Searching Far and Wide - 25 (Patreon)

Mt. Moon III

‘This might have been a bad idea,’ Pierce thought, narrowing his eyes as he took a deep breath in. Pursing his lips, he was only able to look as Narcissa flew through the air, dodging the rock that flew at her.

“Iron Defense again, Narcissa!” he called once the move was over. With a frown, he wondered how he could tackle this.

“Graveler, Rock Blast!” the girl across the “battlefield” – if it could be called that – ordered then and he grimaced. Immediately, the rock type used its four hands to hurl many shining pieces of stone at his beedrill. It was an annoying match up, Pierce would admit. Graveler was resistant to poison and normal. Furthermore, Narcissa’s bug type attacks were close combat ones. That wasn’t such a good idea with the opponent they were facing. Especially since she was weak against the rock type attacks Graveler could use.

‘Not as much of an advantage now that it’s an evolved pokemon with decent training, huh?’ he thought to himself bitterly. However, he’d already known that he couldn’t rely on Narcissa’s evolution advantage forever. He had hoped it’d carry them a little longer while he got the hang of it though. No such luck, it seemed. ‘Ok, let’s see.’

“Move around, Narcissa! Make it rain Poison Needles and don’t get hit!” he commanded and the buzz of his pokemon’s wings became even louder. She did as he was told, however, and Pierce watched intently. Graveler hurled more Rock Blast projectiles when its trainer ordered it to, but it wasn’t hitting the much faster Narcissa, fortunately. They’d get a lucky hit in at some point though, he was sure, and he was sure things would spiral from there.

Poison Needle was barely scratching it too, so Pierce wasn’t confident in their ability to win a battle of attrition.

‘Close combat is an even worse option though. What can we do here?’ he thought with a frown.

“Keep it going! Circle around it!” he called, frowning when one Rock Blast passed entirely too close to Narcissa. “Twineedle!” he added then, seeing Narcissa get behind the graveler. That was their opening. If they couldn’t get some solid hits in, they’d be praying that they could use Poison Needle for long enough to take the thing down. ‘All plans are risky right now,’ he thought grimly.

After getting a hit in, Narcissa pulled back instantly.

“Rock Throw!” the other trainer called and an even bigger chunk of stone flew at his beedrill.

And it landed the hit, right on the beedrill’s side.

“Narcissa!” he exclaimed, feeling like a hand had grabbed his heart and squeezed. ‘She’s fine,’ he noticed, watching as his partner shrugged the hit off. She was flying slower, but there didn’t seem to be any damage that he should be concerned about. “Back to Poison Needle, Narcissa!” he decided to go with. Getting in and out was more dangerous than just getting close. Moving back and all took away from her time of reaction too, evidently. “Add String Shot too!”

He wasn’t too sure the beedrill’s threads would be enough to contain such a pokemon, but he should try at least. Maybe with enough string thrown around, they could make some more openings for close attacks with Twinneedle. He’d have tried to make Narcissa do as she’d done with Lily and latch onto the pokemon’s back to use Bug Bite, but he was reasonably sure that the graveler knew Rollout.

“Rock Blast!” the other trainer switched to once more and several projectiles were flung towards Narcissa. She was fast though, not quite as much as before, but she still had it. Poison Needle was about as effective as before, which was to say very little. As for String Shot, it wasn’t doing much just yet, but maybe with more time-

Except Narcissa got hit once more, this time more directly.

“Rock Throw!” his opponent called and this attack nailed the beedrill perfectly, which made Pierce grimace.

“We surrender!” he called then, running a hand through his hair as the rock type stopped its movement. Then, he jogged towards Narcissa, who was on the ground, trying to stand up. “Easy, Narcissa. It’s fine. The battle is over,” he told her as he knelt beside her. “Grab onto me, ok? I’ll treat you in a second, I promise, just hold on for a bit,” he said, receiving dejected clicking in response. “No worries. You win some, you lose some. We’ll do better next time.”

That didn’t improve her mood much, but he’d take care of that later.

“Good battle,” he said, walking towards the other trainer and passing the girl the bet money for the match.

“Same,” she replied, a wide friendly grin being directed at him. “That’s a tough bug you have there. Most of the ones we’ve fought against basically go down after the first hit,” the girl added then, visibly improving Narcissa’s mood.

“Thanks. Good luck, maybe we’ll get a rematch if we meet again.”

“Sure, take care!”

“Well, that could have gone better,” Lily commented once the other trainer moved away and he started spraying Potion on Narcissa so his partner could recover faster. “Everything ok?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Pierce answered with a nod, feeling as down as Narcissa did. “We just have to train harder. And I’ll have to look for things we can use against pokemon with resistance to Narcissa’s moves. She’s fast and she’s strong, but if we don’t have an advantage, they can outlast us, evidently.”

As he spoke, he looked at his partner. The beedrill wasn’t showing much, but she didn’t need to. He knew she was disappointed, frustrated, even angry. Narcissa wanted to be strong. She wanted to show everyone she could be strong.

A defeat was the opposite of that.

Pierce knew, of course, that it was unreasonable to expect to win every battle. However, that didn’t make the hit hurt any less. Especially for his pokemon partner. He was fairly sure that Narcissa would never take a loss well…

“Well, most of those moves are gonna require tutors. There’s Brick Break that should come in handy, for example,” she said and he nodded with pursed lips. “It’s a shame that Narcissa can’t learn Steel type attacks, with Iron Defense in hand, it’d be easier for her than a new type.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have that… luck,” he mused, trailing off as an idea popped in his mind. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to determine how feasible that would be if they tried. “Hm, might have to try that out,” he mumbled under his breath as he absently petted Narcisa. “For now, we have some more distance to travel, right?” he asked out loud.

“Yeah, but what was that about?” Lily asked, eyes wide with curiosity. “You got an idea? I wanna know.”

“Hm, maybe you’ll find out later.”

“Pierce, don’t be mean!”

“So, onwards, plenty of road ahead of us.”

“Pierce!”

[}-o-{]

“Ok, girl, first of all,” Pierce started, looking at a brand new page in his notebook that he’d use for this new idea that he’d gotten. “How are Tailwind and Agility coming along?” he asked, immediately seeing the hesitance with which Narcissa regarded him immediately. “Not that well, huh? I imagined. Agility is a long ways away, I bet, but what about Tailwind, we’ve been working on that with Talon for a while, right?”

To that, the beedrill clicked her mandibles. She sounded pretty confident then and there.

“Can you show me?” he asked, noticing how she seemed to deflate a little. Regardless, Narcissa rose in the air and started flying in circles. Sure enough, the wind started to pick up with a slight shine to it. He wasn’t so sure of how much that increased the speed of his already fairly fast pokemon, however. “Looks good, what do you think? Not quite there yet?” he asked, receiving a reluctant affirmation. “Close then?” he continued, receiving a firm “yes” to that, if he’d ever seen one.

With a nod, he noted that down. Tailwind and Agility both would come in handy if he wanted to pull the idea he had off. He tapped the back of his pencil to the page absently as he considered how to best approach this. With a slow nod, he looked up at his beedrill once more.

“Can you use Iron Defense, girl?” he asked then. With no hesitation whatsoever, Narcissa’s body was covered in the silvery energy of the steel type aura or whatever it was that moves used. Nodding slowly, he took the process in. The energy seemed to wash over her once or twice before disappearing. “Ok…” he mumbled, noting down some more stuff. “Can you try again, this time, holding it? Keep the energy there?” he asked, his eyes moving to the side where Cygnus was doing more of his physical training.

He would have liked to get the abra started on moves and such, but the first stage of his line wasn’t very good learning moves. They could of course, but they had more trouble than the regular pokemon. As such, the plan they were going with was training either Teleport, which he already had a grasp of but had room for improvement, and his body, which needed a lot more work. Once he evolved, they could get started on some other stuff.

It was a bit funny, that even after catching two pokemon, he still essentially only had Narcissa for the moment. After all, Cygnus didn’t have any battling moves just yet and Orion was too young and still recovering. The onix was getting better by the day though, so Pierce was starting to consider letting the rock type have a battle or two, maybe with wild pokemon, preferably about as young as he was…

Those were plans for later though, now he had stuff to try with his first pokemon partner. As it was, he focused back on Narcissa as the beedrill did as he requested. This time, there was a visible change on how long the process of Iron Defense went. It wasn’t a huge difference, but it took noticeably longer for the shine to disappear.

“Ok, can you move when you use it?” he asked, receiving a shake of the beedrill’s head. “Hm, yeah, but can you move when you do it the other way? Taking longer?”

That seemed to give the bug type pause before she tried again. Pierce, in the meantime, watched intently, in case there was anything that his partner might not notice. The silvery shine came, washing over Narcissa for a solid few seconds before it disappeared. Sagging a little, the beedrill shook her head.

It was what it was, really. As it was, Narcissa barely could pull the move off while keeping herself where she was in the air. He wasn’t sure how much different that was from moving around, considering both needed her wings to do their job, but it was what it was. They’d have to work on that, he supposed, but that was for later.

“That’s fine,” he reassured with a wave of his hand before looking down and noting some more things down in his notebook. “Ok, here’s what I want you to try. Fly up as high as you can and then just drop down. While you fall, can you try to use Iron Defense? If you can, or can’t, just make sure you don’t hit the ground, yeah?” he explained, making Narcissa pause for a long moment before the beedrill nodded and did just as he asked.

He watched her do her thing, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t very well get the details of the whole process from where he was on the ground. With some luck though, he wouldn’t be missing anything important. There was the flight, the fall, the shine and then Narcissa stopped before flying back to him. He didn’t need the affirmative exclamation she gave but he smiled nevertheless.

That was some solid progress, as far as he was concerned.

“Ok, that’s great,” he said, making some more notes. “So far so good,” he mumbled, looking at his notes. He had some ideas still, but what to try first? What had a better chance of working? What was the best option? Was what he wanted to do even possible? Would it work as intended or was he trying to force something that couldn’t be? “Ok, here’s what I want you to try, Narcissa,” he said, looking up at the red eyes of his beedrill.

She wanted to be strong, and he’d do his best to help her there. Maybe his ideas were useless, but maybe they weren’t. He had to give it a try. It’d be better than just sitting and doing things as everyone did. Pierce needed an edge if he wanted to stand out… So he’d look around until he found one… Or several, if at all possible.

Anything so Narcissa wouldn’t look as sad as she had after the loss with the graveler. Anything to make it so that his team and him would lose less. Anything to see his team stand proud, to prove that they hadn’t made a mistake by joining him.

“Can you do that again? There’s no need to make the fall long though. It’s probably better if it’s a short one, actually,” he started then, feeling Narcissa’s eyes all but boring a hole in him with how intently she stared at him. “This time though, I want you to fall and use Iron Defense right before hitting the ground.”

[}-o-{]

“Orion, stop glaring,” Pierce said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Orion,” he repeated, more pointedly this time, making the onix huff and turn around. “What’s the big deal, buddy? It’s not like I’ve given the wipe away or something. Lily will return it once she’s done,” he asked, rolling his eyes at the rock type.

As it turned out, Orion wasn’t a fan of sharing the special wipe that Pierce had gotten for him with Lily and Geodude. It was honestly a little funny… for all of a few minutes before it became annoying. The onix was a child though, so Pierce guessed he couldn’t be too mad with the not-so-little guy. Beside him, both Narcissa and Cygnus sighed rather loudly. To that, Orion looked at them like they were the unreasonable ones.

“Orion, you are gonna have to learn to share stuff. Who knows, maybe I’ll catch another rock type or a steel type or something that I can use that wipe on. Or maybe it’ll be some other thing that you’ll have to share, but the point is that you need to learn that lesson, buddy,” Pierce said with a weary smile. “Come here, big guy,” he added then, gesturing for the onix to rest his head on his lap. Once it was there, he started rubbing his hand on the side of Orion’s head. “Is this really about the wipe?” he asked then.

The onix then grumbled something that didn’t mean much of anything to his ears. Thankfully, Cygnus was there to help out, the little lifesaver that he was. A second later, he saw a picture of Mama Onix in his mind.

“A little homesick, huh?” he whispered softly as he continued petting the rock type. “I know how that feels, big guy. It’s going to be fine though. You’ll grow strong and we’ll visit soon. I’m sure Cygnus will get super good with Teleport in no time and we’ll be visiting whenever we feel like it,” he reassured, trying to put some cheer in his voice.

In the privacy of his mind, Pierce “told” the abra that he wasn’t serious about that. He knew that the longer the distance, the harder it was for the pokemon to pull off. It’d be a while before Cygnus could take them across the region on a whim, that was for sure. Regardless, he felt the psychic respond with determination only. ‘With some luck, I haven’t pushed Cygnus into being even more of a training maniac… Just what I needed with this team,’ he thought with a wry grin.

“If you really miss it too much though, just say the word and we can take you back home,” he offered, trying to keep his voice soft and friendly, else Orion take it as a threat or something. “Nobody would blame you, buddy, and while it would be disappointing, I wouldn’t mind.”

To that, the rock type grumbled some more, but it was clearly a negative answer to that offering.

“I’m glad,” Pierce told him, intent on being as honest as possible with his team. “I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun traveling together, Orion,” he commented, continuing to absently rub his hand on the rocky skin of the onix. “Lots of places to see, lots of pokemon to meet, lots of battles to have. Does that sound good?” he asked.

Immediately, he got a response that definitely had some cheer to it. Even Narcissa and Cygnus answered that question, even if neither had been addressed. To that, he just chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Lily asked then, having come over from where she’d been sitting with her team plus Geodude. Pierce was fairly sure the little rock type was going to join her team, but he didn’t want to voice that thought in case he managed to screw things up for her. Idly though, he wondered if Lily had felt similarly when he’d been treating Orion and spending time with Cygnus. “Thanks for the wipe, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it,” he waved off, ignoring the first question. “Everything going well on your side?” he asked then, looking at Root, who was peacefully lying down while Talon flew some laps up in the sky.

“Yeah, everything’s peaceful. No wild pokemon for you to bribe into getting a check up, Pierce,” Lily commented jokingly before giggling behind her hand.

“I’m not that bad,” he said, rolling his eyes. That is, until he saw the girl and his pokemon giving him a look. “What? I’m not? There was… Uh… That rattata!”

“Fairly sure that was because the little thing ran away from you before you could offer,” Lily commented, unimpressed, even if Pierce could tell that she was holding back a laugh.

“Oh, laugh it up. At least I don’t make food disappear-”

“One time!”

[}-o-{]

“They are entirely too enthusiastic about training,” he commented, feeling his limbs burning from the work out he’d had while his team trained before. Overhead, as they trekked towards Mt. Moon, Narcissa and Talon were training Tailwind. The former to actually get the move down for good while the latter was now just practicing it. Advantages of a better affinity with the move, sadly.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Lily replied with her usual cheer, skipping beside him.

“I’m already tired from exercising. Looking at them keeping on makes me feel even worse,” he grumbled, giving a wry smile as Cygnus patted him on the head. Predictably, the psychic type was riding on his shoulders. As for Orion, the onix had been sent to his pokeball to rest after training a little too hard in their last session. Pierce had warned the not-so-little guy but the rock type had insisted.

That meant no traveling beside them, sadly, but there wasn’t too much change in the sights, so Pierce guessed he could see why the onix hadn’t minded too much.

“If it makes you feel better, Cerulean has shore and Summer is around the corner,” Lily commented with a wide grin. “You know what that means?”

“Swimming?” he answered, smiling a bit himself. “Yeah, that sounds great. I like swimming.”

“I was gonna say showing off at the beach, but that too,” Lily corrected with a giggle.

“Uh, I don’t think I’ll have that much to show off, even with as much as Narcissa has me working out,” he commented wryly, suddenly feeling more than a little self-conscious. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Well, you are no bodybuilder, but you look good, Pierce. No need to be shy,” she reassured him. Although, to be honest, he was more surprised that she could just say that without a problem than he was relieved. He hadn’t expected that compliment to come out of nowhere. “Unless you have your eyes on someone already? You are not falling for little ol’ me, are you, Pierce?”

“Yeah, nah,” he replied with a half-smile. “You ain’t tricking even more food out of me, woman.”

“Pierce, why’d you have to ruin it?!” she whined then, shoulders dropping. “It was one time!”

“And I’ve told you. I ain’t letting you live it down,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “I’m so looking forward to meeting some of your friends so we can share stories. It’ll be so much fun,” he commented, drawing a horrified look from her.

“You wouldn’t?”

“You sure about that?” he asked back, raising an eyebrow with a grin still in place. “You absolutely sure?”

“You suck,” she grumbled then, before pointing a finger at him. “Turnabout is fair play, Pierce, just to let you know.”

“Sure thing, Lily,” he told her, still smiling, even if he felt it grow a little forced then. Fortunately, he was confident that he played it off well. ‘You ain’t gonna find any friends of mine, Lily, nor family for that matter,’ he thought, his mood dropping even as he did his best to keep up appearances. “Is that the entrance?” he asked then, trying to make himself taller to look further.

Sure enough, a little ways away there was a shift on the sort of monotonous path and mountain. They’d seen a few of those already, but as they continued walking the doubts were cleared. The fact that there was a ranger standing nearby was just that extra confirmation needed, really.

“Finally,” Lily said, running her fingers through her hair. “You sure you don’t mind if we make the trip through the caves longer than it needs to be?” she asked then, growing a little nervous.

“It’s fine, Lily. We can spend some time looking for a clefairy. No big deal,” he reassured her, waving off her worries. “Even if we don’t find one, it’s fine. I don’t mind,” he added before chuckling. “At least, I don’t mind right now. If it turns out that traveling through caves sucks, I reserve the right to take that back.”

“That’s fair,” Lily replied, her lips tugging up in a smile. “Thank you. I know it’s silly and unlikely to happen-”

“Well, it is with that attitude,” he interrupted, pushing against her with his shoulder. “Seriously, did you forget that I was the one that encouraged you to try? It’d be pretty hypocritical of me to tell you otherwise now. Just give it your best shot, that way you won’t regret it later.”

“I know,” she mumbled, nodding before taking a deep breath in and stopping walking. As she did, she turned to regard Geodude who had been traveling with them so far. ‘Here it comes, I guess,’ Pierce thought, looking curiously. Off to the side, both Narcissa and Talon had stopped and landed to look. “Geodude, I guess this is where we go our separate ways,” Lily said, before visibly gathering the courage to continue. “Unless you want to come with us, as part of my team?”

There was silence then, as the rock type stared at her with an unreadable expression. If he was feeling a little nervous, Pierce couldn’t imagine how Lily was feeling. Especially because the girl had spent a lot more time with the little rock type, obviously.

Eventually, Geodude gave her little bow/nod, making Lily squeal as she all but scrambled to pull out a pokeball to use. Looking from the side, Pierce grinned softly. ‘Life goes on and new bonds form,’ he thought, not for the first time. With everyone distracted by the new addition to their group, he allowed himself a sad smile for all that he’d lost. It wasn’t often, but he’d get sudden bouts of sadness… However, he needed to move past those, and he was, he knew he was…

‘Wonder if it’ll ever go away though,’ he thought, unsure if he wanted that to happen. Missing his old life sucked, for sure, but… He didn’t want to forget either. On his shoulder, Cygnus gave his head a little pat that made him chuckle. Idly, he wondered how much the abra really picked up, because he found it slightly weird that he wouldn’t ask in regards to his… less than normal thoughts and memories. Regardless of that though… ‘Thanks, Cygnus.’

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

And the traveling goes on, as does the training and the interactions. We also finally make it to Mt. Moon, properly. Maybe you guys have noticed that I name the “arcs” of this story according to where they are. I named the arc after Pewter as Mt. Moon, but should I have named it Route 3 instead and now change to Mt. Moon? I’m curious what you guys think about that so that I can keep it in mind for future arc.

On a different note, I’m not sure what to think about the addition to Lily’s team. This is a very Pierce centric story, which doesn’t help portray all that well how things go on Lily’s side. It’s something that happens in my stories a lot, I focus a lot on my MCs, to the point that even though stuff is happening with other characters, there’s not much of that shown.

I should probably work on that but it kinda clashes with my writing style… Ugh…

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: I think I have already asked this but fuck it, what do you think will be the next addition to Pierce’s team? What do you think will be the next addition to Lily’s?

See you.