Searching Far and Wide - 24 (Patreon)

Mt. Moon II

“So, am I gonna find you petting a Legendary at some point?” Lily asked, making Pierce roll his eyes. “And honestly, the least you could do is have me there in your exploits somehow. Seeing them is good and all, but I’d like to be more involved, you know?”

“I’ll be sure to let you know next time, I guess,” he replied wryly, turning a bit and waving at the flock of spearow as the two of them continued moving down the path- “... Orion, we are going, come on!” he called, giving the onix an unimpressed look. The stone serpent, for his part, looked up from the rock he’d been chewing confusedly. “Come on, man, we are gonna keep moving for a bit.”

With a rumble, the onix started following. Not without giving the flying types his own goodbye though. With that and their own having already been delivered, the group continued down the path. Not without Pierce giving the spearow he’d treated a last look just to make sure. It still looked weak, but the little one should be fully recovered within some time. There was no need to worry, but he still did.

When Narcissa squeezed his neck out of nowhere, Pierce narrowed his eyes down at the abra he was carrying in his arms. The psychic type would have been on his shoulders, but that was kind awkward when the beedrill was currently latching to Pierce’s back. ‘Now you are reading my mind for others too?’ he mentally asked the abra, making him brush his mind with a sheepish feeling. With a sigh, he just rolled his eyes.

At least the psychic meant well, and he honestly guessed he should just get used to that.

“Anyway,” he started as their little group continued on their way. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one that has an encounter of some kind next,” he commented, giving Lily a look. To that, she shot him a doubtful expression.

“I don’t think you realize how special a case you seem to be, Pierce,” she replied with a giggle. “I’ve heard about journeys all my life and the stuff that you come across is definitely not the normal thing.”

“Maybe everyone else is doing things wrong,” he said with a shrug that made Narcissa grumble. “I mean, I think you just need to keep that friendly personality you have when meeting pokemon and you’d get similar results. You just gotta remember that pokemon think somewhat differently than humans.”

“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” Lily asked sarcastically, making him roll his eyes. “It’s not that easy, Pierce. Pokemon can get annoyed really easily and an annoyed pokemon is dangerous.”

“I mean, doesn’t seem so hard not to annoy them, honestly,” Pierce said, slightly confused. “Just gotta, you know, be careful what you say but keep a friendly disposition. If they already are annoyed, then just keep your calm and do your best to defuse the situation.”

“If you say so, Pierce,” Lily commented, shaking her head even as she smiled. For his part, he could only look at her, not really understanding.

[}-o-{]

[Lillian Dale]

Pierce made it sound so easy, honestly.

It was a bit frustrating, really, to know that her companion pulled off the impressive feats of communication he did with no effort whatsoever. Lily considered herself a very friendly person, and she’d always gotten along great with pokemon through her life. The problem was that those pokemon she usually interacted with were already… Well, they usually belonged to trainers already, be it her parents or family friends or even strangers, in the case of Professor Oak’s ranch.

Interacting in a friendly manner with wild, apprehensive and often downright aggressive pokemon was a different matter altogether. She didn’t know how Pierce did it, even after the man had tried to explain things to her several times. It just… It wasn’t that easy. How was she to forget that the creatures could do to her what she could do to a sheet of paper? How was she to ignore the fact that the smallest mistake could mean at least some serious injury?

At the same time as it was annoying, it was also a bit depressing. She’d always been praised for being good with pokemon, together with her friends. It felt like being good at making friends with them should have fallen in that category. Evidently, that wasn’t the case, even if she was a talented trainer.

It was humbling too, she supposed.

At least the world wasn’t so cruel as to make Pierce the better trainer too. No offense to her friend, he was great, but he wasn’t what she’d call prime trainer material. He was good, maybe even better than average, but he wasn’t as good as she was, or as good as her friends were, that was for sure. ‘I guess the world keeps its balance,’ she mused with a slight smile, even if there wasn’t much mirth behind it.

Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Lily focused back on her training team. There was a lot to work on, since her pokemon were fairly new to training at all, but it’d take time to get there. She just needed to slowly nudge them forward. Besides, Root was in the first of three stages, which meant that progress was slower than it would be later, once he developed a bit after evolving. Talon, on the other hand, had a better time of it since he was the first of two stages, so he had less dependency on his evolution.

A rumbling to the side got her attention then, mostly because it sounded familiar. It was also very different from the sound of rocks being pushed around close by, something their group was getting used to. After all, that was basically the equivalent of shuffling leaves or cracking branches in the forest.

Lily blinked at the sight of a geodude standing – for a definition of the word, she supposed – off to the side and looking at her pokemon training. Apparently, it noticed her attention, because the pokemon turned towards her with an expression she couldn’t read. Then, the pokemon rumbled something that sounded vaguely similar to how onix seemed to “speak” but also nothing like that. While one sounded like rocks rolling down a mountain, the other was more like taking two stones and hitting them against each other.

“Ah, hello,” she greeted, pushing aside her nerves and the voice in her mind that whispered that geodude could learn Rock Throw fairly easily even in the wild. That was a piece of knowledge that she really didn’t need when she was also very aware that she was well within Rock Throw range of the creature. “I hope we didn’t disturb you?” she half said, half asked, doing her best to put Pierce’s teachings to good use and keeping herself calm and friendly.

It was harder than it sounded, especially because usually she didn’t actually need to put effort into that.

At least the rumbling she got didn’t sound particularly aggressive. Still, she was able to relax a little when she realized that Root and Talon had stopped their training to get closer to her and the geodude. A calm that died a quick death when she saw the rock type’s arms lower to the ground, making it even easier for it to use Rock Through. Would her team react in time if it decided to attack? Was the pokemon strong? Was it fast? Was it both?

“Er, do you mind if we keep training here? We can move away if it bothers you,” she asked hesitantly, very obviously failing in her attempt to keep her cool. ‘How does Pierce do it?’ she wondered uneasily. Fortunately for her, it seemed that the geodude didn’t mind her nerves, apparently, if the response it gave was any indication. “Thank you,” she said then, feeling some relief. That’s when an idea occurred to her. “Do you like berries?” she asked, making the rock type perk up a bit. “Which ones are your favorite, eh, tough guy?” she asked then.

Her luck seemed to run out at that point though.

The geodude narrowed its eyes and banged one of its hands on the ground, making a stone sprout out of it very menacingly.

Lily stepped back – more like jumped – and her panicked mind immediately started trying to figure out where she’d messed up. The berries had obviously been a good idea so… ‘Of course, idiot,’ she chastised herself before gulping.

“Ah, er… tough girl?” she asked hesitantly, earning herself a huff from the female geodude. “Sorry about that,” she added quickly, before starting to rummage through her bag looking for the cube that contained her berries.

‘So far so good,’ she mused, still a bit nervous, especially after the last mishap. ‘Take that, Pierce, I can do this… too… Oh, he was right,’ she realized, remembering what the man had said regarding her being the next one to have an interesting encounter. ‘He’s gonna be smug about this, isn’t he?’

It’d been two days, surely he didn’t remember…

Right?

[}-o-{]

[Pierce Lawson]

He just looked at the geodude and then at Lily.

The girl huffed.

“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. He didn’t answer the question, but the smile on his face was sure to get the “I told you so” across. Especially judging by how amused Cygnus’s presence in his mind seemed to be. To that, the girl grumbled something, looking away from him.

“Good to have you join us, Geodude,” Pierce said then, turning to the rock type, who was being stared at curiously from all angles by Orion. “Kid,” he called then for his onix’s attention, snapping his fingers. “Give her some space, yeah? You are making her uncomfortable,” he said, drawing a somewhat grateful look from the geodude as it stopped shifting uneasily under the scrutiny of the onix. “Don’t worry about it. He’s still young and stupid, I’m sure you know what I mean,” he waved off as it gave him a nod… Or was it a bow? Whatever.

“How did you know she was female?” Lily asked him, wide-eyed. Apparently, the geodude didn’t appreciate the question, but she seemed pretty calm despite the scowl that now appeared on her face.

“Cygnus told me,” he answered with a shrug. “Anyway, I guess it’s good you made a friend here, right? At least we’ll stay the night,” he added then, looking down at the book regarding pokemon medicine on his lap. His muscles kept whining about the work out he’d gone through before, but it was getting better… Probably.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lily mumbled, apparently realizing that she’d have to say good bye. He didn’t quite get why she was sad though. They’d done this a whole lot of times since all the way back to Viridian Forest when they met. Meeting pokemon, talking, being generally friendly and then saying goodbye.

The same look being present in the geodude was a bit more understandable, if a little surprising too.

Looking between the two, Pierce sighed.

“I mean, I guess Geodude can join us for the trip if she wants to,” he suggested. They’d done such things at Viridian too. One particular weedle had clung to them for two whole days. They all eventually just left though, because they were wild and didn’t feel like joining in a more… permanent manner. Pierce wasn’t sure how the two of them would have reacted to that if they had, actually.

It wasn’t like he could have two beedrill in his team in good conscience, right? Not to be mean or anything, but it’d be a little inefficient. On top of that, it’d probably lead to trouble for the two pokemon too, he bet, so… Well, it was a good thing none of those weedle had latched to them quite that much. He wasn’t sure how Lily would have dealt with that though, honestly.

Back in the present, both the trainer and the wild pokemon seemed to cheer up at his suggestion. Lily straight out beamed at him when the geodude nodded. Hell, the girl was literally bouncing where she sat out of sheer excitement.

‘Might be an adult, but she’s still a child at heart,’ Pierce mused with a smile and a roll of his eyes.

“Guess we have a new traveling buddy, huh?” he said out loud, getting an excited rumble from Orion, while the other two seemed a bit more indifferent about the prospect. That was fine. He knew his team would behave, and that was as much as he expected from them. To be honest, he was more worried about the onix being a little too friendly.

Cygnus' amusement was decidedly not appreciated in regards to that.

[}-o-{]

“No, Orion,” Pierce declared, looking both annoyed and exasperated. “I’ve already told you. You can’t go on forever. You are already tired, you are young and recovering from serious wounds. I won’t let you push more than this,” he explained for what felt like the thousandth time, sighing and deflating. “Don’t make this difficult, yeah? I promise I’ll let you out if anything happens.”

With that said, he rubbed the side of the whining onix’s head. So far, it seemed that Orion was determined to push past his limits just so he’d be able to walk – slither, more like – with them towards the entrance of Mt. Moon’s cave system.  It was sort of adorable, but that also made enforcing the restrictions Pierce needed to all the harder.

“Come on, don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be, big guy,” he pleaded with a sad smile. “You know what? How about we use the wipe again at the next stop, yeah?” he asked then, getting the rock type to cheer up instantly. “I knew you’d like that. See you later, yeah? It won’t be that long,” he reassured, rubbing under Orion's jaw before recalling him into his pokeball. “Man, that’s not getting any easier,” he muttered once the rock type disappeared and he set the pokeball on his belt.

“I bet. I’m really not looking forward to having one like that,” Lily commiserated.

“Anyway, let’s keep going, yeah?” he asked, looking at the rest of their traveling group, which meant the remaining members of his team, Lily’s and their friendly mountain geodude. “Not gonna lie, I don’t think I like this trek as much as I liked Viridian Forest’s.”

“Not enough weedle for you?” Lily asked jokingly.

“Not enough anything for me, really,” Pierce answered with a shrug. “No offense to Geodude and the spearow but all this rock doesn’t seem to house all that much. I miss the color and the amount of pokemon we ran into in the forest,” he explained.

“Hm, maybe the inside of the mountain will be more fun for you,” Lily suggested, to which he nodded and gave a half-smile.

“I can only hope.”

[}-o-{]

“Thanks for the patience, girl,” Pierce said, giving Geodude a pat on the top of its head/body. “I know a check up is annoying, so I appreciate you letting me do this,” he said, giving the pokemon his payment for the favor.

There was some stuff in his books about how to look for issues that might not be so readily apparent, so he’d started doing check ups on the pokemons available to him once he got through the information regarding them. First was his team, then it was Lily’s and now their rock type companion. Next step on this new “exercise/project” of his was to find some friendly pokemon around the path they were taking and bribe them to let him check them over.

He wasn’t sure how successful he’d be, but he just needed to make sure that his “targets” weren’t already angry or something. If he did that much, Pierce was sure at most he’d get a firm no and that’d be it. He could do that much, he was sure.

“You really like this medical stuff, huh? You sure you don’t want to be a nurse at a Pokemon Center or something?” Lily asked from beside him, after watching the procedure curiously. Their teams, meanwhile, were going through exercises they’d set up previously. All except Orion, who had been looking at Pierce do his thing too while he was forced to take his rest.

“I mean, it sounds nice, but I like this journey thing. It lets me see stuff, meet new pokemon and all that. I don’t think I want to just settle in a city just yet,” Pierce answered with a shrug before stretching his stiff body. Sitting down on the rocky ground to check on Geodude hadn’t been nice for his legs and back, it seemed.

“Ranger then?” Lily asked.

“Too much danger. I like helping pokemon well enough but if it means going from shitshow to shitshow like the one with the rockets in Mt. Moon… Well, I don’t fancy living like that,” he answered before chuckling. “I guess I just gotta stay a trainer for a little longer to decide. Who knows? I might stay a trainer.”

“That could work too,” the girl agreed easily. “I just didn’t think you were that into it.”

“Well… I guess I’m having a bit of a change of heart. The tournament was interesting and exciting… I definitely wanna see how I do in actual competitions myself,” he said then, running his fingers through his hair. “Orion and Cygnus aren’t quite battle ready though, but maybe they’ll be for the next opportunity.”

“Fair enough. It’d be nice, if you actually got into battling,” Lily told him, beaming excitedly. “Don’t get too hopeful though, I’m still gonna win if we have to fight each other.”

“So you say, but Narcissa keeps winning all the spars,” he pointed out, swiftly making the girl’s expression change into an annoyed one.

“My pokemon will evolve soon, mister, and then we’ll see.”

“Sure thing,” he replied, not at all bothered by that.

[}-o-{]

Pierce woke up to a rather loud sound. It took him a moment to realize that it was the sound of rocks hitting things. As he blinked and moved to get up to check on things, his still sleepy brain figured out that it was rather similar to how Orion and Geodude sounded while they moved around and such.

“Everything ok, guys?” he called from inside the tent before looking at Cygnus. Sometimes he’d have liked for it to be more evident if the abra was asleep or not. Fortunately, it seemed that the psychic type was awake, if the wave of reassurance that he got was any indication. A second later, as he continued moving, he was mentally sent a picture of a- “An arbok?” he asked, blinking and pausing for a second.

Pulling a flashlight he set close by and turning it on, he stepped outside the tent in the shorts and t-shirt he wore to sleep. First thing he noticed was that it was, indeed, the middle of the night. It was evident from before, but he was still sort of waking up. The second thing he noticed was that the arbok Cygnus had “told” him about was being restrained by Orion and Geodude, with the rest of both Lily’s and his teams now wide awake.

“What happened?” came the sleepy voice as his traveling companion peeked out of her tent.

“Seems like someone decided we were easy prey or something,” Pierce commented, looking at the arbok that was being held between Orion’s jaws and with both of Geodude’s arms. “You can go back to sleep, I think. Things are under control.”

“Hm, ’s fine,” she mumbled, coming out in her own pajamas, shorts and a tank top. “So, we threaten it away, I guess?”

“I guess…” he parroted, trailing off. That didn’t feel right for him. Looking at the poison type he rubbed one of his eyes as the flashlight continued being pointed at their night raider. “Why’d you come here though? You had to have known we weren’t a good target,” he mumbled, aware that the arbok couldn’t really answer.

That’s when Cygnus decided to take over instead, brushing against Pierce’s mind a feeling of hunger.

“Ok… I guess that makes sense?” he said, tilting his head tiredly, his eyelids dropping a little. “So, too hungry to think straight, I guess,” he added, receiving a confirmation from the abra. “Ok then…”

Then he moved towards his backpack and pulled out the Preserving Box.

“Listen,” he said, feeling fully awake, if weary, as he crouched in front of the arbok’s head. “We’ll let you go and if you promise to be good, I’ll give you some food, yeah?” he said, receiving a hiss from the snake. That’s when he turned to regard Cygnus, who informed him of the affirmative answer. “Good, Orion, Geodude, you can let go… Narcissa, stay alert, yeah?”

“Wait, what? Pierce, I don’t think this is-” Lily said then, seemingly snapping herself awake for some reason and standing straight. He was a little distracted keeping his eyes on the arbok as it pulled itself into a coiled “standing” position and regarded him with its – his, Cygnus informed him – black eyes. “-a good idea,” the girl finished then, meekly.

“Hey there, just give me a second, ok?” Pierce said, nodding to the snake before turning and pulling out of the Preserving Box- “Actually, do you want standard food or do you eat berries? I read your kind is mostly carnivorous so…” he trailed off then, eyes darting between the arbok and Cygnus. “Kibble it is, that’s fine.” He nodded then, pulling the box and one of the extra bowls he’d gotten. “Here you go.”

“Sometimes, Pierce, I wonder if you are alright in the head,” Lily commented, drawing a confused expression from him.

“Why though? He was just hungry, that’s all,” he replied, frowning a little. “Besides, our teams were basically on him. He’s also getting what he wanted, no reason to be mean, right?” he finished, turning to regard the cobra pokemon, who seemed to have finished the bowl already. “You want seconds, big guy?” The way the arbok nodded his head reminded Pierce of an eager dog, funnily enough. ‘Not the comparison I expected to make, but that’s pokemon for you, I guess. They just can’t help but be adorable.’ “How can I say no to that, huh?” he commented with a grin.

“Absolutely mad,” he heard Lily mumble, making him roll his eyes.

“Can’t give you more than…” Pierce started saying before pausing as an idea popped in his mind. “Actually, big guy. I have a deal to offer you,” he said then, momentarily distracting the arbok from his meal. “I’ll give you more food, but you gotta let me give you a check up. I’m learning to treat pokemon, so I’d like to get as much practice as possible, you know?”

The serpent regarded him with narrowed eyes for a long moment, before looking at the already half-finished bowl of kibble. Then the creature looked back up at Pierce once more. After a long, silent moment, it hissed something and nodded.

“Great. I gotta brush up on what I read regarding your line, but you can eat in the meantime,” Pierce said, grinning widely before turning to regard everyone else. “That’s it, guys. I think you can go back to sleep. I’m gonna stay up for a bit with our new friend here and then go back to sleep myself.”

It seemed that the silent moments weren’t over just yet, because Lily and the rest of their pokemon stared at him then. Eventually, he felt some amusement from Cygnus, before the abra informed him that he’d go back to sleep. Orion seemed to follow suit and Root poked Lily on her shoulder.

“Insane, I tell you,” the girl muttered under her breath but still loud enough to be heard. “I’ll go back to sleep too,” she grumbled before moving back inside her tent. Her pokemon followed her example, settling down for the night once more.

The only one remaining was Narcissa, who latched to his back once more.

“You’ll have to get off for the check up, but thanks for keeping me company, girl,” he said before re-filling the bowl for Arbok and moving to look for his book so he could brush up on the info regarding the poison type’s line.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Just normal traveling shenanigans over here, guys. Nothing weird going on here at all, move on, move on. I tell you, this is perfectly normal. Don’t you see how Pierce is perfectly fine? This is regular stuff, evidently. Everyone knows that…

Just ignore Lily, yeah, she’s the weird one here, clearly.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What pokemon will Pierce Millan- I mean, Pierce Lawson befriend next?

See you.