Searching Far and Wide - 39 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Route 4 VII

Swimming had been something that Pierce had always enjoyed. The feeling of the water washing over him as he moved was a pleasant experience by itself, of course, but there was also something very… freeing about just floating about in it too. It also helped that he despised hot weather, so going swimming could be great in such times. All in all, what was there not to love, really?

Granted, sea water wasn’t the best thing in the world, he’d admit. He much preferred rivers and pools. He had never gotten a chance to swim in a lake, admittedly, but so far, the sea was his least favorite.

Unfortunately, he had to come out of the water from time to time, but that wasn’t so bad. He’d have a snack waiting for him outside, so there was that, and there was his team together with Lily and her team. Good company after coming out of the water was just as nice as going swimming, he knew.

So, he got closer to the beach, where he could stand without the waves messing with him and then walked out. Rubbing some of the water off his face and running his fingers through his hair to push it out of the way, he looked back to the solid ground, where his companions were. Narcissa seemed to be sitting on top of Orion’s head while the onix probably worked on his Sand Tomb. The beach was helping him with that, since it provided the sand for him to play with more easily. Good thing too, since the rock type was more or less done with the “turn ground to sand” part and now needed to work on his control before trying everything together.

Then there was Cyngus, sitting next to Lily and Star, probably taking a nap. His fellow trainer seemed to be reading through something on her pokedex. The cleffa, for her part, was simply playing around in the sand with a plastic cup as if it were a toy bucket. ‘Maybe we can get her some actual toys?’ he wondered. She’d get sand to play with anyway even away from the beach, considering Orion’s training.

There was Root, off to the side, sunbathing with a peaceful smile on his face. Gem seemed to be keeping him company, from what Pierce could see as he got closer. Talon was the only one he couldn’t see, but turning around he found him easily enough, flying over the water. Probably catching his gaze, the flying type lowered himself to land just far enough that the waves didn’t hit him while Pierce took his final steps out of the water himself.

“Keeping an eye on things or just looking for trouble with the water types again?” he asked the spearow, who huffed and turned away from him. Pierce chuckled at that, making the flying type shuffle as if he were about to take off. “Just don’t cause trouble, ok? Last thing we need is for you to get caught in a krabby’s pincer again.”

With an insulted caw, Talon flew away, leaving him to amusedly stare at his retreating form.

“He’s at it again, isn’t he?” Lily asked him as he approached the beach space they’d claimed for their group. She sounded more exasperated than annoyed, which was fortunate for Talon… Even if he probably would still get a scolding and some punishment training.

“He likes picking fights a little too much,” Pierce commented unnecessarily. Cracking his neck, he closed his eyes to relax for a bit as he felt the wind on his still wet skin. “Maybe he’ll calm down once he evolves?” he mused.

“I can only hope. If he gets worse, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“True enough,” Pierce mumbled, stretching his arms up. With that done, he went to pick up the towel he’d set aside for himself. “Having fun, girl?” he added, patting Star on the head since she was next to the towel. The cleffa replied with a happy babble, pointing animatedly at her “sand castle”. “I can see that,” he commented with a grin. That was when he saw Lily giving him an amused look. “What?”

“You are killing them, Pierce, seriously,” the girl told him, nodding to the side and he saw a group of girls talking between themselves. None of them was looking towards them, which made him give Lily a questioning look. “Seriously, if I hadn’t met you before you started getting fit and I didn’t know you as I do, I’d think you are doing it on purpose.”

“Doing what?” he asked, blinking.

“Do I have to call you Dense Pierce instead of Shy Pierce? Can I use both?” Lily asked him, which flustered him even more.

“I didn’t even do anything!” he protested, trying to come up with whatever he might have done to elicit such commentary and implications being directed at him. He came up with nothing. He’d just come out of swimming and… nothing else? The fuck?

“It’s fun, don’t get me wrong. Especially because I get to tease you,” Lily told him shamelessly. “Payback for all the times you teased me, of course,” she added, making him grimace. “But still, it’s also a little baffling, not gonna lie.”

“You know what?” he asked, continuing to dry himself with the towel. “I’ll just assume you are joking and be done with this topic,” he decided, giving himself a nod and making Lily groan. Yeah, that’d help him keep his sanity. It totally wasn’t him just being uncomfortable with the attention he’d apparently been starting to get.

No sir.

There was also the fact that he felt… He didn’t feel like he belonged where he was, not truly. Sometimes it felt like he was on a vacation of sorts. He was there, in the pokemon world, but it wasn’t his home. Pierce would often feel like he should go back to where he came from, which he knew was impossible. Something that probably wasn’t helped much by the fact that he kept traveling around.

He felt out of place, basically.

So, thinking about getting in a relationship didn’t feel right at the moment. He wasn’t a casual type of guy, so… Yeah, he’d stay away from that kind of thing for the foreseeable future. Maybe once he finally came to terms with where he was and what his life was now, maybe then he’d consider calling the next girl that gave him her number.

As it was, he just wanted to… find his place, he supposed.

[}-o-{]

“Looking better, buddy,” Pierce commented, checking on Cygnus practiced Focus Punch. Granted, it was already a difficult move to pull off, since it required prep time that could be easily interrupted. At the very low level of mastery Cygnus was at, it was far from battle ready, not only because it took an entirely too long charging time, but also because the abra still couldn’t consistently pull it off even while taking longer.

He was getting there though, and it’d be a great foundation to have for the other punch moves. Pierce was fine with just that, honestly, since the others were also better over all, in his opinion. They didn’t require a concentration period, at least. Or the ones he’d looked up didn’t, which was the important part for the moment.

“Just keep at it, then a bit of teleport training and then you are done, ok?” Pierce told the psychic type. It wasn’t like the abra didn’t know when to stop, so he wasn’t too worried… At least so long as he kept his eyes on Cygnus. He might not be as stubborn as Orion and Narcissa, but he had his moments.

With that done, he glanced towards his onix, who was currently getting some rest in a bed of sand that he’d been playing with before. Sand Tomb was getting places, it seemed, which was why he’d started adding some sessions of training with Narcissa. That way, he could continue working on Iron Tail, which had been kind of pushed to the side for a bit.

And then there was his beedrill, who was working with Root at the moment while trying to get better with Giga Drain. Slow process, that one, but Pierce was pretty sure they’d have it in working order for Cerulean’s Gym… although they might need to wait for a few days for it to be ready. That was fine though. They’d have to stay some time in the city so that he could use his move vouchers and get his pokemon to learn some new moves anyway, so it checked out.

‘Hm, I guess I can sit down and go through my notes for a bit,’ he mused, looking at all his pokemon and how they seemed to be doing fine for the moment. No need to butt in if things were going well for them. Sure, Orion wasn’t even really training, but Pierce would be the last person to complain if one of his training/battle maniacs decided to relax for once.

With that in mind, he moved to the side, took his backpack and pulled out some of his medicine books. Some studying and some planning for the future would be how he’d spent his time. It had the added benefit of giving his body some rest after his workout, at least. And if he made good progress, maybe he’d get some time to swim too, which would be great.

As it was, he needed to continue brushing up on his water type knowledge. So far, he hadn’t met a situation in which he had to treat a wild one, but Pierce didn’t trust his luck. He was fairly sure that he was bound to have to treat at least one such pokemon in his stay at Cerulean.

Maybe it was presumptuous, but a pattern was a pattern, and being prepared wouldn’t hurt anyone if he was wrong.

So, that’s what he did, occasionally going over the information of other pokemon to keep things from getting boring. Besides, there were more pokemon around Cerulean than water types, even if those were like half of the population. To be fair though, water types brought to the table new information while with most other pokemon he could at least extrapolate some knowledge from what he’d studied, Pierce supposed.

He was broken from his studies when he felt something pulling on the side of his shirt and then climbing his side. Turning, he saw Star struggling to pull herself up. Shifting carefully, Pierce picked her up and set her on his shoulder, since she seemed to have been moving there.

Once she was settled, the cleffa cheered happily, which made him smile at her. Then she started babbling while pointing at everyone else. He wasn’t sure what she was saying, but he was fairly sure that she was just commenting on what everyone was doing with her own touch to it. That was all he needed to know, really.

“Trainer-Supporter is busai,” he heard Cygnus tell him in his mind, still struggling with some words as usual. For a second, he was confused about that title before the psychic cleared the doubts by displaying a mental picture of Lily. ‘De chi-ld was borred.’

“You can keep me company in the meantime, Star,” he commented, getting the fairy type to hug his head while cheering. “You can tell me if anyone does something silly, yeah?” To that, the fairy type nodded seriously, which looked more adorable than anything else. “Good. I’ll get a pokeblock extra just for you later.”

That seemed to break her from her dutiful look into a happy one once more. Which was funny because they were already spoiling her and she’d have gotten an extra pokeblock anyway. She just didn’t seem to realize that, apparently.

Oh well, at least that meant less chances of her growing entitled, right?

[}-o-{]

“That smells great, Lily!” Pierce called, holding back a groan as the scent of the food reached his nose. He was already feeling quite hungry after working out and swimming, but with the attack on his sense of smell? He felt like crawling over and stealing some of whatever Lily was cooking up.

“Thanks! It’ll be ready in a bit,” his traveling companion answered and he cheered internally. With newfound energy, he continued helping Star build a sand castle with Cygnus. The abra wasn’t what one would call enthusiastic, but he seemed to take it well enough. Besides, when Pierce had framed the whole thing as an exercise of precision for him while using only his body instead of psychic powers, the abra had readily agreed.

His team was full of training maniacs indeed.

“What do you feel like having today, Star? Sweet or dry?” Pierce asked, receiving a scandalized babble from the fairy that made him chuckle. “Not looking to try new things anytime soon, huh? Sweet it is,” he said then, grinning at the baby pokemon who huffed and turned away. “Hey, just because sweet things are the best doesn’t mean the other kinds can’t be nice to have once in a while, you know?”

Just in case, Pierce refrained from saying that he preferred salty things to sweet things. He was fairly sure that would earn him a Pound to the face or something like that. He’d rather not get attacked by a superpowered baby creature, thank you very much.

“And I’m guessing…” Pierce started, before getting interrupted.

“Bitter,” Cygnus answered before he could even voice the question, predictably. In turn, the trainer gave his pokemon an amused look. Not only because even after he just got done telling Star that she should vary her menu, his own team member stubbornly held onto his one preference. He also did it because of course one of the few words his abra could pronounce well was the taste of his preferred pokeblock combo.

“Bitter it is,” he agreed readily anyway. He’d force some variety into their diets some other time. The beach had him in a good mood, after all. “And I’m guessing everyone wants the same things too,” he hazarded, being completely unsurprised when Cygnus told him that yes, everyone wanted the usual things. “Tomorrow I’m making everyone new mixes. I’ll find new things for you guys to enjoy if it’s the last thing I do,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Honestly, how could they eat the same things all the time without growing tired? He couldn’t imagine being like that. Sure, he had preferences like everyone else, but Pierce liked trying out new things. Besides, maybe he’d find combinations that the pokemon would like just as much if not more than their favorite ones at the moment.

He resolutely ignored Cygnus’ doubt.

“Cygnus, can you call everyone, I’m just about done here,” Lily called then and the abra teleported away to do as she said. After all, the faster he got that done, the faster everyone would get to eat. Pierce was almost amused by that, but the truth was that they had their little routine already, basically. One that was unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, unless something drastic happened.

“Time to go eat, little one. We can continue this afterwards, yeah?” he told Star, who looked adorably torn between leaving her magnificent creation of sand alone or going to eat her sweet, sweet meal. “It’ll just be a bit, ok? Then we can keep building, promise.”

Reluctantly, the ball of pink cuteness stood up and started walking to where the rest of their respective groups were gathering already. There, Pierce started doing his part, pulling out everyone’s meals. The pokeblocks would come afterwards though. Meals were usually kibble and a mix of their preferred berries.

Pierce wasn’t a fan of regular kibble, or even specialized kibble as they had gotten, but needs must. The thing had everything a pokemon could need and in his team member’s words, it actually wasn’t bad. However, it felt… lazy for him to serve them that when he wasn’t eating just run of the mill rations.

‘I’m definitely looking into cooking pokemon food,’ he decided. It was something that he’d thought about several times, but he became more sure of it every time. The problem was that it would require more time, of which he was already sort of short on.

‘Lots of things to learn in a completely new world,’ Pierce mused with a half-smile. ‘Would have been nice to have time to prepare instead of just being dropped in the middle of the forest.’

Although, to be fair, he wouldn’t have met his team and Lily if that had been the case, he supposed. So, in a way, he was grateful for that. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be annoyed though. Because he definitely was.

Talon cawed out of nowhere, making most of them turn to look at him. Curious, Pierce followed his eyes off to the side, towards the water. There, he paused to blink as he saw the several red creatures with spiky yellow fins poking up towards the sky. They stared towards them with their vacant black eyes.

Pierce blinked then, before smiling and chuckling.

“Hey there,” he greeted, standing up and pulling a few berries from his Preserving Box. From what he’d read, he had a fairly good idea he knew which ones the water types would like. “Want to join the meal?” he asked as he walked closer to the water before throwing one of the berries without waiting for an answer.

Sure enough, one of them caught it before it even hit the water.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Pierce commented, grinning widely. “Come on closer, guys. There’s plenty where that came from and I can see if you guys are healthy and all. I promise, no pokeballs here,” he told them, signally to his swimming trunks so as to prove his words. He wasn’t wearing anything else at the moment, so that would do, he knew.

A moment later, he was surrounded in the shallow waters while he fed the water types some berries.

All in all, a great time, really.

Especially because he was a fan of the magikarp line.

[}-o-{]

A wave washed over him, but Pierce was securely sitting on the shallow part of the beach, where the water would at most reach to his shoulders. There, he checked over one of the magikarp, which was… fine. ‘Good,’ he mused, giving it a pat on the side.

There’d been one of them that had a few scraps and one with a little cut on its lower fin. Fortunately, the injuries weren’t all that bad and would heal on their own after some time. Pierce had wanted to treat them, but they were sort of close to Cerulean and he didn’t want to get in trouble for something that wasn’t really all that serious.

“You are good to go, buddy,” he told the water type, who swam around him and then back into the water. Pierce grinned widely at the pokemon, especially so when he saw the rest of the small school of magikarp.

As it turned out, they were fairly expressive, despite what one would be told. Sure their faces didn’t show much, and their eyes even less, but it was all in their motions. The way they swam gave the game away very obviously in Pierce’s opinion. They’d swim slowly if they were calm, they’d move around like hyperactive children when happy, they’d lag behind if they were feeling bad.

And so it went, which had Pierce fascinated as he tried to pick up all those little things.

“That’s all of you, right?” he asked, getting some mixed signals as a response. It seemed that they didn’t want to go just yet, even if he was sure he’d checked all of them over. “We’ll be around until tomorrow, guys. No need to feel bad. We can play some tomorrow, swim together and such,” he told them, feeling more excited himself than the magikarp that jumped out of the water to celebrate the news.

Oh yeah, Pierce was definitely asking one of these guys if they wanted to join him on his journey.

Sure, Narcissa had invited herself and Orion and Cygnus had basically asked him to catch them. That didn’t mean he couldn’t try to recruit a pokemon himself though. So, he was going to do just that if the opportunity presented itself.

However, he also didn’t want to be too pushy, so he was trying to befriend the magikarp school. See if he found one that stood out or something. There was no need to rush things, really. Magikarp were all over the place. If there was water, there were probably magikarp around too. That meant that he could afford to look in other places if he wanted to.

Which made it kind of funny that he liked all of them, but maybe that was just his bias speaking.

“See you tomorrow, yeah?” he said, still grinning as he stood up and shook of some of the sand from his swimming trunks before stretching a little. He’d kind of spent a while just sitting there and it wasn’t precisely comfortable, especially while fighting the waves and having to check the magikarp. “Take care, guys,” he added, waving at the water types. A gesture that they somewhat returned before swimming away.

Pierce watched them go for a moment before turning and walking back to where Lily was waiting with their pokemon.

“Had fun with the magikarp?” Lily asked, seemingly a little amused and surprised for some reason. “I admit, I thought I knew how friendly you could be with pokemon, but I think that reached new levels… Or maybe not. It was kind of like with the weedle back in Viridian Forest.”

“I guess I have a weakness for pokemon that people don’t like,” Pierce commented, shaking his head. He truly didn’t get why people didn’t like them though. Beedrill were awesome. Sure, they flagged a little in the late game, but if you stayed on top of things, you could still get a very strong member for your team. It was what he was doing with Narcissa so far, but then again, he was kind of in early game still. He knew it was possible though.

As for magikarp… they evolved into fucking gyarados. Was there really any need to explain things? Apparently yes, because people in the world he was in seemed to think that was a bad thing. Too sharp a jump from a basically useless pokemon to a menace. No time at all for trainers to try and keep things under control or so some people seemed to think.

He quite frankly disagreed, but then again, he was kind of biased, he supposed.

“If you say so,” Lily replied with a grin. “Or maybe you just-”

His pokegear sounded then, which was rare but not that much. There’d been that one time where Professor Oak had called to get in contact with Lily because of some photos she’d taken in Mt. Moon. Still, he certainly wasn’t used to it, which is why he looked at the thing and blinked before picking it up.

When he noticed that the number wasn’t one of those that Lily had put into the thing, that’s when he realized that something else was going on.

“Hello?” he answered. An unknown voice came from the other side of the device though and he blinked again, this time clearing his expression. As he continued hearing, he frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, I can be there, of course. I’m a day or two away but…”

The voice took over then, not really rude but firm and to the point.

“That works,” Pierce replied, receiving some more words from the other end and then the call ended as abruptly as it started.

“Pierce?”

“I guess I really can’t go somewhere without having to treat some pokemon now,” he tried to joke but his voice came more bitter than anything else. “I’m gonna get teleported to Cerulean in a bit. They need help, it seems.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Ah, nothing like having a good time by the beac-

Wait, what? Not sure if you guys believe me when I say stuff like this, but I really wasn’t expecting that. Let’s see where it goes, I guess.

I hope you guys liked the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Where do you prefer swimming? I have more or less the same preferences as Pierce. Pools over rivers though, and the sea… I mean, it’s ok, but salt water isn’t very nice, ngl.

See you.