Searching Far and Wide - 54 (Patreon)

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

Cerulean City XV

“You know, did we ever decide what the plan was for after Cerulean?” Pierce commented, his mouth half full as he pointed at his traveling companion with his plastic fork. His other hand held onto the plastic plate while he sat on the ground and leaned his back against Orion’s side. They were currently sitting outside the Pokemon Center, having decided to change the scenery a little for breakfast that day.

“Route 5, Saffron. Challenge Saffron. Straightforward,” Lily replied, sitting with her legs crossed and her team sitting around her. “Otherwise, we can make a bit of a detour from Route 9 to Lavender. There’s Route 24 too. Sure, it doesn’t go anywhere, but it might be fun for a quick trip to see what’s up.”

“That’s a pun, isn’t it? Because Route 24 is North of here?” he asked, giving her a thoroughly unimpressed look. In turn, Lily looked at him with a horrified expression. “That was terrible, Lily and you should feel bad.”

“What are you talking-? It wasn't a pun,” she defended herself, scandalized. “What do you-?”

“Glutton pokemon, terrible sense of direction, terrible sense of humor-”

“Pierce!”

“I really don’t know why I keep you around,” Pierce commented, shaking his head. “Why do you, guys?” he asked her pokemon then, as if he hadn’t added their behavior to the list he’d just directed at Lily. Regardless of that, all of them nodded, because they were smart and they knew keeping him happy with them meant better food.

“... I hate you, Pierce,” Lily hissed, glaring at him with a twitching eye.

“Anyway, I think the straight path sounds better. A detour sounds nice, but we take forever to get anywhere since we take our time. I wouldn’t want to spend too much time walking around,” Pierce commented, rocking back and forth thoughtfully before bringing more food to his mouth. “But-” he started, after chewing a bit. “I could be convinced for the detour. Better than straight out going for the dead end,” he added with a shrug.

“Nah, I’m fine going the straight way,” Lily replied, waving the offer off. “Only reason to do the detour for Lavender is the ghost types and… I don’t know if I want to deal with one right now. They tend to be a handful at the best of times and I have Star right now to worry about,” she explained while he took a sip from his drink.

“That sounds reasonable,” he commented, getting a nod from Lily. “Not,” he continued then, making her blink. “If you were scared of handfuls, you wouldn’t have caught pokemon as quickly as you have. So, what is it? You scared of the ghosts?”

“Bu-No!” she protested but it was so very forced that he stared at her. “What are you looking at?”

“You are scared of the ghosts,” he repeated, making her sputter. “Oh, this is gold. You know what, I’m liking the sound of the deto-”

“We are not doing the detour,” she said firmly. The tone was kind of ruined by the pout on her face.

“You make it too easy at times, Lily, honestly,” Pierce told her, grinning widely and shaking his head.

“You suck,” she replied.

“Anyway,” he continued, dutifully ignoring her glare while their pokemon watched the show like one would a tennis match. Being honest, he was a little glad that Lily offered an excuse to stay away from ghost pokemon. He didn’t want to know what’d happen if he met one after… “Straightforward path, that’s neat. We have to prepare for Sabrina then,” he thought out loud, pushing everything else to the side and looking down at his empty plate. Then he set it on the ground by his side and picked up the cup with his drink. “Good thing she’d be my second challenge, because I think she’d kick my ass otherwise.”

“I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about her in high badge level, yeah,” Lily confirmed with a nod. “And read them.”

“I have to study her battles,” he muttered.

“You’ll be fine Pierce,” Lily told him, rolling her eyes. “Honestly. Why do you worry so much?”

“I don’t want to fail… I don’t want to fail them,” he answered honestly, extending his hand to the side and patting Orion.

“Idiot,” Cygnus told him.

“Pierce-”

“But that’s fine,” Pierce continued, locking eyes with Narcissa, who landed by his side. “They want to prove themselves. I want to make sure they do. And that’s that,” he said, grinning.

“That was better,” Cygnus said grudgingly with a nod.

“Which is why I have to do my best. Research everything, prepare strategies, train the team,” he said, turning towards Lily. “And panic,” he added in the end with a chuckle. “Hopefully that means I’ll try even harder.”

“You were doing… so well,” Cygnus sighed in his mind, making him laugh harder.

“For now, I think I’ll just go, do an easy job, hit the battlegrounds and see what I do with the-”

“Go to the Gym,” Lily corrected.

“And I’ll go to the Gym,” he admitted with no issues whatsoever. “Then we’ll finish the day with training and that’ll be that,” he finished, getting agreeing sounds from his team.

“... Sounds like a good day,” Lily told him with a hum as she finished her own breakfast too. “Pretty much same, by the way. Without the Gym part, that is. I’m not dating… Which sister was it again?” she asked “curiously”.

“That joke is going to be old eventually,” he told her.

“Eh, the food joke hasn’t gotten old yet, right? I think I can do this one just as long,” Lily replied cheerfully.

“... I guess I deserve that,” he admitted with a sigh. “I still have more ammo though.”

“And I’ll catch up eventually,” Lily threatened, pointing at him with her plastic fork. “Just you wait-”

“Whatever you say,” he said as he stood up, stretched a little and then relaxed. “I’ll go along, if you don’t mind… Mrs. Blue.”

“Pierce!”

[}-o-{]

“You look awesome,” Pierce praised, not even having to lie as he grinned widely and used the special brush on the rapidash’s fur. “You must have been a hit with the ladies, huh?” he asked, getting a neigh and a confident nod from the fire type. “Still are, huh?” he commented with a laugh. “Yeah, I can believe that.”

He continued talking with Rapidash from there as he worked on getting to know it and brushed it. His most recent client seemed to have some trouble with that particular fire type, his partner, the one pokemon in his ranch that he was the closest to. From the sound of things, they had been together since forever ago and now the rapidash was… depressed, for lack of a better term.

So, after finally having given up on solving the issue himself, the farmer had sent him in particular a job asking for help.

It seemed to really hurt the man’s pride to ask for help for his best friend. Jack seemed to take it as a failure on his part, but Pierce didn’t see it that way. Sometimes, the closer one was to someone, the harder it was to help with this kind of thing. Sometimes, someone a little less connected was what one needed.

So, Pierce did his best to get a read on things and get as much as he could from Rapidash.

In the end…

“I think I get it, buddy,” he said softly, having long since finished brushing the fire type but keeping it up anyway. His initially happy and enthusiastic expression changed for a softer, more sympathetic one. “I’ll see what I can do, ok?” he asked, getting a much weaker neigh than what he’d have gotten before. “Who knows? Maybe we can talk more about the good old days with Mr. Bartlett,” he added, getting a much happier response.

Thus, he walked with Rapidash back towards where Jack waited, pursed lips and generally grave expression.

“Took your time, didn’t you?” Jack asked curtly, but Pierce simply smiled.

“Sorry, I had to get to know Rapidash. He’s also a beautiful creature, I gotta say,” he replied, making both pokemon and farmer preen with pride. It was adorable, even if Pierce would never voice that. At least not to their faces, that was for sure. “You should be proud,” he added, as if he couldn’t see the man was.

“I am. Rapidash has been the best partner a sorry farmer like me could ask for,” Jack told him, moving next to the fire type and rubbing his hand on a patch of fur away from the flames. “So, any ideas?”

“Rapidash wants to run, Mr. Bartlett. He wants to run with you,” Pierce answered. Immediately afterwards, he could see the annoyance shine through the old man’s expression, his mustache twitching.

“I-We can’t, the last time we went-”

“Rapidash got hurt, I know,” Pierce interrupted, taking on the man’s glare with calm. “He’s better now and he wants to run, Mr. Bartlett. It’s what he loves. If you don’t let him, if you don’t join him… It’ll be like he never recovered, like he lost his legs,” he explained carefully. “Your friend wants to do what he loves and he can, from what he says. If the doctors told you that he can’t and he lied to me, that’s fine. But if he can… let him. If not, I’d suggest finding a way to give him what he wants with less risks.”

“Kid, I knew that before you came. Rapidash can’t run with me anymore. It’s too much strain for his old legs,” Jack replied, making his expression fall. “I know you miss it, buddy. I know you do. I miss it too… But we can’t,” he continued then, turning towards the fire type.

“You have more rapidash, right?” Pierce asked then, stubbornly powering through.

“And how do you propose-”

“You ride one of those… and run with Rapidash. Run with him, even if you can’t ride on him,” he explained, making the man pause.

“How didn’t I…?” Jack mumbled, turning to look at Rapidash. “Would you like that, buddy? It wouldn’t be the same but…” The fire type neighed once more, kicking the ground and pressing against Bartlett’s chest before running a small lap around the old man and Pierce. “He likes the sound of that, it seems,” Jack said, although Pierce wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or to himself. “And I’m an idiot, evidently,” he added bitterly.

“You were trying to be careful, to protect your friend,” Pierce reassured, giving the man a soft smile. “You might have hyper focused on that. It can be difficult to consider options for something that you think is impossible and only hurts to think about,” he added, because he knew a thing or two about something like that.

Maybe he should listen to his own advice at some point, he supposed.

“You think?” Cygnus asked from where he sat some distance away, getting an unimpressed side-glance from Pierce.

“That’s a very nice way to say I am an idiot, you know?” Jack joked self-deprecatingly. “I’ll give it a try. Who knows, maybe we can come up with something better. What I wouldn’t give to ride with my old friend here again…” he added then, looking at his fire type wistfully, his eyes looking off as if he were picturing some old memory instead of seeing what was in front of him. Rapidash didn’t look much better.

‘Wonder if we will look like that one day,’ Pierce mused sadly, feeling Cygnus’ presence in his mind grow sympathetic. It was a little depressing to consider. He couldn’t imagine Narcissa being unable to fight, or Cygnus being unable to move around without psychic powers again, or Orion lying down pitifully like back when he’d arrived to heal him. He couldn’t imagine how much it had to hurt Jack to see his friend like this now.

“You should probably be careful anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to have someone with medical knowledge around if you plan to go on a particularly long run or something like that,” he suggested, swallowing a knot in his throat. “Other than that… I can’t think of anything right now.”

“Thank you, Lawson,” Jack replied, not taking his eyes off Rapidash for a long moment before he turned towards Pierce. “I mean that. You’ll get that your payment as soon as I can get my grandaughter to send it.”

“I didn’t do all that much,” Pierce tried to wave off, but the old man was having none of that.

“Nonsense. You have any idea how many people have tried to talk to me about this? But you didn’t tell me to humor Rapidash or to hold on for his sake… You found a solution, an easy one, that makes me look stupid too,” Jack told him before chuckling. “You’d get along with my granddaughter, I think. Stay away from her though,” he added with a glare.

“Sure thing, Mr. Bartlett.”

“Call me Jack, kid. You earned that much, at the very least.”

[}-o-{]

[Magikarp, the Golden Girl]

Things were so good those days.

She could almost forget, at times, the things they had all gone through. She could almost forget that just some days before, she barely got to eat. She could almost forget the times when she’d been hit with all sorts of moves while others “practiced” with her. She could almost forget all the things the bad people had said to her.

In the end, Magikarp still remembered.

However, things were good now. There were only good pokemon around, if some of them did act a little off still. She knew a thing or two as to why, so she wasn’t too bothered when a pokemon acted sad, or angry, or anything like that. There were also mostly good people around too, she’d found. There had been that one man that was a little… uncomfortable to be around but he’d gone away.

And she’d met Pierce!

Pierce was the best!

He always had kind things to say, nice stories to share or fun games to play. He was also always there and he always wanted to be there. Magikarp couldn’t remember the last time someone had wanted to be around her and the other magikarp before Pierce. Everyone seemed to like seeing her, sure, like that odd man that had healed her, but they didn’t like her. They only liked her scales, just because they were yellow instead of red.

The bad people had liked her scales too, but they had grown more and more mean when she didn’t evolve. She didn’t like them, and she didn’t like her scales. They only meant that the bad people would focus on her.

Pierce didn’t seem to care for her scales though. He’d point them out, praise them and call them beautiful, but he’d also say the same thing about her, how she was adorable or other things like that. Nobody had called her adorable before.

Magikarp liked that.

And the rest of the pokemon around Pierce were all so nice too. Sure, maybe Vaporeon was a little… cold-ish, but Magikarp liked her. And there were the other magikarp too, and Tentacruel, and Sharpedo, and… And a lot of other friends. Magikarp was loving it all ever since they had all been moved to those pools.

She wasn’t a fan of watching others have to go though. She’d made friends with many pokemon that were sent away one by one or sometimes even several together. It was sad, but it was what it was. They were all being sent to another place where they’d be cared for like they were there. Magikarp didn’t quite get why they had to move, but apparently they did.

It seemed like someone else would be going too, because one of the nice women – The Sisters, Pierce would call them, as if that meant something in particular other than them being siblings. – had approached Pierce to talk to him. Magikarp had seen that happen a few times already and it was always to tell him that someone from their group had to go. It was always sad, but they always held a go away party with food and games and extra fun so that nobody would be sad.

Even though they always were anyway.

“Hey everyone,” Pierce called as he came back, smiling like he usually did but it didn’t reach his eyes unlike other times. Instead, Magikarp saw him take a deep breath in. “Can you guys go over there with Violet?” he said, pointing at the blue haired “Sister” and making them all turn to look. A moment later, he received some affirmative answers before they started moving. “Thanks. Girl, can you wait for a bit,” he added quickly, signaling for Magikarp to say.

She wiggled happily as she approached him and somehow his smile turned even more sad. Was it Vaporeon that was being sent away? Magikarp knew that Pierce liked the eevee evolution more than the rest of them, since she’d been there first, more or less. She was sure that Vaporeon going away would make Pierce extra sad.

Maybe she could make him feel better!

She wiggled again, trying to comfort Pierce. She wasn’t very good at getting the message across but Pierce usually understood, even if sometimes it was only a little bit. Magikarp was sure she could do it this time!

“Well, aren’t you happy?” Pierce asked, laughing, but he didn’t seem to be feeling it. That only meant that she had to try harder. “Magikarp, please,” he said, laughing a little more but trying to hide it behind his hand. As if that would work. Silly Pierce. “Magikarp, you know how they’ve been finding places to take you all, right? Better places than this, more prepared and all that.”

Of course she knew. He’d explained that plenty of times. Maybe this was so he could tell her that Vaporeon was going away? Maybe he was sad and that was why he was saying it like that as if she didn’t know? That was ok. Magikarp would be sad to see her friend go, but Pierce and her would be there for each other!

“They found a place for you, Magikarp,” he said then and she froze.

What?

For…?

For her?

She had to have heard wrong. So, she swam closer, jumping out and hitting his leg. He had to repeat that. Maybe he meant that they had found a place for someone in the group or… But he’d sent the group away, so… But still, it couldn’t…

“They’ll take care of you. They’ll have better food than I do and they’ll be there for you all the time, not a few hours in the day,” Pierce explained… Magikarp started to shake. “There’ll be lots of other pokemon to spend time with, and they’ll be just as nice as the ones here,” he continued, but Magikarp was barely hearing anymore. “It’ll be fine, girl. Remember what I told you, it’ll be fine and you’ll be-”

She stopped hearing.

It couldn’t be happening. She’d just escaped that place with those people and they were sending her away… Sending her away who knew where? Better food than Pierce’s? She doubted it, and even if they did, Pierce wouldn’t be there. Maybe they would be there all the time, but would they not care about her scales and play with her and make her feel just as good as the other pokemon that weren’t useless? She doubted it. There’d be other pokemon, but there wouldn't be Vaporeon, or Tentacruel, or Golduck. None of them would be there.

None of them would be there.

It wouldn’t be fine.

Magikarp wouldn’t be fine.

She wanted to stay.

And she would stay.

And whoever decided not to let her would be just as bad as those people. Yes, because only bad people forced her to do things she didn’t want. Like forcing her to fight other pokemon even though she couldn’t. Like forcing to go without food because she was bad even though she wasn’t. Like forcing her to hear them again and again telling her how she was useless and ugly even though wasn’t.

Because she was adorable and beautiful.

Pierce had said so!

So she wouldn’t let them. She wouldn’t.

Magikarp wouldn’t let them.

There were screams and shouts and there better be. She’d make them scream and shout as she wished she could have. She’d show them what it was to be useless and helpless and ugly. She’d show them all, because she didn’t want to do what they told her. She’d show them all, because they had shown her.

The stupid, useless little things that ran around outside the pool and the pokemon that helped them even though she was the one that needed help. They were bad people. Just like those back where she came from. They were all bad, bad people and bad pokemon.

And they deserved to be treated as such.

She wouldn’t let them do anything. She’d show them that she wasn’t useless.

So she roared, she roared for everyone to hear her, just like she wished she could have roared back in that place. She roared for all the times she was hurt. She roared for all the times she was scared. She roared for all the times she was angry. She roared for all the times she wanted to hurt them.

And she could.

She could feel her presence as she grew to tower over her surroundings. She could feel the strength as her body twisted and the water around her was pushed away. She could feel the speed as she turned and blasted a bad pokemon that tried to do something. She could feel the power of the blast of a move she couldn’t even have used before.

She felt so much more.

She was so much more.

She was big and strong and fast and powerful.

She was no longer useless and ugly, not anymore, never again.

She was the strong one there and everyone else was weak. It was her time to be the strong one. So, remembering all the times others had been that instead of her, she roared again. This one, however, was a roar of triumph, a roar of righteousness. Because finally, she’d be able to repay the world what it had given her.

All that pain, all that helplessness, all that sadness.

She’d return it to them all.

Her tail, long and powerful, hit another pokemon, sending it to a wall. Her blast returned, hitting another one, pressing it against the ground…

And that was as far as she got before something pressed down on her. There was nothing around her, but something was holding her. There were more pokemon appearing around her, ready to attack her, like she’d been attacked so many times. Because that was all they could do, bad people and bad pokemon, they’d always attack her when she couldn’t fight back.

Not anymore!

She roared again, and the pressure receded. She wasn’t going to be contained. She wasn’t going to be insulted. She wasn’t going to be hurt. And all these bad people and bad pokemon would be shown that. She’d show them all.

So, she glared at the pokemon, pink and with a strange shelled tail, that tried to move, tried to contain her again. She blasted that one… Or tried, because another bad pokemon got in the way. It didn’t matter. She’d blast them all. If that didn’t work, she’d smack them. And if that didn’t work, she’d bite them.

Because she could.

She could fight now.

She wasn’t useless.

“Girl,” a voice said, somehow reaching her even through the anger, the blood pumping, the shouts, the screams and her own roar. “Girl,” it called again and she turned to look at him. The kind human with a kind smile…

The human that was sending her away.

Her glare grew fiercer.

And then she roared.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well… that happened.

I hope you guys liked the chapter.

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Random Question: I wanna know what you think about this chapter, if you guys don’t mind telling me.

See you.