Searching Far and Wide - 40 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Cerulean City I

“Good luck, Helper-Speaker,” the Xatu that had teleported him said as he blinked and looked ahead. Apparently, he’d been dropped right in front of the Cerulean Gym. The psychic bird wasted no time teleporting away, likely back to his trainer, if Pierce had to guess.

‘Ok, let’s get this going,’ he thought with a nod as he walked forward and pushed the door to the Gym open. There was a “Closed” sign hanging from it, together with a sign saying what was going on, but he didn’t pay attention to that besides a slight glance. The League had taken him there, after all, so he didn’t think that message applied to him.

As soon as he stepped through the door, a young man with a clipboard approached him.

“Can I have your name, sir?” he asked, sounding like he’d said that exact same thing a number of times. Interestingly, there wasn’t anyone in the reception, but Pierce could take a guess as to where they were.

“Pierce Lawson,” he answered, waiting as the other man looked through the clipboard in his hand. Likely a list of other people that were called? Pierce wouldn’t be surprised.

“Pierce Lawson,” the young man repeated, pointing with his pen at a specific spot. “Through that door,” he said then, looking up and pointing at a “Staff Only” door. “Third door on the right from there. Everyone should be there and one of the sisters should be there to welcome you.”

“Ok, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” was the response he got as he started following the directions. It took him less than a minute to find the place, which was pretty obvious even without having to be told. The door he had to go through had a lot of noise coming through, after all. There were voices, plenty of them, and a little under that the sound of pokemon.

As he opened the door, he was, indeed, greeted by the sight of one of the Waterflower sisters. The one with pink hair which… he didn’t know who she was, specifically. He wasn’t the best with names at the best of times and he hadn’t had time to brush up on that before being called, that was for sure.

All around, there were other people that mostly blocked the view of a massive pool behind them. Still, from what he could see from the space in between them, there were pokemon inside the water, which was not surprising, considering what he knew. ‘Is that a gyarad-?’

“Hello, can I have your name?” the Sensational Sister asked kindly.

“Pierce Lawson,” he said, and she blinked, pausing for a second or two too long after that answer. He was starting to wonder if something had happened or if there was something going on, but before he could do anything she started speaking again.

“Oh, ok, that’s unusual, someone without a First Aid License. Didn’t even know the League considered people like that for this kind of thing,” she said, making it his turn to blink at her, uncomprehending. “Follow me, Helper-Speaker,” she told him. That was actually the first time a person called him by that… whatever that was supposed to be. It was… strange, if nothing else.

It also gave him a clue as to what was going on there, which was that she had a psychic pokemon likely keeping track of people and such. She’d just gotten informed of who he was and… Where he needed to be placed or something? That was his guess for the moment.

Idle thoughts like those disappeared from his mind as they moved closer to the pool. There were a lot of injured pokemon there and his brain clicked into place. After so long treating pokemon all over the place, he was sort of getting used to it… A little too much, maybe. He really needed to get things under control or he’d get himself in trouble.

Then again, maybe the League would like him enough to wave away the pesky detail of him not having his First Aid License yet? Pierce could only hope, but it was certainly a possibility, considering they were calling him for this. Surely that meant that a little healing here and there was fine, right? He just needed to stay out of trouble.

As for the current issue at hand…

Apparently, the Rockets just couldn’t help but be pieces of shit. He didn’t get all the information, but the gist of it was that the League had gotten a bunch of injured, malnourished and likely traumatized water pokemon from a raid. Just looking at a goldeen that was clearly starved, seeing as it didn’t have the healthy, rounder shape that its body should, told him everything that he needed to know.

“You don’t have a First Aid License, as I said,” the sister by his side told him. A look around had him catching sight of the blue haired one but not the blonde, likely hidden somewhere in the crowd or taking the one by his side’s place at the entrance. “So, you’ll be mostly helping those that do. We have plenty of people, as you can see.”

“I’m fine with that,” he replied. Sure, he’d have preferred actually working with the pokemon, but just being there to help was enough for him. “Anything I should know?”

“Your file says that you are good at calming down pokemon, Helper-Speaker,” she answered, emphasizing the last word. “So, feel free to do that. There’s going to be plenty of nervous, scared and angry pokemon due to this, especially when we have to actually start working. People that were called here are mostly just those with the License. My sisters and I will be helping, since, you know, we know a thing or two about handling water types,” she told him with a grin. “But we are only so many, even with our pokemon spread around. So, if you can, do help.”

“I can do that,” he answered with a confident smile. Sure, he hadn’t quite dealt with pokemon in the same situation, but Mama Onix had been plenty wary, the pokemon at Mt. Moon had been very twitchy too and there was literally nothing to even add in regards to the mankeys. Maybe he was tempting Murphy, but Pierce felt like he could likely at least buy time until someone more capable could come to help. “Are we starting soon?” he asked then, because nobody was moving anywhere close to the pool just yet and he was feeling antsy just looking at the pokemon.

“Impatient, huh?” she asked, giving him an understanding look. “We are setting everything up and making sure everyone knows where they stand before starting off. We’ll be plenty occupied once people and pokemon start to actually move around.”

“I get that, I do,” he said, deflating. “I’ll just… wait.”

“At least I think I know why they sent you here even with your lack of License,” she commented, not explaining further. “Wait here, once things get started, there’ll be supplies over there. If someone needs anything within this zone,” the sister explained to him, pointing out the place at the side where several boxes were set up and then a specific area at the pool’s side. “Then you get it and give it to them.”

“I got it,” he replied with a nod.

“Good, there’s still some people that need to come so I need to go and make sure everyone knows what to do. We should be starting soon though,” she said, moving away. “Oh, also,” she called as she stopped after only a few steps. “Please don’t let out your pokemon. I’m sure they could be helpful, but there’s already too many pokemon around and we don’t want to make them more nervous by having everyone let out even more.”

“That makes sense,” he agreed easily, watching her leave for real that time. Idly, he went over what he’d been told and what he would have to do. It was better than thinking he was wasting time while there were pokemon suffering. It didn’t help much, admittedly.

After a minute or so, he decided on something else. He looked at the pokemon closer to his zone and started trying to guess what they would need. Most of them seemed more neglected and abused than actually hurt, so that was… not good, but better for their treatment process. They’d get better with some love and plenty of food, basically.

There were some that would need some more serious treatment though. One such case was the krabby he saw at the bottom of the pool, twitching every few seconds. Probably a very serious case of paralysis through electric type energy. That shit shouldn’t be that bad, but – as was the case with poison – if it wasn’t treated and it got worse… Pierce hadn’t actually had to treat that, but he’d read a few things about it.

There were some other cases such as that one with badly neglected conditions. There were also a few very injured pokemon that looked like they’d gotten first aid already and were there for a more thorough process. He imagined whoever had had to patch those up before they were even brought to Cerulean didn’t have all the time in the world to make the best of jobs.

“Ok, everyone! You know what to do!” a new voice called and Pierce turned to see the blond Sensational Sister. It took literally nothing else for people to move towards the pool’s side and start working. For a second, Pierce wondered how they were going to get those pokemon further away to within reach, but that was solved almost instantly when a luvdisc rushed over and slowly got another water type closer. Gently, of course.

He guessed that one was either one of the sisters’ pokemon or someone from the Gym, at the very least.

“Potion and Burn Heal, please! Especially the latter!” a woman called close by.

“I’ll get those,” he replied instantly, more to the man next to him that seemed to be on support duty too than for the woman. He’d have run to get those, but he didn’t think that’d be very useful, really. Instead, he power walked, keeping an ear out in case someone else called for something. They did, but the other man said he’d get those, since the one that asked for those was further from the first woman.

That was more or less how it went from there. Pokemon were treated, supplies were delivered and Pierce did a whole lot of walking around from the pool to the boxes and back again. It was simple work, but it was still taxing in its own way. At least he didn’t feel the pressure of having to do the procedures right, so that was something…

He’d still have preferred to do more than pass around medicine.

Of course, Pierce knew it was important, since he’d been on the other side of things too. He just wanted to be more involved. It felt like he could be doing more. ‘Just be happy that you get to do something to help,’ he told himself. Someone better equipped for the whole thing than him was doing the job.

So, focusing on the good that he was doing, he carried on with his duties. There were more pokemon than he’d initially thought, evidently, because they were there for a good while and even with the gathering of people that were there, it didn’t seem like the number of patients was going down, really. Instead, Pierce saw one of the Sensational Sisters start catching some of the treated pokemon and release others.

‘We are gonna be here a while,’ he realized with an internal sigh.

[}-o-{]

“It’s-It’s fine, girl,” he heard a woman say, her voice strained. Turning he saw her struggling to hold onto a vaporeon. “I just need to check the wound and then treat it. You’ll feel be-Ah!” the woman cried out then as the pokemon took a swipe at her and then jumped off to the side. Not inside the pool, but on the side of it, next to the woman, crouching and hissing.

“Woah, woah,” Pierce exclaimed, drawing the water type’s eyes towards him. “Relax,” he said softly, his hands raised placatingly. “You don’t want to be held down, right?” he asked then, eyes darting as he tried to get a read on things. The vaporeon seemed to have relaxed quite a bit when it had escaped the woman’s grasp. Sure, it looked pretty aggressive, but not quite as twitchy and restless as it had been before. “That’s fine, girl,” he told her, remembering what the woman had called the pokemon before.

The vaporeon didn’t relax much, but when no one moved to approach it, the hissing stopped. Pierce took that as a good sign and went on from there. Turning, he addressed the woman first.

“Continue with another, ok?” he asked, drawing an unsure look from her. “I’ll try to calm her down and you can treat her then.”

“If you are sure,” the woman commented, looking between him and the vaporeon.

“One of the sisters told me to take care of this kind of thing,” he reassured her, which seemed to work pretty well right then and there. It was good, he didn’t want to get into a fight or anything. Some of the other people around seemed to have taken notice of things and were getting distracted. “Just you and me, girl,” Pierce said, turning back to the vaporeon who had been looking between them.

It hissed, which almost made him sigh.

“I know, you are angry and hurt,” he said, taking a step forward. The pokemon didn’t seem to like that much. ‘Ok, how to best do this?’ he wondered, keeping himself calm. “How about this? I won’t touch you at all,” he started, and that suggestion seemed to get through it. His lips twitched up. “You come with me for a bit and I’ll get you something to eat. How do some berries sound? Or are you more of a kibble girl?” he asked, getting a scandalized bark at the last question that made him chuckle. “Yeah, I didn’t think so, but it happens, you know?”

To that, the vaporeon seemed to make a questioning sound.

“I was surprised too,” he answered, relaxing a little and waving his hand to signal for the pokemon to follow. “Now, shall we? What kind of berries do you like? You look tough, do you like sour berries? Or maybe you like sweet ones?”

She yipped something at the last question and he grinned.

“Sure thing. I’ll even see if I can make you some pokeblocks. It’ll be a minute. We can relax, then you get that wound treated and we can sit around and enjoy ourselves after that. How does that sound?” he asked the water type, getting an unsure sound from the pokemon, even as she limped to walk beside him. Eventually though, she yipped again in the affirmative. “Great.”

[}-o-{]

“Eyes on me, little one, eyes on me,” Pierce said softly, holding a poliwag in his hands as the man behind the pokemon treated his tail. “It’s almost over, I swear, and then that’s that. Just keep your eyes on me and then we can get to the good part, yeah?” he told the small water type. As he talked, his eyes darted back to how the treatment was going.

“We are done here,” the man behind the poliwag said and Pierce grinned widely in response while the water type made a sort of surprised sound.

“See? It’s over now!” he exclaimed, bringing the pokemon up and then down to his side. “A sour berry for the tough guy, just like you wanted,” he added, placing the water type next to the aforementioned fruit. “Keep an eye on him, yeah?” he asked the vaporeon who was sitting imperiously by his side. To that, he received an agreeing yip. “Thanks, you are the best,” he said, getting the same response.

“Paralyze Heal over here!”

“I got that one,” Pierce called, getting up and starting to walk towards the supply boxes. Idly, he glanced towards the poliwag and the vaporeon and then towards the many other pokemon that had been treated and now waited to be taken by one of the staff members that walked around. He hadn’t found out where they were taken, but he guessed it wasn’t the most important fact at the moment.

“Helper-Speaker indeed,” he heard and he turned to see the pink sister looking at him from the side. “Things have calmed down by now. Another hour or two and it’ll be over, we gather.”

“That’s great to hear,” Pierce replied with a nod as he continued moving. “And one day I’d like to know what’s up with that Helper-Speaker thing.”

“You have a psychic type?” she asked him curiously, leaning on one of the boxes to his side. Glancing at her, Pierce noticed that she looked a lot more weary than she sounded. Turning to the side, he saw the other two still directing people around and keeping an eye on things. Both looked about as “good” as she did.

“I do,” he replied, keeping his observations to himself. He knew a thing or two about pushing through exhaustion for the sake of pokemon.

“They’ll tell you, then. My slowbro told me,” she said and Pierce wondered if that slowbro was the one that she’d been communicating with her before. “It’s an interesting talk. Maybe not all that you expect it to be, but… It’s something that we like to let the pokemon tell. It’s… I guess it’s become an unwritten rule of sorts. Or a tradition.”

“Can’t wait then.”

[}-o-{]

“Feeling fine, buddy?” he asked, absently patting the head of the quagsire that had it resting on his lap. It let out a weak response but otherwise seemed to be mostly fine. Certainly better than the panicking thing it had been before. “Yeah, I’m glad to hear it. How about the rest of you, guys?” he added, turning his head to look at the gathering of pokemon around him.

Vaporeon gave him an unimpressed look, rolling her eyes. Poliwag bounced a little, giving him a happy sound that had Pierce chuckling. Then there was the goldeen that had been barely responsive before and now… Well, she wasn’t much better, but she at least was swimming around a bit, if at a sedated pace.

“Tentacool, buddy, you gotta answer me or I’ll get worried,” Pierce commented, drawing a roll of the pokemon’s eyes. “Good enough for me,” he decided with a smile.

“And this is good enough for us,” he heard the Sensational Sister say, making him turn around. “We are done, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I mean, there were still some people working last time I looked,” he replied with a half smile. “I guess that’s done too now though,” he noted, taking in his surroundings and how… he was the last one around, it seemed. “Well, guys. I’ll leave you with the nice ladies, yeah?”

Poliwag whined.

“I know, it sucks, but it’s what it is. You are all better and we had our fun. I promise there’ll be more berries in your future, guys,” he told them, gently pulling the quagsire off of his lap. “And this time without the annoying guy, so that’s good, right?” he added, patting vaporeon’s head.

“... They’ll be around,” the sister told him, giving him a tired smile. “You can visit them tomorrow, or anytime you want, really, if you are around. We are one of the best places around to hold these types so… We do, at least until we can find other places.”

“You heard that, little guy?” Pierce said, looking down at the poliwag. “We’ll spend tomorrow afternoon together, I can tell you that. And you too,” he added patting Quagsire. “Not the rest of you though, you are ungrateful and you suck,” he finished, giving the others an unimpressed look and a wave of his hand.

Rolling her eyes, vaporeon walked up to him and rubbed her head on his leg.

“Better,” Pierce told her, rubbing the side of her neck. “And you two?” he asked, getting a bubble and a wave from tentacool and a little wave of water created by goldeen slapping her tail on the surface of the water. “Works for me. I’ll get you some pokeblocks for you lot. You can bet on that.”

“You done?”

“I think,” he answered with a chuckle. “Sorry, I know you must be tired,” he told the woman in front of him, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ll let you go and rest.”

“Don’t worry about it. We keep an eye on people, you know? You worked more than most here and you did extra work too,” she commented, waving her hand to signal the small gathering of pokemon. “So, it’s fine. Thanks for your efforts. The League probably already sent the money.”

“Right. Well, see you tomorrow, probably. Unless you plan to sleep in… a lot,” he replied with a grin.

“Yeah, we wish,” she said wryly, bringing up a hand to cover a yawn. “Now, shoo shoo.”

“See you, everyone,” he told the pokemon. “And you really deserve the rest, honestly,” he added towards the Gym Leader as he started walking towards the exit. He waved a hand back at the water types when he heard a few calls but didn’t stop. He was suddenly feeling like he was wasting the Sensational Sisters’ time and he didn’t want to be a bother when they were probably exhausted.

“Thanks for coming and helping,” the pink haired woman told him. They weren’t quite practiced words but close.

“Happy to help,” he said as he left the Gym.

Once outside, he noticed that it was dark outside and few people were around anymore. ‘Now, to get to the Pokemon Center,’ he mused, suddenly feeling as tired as the Sisters had looked. Rubbing his weary eyes, he looked for the closest sign towards the Pokemon Center. There were some of those around, considering that people might really need to get there for a personal emergency or for one like Mt. Moon had been.

He’d been offered the chance to be brought back to where they’d gotten him, but he’d refused that before he was even taken to Cerulean. For one, they were already going there, so being there and then teleporting back felt a little stupid. For another, he wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything else he could do to help and for that he needed to stay. Who knew? Maybe they’d need another hand later.

So, it didn’t take him that long to find his way through the city and towards his destination. ‘Wonder if Lily will take her time getting here,’ he thought absently after getting his own room from the receptionist at the entrance of the Pokemon Center. There was literally no one else that seemed to be up in the building when he did too, or at least no one that he could see.

Understandable, given the hour.

So, he dropped his backpack on the side of the bed and all but threw himself on top of it. It was a good thing that he’d talked with his pokemon before being teleported, because otherwise he’d have felt bad about keeping them in their pokeballs for so long. ‘I’ll make it up to them tomorrow… Maybe I’ll even be able to have them meet the water types…’ he thought, his eyelids too heavy to open them at all.

‘Maybe I’ll get to swim in one of those pools?’ he wondered then, his mind growing more sluggish and erratic. ‘It’d be nice… but I guess the beach can do if not… wonder if it’s as good as we thought it’d be while getting here.’

He paused then, almost falling asleep then and there as his hand moved up to his chest and his fingers wrapped around his rock pendant. However, in that moment, his mind was suddenly filled, not with thoughts but with satisfaction. He’d helped pokemon that day. Maybe he hadn’t treated them, but he’d helped those that did. He’d calmed down those pokemon that would have made things worse for themselves too. He’d done some good, and just like every other time he did, sleep took him with a smile on his face.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

It’s Pierce’s destiny to come across pokemon in need of help, apparently… He seems to like that though, so I guess that’s good? At least it’s good for the pokemon that he helps, that’s for sure. And for his bank account, which is always nice.

All that aside, I hope you liked the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Are you sleepy? I am, even though it’s fairly early in the day. No idea what’s up with that.

See you.