand that the psychic wanted him and him alone. “Say, Lily, you up for a little adventure into the unknown and to see the biggest onix I know of?”

“Eh… Sure,” the girl said weakly. “For the record, I’d prefer to be well rested for the next adventure though.”

“Noted,” Pierce replied, feeling about the same himself. However, there was a pokemon that needed assistance… He just hoped he didn’t screw this up… Wait. “Actually, little one,” he started, still crouching in front of the abra. “Can we give the rangers a call? Just so they can make sure I don’t screw this up, yeah? I’m no professional.”

To that, he received a reluctant agreement, or so he understood the psychic message.

“Can you do that, Lily? Tell them that the pokemon want me though, so it might cause trouble if they show themselves. I just… want to make sure,” Pierce said, receiving a nod from the girl.

“Sure thing. I’ll get to that,” Lily answered, already taking out her pokedex from her backpack and starting to type on it. ‘Huh, first time I’m seeing her use that for communication…’ he noticed idly before turning to the psychic pokemon that was acting as messenger for them

“So, how do we do this, little one?” he asked, before Narcissa let go of his back, having stayed silent the whole time. A second later, Pierce found himself giving an abra a piggy back ride. Not something he’d expected to happen, but such was his life, it seemed. Then he saw the little thing pointing towards one direction and he gave a slight nod. “And so we go, I guess,” he mumbled, starting to walk. “I thought I’d had enough excitement for the day.”

[}-o-{]

It turned out that their trek wasn’t a short one and the pair of trainers could only be grateful that they had their bags with everything inside them. It’d make things easier, not only because Pierce would have the supplies he needed for his impromptu quest but also because they’d apparently need to sleep outside at the rate they were going. Not something either of them was looking forward to, but it was how it was.

Pierce also had something else in his mind. Something that he was getting progressively more nervous about.

Psychics.

He’d already had run-ins with some of them. With Riggs, the ranger that had come along back with the beedrill swarm incident. In Zone 5 when the rangers would sometimes use psychic messages to communicate stuff. And now, with the abra he was carrying on his shoulders.

All of those carried a danger and that was for someone to find out his situation. He wasn’t sure that would be a terrible thing, but it could be and he didn’t want to risk it. Maybe it was paranoid of him, but there was a chance that things would go South in some way. Call him a coward, but his situation was manageable and even good in some respects, so he didn’t want to risk changing it in an unpredictable way.

So far, it seemed that he’d escaped notice, probably because his encounters with things that could read his mind had been brief and with more pressing matters at hand. Now though? It’d been prolonged exposure and he hadn’t managed to keep his mind away from that. Hell, once he realized that, he seemed to be unable to stop thinking about it.

‘Stupid pink elephants,’ he grumbled to himself.

The one saving grace was that nothing seemed to have happened so far. The abra hadn’t so much as twitched when his thoughts inevitably touched on things he’d prefer others not to know. So, that was a bit of a relief, he’d admit, even if he was still very nervous.

Regardless of all that, the rangers had contacted Lily and him some time before, telling them that they’d be on stand by and keeping an eye on things to make sure that things went well. Another thing the rangers had told them was that the onix pair was a mother and her child, the former of which seemed to be extremely on guard and paranoid. They’d been told that the onix had likely sent the abra around looking for help for the child and the psychic had found Pierce and decided that yeah, he would do.

They’d also apparently tried to communicate with the mother but she was having none of it. It seemed that, since the abra had found someone good enough, she’d take him and him alone. ‘How did I, of all people, get dragged into this? I want to help that onix, don’t get me wrong, but still… This is some bullshit,’ he grumbled to himself as he continued moving, following the abra’s scarce directions.

According to Lily, it was no wonder the psychic was so… lazy, for lack of a better term. The species apparently slept for around 18 hours a day due to the strain their powers put on them and their brains. An interesting tidbit to hear, he supposed. He was pretty sure he’d known something to that effect at some point, but he had seemingly forgotten at some point.

“Ah, I think I should stay here? The rangers say I should,” Lily mumbled next to him and he nodded, too taken aback by the imposing figure in front of them. A moment later, the rocks in front of him rose as the onix uncoiled, her head looming over them in a way that felt very menacing indeed. “Good luck,” his friend whispered to him, taking a step back, not that he could really blame her for that.

“I came to help your child,” Pierce said, trying to keep his voice even and his back straight, something that was quite difficult that the thing could probably open her mouth and swallow him whole. With no trouble whatsoever at that, which made things even worse.

“Relax,” a ranger told him with a psychic message. Easy for them to say, they weren’t the ones face to face with the gigantic thing. “She’s wary, but she’ll be ok so long as you keep a cool head and don’t do anything stupid. Having abra bring you gives you all the faith you need to get the job done and be on your way. Think of the nice bonus you’ll get for this. A rampaging onix mother would be bad so you’ll get paid very well for this service.”

It felt like he was doing entirely too many services as of late, honestly. Pierce would have much preferred to do without those. Sadly, it was not to be, so he took a deep breath in and sighed, taking a step forward.

“Your child will be fine, just let me have a look and I’ll start treating them, ok?” Pierce asked, making sure his voice was soft. He could have done a better job at that, but at least he didn’t seem to have failed too hard, considering the onix moved and made space for him to approach the younger rock type. At the sight of it, he couldn’t help but feel his insides twisting into knots and his throat closing a bit.

The creature was bigger than Pierce himself was, but it was positively tiny when one compared it to its mother. That only made the wounds and poison signs even worse, really. On top of that, it seemed to not even be reacting to what was happening around it.

“Ok, this is bad,” the ranger said in Pierce’s mind, which was very much not reassuring. “But we can take care of it. You have potions and antidotes aplenty, you said, right?”

‘Yeah?’

“Good, you should be able to patch the child up but it’ll require attention for an extended period of time to make sure it’s fine. It’s very young and the wounds and poison were left to their devices for a while already, which hasn’t helped. It’d die if left alone and its condition might worsen even if you heal it and go away,” the ranger explained, making Pierce gulp down as he took a few steps towards the child and took off his backpack, keeping an eye on the mama onix.

Which was good, because her growl almost froze the blood in his veins.

“Stay with Lily, ok, Narcissa?” he called, and the response he got told him that the bug type was not happy with him. That’d be a conversation for another time though. Fortunately, she listened to him. Pierce really hadn’t been looking forward to having an argument with his pokemon right then and there.

For the moment, he had a patient to treat, so he focused on that. ‘Ok so…’ he thought, pulling out the boxes that held his medical supplies. ‘Where do I start?’

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Who the fuck cursed Pierce with the “live in interesting times” thingy? Because I swear it wasn’t me. What the fuck is this? How did the story go off rails onto its own path so fast? At least my other stories at least take longer, dammit all.

Regarding update time: This post was made at the usual time instead of the time I have been testing with this and DbD, I know. I’m an impatient bastard and I couldn’t wait to get it out there, so since I was free, I did it. I wanted to know though, would it be fine by you if I held the update time a bit flexibly? I’ve had several times when the update time is a bit inconvenient and I’d like to know if it’d be annoying or something if I had to do it earlier or later for whatever reason.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: I don’t know if I’ve asked this before (Yes, I know there are only a few chapters but my memory is bad and I’m lazy) but what do you think Pierce will end up doing after his little or maybe not so little journey?

See you.