Searching Far and Wide - 31 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Mt. Moon IX

Pierce watched on from the side, an amused smile on his face.

Things with Lily had spiraled a little after she caught the cleffa, Star. One would think that the spiraling was what led to that, but it was the other way around, actually. The catching was what started things.

First, the cleffa’s family had approached, which led to Lily starting a conversation about all the care she’d give her new team member, how they’d train and how she was going to do her best with her. Things had gotten out of hand there, with his friend starting what was basically a presentation of how she planned her journey to be with possible things that could happen along the way. The clefairy family members listened attentively, occasionally babbling something or decidedly joining in with conversation of their own… somehow.

Pierce thought it was all pretty funny, really. Mostly, however, it was adorable. It was like Lily had turned into a little child who just couldn’t shut up about this cool thing she’d found. So, thinking about how this would make perfect teasing material in the future, he let the girl be.

Then he turned to his side.

“You haven’t decided to come with me too, have you?” he asked the clefairy next to him, who huffed something with a grin and babbled at him. “That’s what I thought. Well, thanks for helping me with all the work here, yeah? All of you, really,” he told her, before looking at the rest of the gathered fairy types.

In response, he got a bunch of enthusiastic babbling that made him smile.

“You are welcome too,” he said, knowing that they were thanking him in turn. “We won’t be getting too far too soon, so if you need help, you can ask the rangers. If you don’t trust them, I’m sure they can get me,” he added, getting appreciative nods from the clefable.

That is, before one babbled something, looked between Lily and him and then walked away.

“What’s up with that?” he asked curiously, following the last stage evolution of the clefairy line as they walked back into the chamber they were leaving from. “I didn’t unknowingly insult you guys or something, right?” he added, turning to his partner in nursing. The question seemed to amuse the pink pokemon, because she let out a giggle before shaking her head. “Well, that’s a relief.”

Then he turned back to look at Lily, who was still in her own little world, chatting away with Star and her family.

“They are gonna be at it for a while, aren’t they?” Pierce asked, getting agreeing sounds from all the pokemon around. Even Root, who was standing next to his trainer, nodded to him, looking both amused and slightly exasperated. “So, should we just…” he started, before trailing off as the clefable from before returned, this time followed by the other clefable too.

The fairy type approached him, babbling something softly at him while extending her arms towards him. In them, the pokemon was carrying a small rock the size of his thumb. A little stunned by the sudden, unexpected gesture, he took the stone and looked at it. His first thought was to wonder if it was an evolutionary stone, but that wasn’t the case. He knew those to be bigger and have a very distinctive look.

The rock he’d been given was red, but it was no Fire Stone, that was for sure. It honestly looked like a normal rock to him. With a very solid red tone, for sure, but even that looked like some of the rocks he’d see when he visited the mountains with his family in his own world. There was nothing odd about it other than that it was polished into an oval shape, giving it a slight shine.

“Thank you,” he replied, looking at the clefable, who gave him a smile and a nod before moving towards Lily. Distractedly, Pierce rubbed his thumb over the stone in his hand. It was pretty, if nothing else, and it wasn’t like he’d done all he’d done for a reward. He was fine. ‘Maybe I can make a necklace with this?’ he wondered. It must have been important in some way, he knew, even if he couldn’t quite piece it together yet. “What is it?” he asked then, receiving a happy babble in response.

Turning with a slight frown towards Cygnus, he didn’t receive a much better answer, really. All his psychic communicated was the picture of a rock and gratefulness. Which, didn’t really answer any questions, but the poor abra seemed to have as little idea as he did.

Maybe it was like the clefairy family’s version of an IOU card? That was an amusing thought, if nothing else.

“Really? I… I can’t take this,” he heard Lily say, looking at the clefable, unsure. She had a rock in her hand, one roughly the size of an apple. “I didn’t do all that much, I can’t accept this,” she continued, trying to give the item back, which the clefable was having none of. The fairy type simply pushed her hand with the stone back towards him, babbling something.

“What’d you get?” he asked curiously. Because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be acting that way if they were giving her a normal rock in thanks. Or at least, that what he was assuming was going on, at least.

“They are giving me a Moon Stone,” Lily told him, eyes wide and seemingly unsure of what to do. Pierce, for his part, blinked at her, tilting his head. A Moon Stone was pretty neat by itself, but especially for her. After all, clefairy needed one to evolve into a clefable, so Star would need one whenever she was ready to reach her final stage… if she wanted to evolve, that is.

“So, take it. It’s not like they don’t know what they are giving you, right?” he told her with a grin, to which she simply looked numbly at the item in her hand. Meanwhile, Pierce did the same with the rock in his hands. His thumb continued rubbing against the dark red material absently as he wondered what was so special about it. Maybe it’d warrant a search whenever he got time to check on a computer.

“Thank you,” Lily said in the end, getting beaming smiles from the fairy types around them. She returned it with a weak one of her own, her fingers gripping tightly at the rock in her hand.

[}-o-{]

“This is weird,” Lily commented, brows furrowed even as she hugged Star against her chest. “Why would they give me an evolution stone but give you… that? Do you think it might be a fossil?”

“Doubtful. Pretty sure they are supposed to be bigger, might be a small one though,” Pierce answered, still holding his rock in his hand. If the latter was the case, it’d be a little disappointing, since he knew fossils definitely needed to be bigger than that to be of use in bringing the pokemon of old into the present. Lily, for her part, had long since placed hers carefully wrapped in cloth inside one of her boxes. She didn’t need to be so careful, but it had been a great gift.

Truth be told, considering the prices he’d seen for those when he’d been randomly browsing through stuff? He fully understood why she was so awed. It was a little funny to see her so completely shaken too though.

“Maybe it’s more… symbolic meaning rather than straight out value?” he asked, unsure. “Like, marking me as a friend to the clefairy of Mt. Moon or something? It’d be much easier if Star could just confirm some of my theories,” he commented, giving the fairy type a look. The young one seemed completely unconcerned by their conversation, however. When they’d asked her more directly, she’d seemed about as puzzled as they had, which only made things worse.

‘Is there anything else this could be?’ Pierce wondered idly, looking at the stone in his hand. ‘Maybe it has something inside?’

That could be the case, but he didn’t want to try and break the thing to look inside. That’d be stupid and potentially quite insulting for the clefairy family, especially if he turned out to be wrong. He guessed a way to get around that was to find a way to check the inside of the stone without breaking it. Surely there was some tech for that, maybe in Pewter? He’d have to look that up later too, he guessed.

“Yeah, I guess it could be that,” Lily mused. “Are you mad?” she asked then, making him blink. At his confused expression, she sighed. “I got a Moon Stone and we both know that’s not a small thing. And you… Well, you don’t even know what you got and you were the one that did the most work.”

“I mean, it’s fine either way, but I also don’t think the clefairy would paid you more and me less. At most, I imagine they’d pay us both equally,” he commented with a shrug. “So, any ideas of what’s for dinner?”

“You are just… gonna leave it at that?” Lily asked, seemingly baffled.

“Yeah? We don’t know what it is, so just keeping talking about it isn’t very productive, is it?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “The journey goes on, there’s training to do, ground to cover and battles to win, right?”

“I guess. It’s just…”

“You are a curious little thing and can’t stand not knowing?” he asked, grinning widely.

“... Yes,” she admitted, deflating a little and pouting.

“Is this an Oak sponsor thing or a you thing?” he asked, placing his hand on the tunnel wall as he continued walking with a smile on his face. “Also, you didn’t answer the question.”

“Both? And I think I know what I’ll make,” she answered, looking very clearly interested in continuing pondering the mystery of the Rock Gift. “You are not gonna let me continue talking about that, will you?”

“Nope. We can figure it out later, or maybe we’ll just have to wait and see. I have some ideas, but it’s not like we can find out in here. We can check stuff once we make it to Cerulean, don’t you think?” he pointed out calmly.

“I can’t believe you are not curious,” Lily told him, looking at him like he’d grown a second head.

“I am curious. I just acknowledge that I can’t know right now, so it’s better to leave it as is,” he replied with a grin. “Besides, they didn’t seem to want to tell me, so that must have been for a reason, right? I didn’t really expect them to repay me, so I’m not too bothered if it’s just a rock. I’ll take it even then.”

“Lucky you then,” a new voice said, making both of them jump a little and turn forwards in the tunnel.

“Ruth?”

“Kid, I’m guessing everything went fine, considering we just heard you saying something about a payment?” the old ranger asked them, looking between Lily and him.

“Yes, the pokemon are fine, most of them had already left or were about to,” Pierce confirmed with a smile. “I didn’t know you’d be waiting for us though,” he added, looking at her and the much younger ranger with her. He didn’t remember his name, but he was pretty sure he was the one that had been with Ruth the last time.

“Well, we can’t leave a good deed go unpunished, can we?” Ruth told them.

“Unpunished?” Joshua asked, blinking. Lily, next to him, looked about as confused as he did. And a bit worried too, admittedly.

“Don’t worry about it. You want to talk while walking, kid?” the woman asked with a raspy chuckle, grabbing his shoulder and urging him to do just that.

“Uh, sure?” he mumbled. He wasn’t sure he had much of a choice, but whatever.

“Don’t worry about it. I just went through your file again while we were working on adding this latest instance,” she told him. At least she seemed to be in a good mood, but that just confused him more. ‘As if the Mystery Rock wasn’t enough,’ he mused. “Impressive list of notes, for someone that just got started on their journey.”

“I just have good luck, I guess,” he commented with a shrug, getting an even louder laugh from the ranger.

“Yeah, no, it’s definitely not that. I’ve met lucky trainers, but you aren’t one of those, Lawson,” Ruth denied instantly. “No, you are a special kind of trainer and we are definitely noticing. The kind of trainer the League likes to support.”

“You are the kind of trainer we want to succeed, to reach far in their journey,” he remembered Scott telling him back in Pewter. It seemed that had been the truth.

“And what does that mean for me?” Pierce said, trading a look with Lily, who didn’t look like she knew more than he did. That was reassuring, at least.

“For now, that when you do something good, you’ll be rewarded extra, since you are on a bit of a streak, as it were,” Ruth told him, grinning widely. “The League can open doors for you, offer opportunities that could be harder to come by if not impossible. You are not quite there yet, especially for the latter, but I want to motivate you.”

“I don’t need motivation to help pokemon,” he told her with a shrug. Not that he’d complain about extra rewards and such. He wasn’t that stupid.

“And that’s great to hear, I gotta say. You wouldn’t believe how many times people expect to be paid more than they are worth. Try not to be too humble though, yeah? That can be annoying too,” Ruth told him, to which he blinked again. The woman was striking him as kind of… intense, or maybe blunt? “Regardless, I have something to do real quick before we keep talking.”

“And that is?”

“We have to confirm that you did a good job treating those pokemon. We can do what we did before, with you telling me all that you remember, or we can have a psychic look through those memories,” Ruth offered him, not looking like she particularly minded which choice he took. “Personally I’d take the former, but I’m not gonna lie, if you did a good job, you should go with the psychic. They can get the details across much better than our sad human memories and descriptions can.”

“... Can I have my abra out for that? I don’t mind the psychic if that’s the case,” he mused. He didn’t have much to hide, and if the thing about being a dimension hopper or whatever hadn’t gotten out yet then he wasn’t too scared about that anymore.

“People are usually more wary of letting someone into their minds,” Ruth pointed out. Pierce was actually surprised she seemed to be trying to talk him against the psychic approach. It seemed like the kind of thing she’d have to try and convince him to do instead.

“I don’t think I have anything to hide,” he told her honestly with a shrug.

“And if you do, we won’t get that. The psychic is only going to look for what we need and nothing else. That’s the deal most of the time. Even if we wanted them to, they wouldn’t do it. Privacy is a big thing for them. Funny, considering they are always in each other’s minds. Maybe because of that.”

“Psychic etiquette? That sounds neat,” Pierce commented, drawing a chuckle from the woman.

“Indeed,” she agreed before pulling out a pokeball and letting out a claydol. Following suit, he let Cygnus out too. The psychic wasted no time before teleporting on top of his shoulders “Doll, if you would?”

What came afterwards was a little strange. He felt the brush of the pokemon’s mind, more subtle than his abra’s, more silent, more… inconspicuous. His thoughts went undisturbed during the process, but he still got flashes of the memories the claydol was rummaging through, the many pokemon he had treated, what he’d done, how he’d done it and all.

“Pretty good,” Ruth commented, her eyes half on the path ahead of them and half looking at something only she could see. His memories, Pierce supposed. “Good thing you went this route, kid, you did a solid job. Not sure just words would have done that justice. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you already have the First Aid License.”

That comment actually made him rather happy. He was a bit nervous about his studies, since there was so much to remember. However, this was proof that he was doing pretty well, and that was with a short time of starting to study. Maybe he could go for it in a few months, if he managed to keep the pace he had.

“Well, I have to keep looking, but things are looking good. The monetary reward will be waiting for you whenever you manage to check on your account,” Ruth told him, still going over what he’d done in the caves while treating pokemon. He was actually a little impressed that she could walk, talk and do that all at the same time. “Reward number two,” she said then, extending a hand towards him and he took what she passed towards him before he could even process the motion. It was a Preserving Box “That’s filled with food and berries and we’ve already more than replenished what you had to use treating the pokemon.”

“Yeah, I think I might have come off with double what I went in with,” he joked, but it was not that far from the truth. The League spared no expenses on that sort of thing, from what he was seeing through his journey. It was… honestly really nice, that they cared so much for pokemon. Then again, maybe there was a selfish reason, like wanting to keep the pokemon happy so they would be less likely to cause disasters.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Ruth said, smirking at him before looking ahead once more. “Reward number three, the double edged sword,” she added then, rather ominously. Pierce frowned then, wondering what he could possibly be getting to warrant that kind of warning. How was he even going to manage to get into trouble by helping pokemon with the support of the League?

He blinked then, as Ruth passed him something else.

“A Pokegear?” he asked, looking at the thing. “How’s this a double edged sword?”

“Because now you are officially in the League’s sight, Lawson,” the old ranger told him, which sounded just as concerning as before, even if he wasn’t understanding why. “Granted, you are low on all the lists, but now, if the League needs back up for something you are particularly suited to, they might give you a call.”

“I see,” he mumbled, looking at the pseudo-cellphone. He realized then, that maybe it was something to be worried about, as Ruth made it seem. He specifically didn’t want to be a ranger so he wouldn’t be thrown in situations like Mt. Moon’s attack. This sounded remarkably like that.

“Don’t worry too much just yet, ok? As I said, you are low on the lists. Lots of people will get a call before they reach your name,” Ruth reassured, giving him a pat on the back. “As it is, this is just a free pokegear for you, for the moment.”

“Well, there’s that,” Pierce commented wryly. Maybe it was arrogant or something like that, but with the way his journey was going?... He didn’t know if he’d be low on those lists for very long.

Judging by the smirk on Ruth’s face, she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Being good at things can be a bad thing, Lawson,” the woman told him, apparently amused by his worries. “It’s not all bad, however. You’ll get money and resources thrown at you. A happy trainer is a happy agent, as far as the League is concerned, so they’ll want to keep you happy if you are valuable enough.”

“I get the feeling that you aren’t as reassuring as you think you are,” Pierce commented blandly, drawing a loud laugh from Ruth. “But thanks anyway. Better than doing it for free, right?”

“That’s the spirit,” she told him. “Well, that’s that. You did a solid job, Lawson, be proud. Many pokemon will have a much easier time now thanks to you and Mt. Moon will get that much more calm after the shitshow that the Rockets caused,” she added then, her eyes gaining new focus now that she apparently was done rummaging through his memories. Claydol was recalled a second later.

‘All good then?’ he asked Cygnus. The abra gave him an affirmative answer through the bundle of unease that he was while in the caves. ‘Thanks, buddy. I know you don’t like being here,’ he added, giving his team member a pat on the leg. To that, the psychic just waved him off before asking to be put back in the pokeball. ‘Remind me to do something nice for you,’ he told his friend before using the pokeball on him.

“Scott wasn’t just throwing praise around, it seems,” Ruth said then, bringing Pierce’s attention back to her.

“You know him?”

“I should, seeing as he’s my grandson,” she pointed out, grin still in place as he blinked.

“Small world,” Pierce replied then, somewhat surprised and amused.

“More like I wanted to check on the trainer he wouldn’t shut up about after the onix thing,” Ruth admitted shamelessly. “Your situation here was brought up and I took it to see what the fuss was about. I can honestly say that I get it now. No wonder he was already pushing for you to be put on the lists before. This one didn’t work out so well for you, did it? Didn’t even manage to get a single catch from this?”

“Not like that was the aim,” he replied wryly. “Besides, I’m still getting used to my new team members. I think catching more pokemon can wait for a bit,” he added.

“That’s a good mindset, but you have to stay alert. Unexpected things happen all the time in this world, kid, and that goes for catches too. You might have a plan, but those are often thrown out the window rather easily,” Ruth told him, looking to the side as if remembering an old experience. He’d gotten to see similar expressions on Arnold back at Pewter.

“Good thing I don’t have a plan, right?” he commented with a grin as the woman snorted. “I just go with the flow, what happens happens.”

“Good for you then, even if that’s a flimsy way to go through life.”

“Make up your mind, will you?”

“Point,” she conceded. “Just saying that even if you don’t have a detailed plan, having no idea what you are doing isn’t much better. Stumbling through life isn’t good, kid. At some point, you have to start making actual decisions.”

“I know that,” he replied, looking ahead at the tunnel instead of at the woman at his side. Idly, he noticed that neither Lily nor the other ranger had said much, and if they had, he hadn’t heard them. They were actually walking behind Ruth and him, instead of at their side. “I’m just trying to find the path I want to go through.”

“A little old for that, aren’t you?” Ruth mercilessly pointed out, making him grimace. “But I get it. Sometimes it takes time. What you think you want doesn’t look so good anymore, you change your mind, you change… I would know, I was a few years older than you before I switched from wanting to be a nurse to becoming a ranger,” she told him.

“Well, good to know that I still have time.”

“You have all the time in the world, kid,” Ruth told him with a softer smile that was quite contrasting after so many smirks and grins. It wasn’t difficult to believe she was someone’s grandma at that very moment. “The important thing is to never stop looking for a path and when you find one, don’t hesitate.”

“Thanks for the life lesson, Ruth.”

“We did get a little sidetracked, didn’t we?” she asked, chuckling and shaking her head. “I think we can leave you two lovebirds to your journey. Tony, we are going. Doll?”

“We are not-” Lily protested then, before the two rangers and the claydol disappeared in a flash of light. “-together.”

To that, Pierce just chuckled.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Not much to talk about, although I’m a little unsure about the whole Pierce-Ruth interaction. I have a feeling I could have handled some parts better, but… No idea where or how, honestly.

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter.

Announcement: So, in case you aren’t part of my Discord server, or just don’t really pay attention to it, I’ve started writing a Quest story in Fiction Live by the name of “Labyrinth”. So, if you are curious, check it out, I go by the username of “adrianking” there, just in case.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any idea what the rock Pierce was given is?

See you.