Searching Far and Wide - 13 (Patreon)

Pewter City VII

[Scott Jobe]

‘Ok, that wound’s cared for, on to the next one,’ he relayed to the poor bastard that mama onix had decided was the best person to treat her child. Scott honestly didn’t know what was up with that, but things were as they were and there was nothing his coworkers and him could do to change things. They could only hope that the guy, Pierce, would do a good enough job and deal with the situation. To the man’s credit, he’d been doing well so far. ‘You know the drill, check the rock plates-’

“And make sure they aren’t touching when I spray potion over the wounds unless they are supposed to be one single plate, I know,” Pierce interrupted, finishing for him. The tone of the thought was curt, but respectful enough. Neither Scott nor the other rangers that were around to keep an eye on things could really blame the guy for being tense.

They would have been like that themselves, if they had to deal with a mother onix looming over their shoulder like that. Nevermind a guy that seemed to have started his journey less than a month before. The poor bastard only had a beedrill and a friend with a bulbasaur and a spearow, which didn’t make things much better. If the older onix decided that she didn’t like what was happening… Well, chances were things would end badly for everyone involved, Pierce especially.

Sometimes, Scott hated his job.

As it was though, they could only roll with the punches and try to make the best of their situation. Mama onix didn’t want anyone else getting involved but Pierce, per the young abra’s recommendation. What was up with that, Scott didn’t know, but another ranger that had been stationed around Pewter for longer had said that it made perfect sense for the onix to listen to the psychic’s opinion.

He’d ask about that later, but for the moment, they had more concerning things to focus on. Mainly the rampage risk that mama onix represented. Even with a full team of rangers, things wouldn’t be pretty if the rock type snapped. Especially with things as they were around Mt. Moon. The last thing they needed was to give the already uneasy pokemon in the area a reason to go ballistic again. Nevermind the fragile stability that the mountain and its caves had after the Rocket’s attack.

Things needed to be resolved peacefully.

So, they did the best they could with the shitty situation they were in.

Fortunately, Pierce had already some experience in first aid of pokemon, having helped with the aftermath of Zone 5. That was a great silver lining if Scott ever saw one. He was also very careful with his handling of the young onix and he seemed to keep himself calm enough not to trigger the older one. Props to him, Scott knew many trainers much more experienced than him would have been scared out of their minds in his situation. Hell, he knew some rangers that wouldn’t have dealt with it as well as Pierce was.

‘That’s a nasty wound,’ Scott relayed then, seeing the next injury in front of Pierce through the connection his slowpoke created with the man. The plates of the onix were broken and pieces had been straight out pulled off. That was bad, because not only did that mean there was likely to be a lot of bleeding, but the recovery would take longer and the chances of the wound reopening were big. ‘You’ll have to take off the small pieces that are mostly torn off already and pull all the cracked pieces together as best you can. It’s gonna hurt a lot, so you should warn them, especially the mother. You’d also need to have something to place over it to stop any bleeding once you are done applying potion, also to keep the plates from pulling away. I’ll have it teleported to you. The young onix should also remain as still as possible.’

Pierce stayed still for a moment, processing that message before nodding slowly.

“Peachy, great, amazing,” the man thought out loud, even if he was most likely doing so to himself. “Positively awesome… Fuck my life,” he thought them, taking a deep breath in.

They all watched then as the man turned to regard mama onix, who was all but staring a hole through the poor bastard. The rangers tensed as Pierce talked to her, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Wild pokemon were unpredictable in the best of situations, and that was far from a best case scenario, that was for sure. Fortunately, either the onix really trusted the abra’s judgment or Pierce was really just that good with pokemon, because the mother only gave a tight nod when the man told her of how things were likely to go.

Maybe it was both?

Regardless, Pierce set to work as the mama onix curled around the man and her child, resting her massive head next to the much smaller one of her offspring. The gigantic rock type did her best to calm down her child and the rangers watched on, still at the ready while Pierce worked, with Scott, the most medically capable of the team supplying advice here and there. It was a slow, painful and dangerous process though, and-

“Fuck,” Pierce cursed internally as the young onix twitched, undoing much of his work and making things more difficult as it worsened the wound’s bleeding. “Ok, ok, calm,” the man thought to himself then with deep breaths as he continued working.

‘You are doing great,’ Scott relayed, not even having to lie. ‘You’d make a great nurse or doctor,’ he praised then, drawing a stiff grin from Pierce.

“I was thinking of studying for the First Aid License,” the man replied, taking a deep breath in once more after he finished applying a full bottle of potion on the wound and preparing to dress the wound to finish that part.

‘Well, Pierce, I can honestly say I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with that, all things considered,’ Scott relayed to the man, drawing a much more relaxed smile as the man weary pulled away from the wound that he’d just finished treating. ‘Halfway there, buddy.’

“Joy,” the man muttered in his mind as he tiredly moved to continue the job.

All in all, things could have been much worse, even if the rangers were a little wary of Pierce. Sure, the man seemed nice enough, but there was something distinctly worrying about him. Something that, while not damning, did warrant some level of caution.

He had a mental block.

Now, this wasn’t the first time Scott or any ranger encountered someone with one, that was for sure. It wasn’t precisely common but… It happened. The problem is how one could end up with one of those. One way was to be a Psychic Arts practitioner, which they knew Pierce wasn’t. Those were all registered and besides, they were fairly obvious under the scrutiny of another. A second one was to have a psychic pokemon put one in place, but that wasn’t it either.

So, that left the last option, which was the worrying part.

Trauma.

A moment of one’s life being particularly… bad, could cause one’s mind to put a block on things. Not always completely blocking memories or knowledge but certainly leaving a scar in one's mind. People with blocks tended to be… unpredictable in a way that had nothing to do with their minds being somewhat protected against reading nor their trauma. After all, neither one nor the other meant someone was unstable, but when they had blocks… Things changed.

Fortunately, Pierce seemed to be normal enough, despite the presence of the block and what it represented. Sure, the man’s thoughts could take an odd turn sometimes and the block became more glaringly obvious or almost inconspicuous at random times but… All in all, he was probably one of the most well adjusted blocked minds the rangers had encountered.

Not that they were taking any chances. A few hours of knowing the man wouldn’t bring their guards down, but it was better than some of the other cases they’d encountered through their careers. Now they only needed to make sure things went well and they wouldn’t have a massive stone snake going berserker, considering the already shaky state of the general area.

[}-o-{]

[Pierce Lawson]

“Ok, that’s the last of it,” he said, letting a long breath out as he closed his eyes. He was so very tired at that moment. Treating the onix child hadn’t been terribly exhausting, really. At least not physically speaking. However, being so tense, with the gargantuan mother looming over him at every step and every little mistake able to cause pain, damage, or complications on his patient was…

Yeah, it took its toll.

“Great job, Pierce,” Scott, the ranger that had guided him through the whole process, told him, making him nod absently. “From here, it should be a piece of cake. However, it’d be better if you took some notes about what to do and I’ll still be here for every check up that the onix will need, just in case. The hardest part is done though.”

‘Thanks,’ Pierce replied, lying on the ground and closing his eyes. He almost wanted to just fall asleep. However, there was stuff to do still. ‘So, about that food?’ he asked. Because the rangers had told him that they’d supply him with a Preserving Box with food for the onix child since it wouldn’t be able to move for some time. ‘I’m so tired…’

“Just a little more and you can go to the Pokemon Center and rest. We’ll even teleport you there ourselves,” Scott said then, and Pierce grew a little nervous. Half of the things he’d thought but didn’t really want to communicate to the rangers had been heard and it frightened him. What other things had they heard? “The psychic is gonna arrive now,” the ranger said and Pierce groaned, pulling himself into a sitting position.

The onix mother’s head gave a sharp turn as a flash of light announced the arrival of a gardevoir. The psychic was gone just as fast as it appeared though, leaving behind the Preserving Box for Pierce to use. Standing up with a groan, he moved to open the box and saw that there were entire bags of kibble, not unlike the big ones he remembered for pet food from back in his own world. With a slight frown, he wondered how it would be best to go about it.

Pierce could just set the kibble on the ground next to onix’s head, for sure, but that felt… lazy. He could also hand feed it, but that would take a while, with the thing’s size. Then an idea popped in his mind and he searched through his Storage Box to retrieve a small bowl. Yeah, that’d do.

Approaching the two rock types, he gave a soft smile that he hoped was friendly and peaceful enough not to upset the mother. He’d been doing a lot of that with basically everything he did since he arrived. That was probably the most exhausting part of the whole process, really. Still, the mother didn’t move, which was good enough for Pierce to get closer.

Carrying the bag of kibble and the bowl was a bit of a hassle, but not that bad, fortunately. Once there, he ripped the thing open and set out to feed the little one. Plunging the bowl in the bag, Pierce used it as a big spoon to feed the rock type.

“Come on, big guy, time for your meal,” Pierce said, very grateful for the rangers telling him the gender of the onix. It’d helped him avoid the awkward moment of doubt where he’d had to ask. Which was nice, he didn’t need the added stress, honestly.

The child weakly opened his mouth, which was more than big enough for Pierce to move the bowl inside and then drop the kibble inside his mouth. Fortunately, it wasn’t big enough for that to be too little food. As he went for a second serving though, Pierce heard the pokemon whine and his mother rumble something in return.

“Everything ok, big guy? Do I have to check something?” he asked, concerned. Surprisingly, it was the mother that replied, shaking her head as she gently caressed the side of her son’s head. From that, Pierce took a guess. “I know it probably still hurts, buddy, but you’ll feel better in no time.”

“The poison should be cured in a few hours tops,” Scott relayed to him. “Most wounds should be fine in a day or two and he should be fine in a week, full recovery in two weeks at maximum.”

“You should feel a lot better tomorrow and you’ll be able to move around in a few days, big guy,” Pierce summarized, placing a hand on the side of the “little” onix that the mother wasn’t occupying. “I promise, alright? You just gotta be strong for a bit more and everything will be fine,” he told the child, getting a soft rumble from the child as it rubbed his head against his hand. “Come on, you gotta eat, it’ll help your body recover faster, alright?” Pierce added and the pokemon slowly opened his mouth again.

“A full bag should be alright for him,” Scott said after a few minutes of Pierce feeding the rock type. “And that’s all for now. Should have to feed him later today and then that’s it. More feeding tomorrow and checking the wounds around this time and so on until they are recovered,” the ranger informed him.

‘Great,’ Pierce thought sarcastically, even if he did mean it a bit. Sure, suddenly turning into the personal nurse of an onix child was a bit annoying and his mother was a bit scary but… Well, it was nice to help the not-so-little one.

“If it helps, you’ll be paid quite a bit for this, as we told you before,” Scott told him, sounding amused. “And this’ll be a nice thing added to your record. All in all, not a bad thing, huh?”

As he looked at the onix child going to sleep, Pierce could only agree.

‘So, I can go now?’ he asked.

“Sure thing, one of us will get you from the Pokemon Center when you need to come again if that’s agreeable with you,” Scott answered and Pierce considered it. “If somewhere else works better, we can pick you up wherever. It’d be better if you stayed in Pewter until this is over though.”

‘Yeah, I imagined,’ Pierce replied. He guessed he should have been annoyed with the whole thing being dumped on him, but he didn’t mind as much as he thought he should. He had no rush to do anything and, well, he was getting paid for it, so it was fine, he supposed. ‘The Pokemon Center is good. Also… give me a minute, if it’s not too much trouble.’

“Sure thing, Pierce,” the ranger said.

Standing up and stretching a little, Pierce groaned before moving to do one last thing before going to the Pokemon Center. He really wanted to just drop on a bed and stay there for the rest of the day, if at all possible. However, he did want to do something first.

“Say,” he started, giving the mother onix one last look. “Do you want some food yourself?” he asked, receiving a shake of the gargantuan thing’s head. “Ok then, can you help me with something?” he continued, receiving a narrow-eyed look from the onix as he checked inside his own Preserving Box. “Do you know what kind of berries Abra likes?” he asked, making the stone snake tilt her head.

He started pulling out some of the berries he hadn’t yet turned into pokeblocks. He was sort of going through them, testing what Narcissa liked so far. He wanted to do some tests to see if he could find some good combinations. He’d even roped Talon and Root into it. So far results had been… mixed, which was why he wouldn’t be offering any to wild pokemon.

Better safe than sorry.

With that in mind, he started setting the different berries he had on to the ground under the watchful gaze of mama onix. Now that he didn’t have to treat her child and potentially cause him pain that would put him in danger, Pierce was much calmer in her presence. Sure, she was positively massive, but that didn’t mean much when any pokemon could kill him if they tried, did it? It made her more imposing, of course, but with a situation a little calmer, it wasn’t that bad.

“So, you think he’d like any of the-?” Pierce started asking before he was interrupted by a flash of light from abra. The psychic then picked up the berry it had appeared in front of and took a small bite off of it. “Hey there, little one. I thought you’d be sleeping. Enjoy then. You want another or is that enough?” he asked then, making the yellow creature look at the assortment of berries before it shook its head. “Well, then, see you later, you three,” he said, waving a hand and getting a rumble from Mama Onix and a lazy wave from Abra, who was still eating its berry.

Blinking, Pierce got the distinct impression that… Oh.

Well, at least he now knew that abra was a boy.

Good to know.

‘I’m ready now,’ Pierce called with his thoughts as he finished gathering everything inside the Boxes and set those inside his backpack. Stepping away from the wild pokemon and towards Lily and their pokemon, who had settled comfortably some distance away. Instantly, before even the rangers could do anything, Narcissa dashed towards him, circling around and latching onto his back, over the backpack.

“Hey, girl, missed me?” he asked, amused, before chuckling as he felt the bug type squeeze his neck a little with her pincers. “Maybe Mama Onix will be fine with you next time. I’ll see if I can convince her.”

Judging by the chittering he got, his pokemon partner rather liked that idea.

“Everything done?” Lily asked as he reached them, standing up.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to come check on them regularly, but the harder part is done,” he replied with a smile. “Anything interesting happen?”

“Not much, we just kinda kept our eyes on you. Honestly,” the girl replied, dusting her clothes. “Any trouble?”

“Some, but things went better than I expected. Just, you know, injured child, worried mother, basically. But worse in both cases,” Pierce explained with a shrug, as he looked around. Either the rangers hadn’t heard him or they were busy with something.

“Sorry for the delay, something came up and there were some… antsy pokemon to deal with,” a new voice said before a gardevoir appeared next to them. “She’ll take you back to the Pokemon Center.”

‘Thank you.’

“No, thank you, young man,” the voice replied, and with that, they were all transported back.

[}-o-{]

[Lillian Dale]

“Never a dull moment with you, eh, Pierce?” she asked, drawing a weary chuckle from the man. She could understand. She had been a safe distance away from the onix mother and even then she felt uneasy. Lily couldn’t begin to guess how it would feel to have to take care of her child while she loomed over her.

It had been a nice little adventure though, after the whole thing passed.

“I wish there’d be a dull moment or two, honestly,” the man said, running his fingers through his hair as he tilted his head back where he sat to look at the ceiling. “It feels like all of a sudden it was one thing after the other. I miss the most exciting thing being a visit from a few weedle, you know?”

“You would,” Lily replied with a wry smile. Not that she really blamed the guy, but still. “So, I’m guessing we add staying until the onix child is healed to the list?”

“I mean, if you want to leave before that-”

“Nah, it’s fine,” she interrupted. No way she was traveling on her own. Besides, being around Pierce was proving to be entertaining, if nothing else. Well, she could do without the scares, but that was just part of being a trainer, from what she knew. Furthermore, despite Pierce’s apparent ability to get in… interesting situations, he was just as good at getting out of them, from what she could see and he was also good when dealing with wild pokemon. “There was that tournament this weekend too but guess we can stay some more time if it comes to it.”

“Speaking of, how do you feel about that?” Pierce asked her. “Will Root and Talon be enough?”

“I hope so, the minimum was two pokemon but that’s the minimum,” Lily said, unsure. “Tomorrow’s the last day to sign for it too so… I don’t know,” she admitted. Entering with the minimum pokemon which were also unevolved sounded like a recipe for defeat, but… Well, it was what it was. She hadn’t found any other pokemon that really caught her attention so far. Her two partners would have to do, she supposed. She knew they’d at least put up a decent fight, that was for sure, so she might as well try.

“Hm, I was thinking something about that, actually,” Pierce said, taking a gulp from his glass of cold water before, grimacing and standing up. “Can you come for a second?” he asked then, tilting his head to the back of the Pokemon Center and making Lily blink at him.

“Uh, sure?” she replied hesitantly standing to follow him as they moved to the training area. There were several other trainers around, but they found a sort-of secluded part to stand in before Pierce let Narcissa out of her pokeball, with Lily following suit and letting out Root and Talon.

“So, Lily here wants to enter a tournament,” he explained to his own pokemon, making Lily frown. “You know, a bunch of battles to decide which of the ones that enter is the strongest,” he added, making the beedrill buzz, sounding about as confused as Lily herself felt. “How would you feel about joining her team for the tournament?” he asked then, making her eyes widen. If the way Narcissa almost fell to the ground was any indication, the bug type was as surprised as she felt.

“Pierce?”

“What?” he asked, turning towards Lily with a grin. “Narcissa, you love battles. And Lily, you’d have more chances with her added to your team. Everyone wins,” he told them, as if it was a totally reasonable thing to do, which it wasn’t. It was… possible, Lily supposed, but she didn’t remember ever hearing about people sharing pokemon like that. “I can’t even try to participate, since I don’t have two pokemon for it. And I’ll be kind of busy with the onix child. This way you can keep battling and Lily can, maybe, win the prize of the tournament. Which I’d like a part of if it happens. What do you girls say?” the man asked them.

“It’s… I guess… Is that even allowed?” Lily asked, unsure. She didn’t think she remembered any rules about that. Then again, as she said, she didn’t really know.

“I mean, I read the rules when I looked up the tournament and there was nothing about that. Besides, I could trade you Narcissa temporarily for it. It’d be a week at most. I think there’s at least that much trust between us. I don’t think you’ll run away with her,” Pierce told her, positively sure of what he was saying.

“Uh, Narcissa?” Lily asked, looking at the bug type, who had been staring at her trainer for the whole speech. Her call made the beedrill turn towards her before she turned back to her trainer.

With a buzz, Narcissa gave a sharp stab towards Pierce before chittering something.

“Girl, you’ll be back with me in no time. Hell, it probably wouldn’t even change anything, just that you’ll have to fight with Lily for the tournament and that’s it. She’s already spending most of her days with us, right? Might need to get some training with her and Talon and Root to get used to them but that’s about it,” Pierce explained, and suddenly Lily was starting to feel more sure about his idea.

Sure, it sounded weird, but the man’s ideas and thoughts usually did. Honestly, this sounded like an interesting thing to try out, if nothing else, and it would increase her chances of winning too. Besides, better odds in the tournament would likely at least result in more fights, which meant more experience for her pokemon, nevermind the extra experience Narcissa herself would get.

‘It’s not a half bad idea,’ she mused, a slight grin spreading on her face.

As Lily traded a glance with the beedrill, she saw the bug type nod.

Her smile widened.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, several things in this chapter for me to expect commentary on. Especially that last part, of course, but there’s other stuff too. Regardless, I feel like I should be nervous but I’m really not. So… I’m in a weird spot, I guess.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Do you have a favorite pokemon region? Mine is… Between Hoenn and Sinnoh, I think.

See you.