Chapter 6
[Jay]
Walking over to the pastry section, I am immediately greeted by the sight of a variety of different delectable baked goods. From croissants and baguettes to a few pies and cakes, the assortment of pastries laid bare for all to eat is simply marvelous. Taking a whiff, the smell of freshly bakes pies and tarts filling my nostrils as I let out a big sigh. It smells real good in here too.
Navigating the network of tables, I quickly find what I'm looking for-a pile of hotdogs laying under a heating stand, each one looking just as delicious as the next. Licking my lips in anticipation, I move over to grab one, but I don't notice the person extending a hand to grab the exact one I was aiming at. The result for the both of us wasn't a handful of hotdog, but a handful of fingers. "Oh. Sorry, dude. Didn't see you there." I apologize, looking over to the person next to me. Long, white hair, taller than me-wait a second. I know who this is!
I didn't get the chance to say her name though, as the person in question quickly grabs me into a hug, grinning all the way. "Brother! It is good to see you here!" Yupia exclaims, snuggling her cheek into the top of my head. "Good to see you too, sis." I tell her back as she lets me down. "So, how are you faring, dear brother? I hope your laziness hasn't gotten in the way of you making progress." Yupia asks, piling two hotdogs onto her plate. "I'm doing okay, but I ran into some trouble and got this." I smirk, pointing to the recent wound on my arm, now stitched up. "Pretty cool, right?"
My sister only sighs at the sight of my arm wound. "Honestly Jay, if you had actually taken the time to practice dodging more, you wouldn't have this on you right now." I shrug apathetically, looking back towards her from my cool new scar. "I can assure you, sis, that the experience wasn't too scarring for me." Yupia fumes at my joke, obviously not amused. "JAY! Now is not the time for your jokes!"
"What are you talking about, Yu? I have no idea what Yu mean." I chuckle, her angry expression really amusing to me. She groans at the second pun, lips slightly curling up against her will. "Don't deny it, sis. You love my jokes. You're even smiling." I point out. "I am and I hate it!" Her exasperated reply gets more laughs out of me, leaving me to try and use my free hand to stifle the remainder of my laughter. Her reactions to my jokes are the same every time-priceless.
"Why don't we catch up over dinner? You go grab the food ya want, and I'll go get myself some salad from the table over there." I point over to the fruits and vegetables section over to the right of our current position. "Head on over to the right and you'll see a table with a small bird sitting on the side. Can't miss it." "Great idea, brother! I'll fetch my team and we'll see you over there in a bit." She replies, waving goodbye to me as she takes a left turn towards her table.
Moving over to the salad bar myself, I take a few seconds to come to a decision before asking the staff member, a young looking man, to get me the salad I want. "One Berry Salad please. With extra Cheri Berries." I point to the tray of small, red berries as he takes some berries from every tray, making sure to scoop in an extra helping of Cheri Berries. "You like spicy things, man?" The staff member asks me as I hand him a twenty dollar bill. "Nah, don't really like that stuff myself. It's for my Pokemon. She's roughed up real bad, so I'm helping her get what she wants."
"So it's for the Pokemon, eh? Gotta hand it to ya, dude. You're one of the kinder Trainers that come over here for a snack. Most of the people I serve here really don't care about what their Pokemon want, usually ignoring them completely. I should know, cause I've seen many a Pokemon stare at these juicy things for a while before getting the hate from their trainers about disobedience."
I sigh in response. "What some people don't seem to understand about Pokemon is that they have feelings and are sapient too, like we are. Being sent to Trainer School really showed me that some people really don't care about the well being of their Pokemon." He nods in agreement. "Well, nice talking to ya, man. Catch ya later." The staff member smiles, handing me eight dollars in change which I quickly pocket. "Likewise, dude." I nod as a grab my salad and hotdogs, weaving my way back through the crowd and towards my table, where I've left a certain Pidove waiting for quite some time.
Taking a turn after exiting the salad bar area, I move past many faces at a rather brisk pace, quickly finding my table again amidst the chaos, seeing Alita still perched on the table, Chell sitting behind a large plate of fish sticks. She's not eating it though. Strange, because she usually drills through food like no tomorrow. However, upon getting closer, I notice two things. One, is that Alita and Chell are getting bullied. Two, the one doing the bullying and with friends is none other than the biggest bag of dicks to ever grace this side of the earth.
If you still haven't guessed who the one picking on my Pokemon is, then here's one last hint. "What kind of peasant keeps Pokemon this useless around?"
If you guessed Jimmy, then congratulations! You get to listen to insults about how poor you are for the next fifteen minutes.
Quickly moving over to the table in an attempt to stop the unfair harassment, I am immediately blocked by two of his rich lackeys. "Excuse me, gentlemen. I couldn't help but notice you harassing my Pokemon." I state. "Hey, beat it loser! Can't you see we're having fun over here?" One of them laughs as he swings a fist into my direction. I immediately dodge the attempt to smash my face in, however he does manage to slug my wounded arm instead, the wound leaking blood again as I grit my teeth in pain.
"Damnit." I growl, the blood showing through my spare hoodie. "Wanna try again, dumbass? Or are you going to back down before this gets ugly?" The lackey taunts, Jimmy finally noticing the commotion between his friends.
"Look what the cat dragged in. Hello, Jay. I told you that you would regret this. I couldn't get to you, so I'm taking the anger out on your pathetic team." He snickers, his rich prick friends joining in. He then walks over to Alita, his dirty little fingers latching onto her injured wing. He gives an evil smirk as Alita scowls at his touch, my own grin faltering for a moment. No, he wouldn't dare… "Look what we have here. It would be a shame if someone were to…" He trails off, holding onto her wing and starting to bend it, Alita crying out in pain.
"Oh, no you don't!" His action is quickly interrupted by Chell, who takes her shell and quickly smashes it over Jimmy's knuckle, causing him to shriek in pain and clutch his injured hand. "Damn it!" He turns to his two rich lackeys. "Well don't just stand there! Beat him up!" The two charge towards me, each having a fist pulled back, ready to punch me. However, quick reflexes catch both their fists in my hands, rendering them useless.
Before they could recover from the shock of having both fists blocked, an electric current quickly runs from both of my hands, causing both attackers to fall to the floor, their spasms the only signs of movement. Lifting up my hands, two modified joy buzzers can be seen on the inside of my palms. Don't look so surprised. Working in a lab means lots of spare parts to toy with, and I do love me some tinkering action.
Walking over to Jimmy and stopping inches from him, I look at him, but the way I'm leaning my head makes sure that he doesn't see my eyes, the shadow of my hoodie blocking his view of my eyes. "Listen here, bub. You have two choices now. Either back away, or stay and have a really bad time. What's it gonna be?" I ask, my voice now nothing but a shadow of its former cheery self.
Shaking now, the sniveling little bitch runs off. "My dad will hear about this, peasant! Do you hear me!?" He screams, running away from the scene, the people watching letting their gazes follow him. I shrug in reply. "Like I give a flying fuck about that." I mutter, walking over to the two Pokemon. Chell looks up at me happily, while Alita doesn't, still looking at her injured wing. "I'm…so sorry, you two. I really didn't mean to get you two dragged into this." My apology catches both of them off guard, both of them looking at me like I had said something wrong.
"Anyway, I'll go get patched up, alright?" I lift Alita up into my arm, clutching my wound with my free hand as I calmly turn around to start walking out of the dining hall. "Brother! Are you alright?" I once again see my sister, this time not pulling me into a bone crushing bear hug. Instead, she takes Alita for me as we both make our way out of the dining hall. "Stay put, Chell. I'll be back in a moment." I nod to her as I walk off, getting a nod from her in return. "You be good now, okay?" Yupia calls over to her Tepig, who lets out a small snort in reply.
"He decided to assert his ego onto you again, didn't he?" Yupia sighs as we make our way towards the medical wing on level 1 of the PokeCenter. "Yeah, he's always been like that, huh? Always a little shit." I grin, wincing a little from the reopened wound. "That we can agree on." Yupia cracks a small smile despite herself.
Knocking on the door of Nurse Joy's office and getting no reply, I decide to speak up. "Uh, Joy? It's me, Jay." The door opens, revealing a rather tired and irritated Nurse Joy behind it. "Yes, how may I…" She sighs as she sees my bleeding arm. "I thought I told you not to exert pressure on it!" She scolds, her tone that which an angry mother would use to tell off a child.
"Kinda not my fault, Joy. I was attacked by some gang of rich kids, and Alita's wing got caught in the crossfire." I explain, jerking a thumb over to the bird resting in my sister's arms. "I see. Come inside and let's get you a quick fix…" She pushes me inside her office and beckons for Yupia to follow.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, we walk out of the office with my arm wound covered in bandages. Alita's wing didn't suffer too much damage, Jimmy not really bending it too far, and I didn't reopen the wound too much either, as a couple more stitches fixed that in a flash. "Hey sis, let's say we head on back to the table and catch up on how we've been doing. I'm sure Chell's getting lonely over on the table we left her at." I suggest, my sister quickly agreeing to the arrangement. "An excellent idea, brother! I'm sure the rest my team is at the table by now."
Walking over to the table and taking a seat, I sigh at the sight of Chell eating her spaghetti like a bird would a worm, slurping it down by the bunch. Next to her, I see a Tepig eating through its plate of fish sticks with equal, if not more ferocity than Chell, and a Lilipup taking small bites out of its plate of Sitrus Berries. "So, I'll assume that this is the rest of your team?" In response to this, the Tepig stops to puff out its chest and breathe a small plume of fire, grinning at me. "You betcha! I'm Tepig, and this is Lilipup! I'm the main powerhouse of the team around here." I raise an eyebrow at the sight, slightly amused by the little display of confidence.
"Well, I'm your Trainer's bro. Nice to meet ya, Tepig." I hold a fist out to him, to which he immediately bumps with his front hoof. Lilipup doesn't say much, still munching on the berries with a neutral expression. "So, sis, how'd you catch Lilipup anyhow?" The next half an hour of dinner were spent talking in between taking bites of food, brother and sister catching up for a while, making up for lost time as we gave each other the rundown of our encounters so far, with a few puns made in the process.
Having finished with our food, we both get up from the table, walking off to the elevator with our Pokemon in tow. "I'm heading off to bed now, brother. I wish you the best of luck to you on the rest of your journey!" Yupia says as she leaves the elevator to get to her room. "Me too, sis. Me too." I wave goodbye as the elevator doors close, taking me up to my floor.
Opening the door to my room, I place Alita and Chell onto the bed as I hang up my hoodie, leaving me in only my long sleeved clothes and sports pants. "Man, I'm beat. Hey girls, anywhere you wanna sleep on this bed?" Chell quickly steals the spot to the right of the bed, nuzzling her head into it. "I see someone's already chosen." I smirk, tickling her sides slightly, getting her to giggle and push my hand away. "Stop it, Mister Jay! I'm tired!" Moving my hand away, I look over to Alita. "How about you, Ali?" I ask the bird. Upon not hearing an answer, I move her over to the left side of the pillow, letting her roost there. She looks shocked by the sudden pick-me-up, but quickly gets over it and rests her head on her good wing, looking away from me.
"Goodnight, team." I utter as I switch off the light, plunging the world around us into total darkness. "Goodnight, Mister Jay." Chell yawns. I take off my Xtranceiver from my ear and place it onto the nightstand, plugging it into the charger I set up earlier. The darkness beckoning me, I quickly lose consciousness as I drift off to sleep.