Searching Far and Wide - 48 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Cerulean City IX

“Are you seeing this, Ethan?”

“I’m seeing it, Evan,” the second twin commented, looking at Pierce like he was weird or something. Which, fair enough, the man himself supposed. Still, it was kind of rude. “Still working on believing though,” Ethan added, rubbing his eyes as if trying to get them to work properly.

“Do you need a moment?” Pierce asked then, leaning back on the tree he was sitting against and petting the pokemon on his lap. “If not, we can discuss how to keep this lot from wreaking havoc on your fields. Pretty sure that’s what the job was about.”

“Yes, please. If I have to fix the truck one more time, I might go insane,” Evan answered with a groan. To be fair to him, the aforementioned vehicle did look like it had gotten… roughed up quite a lot. There were dents and holes everywhere, but it had worked surprisingly well when he’d been taken there.

“Well, first thing first,” Pierce said, turning his body so he could send a better look at the mankey on his lap and the ones on the tree. These latter ones were sending the other very obviously envious looks… Which was great. “They are mean little things, but they are also pokemon with feelings. If you are nice to them, they’ll be more likely to be nice to you. How about you take one of the other ones and pet them a bit? I think they’d like that.”

The twins gave him incredulous looks.

To that, he just rolled his eyes before exaggerating his movements so that they could get a better view.

“The top of the head and the stomach are basically safe spots. Everywhere else depends, but the hands and feet are usually off limits,” he explained calmly, demonstrating… At least with the former. With the latter, he just gestured in their direction. “You can try other spots, they might like them better, after all. If they twitch, it’s better to go back to a safer spot. Remember to check this with all spots, even the safe ones, just in case. It’s just nice to know which ones are “safer” as it were, I’m sure. Give it a try,” Pierce told the two, as he continued petting the mankey on his lap.

Having been paying close attention to his words, the fighting pokemon on the tree branches above him jumped down. They started moving close to the brothers, who both tensed up. Their eyes then darted towards Pierce’s pokemon, who were looking closely at the whole thing. Narcissa and Cygnus were paying especially close attention, just in case someone messed up.

Nothing should happen, obviously, but there was always the chance that someone wouldn’t listen to his advice and do something dumb instead. One never knew when dealing with others, be they humans or pokemon. Especially the former, admittedly, but stupidity wasn’t solely a human trait.

“Let’s do something, you,” Pierce said, pointing at a specific mankey that he’d seen be a little more calm and curious than the rest. It pointed at itself. “Yes, you, can you go towards him? Slowly, please,” he asked, proceeding to point at Evan, who was the calmest twin. “Evan, please, crouch down and pick her up like you would a small child. No need to go too slow or be too gentle, just don’t move too suddenly or put force into it. You’d have to try and annoy them like that for it to happen.”

“... Ok, ok… Yeah, I can do that,” the man commented, looking down at the expectant mankey. Doing as Pierce instructed, he picked up the fighting pokemon and brought her up. “Now… what?” he asked nervously, gulping.

“Now you turn her around and hold her against your chest like this,” Pierce explained, demonstrating with his own mankey partner, placing an arm under one of his and then across the “chest” area, if it could be called that. “And then use your other hand to pet her head like this,” he added, showing the man what to do again.

As soon as he followed his example, Evan found himself in possession of a very relaxed mankey that was almost purring under his care.

“See, not such a fighting machine anymore, right?” he asked the man, who was looking very pleasantly shocked as he continued doing as he’d been told. Then he traded a look with Ethan, who had been looking at the whole thing with an even more fearful expression than his brother did. “Wanna give it a try, Ethan?”

“Uh… Yeah?” he replied, not very sure. That was fine, Pierce had a partner in mind for the exercise that wouldn’t give him a bad time.

“Great, take this one. He’s already calm and knows it’ll be good for him so long as he doesn’t cause problems,” he answered, standing up and moving to pass the mankey he’d been petting. Standing next to the frightened man, he spoke softly to point out some things for him.

Then he chuckled when an impatient mankey climbed on him for some attention of his own.

“Ok, so, the gist of it is that you shouldn’t try to fight them. They’ll like that, after all. What you need to do is take a minute off, offer them something to eat, a few pets and that should be enough to calm them down so that you can send them off,” Pierce explained, nodding his head to signal for them to follow. They were a little skittish since there were a few more mankeys at their feet, but they still walked behind him. “Just do that and get them to the edge of the property, be nice and tell them that you need to work but they can come and visit whenever, so long as they don’t cause trouble.”

“Aren’t you doing that already?” Ethan asked, his voice still a little shaky.

“It’s nice to get the rapport in yourself,” Pierce told him with a smile. “Besides, you never know when a different group or just a member of this group that doesn’t know you will show up. If they aren’t immediately at least a little friendly, then just speak to them, make offers and see how they react. Trying to be overly friendly can go badly with those that don’t know you.”

“Not for you, I don’t think,” Evan commented jokingly.

“I have to be careful and I’m told that I have an easier time understanding pokemon than most. I wouldn’t try to follow my example to the letter,” Pierce told them as they reached the fence that signaled the edge of their property. “Now, you lot be nice and don’t cause trouble, or you won’t get any petting the next time you come around, yeah?” he said to the mankeys. “We have things to do now, but these two will be here tomorrow, if you feel like visiting. No fighting for a spot, or they’ll be too scared to be friendly, yeah?” he explained to the pokemon as he moved to place the one he’d been carrying on the fence. “Take care.”

Barely a minute later, the whole group had gone away.

“That was… incredible,” Ethan commented, looking wide-eyed at the woods where the mankey had disappeared. “You really are something.”

“I try,” Pierce replied with a smile. “Just remember doing that and if you need any emergency help with anything or my advice doesn’t work for you, give me a call.”

“We will, thank you.”

[}-o-{]

“I’d have thought you would spend more time at the beach, considering how much you like being in water,” Lily commented while they ate at the Pokemon Center. “Instead you spend all your time either working or at the Gym.”

“I mean, I guess the Gym fills that spot for me right now,” he replied, taking his glass and bringing it to his lips. “... And many of these jobs sound kind of serious, even if they are solved easily. I don’t want to put them off. Especially because I don’t think I’ll be around long enough to do them all.”

“You are allowed to not take them, you know?” his friend asked, shaking her head at him. “Just because you can probably do the job better than a regular trainer could doesn’t mean you have to. You are only one man, Pierce.”

“I know that, but this is not only people that need help, you know? The pokemon need help too,” he grumbled, stabbing the food on his plate as if it had offended him. “But you do have a point and I see it. I just can’t help it.”

“Can’t help but help. That’s a funny thing, isn’t it?” Lily pointed out with a grin as he sent her an unimpressed look. “Fine, be that way. Anyway, I’m just saying that if you want to go to the beach and not work for once, you can do it. I know you enjoy what you are doing, but it’s still work. I enjoy training and battling, but it can get tiring really quick.”

“I guess you are not wrong, again,” Pierce acknowledged with a nod and a sigh as he continued eating. Taking a moment, he considered what Lily was saying. It wasn’t something new, or that he hadn’t thought of before, but he’d kind of… pushed that aside before. Now, confronted with it by someone else, he knew it was just him pushing forward, ignoring the problem.

‘I’m doing that a lot,’ he thought, holding back a grimace.

“I mean, even if you go to the beach now, it’d be just because you “have to”, right? So, yeah…” Lily told him, making him sigh. “Just… remember to take breaks from things you have to do and do things you want to do, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” he replied, pushing his food around on the plate a bit. Ultimately, he pushed through to finish the meal. He’d always hated leaving food on the plate, felt like he was wasteful or something. “I guess I just…” he started before sighing. “Doesn’t matter. So, how was your morning at the battlegrounds?”

“Challenging,” she replied, apparently fine changing the topic. It was probably too serious for her, Pierce supposed. Or maybe she felt awkward lecturing him about personal stuff like that? Maybe both. “There was this girl with a pokemon I didn’t even know. From Sinnoh, apparently. It was a little annoying, not gonna lie. And there was one guy that was clearly going to get his second badge already, at the very least, because he had no business being as strong as he was. Pretty sure he’ll get a bunch of badges back to back or something.”

“You do realize that I probably look like that to people, right?” he asked with a wry smile. With Narcissa and Orion, he probably looked like a very unfair fight for everyone that he challenged or was challenged by with no badges. “And you too for that matter. Did you win?”

“Er, yeah,” she replied sheepishly. “But still!”

“Lily, come on. You can’t complain about every trainer you come across that could maybe kick your ass-”

“I definitely can!”

“And don’t even get me started with when you lose-”

“Let me be a sore loser, will you?!” she complained, pouting and all. “I don’t even complain to their faces. It’s just… annoying.”

He just raised an eyebrow at her then.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know it sounds childish but… I never faced much of a challenge back in Pallet,” she admitted and it was now her turn to push her food around. “It was just me and my two friends. We pretty much dominated everyone else.”

“Well, call me crazy, but I think the world has more people than Pallet.”

“Oh, shut up, will you?”

[}-o-{]

“This is nice,” Pierce commented, legs crossed at the ankles and hands behind his head as he laid down. There was a deep sound that reverberated on his back as a response that made him chuckle. “That’s nice, it’s like getting a massage, honestly.”

The response was pretty much the same.

“Yeah, I’m definitely getting you a pokeblock or ten. Good stuff, buddy, I promise. If you are around tomorrow, I think I can be confident in my poffins by then. I’ve been practicing,” Pierce commented, getting an excited, if still deep, sound in response. “As thanks for letting us float around with you, if you will. I know this must be annoying for you.”

The tentacruel he – together with a few krabby and Vaporeon – was lying on top of replied with another deep sound that made his bones tremble and a wave of his tentacle.

“Still, man, thank you,” Pierce insisted, and he was fairly sure that Tentacruel was rolling his eyes at him, even if he couldn’t see from where he was. “Still having fun with the handler’s expression?” he asked then, turning to the side to see the Gym staff woman that had been in charge of Tentacruel. She was looking at them every few seconds as if they were waiting for her not to look so that they could cause a natural disaster.

The big water type replied with his version of a laugh that had one of the particularly childish krabby jumping around. Probably to make things worse – more like definitely, but whatever – Tentacruel reached up with his tentable and wrapped it around Pierce’s chest to bring him up and hold him in the air. Glancing to the side, he saw the woman had tensed up and looked paler than before.

“Well, that’s annoying,” he commented flatly, giving the water type an unimpressed expression. That is, before an idea formed in his mind. “Actually, nevermind. You think you can throw me up a bit? Like, so that I’ll fall on the water. Pretty sure I’d break everything if I fell on the actual floor, you know?” The answer came in the shape of Tentacruel doing just that. From the side, Pierce heard a shriek but he was too busy screaming in excitement before dropping in the water in a swan dive.

In the water, he saw Magikarp reach him and swim around him cheerfully as he started going back up.

“That was fun!” he called with a laugh. “Maybe we can do that again later,” he added as he swam up to Tentacruel. “Honestly, what’d you do for them to be so scared? You are nice,” he asked, giving the water type a pat and chuckling when a tentacle pushed him on top of his body. “I’m not hearing an answer,” he pointed out, he grinned widely when Tentacruel seemed to want to wave off the entire thing. “Oh no, buddy. This I gotta hear.”

Pierce had a feeling that was kind of what Lily had been telling him to do before. Because he’d visited the water types at the gym before, of course, but most of him was mostly focused on making the pokemon feel better. He tried to keep them happy or at least calm in a time of much discontent. That day though, it felt like he was just having a good time, like one of the encounters he’d have on the road instead of visiting Rocket victims.

Sure, at times, he’d get a good look at one of the pokemon and see injuries that remained, signs of malnutrition that persisted and generally a bad mood that could only mean a worse memory in the pokemon’s mind. However, they were getting better, and Pierce himself was getting better at not treating them like they were glass. Maybe some of them needed it, but others just wanted to forget, move on. Others wanted to be treated like normal pokemon, instead of half-broken ones.

Pierce could certainly provide for those.

“Honestly, buddy,” he commented, laying himself at the edge of Tentacruel’s head and peeking off where his eyes were. “I think you could talk to one of the psychics or something and they’d let the handlers know you are just all soft and fluffy inside. Unless you are having trouble or something, which is fine. I get my moments like that too,” he mused absently, half talking to the pokemon and half talking to himself. “What I’m trying to say is that you are fine. If you don’t feel like you need people keeping watch then there’s no need to have them and just annoy yourself.”

To that, the Tentacruel mumbled something in a lower voice than before.

“It’s fine. Just like I help you, you guys are helping me feel better,” Pierce replied with a half-smile. “I like having you guys around. So if you feel better with people keeping an eye on you just in case, then that’s fine. Means you aren’t arrogant enough to feel like you can deal with everything yourself.”

Saying that made Pierce feel arrogant himself, admittedly, but he couldn’t have others help him with most of his problems. He could get help with some of them though, so that was something. Taking a deep breath in, he stared at the ceiling of the inside pool they were in.

“Say, do you mind if I take my turn to feel bad?” he asked, receiving a questioning deep sound. “I just have my own things to deal with, I guess. It’s nothing as bad as you guys, of course, so it’s fine if you want me to shut up.”

A yap from his side made him turn to Vaporeon, who had moved towards them. With his attention on her, the eeveelution slapped him with her paw. To that, he snorted before devolving into chuckles.

“Yeah, fair enough,” he said with a smile that turned sad quickly. “Keep an eye on everyone while I mope, yeah?”

Vaporeon, Tentacruel and Magikarp, who had been floating by him in the water, replied to that in the affirmative.

“You are great, guys,” he commented, placing his forearm over his eyes and just… letting his mind drift to thoughts he usually avoided. It wasn’t tears that ran down his face, just water dripping from his hair, that was all. It wasn’t a sob that escaped his lips, just a surprised sound when Vaporeon leaned against his side.

Those were his stories and he was sticking to them.

[}-o-{]

“Hey, Pierce!” he heard Lily call him from the entrance door to the computer room at the Pokemon Center. Looking up from where he’d been taking notes, he turned to look at his traveling companion. “Do you have a minute?”

“Eh… Sure,” he replied hesitantly as he started closing the tabs he’d had open. He had been taking some last minute notes on how to make poffins. He had a few recipes ready to try out, sure, but he wanted them to be good, if not perfect. He might have been dabbling into slightly more complicated recipes and techniques that he shouldn’t be trying so early but…

The videos were distracting, ok? It wasn’t his fault.

“What did you need?” he asked once he’d picked everything up and moved to the door where Lily was waiting.

“I was talking with my mom and she said that the spearow around Pallet have been causing trouble,” she told him. Immediately, he had flashbacks of the mess that was chapter one from the anime, with the spearow flock and all that. Which was mostly nonsense. Sure, spearow were mean and petty little shits in general, but they weren’t likely to chase someone like that because of a rock thrown, especially through as long a distance as the anime made it look. ‘This isn’t the anime though, focus,’ he told himself, shaking his head. “People are kind of concerned and Professor Oak had to bring his pokemon into the mix to keep the peace a bit.”

Ok, that sounded really bad. ‘What could make spearow get that aggressive? Not lack of flock leadership, that’s for sure. Someone bothering them? They’d have to have killed for it to be that bad,’ he theorized in his mind, suddenly all business.

“I’ve told my mom about what you can do and… Well, she asked if you might have any advice,” Lily finished, to which he hummed thoughtfully. “Hey, mom. This is Pierce.”

“The famous Pierce Lawson in the flesh, huh?” he heard the woman before he saw her on the screen. He smiled at her, going to wave and greet her. However, she beat him to the punch there. “He’s cute. You are doing well for yourself, Lily. I see.”

“Mom!” the girl whined as Pierce chuckled.

“She wishes, ma’am,” he replied with a grin.

“Excuse me?!”

“We are not like that. I swore not to get involved with this mess when her pokemon ate half our food-”

“It was one time!”

“And it got worse when she wanted to get us lost in Mt. Moon.”

“It wasn’t that bad!”

“Shame that,” the woman commented, clicking her tongue and giving her daughter a playfully disappointed shake of her head. “I thought I had done a better job with you, Lily.”

“You suck, both of you,” the girl muttered through her teeth. “Didn’t you have a problem to ask for help about?”

“Right,” Pierce said, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to focus himself. Teasing Lily was nice and all, but there were people and pokemon that needed help. “Something about a spearow flock?”

“They’ve been a nightmare. The Professor has been trying to reach them but all he’s managed to do is scare them off. They are still coming back though and he can’t figure it out, even with his alakazam helping.”

‘That’s weird,’ Pierce thought. Lily had mentioned something about that, but still. Wasn’t Oak supposed to be an ex-Champion or something? If nothing else, he should be good enough to deal with this kind of thing, if not as a trainer then as a researcher… right? ‘No offense to them, but they are spearow. Wild ones at that and in a mostly calm area. They shouldn’t be causing problems for someone like fucking Samuel Oak,’ he mused, trying to make sense of that.

Still, with that in mind, he guessed he could try. Maybe the good Professor had other things on his plate. With the Rockets around, Pierce didn’t doubt there might be more concerning things for the man to worry about than some angry birds.

“Ok, first of all, have you or anyone else seen a fearow mixed in with the flock? Or several? Maybe a spearow that’s stronger than the rest?” he asked with a frown. He didn’t think a power vacuum in the group would cause it to be as aggressive as they were describing, but if the flock was big enough, it might be. Maybe if there were other problems mixed in too.

“There was a group of spearow that seemed stronger, they are the leaders, I’m told,” the woman answered, making him hum. Several leaders wasn’t that strange, from what he’d read and seen. Sometimes there was one leader with two sub-leaders and such. Dynamics varied, as with everything, but it made more sense if the group was big.

Which was the next question: How big was the flock? From there, it was a bit of a Q&A show between him and the woman, going back and forth as he tried to get all the information he could. Were the spearow doing anything in specific? Attacking people, places, targeting anywhere in particular? Did they do something else that looked weird, like getting distracted while causing trouble? Did they make strange decisions that they couldn’t find a reason for?

Ultimately…

“I’d have to be there to get a better idea, talk to them and such,” Pierce said in the end, after he’d ran out of questions. “There doesn’t seem to be a struggle for leadership, nor are they having food problems or anything like that. My best bet is that something angered them. I saw something similar when someone tried to take a weedle away from an established swarm of beedrill,” he said, making the woman’s eyes widen. At that, he turned towards Lily, who was looking away sheepishly.

“Beedrill swarm?”

“A story for another time,” Pierce said quickly. Too quickly, it seemed, because the woman turned towards her daughter. “It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that someone captured a child from the flock, but it could mean something on that level, or worse. Another thing that could be causing this is another strong pokemon or group of pokemon pushing and unsettling the flock. I don’t think it’s that though, since you seem so sure that they are angry. If it were the other, they’d look more desperate, more erratic, I think.”

“Hm, I see. You are good at this. That’s reassuring. With some of the stories Lily tells, I had to wonder,” the woman commented.

“She has her moments,” Pierce replied, drawing a giggle from the woman.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Now, what’s this about a beedrill swarm? You weren’t there, right? Because I didn’t hear anything about that,” the mother said in that tone that all mothers know how to use.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Dale. I think I’ll leave you to things though,” he said, trying not to sound like he was running away.

Even though he definitely was.

“Don’t be shy, Pierce. Do join our calls from time to time, ok?” the woman called as he moved away slightly. “I do have to make sure I get everything that happens in your journey, it seems.”

“Ah, er… Yeah, sure,” he replied. “See you around.”

“Don’t go,” Lily whispered, grabbing his sleeve.

“Sorry,” he whispered before walking – read, running – away.

“Traitor,” he heard her hiss behind him.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Ah, yes, the moment of betrayal. From here, it’s all about Lily and her quest for revenge. This slight shall not be forgotten. Stories will be told about what she’ll do to Pierce to punish him for his backstabbing ways and-

Er, I mean, nice slice of life and interactions? Yay? I’m also sure that there’s nothing going on with this last part. Nothing weird or anything, right? Yeah, it’s all normal stuff and people asking for help from Pierce. Business as usual.

Ahem, anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Weather’s too hot for my brain to think of a random question. Just tell me something.

See you.