Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon
Before Gardevoir and I leave, I feed the rest of my Pokémon. Against my better judgment, I told Gardevoir she could eat with us. To be honest, I'm freaking out. Not only will Ryan see her eating People food, but everyone at the diner, and it's not like its particularly common for a Pokemon to eat with their trainers.
It only takes us a minute to get there, and we see Ryan outside of the diner. It looks like a group of people are surrounding him, and when we get closer, we notice it's a group of children all drooling over Ryan's Arcanine.
Ryan's first Pokémon was a Growlithe, and he's raised it well. When I first saw his Arcanine, when we first met, I was surprised at how big it was. It's about as tall as my dad when it's on all fours. Ryan has this code that he follows. Ryan was born in Kanto, and he vows to use only Pokémon from his region to go against the Pokémon league. He's already collected all the badges from Kanto, and he's traveled to Hoenn and as of Fortree, he's on his sixth badge here. A Pokémon trainer only needs eight badges to compete in the Pokémon league, but Ryan wants to collect all 40 badges before going to compete. I can't call him my rival because he'd totally destroy me in a Pokémon battle. So, he's just my friend.
"Hey, Seth! Over here!" Ryan calls out when he sees us approaching.
"Hey, buddy." I say once we're closer.
"Ready to eat?" He asks, pulling out his Pokéball. I nod. "Alright, sorry kids. Me and my buddy are gonna go get something to eat." They all whine and start walking away like little kids do. He points his ball at Arcanine and returns it. He looks at Gardevoir, then at me, expectantly.
"Oh, um… She's gonna eat with us." I say quietly. I grab my collar nervously. He looks confused.
"Well, no offense to your Gardevoir, but she's a Pokémon, dude." He says, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I get that. But we talked about this; she's more to me than a Pokémon." I say, then instantly regret it. It sounds too much like what I don't want him to know.
"Okay…" He says, a little bit taken off.
"She hasn't even seen the inside of her Pokéball for a month." I explain. He looks suspicious, but shrugs it off.
"Whatever…" He shakes his head, and starts to head for the door. I sigh in relief. Now I've just got to deal with people in the diner.
"It's okay. Don't… worry… about… people." Gardevoir sends me a mental message, but this time it hardly does anything to calm my nerves.
We head into the restaurant and are greeted by the server.
"Hello, lunch menus for... three?" She asks, smiling politely. She looks confused as to why I have my Gardevoir out of her Pokeball.
"Oh, uh... Yeah. For my Gardevoir…" My face is flushing red.
"Okay… um… follow me then." She says, a little thrown off track. She leads us to a table in the back. I let Gardevoir in the booth and sit on the outside, next to her. Ryan sits across from us. The server sets down our menus and then a waitress comes to our table. She looks at us, then at Gardevoir, and then puts on a fake smile and breathes in.
"Can I get you something to drink to start you off?" She asks, with some pretty obvious fake manners.
"Yeah, I'll have a coca-cola." Ryan says, smiling politely at the waitress. She writes it down and then looks at me expectantly.
"Uh, yeah. I'll just have water." I say politely, even though the waitress is quite obviously being rude. She writes that down and then looks at Gardevoir and points her pen at her and makes a confused face.
"And uh…" She asks so rudely I want to get up and slap her across the face.
"Uh… yeah. She'll just have water too." I decide for Gardevoir, wanting the waitress to leave. The waitress sighs and then walks away.
"Wow. What a fucking bitch." I sigh when she's gone. I rest my elbow on the table and bury my face in my hand.
"You sure know how to keep things interesting." Ryan says, smirking. I have to smile back. It's not funny; it's just so ridiculous that it deserves a false laugh. Gardevoir looks at me, concerned and then touches my shoulder. Ryan watches her like he's in a trance, then seems to snap out of it and goes back to looking at the menu.
"Decide what you want, Gardevoir. She's gonna come back in a few minutes." I say, looking down at my menu. Her hand pulls back and she looks down at the laminated paper on the table before her. I can't focus on the menu and decide to just get a BLT, minus the tomatoes, and with some onions instead. The waitress comes back with our drinks and sets them on the table and pulls out her little notebook.
"Are you all set to order?" She asks, fake smile overwhelmingly obvious. Ryan looks at me and flicks his eyes towards the waitress. He needs more time.
"Uh, yeah. I'll have a BLT, but without the tomatoes, and can you put onions on it instead?" She nods, and writes it down.
"No problem. What can I get for you, sir?" She looks at Ryan.
"Oh, uhh… you know what? I'm going to need a few more minutes. I'm sorry about that." He says.
"That's fine. No problem at all." She folds up her notebook and starts to walk away.
"Uhh, excuse me." I say pretty loudly, she's just crossed the line.
"Yes?" She asks innocently.
"I think you forgot someone." I say rudely. I motion to Gardevoir. She looks confused and disgusted.
"It's going to eat here, too?" She questions. Her face is honestly confused, so I don't freak out as much as I want to.
"You think she was just going to sit here and watch us eat?" I ask, making her feel stupid.
"Oh, well… I-" She stutters, surprised at my rise in volume.
"Come back over here and take her order!" I yell. The tables around us go silent. The waitress laughs nervously and walks back to the table.
"I'm so sorry, what can I get you, miss?" She looks straight at Gardevoir for the first time since she's waited on us. Gardevoir looks at me, a little shocked, and then sends me what she wants mentally.
"She'll have the soup and salad combo. Uhm…-" I wait for the types of soup and salad. "The Caesar salad and the French onion soup." I explain for the waitress. People are still watching, so the waitress smiles and writes it down.
"Okay, I'm so sorry about that ma'am." She apologizes. It seems sincere enough, but she's probably just covering herself in front of everybody. She walks away completely embarrassed. I smile at her retreating form. Ryan looks up at me once she's gone.
"Keepin' it real." He says simply. I laugh.
"It's her own damn fault. She has no right treating Gardevoir like that." I say, laughing a bit. Gardevoir smiles a bit and takes her drink in both hands. She brings it to her mouth and drinks some, but dribbles a bit. I smile at her and hand her a napkin. She takes it and wipes her face cutely.
"No I get it. She was being rude. I'm glad you said something. I mean it was a little harsh in the execution but..." Ryan agrees. He folds up his menu and sits back. He stares at Gardevoir from across the table, watching her drink. She catches his eyes and then looks at his drink. She looks at me.
"What… does he… have?" I realize she's talking about his drink.
"Oh, he's got coke. It's soda." She still looks confused.
"She's actually talking to you in your head?" Ryan asks suddenly. I can tell he's kind of amazed.
"Yeah. She uses memories of me talking, and then takes the words she needs and combines them with other words to form sentences." I explain. He looks more amazed.
"Wow, that's pretty cool. I didn't know that was possible." He says.
"Yeah. She's special." I say, looking at her. I realize that I shouldn't have said that. And, I especially should not have said that and then looked at her like that. I look at Ryan and he's got his eyebrow raised suspiciously. I shake my head.
"What is… soda?" Gardevoir asks me in my head. I look up at her and she's looking at me expectantly.
"Oh, uh… soda… it's um… well it's like bubbly water." I give her a really bad description. She looks confused. A mental picture of a Poliwag using bubble appears in my mind. I laugh.
"No. Not like that." I say, laughing at her.
"What?" Ryan asks, probably feeling left out.
"She showed me a picture of a bubble attack by a Poliwag." I explain.
"Oh." He laughs. Gardevoir looks frustrated.
"Gardevoir, I don't know how to explain it-" Ryan cuts me off.
"Here, try some." Ryan offers her his glass. Gardevoir looks at him, a little surprised. I do the same.
"You sure? She's not great at using cups." I say, laughing a bit.
"Yeah, yeah. It's fine." He says, leaning forward and holding his cup towards Gardevoir closer. She nervously eyes him, and then starts reaching out with both hands. She takes his cup cutely and brings it to her mouth. She takes a little drink of it, but then she closes her eyes and coughs a little. Guess she wasn't expecting the fizz. She hands Ryan back his cup while we laugh a little. She's so cute.
"Excuse me." Suddenly there's man's voice from the side of the booth. I look up and there's a short, balding man with glasses on and a thin mustache.
"Yes?" Ryan asks. He's more outgoing than I am.
"I'm the manager of this restaurant. I understand that you've brought a Pokémon into my establishment for lunch today." He says, eyeing Gardevoir.
"Yes. Is that a problem?" I take over, seeing as she is mine.
"I'm afraid it is, we're going to have to deny you service." He says seriously.
"What? Why?" I ask in disbelief. I can't believe this.
"I'm sorry, sir. It's a Pokémon. We serve humans here, not their pets." He says, fixing his glasses.
"What's the difference? She's not causing any problems, and I'm going to pay for her." I explain. This is ridiculous. Here we are, just starting to have a good time and this asshole has to come and ruin it.
"I'm afraid I can't allow it." He says sternly. He's obviously got some sort of beef with Pokémon trainers.
"Give me one good reason why you can't serve her." I say, standing up. He's pushing all the wrong buttons. He takes a step back, he's a pretty short, pathetic guy.
"Because I'm the owner of this restaurant, and I will call the police if you do not take your business elsewhere." His voice rises in volume. He takes a step forward and points a finger at me. His face is turning red from anger. I can't believe the emotion I'm invoking in this guy.
"Fine. Fine. I don't want to eat here anyway." I let him win. I don't want trouble. I just want to eat, but this asshole is making it take longer.
"Now hold on." Ryan stands up just after I finish talking. "I'm sorry sir, but I have to say; this is ridiculous. My friend's Pokémon here isn't bothering anyone."
"I don't care who it isn't bothering, I don't want any of you in my restaurant!" He says, turning to yell at Ryan now. By you, it's obvious that he means Pokemon trainers in general. He definitely has it out for them.
"Yeah? Well, maybe we should go too. We've got Pokémon on us!" A trainer across the room stands up and shows his Pokéballs. The manager turns to yell at him when five more people stand up.
"You can't do that, that Gardevoir isn't bothering anyone."
"This is ridiculous!"
"I'm never eating here again!"
"That man hates Pokémon!" The manager is overwhelmed by the rush of trainers protesting him. I smile. All these people really love Pokémon, and they're willing to help us out. This is the stuff I came on this journey to see. Pokémon trainers standing up for other Pokémon trainers; people helping people, and dumb-asses like this manager looking like a fool because he tries to deny people the opportunity to grow.
"Fine. You all have your way." The manager says, infuriated. Everyone that stood up for us looks at our table.
"Thank you, guys." I say, from the bottom of my heart. Everyone's actions really touched me.
The waitress comes back to our table and takes Ryan's order and we have a great lunch, and try to forget everything that happened.
Author's Note: Hope you liked it! Chapter five is on it's way. I try to update once a week when I get time. Thank you so much for the reviews, and keep them coming!