Searching Far and Wide - 17 (Patreon)

Pewter City XI

“Two,” Lily said, looking at him incredulously as he just shrugged with a sheepish expression. “I leave you alone for a bit and you don’t get one, but two new pokemon? You trying to show me up or something?”

“I mean, I’m as surprised as you, probably more,” Pierce replied with a wry grin, running his fingers through his hair. “Honestly, I really didn’t see that coming, but I guess that’s what happened.”

“Onix and abra,” Lily mumbled, frowning a little. “Well, those are very nice additions to your team, gotta say. I know you don’t care much for that, but they are pretty neat. Especially abra. Everyone wants one of that line in their teams, or something similar. Teleport is just that good.”

“Good to know,” Pierce commented, feeling a little overwhelmed. He did have some notes down regarding both lines, and many regarding rock types in general, courtesy of his time watching Gym fights and Brock’s “class”. However, he hadn’t really prepared or anything for catching both of those pokemon. If he was honest, he was still getting his bearings after they sprung that surprise on him. “Gotta go over my notes and all. Good thing they don’t expect me to take care of them right off the bat. They gotta spend some time with their families and such before we go on our merry way.”

“And not like we could go even if we wanted to,” Lily pointed out, stabbing some piece of her breakfast and bringing it to her mouth. After a moment she continued. “Tournament starts tomorrow. I’m surprised they didn’t delay it, but they might want to get things going and help people relax a bit, I guess.”

“How are you seeing your chances there?” Pierce asked then, leaning forward a bit. Sure, he’d battled with Narcissa before, but a tournament sounded more serious than a random battle out on the road or in the battlegrounds of the city. It sounded like it’d be more… He didn’t know what, but more.

“I mean, I’ll have a better idea after today. I wanted to go and have some fights on the battlegrounds. See how well we do out of a training situation, you know? But Narcissa is really good, especially right now. Since it’s a beginner’s tournament, she should be a nice powerhouse to have with us,” Lily said, her usually cheerful self turning into a much more… competitive person, Pierce guessed was a good way to describe her. “We don’t have that much type diversity, that’s true, but neither should other people, really. If they have many pokemon, then I’d bet that they won’t be trained very well. One needs time periods to get pokemon used to one’s training. If you catch too many pokemon too quickly, you don’t have that.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Pierce mumbled, before taking a gulp of his drink. “Gotta give more one-on-one training until they get used to it, I’m guessing. So if you catch many pokemon quickly, you have to spread yourself between them and it’s less efficient.”

“Exactly,” Lily agreed with a grin. “You are starting to get it, my very uninformed friend.”

“Gee, thanks,” he replied dryly. “I guess I’ll spend the day with the onix family and Abra. I might get names out of the way and stuff. I also have to look up stuff for the new additions and go over notes, like I said before.”

“As productive a use of your time as any,” the girl commented cheerfully as she continued with her meal. “You’ll have to spoil Narcissa, considering you’ve added not one but two new members. She might have been ok with things before, but now…”

“I’m sure a good meal will be enough to calm her down,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “If that doesn’t work, a few good pokeblocks should do the trick. That and some rubbing with the special wipe and we are good.”

“You would know better, I guess,” Lily said with a somewhat unsure look before shrugging. “How are the pokeblocks going, by the way?”

“I’ve found a bunch that Narcissa has liked. We can try them with your pokemon, if they promise not to eat them all-”

“It was one time-”

“-then I can give them some and see what they like,” he continued, ignoring the girl’s protests and making her pout. “I’m kinda curious about that, honestly. I want to see if I can find what pokemon likes what combinations, or if that’s even possible or if their likes are more singular than just by line.”

“Eh, pokemon can go one way or another. Most of them seem to have some common likes, just like humans do. Some have particular tastes and some generally dislike the same things,” Lily pointed out with a shrug, even if she was still glaring at him for the previous comment. “Who knows, maybe you can sell those if you get good enough combinations.”

“Eh, that’s an idea, I guess,” Pierce mumbled, his mind drifting a little further down that road. Could he make a living selling food for pokemon? Pokeblocks were simple, but maybe he could delve into poffins or poke puffs or the like, right? He was no cook, but maybe he could learn, he supposed. “Guess we’ll see about that. I don’t think I can afford enough berries to try that much.”

“I mean, you do have a lot of money from compensations and jobs and such but… Yeah, I get that. Especially now that you have more pokemon to worry about,” his traveling companion mused, thoughtfully looking up. “Well, maybe you’ll find more pokemon to give you berries somewhere down the road.”

“I think that’s a bit unlikely, don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah, for everyone else. For you though? It already happened to you once, didn’t it?” she pointed to, to which he had no proper answer.

“Fair enough,” he replied wryly.

[}-o-{]

“Doing much better, huh, buddy?” Pierce asked the young onix, one of his new pokemon partners, as he rubbed the special cloth on his stone-like skin. “I told you you’d be right as rain in no time at all,” he added, receiving a pleased, rumbling sound in response.

As he continued with that though, Pierce was reminded of the fact that he’d used a lot of supplies given by the League to treat that onix. An onix that was now his. ‘I feel like I cheated the League here.’

“Don’t be so dramatic, kid,” Scott, the ranger, told him in a reassuring tone. “When will you stop calling me “Scott, the ranger” in your head, by the way?”

‘Sorry, I just… am not that good with names,’ he mused. ‘And I’m not being dramatic… I think…’

“You are,” Scott replied, and Pierce could almost see the man rolling his eyes. “You are right about that. Look, man, this is gonna sound really bad, but healing the child onix wasn’t our priority during this whole thing. No, the priority was calming down the mother and making sure she wouldn’t do something… drastic, you see? That meant healing the child and making sure it was ok. Not that we wouldn’t have healed it anyway, but you get the point. You are a smart kid.”

‘You are right, it sounds bad,’ Pierce agreed, pursing his lips. ‘But yeah, I get it.’ And he did, even if it annoyed him. Mama Onix could have done a whole lot of damage if she went on a rampage, but still… Thinking about it like that almost cheapened what he’d done. He’d wanted to help the little one because he was a child and it wasn’t his fault that things went to shit during the Rocket attack.

“And we get that, Pierce. As I said, we’d have healed him anyway, it’s just a matter of priorities. It’s how it is,” Scott replied. It didn’t help matters, but it sounded like the kind of thing Pierce would just slowly accept with time.

“Anyway,” he said out loud, drawing the attention of the two onix. Curiously enough, the young abra also turned to look at him, which meant that his nap was over. “Good to see you are awake, buddy. I actually had something to talk about with you two. You see, I… Well, I gave a name to my other pokemon, I’m sure you remember Narcissa?”

To that, he got a tilt of the young onix’s head, but both his mother and the abra nodded. The former rumbled something that was probably a quick explanation for her child, Pierce guessed. With that, he nodded, going over how he wanted to present things to them.

“So, I thought maybe we could give you guys names too,” he decided to go with. Simple and direct, nice enough, right? “You know, just so I can stop just calling you by your line. It might get confusing if we come across others of your species, you know?” he explained further, growing a little nervous under the narrow-eyed gaze of the mother onix.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have anything to say in regards to that, which was a relief. Pierce had half expected her to be against the idea, which would have been fine, many people didn’t seem to do it, strangely enough. Then again, even if you called a pokemon by its line name in the middle of a group, they seemed to know which one you were referring to. At least this phenomenon seemed to be exclusively a pokemon thing and not a human thing, so Pierce wasn’t left feeling the odd one out.

However, that approach felt very… impersonal to him. Like all pokemon were the same thing to him, like he didn’t see a difference between his pokemon or any other. That was just plain wrong, in his opinion, but then again, everyone was free to do as they wanted.

He felt a wave of appreciation at that moment, and he turned to give abra a look. The psychic didn’t elaborate on that, but that was fine, Pierce would take that. Then, turning back to the older rock type around, he received a sigh and a nod, which prompted an excited rumble from the younger one.

“Glad to know you agree,” he said with a grin. “So, I had a few ideas.”

From there, he gave a new attempt at the color theme he wanted to go with. There were simple ones like Gray, Grayson, Gris, Silver and so on for the onix, at the same time as less simple ones, like Argent. Things were a little complicated with the abra, but seemed to be sort of fitting. There was Jaune, Xanthos, Edmund, Goldwyn, Dwight, Cyrus.

To Pierce’s frustration, neither of them seemed to be fans of any of those ideas. Sure, they seemed intrigued here and there, but he could feel he was getting nowhere close with every option listed. When he got a little tired of the negative answers, the man sighed and continued rubbing the young onix with the cloth for some time, considering the new dilemma. It was like naming Narcissa all over… again…

‘I’m not really considering this, am I?’ he thought, with a bemused smile on his face. ‘Oh, why the hell not?’

“How about Orion, little one?” he asked the onix, instantly making the pokemon perk up. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ “You like that one?” he added, getting a tilt of the rock type’s head before it seemed to brighten up and nod enthusiastically. “Well, nice to meet you, Orion,” he said, with as much enthusiasm as he could manage.

It was a bit hard, considering his naming theme seemed to have died a quick death before it was even a thing. Also because his apparent “new” naming theme was… He didn’t even have the words for it. However, he didn’t want to ruin the nice mood that was around for the newly named pokemon. Then, turning towards Abra, he paused.

Especially because the pokemon sent a wave of amusement his way.

“You too, huh, little shit?” he asked with a wry smile. “How about Cygnus?” he asked, receiving an almost instant agreement. “Oh, I can already tell having you around is going to be fun,” he said with a sarcastic tone, even if he also actually meant it.

[}-o-{]

“This has to be one of the easiest jobs I’ve been part of,” Scott, the ranger – Pierce got a mental scoff at that. – told him mentally. “Boring, but easy.”

‘It’d be nice if you appreciated that and remained silent while I’m trying to study,’ he replied with an annoyed expression as he tried to focus back on his book. He’d already started buying some of the books he’d need for his eventual test to get the First Aid License. It’d be a considerable amount of money, to get all the material he needed, especially since he couldn’t just use library books, since he’d be traveling around.

“Should be able to get that money back doing jobs and helping out at Pokemon Centers, Pierce. If you can afford it and you think you can pass the test, it’ll be worth it,” Scott reassured him. “Rangers will like to have someone around that knows what they are doing if another incident like Mt. Moon’s occurs.”

‘I don’t like how you said that,’ Pierce replied with a grimace. ‘Makes it sound like something that happens a lot.’

“Well, it’s not that common, but shit happens, kid. Especially now with Team Rocket around. No sense sugarcoating it for you, I think,” the ranger told him. “Then again, that might be my skewed view of things as a ranger. We see more shit than the regular trainer.”

‘Very reassuring, buddy,’ Pierce thought before sighing and looking back at his book. Then, with a grimace, he decided to leave things where he was. It was a good enough place, really, and his focus had already been shot to hell.

“Er… Sorry?” the ranger said in his mind, but Pierce ignored him. “... Rude.”

“... Well, I think it’s about time I get going. I should try to get a job done before the day is over. And besides, Arnold needs the help,” he said out loud, turning and giving his backrest – also known as Orion – a pat. “Hope you enjoyed some time in the sun, buddy. Must have been nice after being trapped in your mother’s den for so long.”

The onix gave a cheery rumbling at that, leaning his head towards him and rubbing it against Pierce’s side. The man, meanwhile, replied by rubbing his hand along the side of the rock type’s head. Such a huge creature had no business being cute, in his opinion.

“Don’t give your mother too much trouble, yeah?” he commented, drawing a huff from the young pokemon. “Come on. She might be annoying, but she knows what she’s talking about. Listen to her, yeah? Besides,” he added, his smile turning into a sad one. “You won’t have her being annoying while we travel and I promise you that you’ll miss her.”

‘Like I do mine,’ he added in his head, sighing.

To that, Orion replied with a rumble that was almost a whisper.

“Go along. I’ll be back tomorrow, yeah? Promise,” he reassured, rubbing the side of the rock type’s face. “I might even bring stories about Narcissa’s battles in the tournament, if we are lucky. If not… Well, I’ll definitely bring her. I’m sure your mother will let her and Lily with her pokemon get close now. You’ll be traveling with us, after all.”

Now, that seemed to brighten Orion back up. Apparently, the not-so-little guy was excited to meet new friends. Pierce, for his part, chuckled, palming his pokemon’s rocky skin as he stood up. Stretching a little to get over the uncomfortableness that had brought sitting on the ground with his back against what was basically stone, he groaned.

“Come on, back to the den we go,” Pierce said, turning and seeing Mama Onix looking at them from her hole in the mountain. Obviously, they hadn’t gone far at all, but it seemed that she hadn’t been fine just leaving them unsupervised. Which was a little… odd, considering she was fine with them going on a journey without her. Maybe she wanted to be a helicopter parent while she still could. “I’m gonna make my way to the city now,” he announced once Orion and him got closer to the lair. “I got a few things to do back there, but as I told Orion, I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of our merry band, if that’s ok with you.”

To that, Mama Onix took a long moment before sighing and nodding.

“Come on, we are all nice. And if it’s any consolation, we don’t have anything nearly as scary as you,” Pierce told her with a grin, receiving a huff from the gargantuan pokemon. “Not even if we put everything together. We couldn’t do something to Orion even if we wanted to, and I promise we’ll try not to annoy you… too much,” he said, and the onix huffed again.

“You are either very brave or very stupid, Pierce,” Scott commented, sounding strange.

‘I’ll go with the former,’ Pierce replied mentally.

“Well, see you guys tomo… rrow…” he finished, blinking as Cygnus appeared sitting on his shoulders with a flash of light. “Everything okay bu… ddy?” he asked, feeling a little annoyed at being interrupted mid sentence again, but that was washed away with the message he got from the abra. Well, calling it a message might be too much, considering it was a series of mental pictures. One of them at the lair, a flash of light around them and then one of them… somewhere else? ‘I know that from somewhere… that’s on the way back from Arnold’s to the Pokemon Center. Isn’t that where you got Lily and me on our way back?’ he mused before voicing his actual question. “You want to teleport there?”

Affirmation.

“Well, if you are sure,” Pierce said hesitantly. Truly, he was a bit confused, although he wasn’t too sure why. He guessed he was just used to Cygnus staying back with the onix family so far. It had been what he always did. He was always there when Pierce arrived and there when he left.

He blinked as the picture of a lot of different pokemon appeared in his mind. It was then followed by a shield, before he saw a variety of pokemon from the abra line. He processed that for a second.

“So… your family protects the pokemon?” he asked, unsure. He got a… mixed response to that. “Sort of? Ok then. What about now though?” he continued then, getting a picture of a kadabra floating over the onix family. “Someone else will take over? Who’s that? Your father? Brother?” he asked. At that point, he could, at the very least, tell the difference between genders from that line after looking them up the last few days. “Brother, huh? Well… Tell him hi from me, I guess,” he mumbled, looking around and seeing nothing.

“A pleasure to meet you too, Helper-Speaker,” a strange voice – the mental voice of a pokemon, Pierce was learning – told him from out of nowhere. ‘Helper-Speaker?’ he wondered almost on instinct. Hadn’t another psychic type called him that before too? Scott’s, he was pretty sure. “I’m sure my brother will tell you, whenever he finds his voice.”

‘Well, uh, pleasure to meet you too,’ Pierce answered, getting a wave of amusement before the presence disappeared.

“Um, well, if that’s all, I guess we can be on our way,” he mumbled to himself more than anything. “See you tomorrow, guys,” he added, recovering from that meeting after a moment to look at the onix family, who looked quite bemused themselves. “Take care, yeah?”

Both gave their rumbling responses before Pierce nodded.

“So, Cygnus, how do we-” he said, before he blinked as a light that didn’t burn flashed in his eyes and then… It was like standing with a tremor going on. It shook his balance even though he didn’t even feel like he moved at all. The fact that the sight before him had changed entirely was also very disorienting, he’d admit. “Well, that was…” he mumbled, feeling his stomach turning and making him take a deep breath in.

Fortunately, he was no stranger to feeling faint.

Taking a seat on a side of the road, he took a moment to get his feet under him truly. He almost missed the wave of guilt and regret that hit him, before he felt something apologetic. He gave a weak chuckle at that, before patting Cygnus’s leg on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, buddy, it’s fine,” he mumbled, gulping down his nausea and continuing to take deep breaths. “Considering how long the way here would have been, this isn’t such a bad price to pay… I’m guessing you didn’t know that was going to happen? Because a warning would have been nice,” he commented, starting to feel better already.

‘Maybe it’d do to get some sweets and such,’ Pierce considered. That’s what he used whenever he felt faint before, after all. He wasn’t sure it was quite the same with… eh… teleport sickness, but it couldn’t hurt, right? Thoughts for later, he supposed.

Cygnus, for his part, answered as best he could, but Pierce got the gist of it.

“Well, at least I know to look out for this next time,” he said with a wry smile as he took an extra moment even if he was feeling better. It wouldn’t do to rush and make himself feel worse. “I really hope you get better at that with time, buddy. Because I’ve been teleported before and that’s… Certainly not how it goes…” he mumbled.

When the rangers had teleported him from near the onix lair to Pewter or the other way around when time became a bit of a problem for delays and such, it had been sort of like… Just blinking and being somewhere else. It was still a bit disorienting and unsettling, but it didn’t make him feel like he’d be losing his lunch, that was for sure. Then again, that had been a xatu and a claydol, not a member of the abra line, so maybe-

The wave of indignation he got answered that doubt very well, he felt.

“Ok, so your line is just as good and you need practice, that’s fine. We can work on that,” Pierce reassured the psychic type. “We can work on a lot of stuff while we are going around, Cygnus. I just gotta… Well, I gotta look stuff up and such. I honestly am kind of stumbling my way through this training pokemon thing, so I hope you don’t have very high expectations. Maybe I should have warned you two before you got yourself into this… I think,” he kind of rambled as he stood up.

He got a slight sense of amusement and reassurance from Cygnus then.

“Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it,” Pierce replied, taking one last breath in as he turned to walk towards the city. At his pokemon’s confused feelings, he explained. “I kind of have to inform the Pokemon Center that I’ll be taking the job for the day, if it’s still there. After that, I’ll go to the job or, if it’s not available, I’ll look up stuff to know how to take care of you and Orion.”

To that, Cygnus replied with acknowledgement and a very tired feeling.

“Is that how you usually feel or was that the teleporting? Did bringing me all the way here tire you out?” Pierce asked, because that’d make a lot of sense. When his pokemon confirmed that, he nodded to himself, making a mental note of that. He’d have to keep that in mind if he wanted to use Cygnus’s teleport at some other point. “Well, does being in the pokeball count as a nap? Because you’ll have to get in there later when we get more into the proper city part of Pewter.”

To that, Cygnus gave him the closest thing to a yes he could, but he also gripped at Pierce’s hair.

“Well, you can stay on my shoulders for the time being, I guess,” he replied with a soft smile as he continued walking.

‘So far so good, I think,’ he mused to himself.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Not much to say, really.

I know people don’t seem to like this story much, be it because things were going really slow or because things aren’t clear as to where it’s going. That’s sort of on purpose, I guess, since Pierce himself doesn’t know and is right now figuring out what he wants to do. That’s part of why I like this story. All too often, we see characters that know exactly what they want, with a clear goal in sight and a future that they strive towards… However, I think we all know life isn’t quite like that, and that’s what I want to show here.

So, I hope you aren’t too bothered with the approach I’m using here and that you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Did you see those names coming?... Because I didn’t. Honestly, what the fuck was that?

See you.