Searching Far and Wide - 34 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Route 4 II

“Doing well, buddy?” Pierce asked Orion, who nodded stiffly. He didn’t blame the pokemon too much though. After all, he was focusing rather intently on the matter at hand. Which, at that moment, was working on Sand Tomb once more. “Certainly looks like you are getting the sand part of it, at least,” Pierce commented, looking at the small patch of sand on the ground in front of Orion.

The onix grumbled something.

“Come on, you are getting there. A bit more sand, and some control of it and you’re set. You’ve got time, buddy,” Pierce reassured his pokemon partner. “Battles go well for you anyway. You are getting used to getting hit too,” he told Orion. “You’ll be more than ready when your time to shine comes, I’m sure.”

A questioning rumble was the response he got.

“I mean, the next Gym is a water one, Orion. I don’t think you’d do well there. Even worse, the battlefield there is a gigantic pool so… Not your area. Narcissa, and maybe Cygnus, will be the ones to take that one,” he explained, rolling his eyes and giving the big guy a pat on the side when he saw the onix deflate. “Don’t feel bad. You’ll get your chance, as I said. There’ll be other gyms where you’ll be better suited for a battle, buddy. Besides, you do pretty well in normal battles too, which is important.”

Another question followed, this time more enthusiastic.

“I’m serious. Don’t worry about it, buddy. You are a big, strong pokemon and you’ll be beating others left and right in no time, especially if you keep getting bigger,” Pierce told his partner with a wide grin. “For now though, we gotta keep working on things, yeah? So your strength keeps up with your size.”

The onix rumbled something louder that sounded to his ears like a determined cry.

Pierce gave him another pat on the side.

“That’s the spirit, Orion,” he told him. With the little pep talk done with, Pierce settled on watching the onix training for a bit, notebook in hand. He noted down any little change on what his partner was doing, just so he’d have a better idea of how things were going. It was a slow process, not only for Orion but also for Pierce himself. After all, his arms felt heavy and hurt from the work out he’d just finished.

Regardless, he pushed through.

Eventually, he had to stand up and go check on Narcissa. The bug type, for her part, had Agility mostly under control now. With that and Tailwind, Tungsten Strike would be as ready as it was going to be for the time being, unless he decided to add even more buffs to Narcissa’s repertoire… Which wouldn’t happen for some time.

As it was, she had her hands full finishing the last touches on Agility and continuing to work on Giga Drain. Pierce would admit that he should have focused much more on the latter, since it was what he was going to need if he wanted to have a better chance against the Cerulean Gym. However, a steel type attack was something that Narcissa needed in order to deal with the rock pokemon that were a fairly common sight in and around Mt. Moon.

Sure, Giga Drain would have helped there too, but Tungsten Strike was much more battle ready. By the time the grass type move was ready for battle, they’d likely already be at Cerulean, which would make the thing too late for the battles that were happening right then and there. Besides, Gym battles weren’t everything, even if they were important. After all…

Pierce wanted to take part in a tournament like the one he’d witnessed in Pewter. He wanted to give his team a chance to shine on such a stage. He’d wanted that ever since he saw the aforementioned competition. It’d let his partners show how strong and capable they were while also giving a fairly good boost to his journey in material terms…

If he won, that is, but that was beside the point.

“Not getting frustrated again, are you?” he asked Narcissa once he got closer. The bug type landed on the ground then, clicking her mandibles in a vaguely reassuring/enthusiastic manner. Unfortunately for the beedrill, Pierce knew her better than that. “Lying isn’t nice.”

She buzzed something annoyed in response.

“Yeah, that’s more like it. Now, do you want to practice other moves for a bit to calm down?” he asked, getting more angry beedrill noises in response. “It doesn’t help if you let your emotions get the better of you like this. It just muddles your thoughts and you can’t work as well as you would otherwise. You know that. I’ve told you that.”

Narcissa chittered something that sounded like a grumble.

“Yeah, I get it. But there’s no need to feel pressured. Battles are going great for us so far,” he reassured his partner, sitting next to her and planting a hand on top of her head. “Sure, there’s a loss here and there, but Tungsten Strike really put things in our favor again now that you can beat rock types.”

That didn’t seem to cheer her up much.

Pierce sighed.

“Narcissa. You aren’t the strongest yet. Maybe you’ll never be, honestly. But that doesn’t mean you are weak, or that you’ll remain as you are. We’ll both get there, yeah?” he told her. “You’ll be stronger, and I’ll be sure to help you as best I can so you’ll be one of the strongest. It’ll just take some time.”

Narcissa chittered something that sounded like reluctant agreement.

“That’s more like it.”

After spending some more time looking over her training, Pierce went to check on his third team member. Or, maybe it was better to say that his third team member came to check on him, considering that Cygnus teleported onto his shoulders. Looking up at the sudden weight, Pierce gave the psychic type a half-smile.

“Do you need a speech too?”

Cygnus simply gave him the telepathic equivalent of a laugh before shaking his head and teleporting again.

[}-o-{]

“Thanks,” Lily told him, passing him the pokegear once more. Apparently, now that she had more easily accessible means to contact her family and Professor Oak, she’d decided to go for it. Granted, that didn’t mean she wasn’t somewhat awkward about it, since it involved asking him for it every other day, but Pierce didn’t really mind. He was fairly sure that his traveling companion would get over that awkwardness soon enough. “Ah, it’s so good to be back in the forest. I never thought I’d say that.”

“I know what you mean. Being out in the wild is not nice, but the forest is better than the mountain, at least,” Pierce agreed with a nod from where he was, sitting on the ground with his back against a tree. In front of him, he saw Orion curled up under the sunlight that slipped through the tree branches, with Cygnus sitting on top of him. As for Narcissa, she seemed to be just buzzing around and generally enjoying being back in a forest.

All around, the change from the rocks to the trees was welcome, even by Orion, who wouldn’t be able to snack on stones quite as much as before.

“Anything interesting happening back home?” he asked, idly looking at the notebook on his lap and wondering if there was anything he should add. Training had finished for the day and there was little else for him to do so far. He only had to keep an eye on his team so that they wouldn’t get frustrated with the exercises and occasionally give some piece of advice or another to try and help the process go more smoothly.

In a way, training was easy and hard at the same time. Or, maybe it was better to say it was hard but simple. There was no great complexity to training, as far as Pierce had seen. However, it still required a fair bit of work. He needed to watch closely how his pokemon developed. He needed to constantly look for new ideas to try and improve how his team got better. He needed to take the tools he had available and come up with strategies that varied a lot since most pokemon were very different from one another. He needed to take care of his pokemon’s health.

All of that was hard work, but it wasn’t complex, or at least he didn’t think so. The most complicated part was probably learning how to treat injuries, prepare meals and generally care for the creatures. Strategizing was a close second, but things were still relatively simple at the level he was in, fortunately.

‘Maybe I should start making some more complex plans though?’ he mused idly.

“Things are going well, business as usual,” Lily answered as she took a seat beside him, breaking him away from his thoughts. “Mom just had the usual gossip to keep me up to date. Other than that… Well, not much goes on in Pallet,” she commented, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

Pierce hummed then, checking with his pokegear to turn on the radio.

“Things are going well then, right? That’s good,” he replied. Picking up his pencil, he tapped the back of it on the notebook as he considered how to start on preparing specific strategies. Maybe he could start simple, with specific sets of orders for his pokemon to follow depending on their opponent?

“... Yeah,” Lily whispered, which he only heard because they were so close together. “... I, um… Pierce?”

“Yeah?” he asked, blinking and turning towards the girl.

“I don’t want to be rude or… you know, nosy,” she told him, looking thoroughly uncomfortable, which was very unlike her. “But, um… I’ve never seen you call anyone.”

Well, that explained it then.

For a moment, Pierce considered deflecting, like he’d done every other time. He could be vague and give half-truths. That’d worked so far. However, none of those times had Lily asked so bluntly and directly. If he didn’t give a straight answer, she’d be suspicious and probably worried.

And besides, Lily was his friend.

His only friend, if he didn’t count his own team.

“There’s no one to call,” he said eventually, rolling the pencil between his fingers as he looked at the notebook on his lap. He didn’t see it though, instead, his mind conjured pictures of his family and friends back in his old world. He remembered better times then, times that were no more.

Times that were no more because of an unfortunate night…

Angry shouts, fear, the flash of metal, pain, liquid on his fingers, weakness, the metallic, salty taste in his mouth, sadness, the smell of copper…

“It’s just me now,” Pierce said, pushing the memories to the side.

“Is that why you decided to start your journey?” Lily asked, catching him off guard a bit. He’d expected reassurances, maybe an apology or something like that. He couldn’t say that he disliked her approach though.

“I guess it is,” he answered with a weak smile. That was one way of looking at it, he supposed. It hadn’t really been much of a choice, but he couldn’t say that he disliked how things had gone. There was no changing what had happened in his… old life. He could build a new one now though, and he was in the process of doing just that.

“Well, it’s not just you anymore, Pierce,” Lily told him, leaning her shoulder against his. “You have your team. There’s also my team and me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, his smile turning more honest, if still sad. “Thank you for all but forcing yourself into my journey, Lily.”

“Hey, it worked out for me too.”

“Right, you got lots of free food.”

“Pierce!” she whined then, pulling away. “We were having a moment there! Why’d you ruin that?!”

“Because I made an oath never to let you live that down,” he told her, grinning.

[}-o-{]

“So, I was thinking before that we could have some simple strategies for you guys to follow,” Pierce said, sitting on the ground with his team. Narcissa was to his right and Cygnus to his left, leaving Orion to curl up across from him. “I know that leaving you to fight for yourselves can be a bit risky, but I thought it might help if we have sets of instructions instead of going move by move.”

Narcissa gave a nod to that while Cygnus seemed to intently follow his thoughts on the matter. Orion was struggling a little more, but that was fine. He was just doing a pre-speech, as it were. He probably would get the gist of it once he got to actually explaining what he had in mind, which was what came now.

“For example,” he started, looking down at his notebook before looking up. “One strategy could be to stay away and use moves that can attack from a distance. Another would be to get up close and personal. One strategy could be to move around a lot. Another could be to tank the moves. One to stay back and use buff moves.”

Now Orion seemed to start getting it, leaning forward curiously. As for the other two, Narcissa buzzed her wings a little in a way that told Pierce that she was getting excited with the idea. If the emotions brushing against his mind were any indication, Cygnus agreed with that sentiment too.

“Glad that you are on board,” he said, grinning at his team. “So, I have somewhat of a system in mind, but we’ll probably rework it a bunch,” he commented then, checking with his notes once more. “This is what I had in mind…”

From there, it was exposition time, with Pierce showing them little illustrations to better explain his ideas. He did have to explain a few times and sometimes simplify things for Orion, but Narcissa and Cygnus seemed to get the strategies quickly enough. Still, he anticipated having to go over everything several times, but that was for later.

As it was, he had to lay things out for his team and then go from there.

The first strategy was Blast, staying at a distance and shooting attacks at the enemy. It’d be good for both, members of his team that were more fragile and also against enemies that were more on the slower side. It could also see some use depending on how well his pokemon’s aim was and how good the enemy was at dodging… Among other factors, of course.

The second strategy was the previous one’s counterpart, Strike. It was the plan to go for close combat, with attacks like Tackle, Fury Attack or Twineedle. It’d be good to use against fragile opponents or ones that were stronger than them in a distance battle. Furthermore, his three team members seemed to favor this approach too, so that was something to take into account.

From there, there were the less damage oriented approaches. Move was the strategy to keep his pokemon… moving around, predictably. Pierce imagined that he’d use that command a whole lot, since it would work great in combination with other strategies, like Blast.

Another such plan was Modify, which would see his pokemon using moves to boost themselves or weaken the enemy. At that moment, it was mainly Narcissa that would see use for this, but Orion could, theoretically, do it too. It was just that Pierce wasn’t sure how well the onix could benefit from that, at least compared to the beedrill.

“So, those four are what I had in mind right now. I’ll probably end up adding more, re-working them and such, but I think that’s simple and effective enough for a foundation,” Pierce said as he finished detailing the approaches he had come up with. “As for Strike and Blast, I’ll probably call for a type if I want you to focus on something that will work better on the opponent,” he explained, leaning back and looking at the notebook to see if he’d missed something.

He hadn’t.

Next, he turned to regard his three pokemon. Cygnus had definitely gotten everything, seeing as the psychic had followed the whole thing both from what Pierce spoke and what he got directly from his mind. Narcissa seemed to have gotten most of it too. Orion not so much, but that might have been more because Pierce tried to go too in-depth with his first explanation, going through information that didn’t really apply at the moment, like future plans and such.

Regardless.

“I know it might have been a lot,” he said then, mostly for the onix’s benefit. “But it’s not like I expect you guys to use this right off the bat. We can train with it in spars and such before we try to use it in an actual battle. We have time. So, what do you guys say we get started with some light sparring between all of you?”

Immediately, Narcissa flew up in the air while Cygnus gave a firm nod. Orion, poor little guy, was a little slow on his response, seeing as he was still trying to wrap his rocky head around the info dump he’d just gotten thrown at him. That was fine, Pierce was sure that with a few tries and some reminders he’d have it down.

He was pretty sure that they’d be a lot less eager for this part of training when he started punishing them with less of their favorite pokeblocks whenever they failed to follow a strategy.

The way Cygnus stiffened at that thought told Pierce all he needed to know.

That was fine, let the little guy know what was coming his way. After all, the abra would know not to reveal things to the others, else he earned himself the same punishment. Cygnus was just lucky that he was probably the one least likely to mess up too.

The relief that Pierce felt brushing against the side of his mind said it all.

[}-o-{]

He massaged the bridge of his nose tiredly as they walked.

“They are getting bolder,” Lily commented with uncharacteristic seriousness.

“Yeah, I gathered,” Pierce replied with a grim expression.

As for what they were talking about, it was Team Rocket. As they traveled, they kept his pokegear with the radio function on. That had inevitably led to them hearing news that were… less than cheerful. One such instance of this was the Rocket attack they were hearing about at that moment.

It had him looking at the device from time to time, half expecting and half wanting to get a call to help out there. It didn’t happen, however, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Pierce knew that the rangers likely had things under control now, and if they didn’t, then they’d call. He just couldn’t shake off the feeling that he should be there helping suffering pokemon.

‘Am I getting addicted to helping? That’s…’ he thought before sighing.

“You can’t be everywhere, Pierce,” Lily told him, evidently reading him like a book.

“I know, I just…”

“Love pokemon,” she finished for him, to which he nodded tiredly.

“I guess whenever I finally manage to get an actual First Aid License I’ll get called for the aftermath of this stuff,” he commented, running a hand through his hair. “If they need help, at least.”

“No offense, Pierce, but it’s a bit worrisome that you want to be there that much,” Lily pointed out and he got it. He honestly didn’t know why he felt such a strong desire to be there and help those pokemon, but he did. He just… The knowledge that there were suffering pokemon somewhere out there really got to him. Especially since he could do something about it. “Now, how about you-”

“Help!”

Both Pierce and Lily paused their trekking at the sudden scream. Then they turned towards their side when the same voice called out once more. As he turned off the radio, he heard the sound of someone running in the distance, followed by some kind of squeaking that he was fairly sure came from a pokemon.

“Mankey,” Lily said, evidently recognizing the creatures in question. The horrified look on her face was understandable though, considering that those fighting types were particularly aggressive.

“Help!”

“Let’s go,” Pierce decided, and Lily nodded firmly. “Narcissa!”

“Talon!”

Both pokemon appeared but a few seconds later, following their trainers as they tried to find the source of the call for help. It was a little difficult, even with them replying to said cries. They were in a forest, after all, and whoever this person was couldn’t really maneuver freely. The why became evident when Lily and Pierce finally found the girl in question, with a whole bunch of mankeys chasing her.

“Narcissa! Blast!” Pierce called, and the beedrill immediately started shooting Poison Stings and String Shots. A second later, he released Orion too. “Orion! Strike, but don’t go far!”

“My eevee!” the trainer that had called for them screamed, clearly very distressed even with the arrival of assistance. Looking around, Pierce couldn’t find the normal type in question. Regardless, he released Cygnus without pausing to think.

‘There’s an eevee somewhere, get it over here to safety!’ he thought out loud to his psychic, who quickly replied with an agreement before teleporting away. It took a few more seconds that were quite the suffering for Pierce since the trainer continued shouting and crying. Fortunately, the abra returned after those few moments with a clearly injured eevee.

“Princess! Thank God!”

“Rock Throw, Gem!” Lily called from next to him, throwing a few more commands to the rest of her team except for Star. The cleffa was a bit too young, especially to be thrown into such a battle, so Pierce thought it was understandable. “A little help would be nice!” the girl added, giving the trainer they were helping a look before focusing on battling the raging mankey.

“They are injured. Princess was the only one healthy after the last few battles and she’s- She’s- Princess!” the trainer cried out and Pierce grimaced. He never was good at dealing with crying people, especially girls.

“Cygnus, can you teleport around? Try to distract them?” he asked his psychic type, because Orion was having some real trouble against the monkeys. Understandable, since they were fighting type and probably knew at least one move of the type. Furthermore, Narcissa couldn’t quite hit them very well since they were all over the place and jumping around. “Lily, can your team cover our backs?! I’ll get Narcissa in there!”

“Sure!”

“Narcissa! Modify and Strike! Normal type!” Now, Pierce was no psychic but he just knew, for sure, that Narcissa would have been grinning if she could. Almost instantly, the beedrill blurred forward, stingers shining with the white light of Fury Attack. “Orion! Pull back! Modify!” he called for then, because his onix was getting hit a whole lot and so many fighting type attacks couldn’t be good for him, even if the pokemon weren’t that strong or well trained.

As for Cygnus, the little fella was teleporting all over the place, disrupting whatever cohesion the mankeys might have had, which was almost nothing to begin with. He appeared in front of their faces when they were preparing for an attack, only to vanish just as quickly. He appeared behind them, causing them to jump back, worried they might be attacked. ‘Well, this might be good to remember for group battles.’

“We are getting there, Pierce!” Lily exclaimed from his side and yeah, he could see that. Slowly, the mankeys were falling. The problem was that their pokemon weren’t precisely coming out unscathed. “Come on, guys! Just a little more!”

Orion roared then, making Pierce turn sharply to see if a mankey had gotten to him or something. Nothing of the sort had happened though. Instead, the onix was alone but he looked… furious. With a harsh smack of his tail on the ground, a rock shot out hitting a mankey squarly in the face.

“Good job, Orion! Blast!” he commanded the onix, even though it was more or less an unnecessary call. Regardless, he prepared himself for more simple calls for close combat in case a mankey got to him. He needed to be ready, since Orion had been the one to receive the most hits when the battle started.

Fortunately, it seemed that his worries were unnecessary in that instance, since the battle finally tilted more decisively in their favor until the last of the fighting types fell to the ground.

“Well,” he sighed then, shoulders dropping. “That happened.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Business as usual for our group, right? Training, interactions and other people’s messes to deal with. Just following the routine, really. The normal stuff for trainers, obviously.

… Right?

Anyway, I’m kind of in the same place as Pierce with the strategies. I’m mostly putting them there to see if they get anywhere or I decide they aren’t worth it and return to normal commands. We’ll see how it goes together with Pierce, I guess.

Announcement: I’ve started posting some stories that I’ve written in collaboration with a Discord mod over there in the server. For now, it’s sort of a server exclusive thing, but if we see that people like it, maybe we’ll start sharing them in FFN for everyone to see. So, if you are curious, go take a look and tell us what you think.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Generalist or specialist trainer? For some reason, I like the specialist route. Sure, it’s not the efficient way to go, but it sounds more fun, more interesting.

See you.