Chapter 7: The Apprentice
I've decided that I'm going to do a few more fillers so Hailey can get more of a Pokémon team and stuff before I do the time skip. So…. yeah.
"I swear to Arceus, if you don't let go of me-" The silver eyed boy was silenced by fingers as they swiftly preformed the Vulcan nerve pinch, knocking him out before he could finish his threat.
The guards sighed.
"These rebels are getting stranger and stranger with each one we get." One muttered, dragging the now limp man by the shoulders.
"I know, right? Our next target will be that wacko with the Larvesta… I hear he's in Victory Road." The other remarked, picking up the prisoner's legs so he could be safely transported down the stairs.
"And after he's caught, we'll go for the one in Champion's Forest. She's been seen only with a Liepard so it shouldn't be too difficult to catch her." The other guard nodded in agreement.
"Soon Unova will be a rebel-free region."
XXX
Hailey woke up the next morning, her back to the side of the gym and Lilly was curled up against her stomach, still sleeping soundly.
Eric had left yesterday with Julie to Goldenrod City so he could get on the light rail train and go to the Kanto region.
Hailey looked softly at the sleeping Pokémon, watching her chest rise… then fall… with an occasional snore and ear twitch. She gave a faint smile, quickly regaining a straight face. The smile then fought its way back onto her face.
It had become natural for Hailey not to express her emotion, as emotions would often do nothing but get her very unwanted attention by Team Plasma. Especially grief and sadness. You were not to cry or look depressed if one died, you were not to take time off work for your loss, you were not to hold much of a funeral for the deceased; you just tossed them in a hole and were done with it. Hailey agreed that it was easier than wasting all you energy grieving, but it was a little extreme and disrespectful in her opinion.
When her brother ran away and left the rest of Hailey's family behind, her parents nor did Hailey sulk or cry about it, they just carried on with life and forgot Eric. Hailey knew that even if she'd never seen Lilly again back in Unova, she would've never cried or mourn the absence of her; she would've just forgotten her and continued on with her life.
Just as the sages had told her to do.
XXX
"Urm, Lara I-I-I really don't know h-how to do this!" Hailey stuttered, staring blankly at the dirt field with the large poke ball sketched out in the center.
Lara waved her doubt off. "Aw come on, Hailey! It comes naturally to everyone! The Pokémon know how to do it, I know how to do it, so you must know how to do it! You've just never tried it yet!" Lara said, releasing Hisser from his poke ball.
Hisser's tail began rattling, his tongue flicking in and out of his fanged jaws as he saw the battle field.
"Now, release your Dratini!" Lara cried.
Gritting her teeth, Hailey shakily reached for her new poke ball belt, looking through the see-though red part of the poke ball at her Dratini as she plucked it off her belt. Hailey stared blankly at the dragon type through the ball.
"Now, push the button!" Lara yelled, startling Hailey back to reality.
"Oh! Right! Urm… Come on out, Blue." Hailey said, pushing the white center of the ball, squinting as the blinding white flash morphed into her Dratini.
"Tini!" Blue cried, instantly recognizing the battle field.
Lara formed her hand into a determined fist. "See? Dratini knows what to do! He was Clair's Pokémon for Arceus's sake!"
Hailey gulped. "B-but I don't know any of his attacks!"
"I bet he knows dragon rage at least. Just tell him to use dragon rage, you'll learn more about his attacks as you battle." Lara shrugged, nodding at Hisser to go onto the arena.
Hailey nodded stiffly, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. "O-ok… Blue, use dragon rage."
"Tini!" Blue cried, unleashing a quick burst of dragon-type energy.
"Hisser, dodge it!" Lara yelled, watching in satisfaction as the Ekans simply ducked to evade the attack.
"Now, poison sting!"
"Uh, urm… dodge it!" Hailey said, scared that she had directed Blue too late.
Blue then dodged with incredible speed, becoming invisible to the eye as he darted to the left. Lara's eyes widened. "Dratini knows extreme speed?! H-how'd you teach him that?"
"I didn't." Hailey said blankly, dumbfounded.
"Drat!" Blue cried, smirking at its trainer.
Hailey flinched.
Lara just laughed. "Looks like Dratini has a bit of attitude, huh?"
Hailey nodded slowly. "Yeah... a little bit…"
"Anyhow, Hisser, poison tail!"
"Dodge with extreme speed!" Hailey blurted, struggling to think under pressure.
Blue wordlessly dodged the attack, appearing above the Ekans. Without a command, Blue fired a powerful dragon rage, hitting Hisser square in the head.
"Ek…" Hisser moaned, laying fainted on the field.
Hailey's eyes darted from side to side nervously, as though expecting Plasma guards to kill Lara and her both on the spot.
"Why would you look at that? You won!" Lara hollered, snapping Hailey out of her daymare.
Blue slithered proudly back to Hailey, a smug look on his face as he awaited praise.
Hailey stiffly patted Blue's winged head, murmuring small but meaningful praises to him. Lara's head tilted to the side.
"Why the long face?" Lara asked, her face twisted in confusion.
Hailey looked almost dully at Lara. "… Nothing. Just… just nothing."
"Ok… if you're sure. Wanna have another battle? I bet your Herdier would put up a great fight-"
"Nurse Joy told me not to use Hart in battle until he puts on weight." Hailey interrupted.
"Ok, then how 'bout your Eevee? She's got meat on her bones." Lara suggested, looking at the Eevee that sat beside Hailey.
Hailey bit her lip. "I'm not sure if she really likes to battle, I mean, she came from a rather… cushioned… life-style so I don't know-" Lilly cut her trainer off mid-sentence, leaping eagerly onto the battle field.
"See? She'll battle just fine." Lara grinned, rummaging through her bag in search of another poke ball.
Hailey walked onto the battle field, kneeling down to Lilly's level and taking the necklace from her neck. "Don't need this breaking, now do we?" She smiled faintly, putting the gold chain around her own neck to keep it safe.
"Ah ha! Now the party can start." Lara said confidently, releasing her Nidorina.
"Rina…" The poison type crooned, glaring at Lilly.
"Aw come on, Barb, don't be a sour puss! Be a good sport for once in your life!" Lara pleaded, sinking into her knees before turning her attention to Hailey.
"Do you need to know any moves that Lilly knows?"
Hailey shook her head. "No, I already know some of her attacks."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure." Hailey insisted, a small flicker of confidence flashing in her eyes.
"Cool beans! But since you attacked first last battle, I get the right of way," Lara winked, strands of purple hair floating in her face.
"Barb, horn attack let's go!"
Hailey stiffened. "Urk, um, dodge!" The brunet said clumsily.
Lilly leapt above the Nidorina, coating her tail in iron in mid-air, slamming the iron tail onto Barb's head, missing the poisonous barb by just a hair.
The Nidorina got a face-full of dirt before getting up due to its higher defense.
Lilly stuck the landing, looking back to Hailey. Hailey nodded, aware of the fact that Lilly was teaching her the battling basics.
"Cool! Eevee knows iron tail?"
Hailey nodded, recalling the time when Lilly had used it as a guard when she had tried to take her locket for the first time.
Instead of battling, Lara continued to gawk over Lilly. "A-and it's movements where so swift and flowing and elegant! It was like watching a battle out of a Pokémon Contest! If her fur was combed and freshly washed than I would've forgotten that I WASN'T watching a contest!" Lara squealed, clasping her hands together in admiration.
"What's a-" Hailey snapped her mouth shut, deciding to wait to ask until after the battle. "Back to the battle… Lilly, I-iron tail again."
Lara quickly came back to reality. "Barb, dig attack!"
"Nidor!" Barb cried sharply, burrowing into the ground in seconds.
Lilly instinctively began looked at the ground, closing her eyes and honing into the movements underground; it seemed like a second nature to her.
Her tail remained silver and tough while she waited for the Nidorina to resurface.
"Now!" Lara yelled. Barb shot out of the ground like a bullet, but Lilly was ready, leaping backwards without a command, hitting the bad-tempered Nidorina right in the jaw.
Barb screeched in pain, recoiling from being hit in the sensitive area before stuttering to the ground as it tried to regain its senses.
Something flashed in Lara's eyes before she gave the next command. "Double kick!"
Lilly's eyes widened with anxiety as Barb got to her feet, leaping wildly at her, kicking the normal type several times until spirals swirled in her eyes.
"L-Lilly!" Hailey gasped, running onto the field and picking the defeated Eevee up.
"A-are you alright?" She asked, horrified that her Eevee had done so well, yet somehow failed. Lilly blinked the spirals out of her eyes, shaking her fur out in Hailey's arms.
"Vee…" She squeaked, faintly smiling at Hailey.
XXX
Storm's eyes where wide in surprise when he heard of Hailey's escape. "W-what do you mean, she got away? W-why wasn't she put in the prison right away?" He asked, exchanging confused looks with Zorua.
"She was only nine, Storm. Only a cruel person would put a nine-year old in prison." The King said sternly, his Zoroark growling in agreement.
"Where did she go?" Storm asked promptly, half wishing that Hailey was still in Crown City.
If the Eevee would've just gone with Storm like he wanted, he and Hailey could've been great friends, best ones at that.
"One of the captured rebels told us that she was placed in Johto."
XXX
"Y-you sure she's gonna be alright?" Hailey asked shakily, her eyes still huge with worry.
Lara groaned. "For the last time, yes, Hailey! Lilly's fine! Barb didn't do any real damage to her, honest! Just like Dratini didn't do any real damage to Hisser."
The pair sat quietly for a good five minutes.
Finally, Lara spoke again. "You… you ain't from here, are you." She said.
Hailey paused before answering. "…No…"
"Where do you come from then?"
"Not here."
"Yeah, I'm well aware of that, but what region?"
Hailey gulped. "…Un… Unova. I'm from Unova. That's how I got my Herdier."
Lara's overall seriousness instantly vanished. "Seriously?! Ohmygosh what's it like? Ever since Unova broke away from the league no one's had any contact with them! Is it awesome? Do you guys like have your own swimming pools in your backyards? Do you have butlers waiting on you all the time?" Lara asked, her voice quivering in excitement.
Hailey rose an eyebrow. "You did see what I was wearing when I first came here, right?" She asked dryly, her legs instinctively crossing and her back beginning to straighten as she regained her sanity, her hands folded neatly on her lap.
Hailey observed Lara's position: her legs were spread far apart, her back was leant lazily against the waiting room's chair's back, her hands hanging loosely at her sides. Her gaze flickered to everyone else in the waiting room. No one looked like her. Feeling alienated, she reluctantly unfolded her hands and let her back slack a little, but her legs stayed crossed.
"Alright, I guess I over exaggerated when I said you had butlers waiting on you and stuff… but seriously, what's it like over there?" Lara asked, her eyes hungry for stories about Hailey's old life.
"Well, all women and young girls are required by law to wear brown leather dresses and brown ballet slippers, and the men and young boys, they can wear whatever they want. As long as they have a shirt and pants and sneakers on at all times. Oh, and you weren't allowed in Champion's Forest, Victory Road, or the ocean. Unless you were a lumber jack and had papers to leave the town you couldn't leave. There were a TON of guards everywhere you went, and if you ever misbehaved in school-"
"What? You actually went to school? Unova's getting weird…" Lara interrupted, biting her tongue when she realized that Hailey was still speaking. "Continue."
Hailey nodded and went back to speaking of her birth region. "Back to the school topic, you would get sent 'out back' if you spoke when you weren't allowed to speak, passed notes, launched spitballs and paper airplanes, slouched, didn't have your hands neatly folded on your desk, or if you legs weren't crossed. I have a lot of scars from being sent 'out back'. Not all for having bad posture and stuff, but for not putting all my personal information on my essays or worksheets. I'd always forget my address or how to spell my street's name. The silly stuff that Sage Ghetsis makes you pay for." Hailey explained, studying the perplexed look on Lara's face as she took in her words, drinking them in slowly.
"Crown City? I've never heard of a Crown City in Unova. Do you live in Castelia City, or Nacrene City, or maybe Oppelcuid City?" Lara asked.
Hailey took a minute to process the town names. "There's only one city, and that's Crown City. The rest got bombed and destroyed." She said quietly as she looked at the ground, not wanting to see Lara's facial expression.
"B-bombed?" She squeaked, falling silent.
Hailey nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on the tiled floor. "I wasn't around when it happened. Why, I didn't even know it happened until Hope showed me Nacrene City, where I found Hart. I also found Lenora's skeleton." She said quietly, praying that the Nurse would call one of them up so she wouldn't have to talk about Unova anymore.
Her prayers are answered, just not by Nurse Joy. Clair walks through the door, her black cape windswept and her boots wet and gritty.
"Whoa Clair, what happened to you?" Lara asked, her eyes now wide with curiosity. Clair ignored Lara's comment and turned to Hailey.
"Hailey, are your Pokémon ready yet? I have something I need to ask you." She said briskly, dusting droplets of water from her arms.
"No, ma'am. They're not ready yet, and why are you all wet? It's not raining, is it?" Hailey asked.
"I was in the Dragon's Den behind the gym." She answered coolly, not wanting to raise any alarm. Lara and Hailey were satisfied with that answer.
BRING! BRING, BRING! "Oops!" Lara blushed, tapping her X-Transceiver and leaving the center to answer her transceiver.
Hailey now sat in an awkward silence with the Dragon Master.
"Hailey! Your Pokémon are ready!" A nurse called from the desk.
Hailey's eyes lit up in relief, striding to the front desk. A Chansey brought out a metal tray with two pokeballs and Lilly sitting atop it.
"Thank you." Hailey said politely, putting the two pokeballs on her belt with little difficulty and lifting the Eevee off the tray.
"How you feeling?" Hailey asked, holding the normal type beneath her armpits.
Lilly nodded, her eyes clear and bright.
"Great, now that you've got them back, come with me." Clair commanded.
Hailey nodded in response, setting Lilly on the ground, not yet comfortable or strong enough to let her perch on her frail shoulders.
XXX
Hailey had never been this deep into the gym. There were rock platforms with a sea of bubbling, smoldering, crimson lava beneath them. What must've been Clair's gym trainers stood practicing for any of Clair's future challengers, as they were the test to see if they were worthy opponents of Clair. Most had the long, snake-like blue Dragonair battling each other, evading each other's attacks.
Hailey looked to Clair. "Why'd you bring me in here?" She asked, looking questioningly at the gym leader.
"I brought you here so I could make a proposition, an offer for you," Clair said, inhaling deeply.
"I didn't give you that Dratini out of the kindness of my heart, you know. I gave you Dratini because I saw something that I don't often see in other children your age. Most pursue power, much like myself; but you however, don't seem to be in pursuit of defeating Champion Lance and governing Johto and Kanto. You're not the type to go out in search of every species of Pokémon so you can complete a pokedex and win a professor's favor. All of my other gym trainers want this sort of thing. And right now I'm working on making my trainers more diverse; more likely to puzzle and dumbfound my challengers. I watched your battle with Lara, Hailey. I was right on with my haunch, you're what I want in my gym." Clair explained, taking in another deep breath.
Hailey's eyes went round in awe that she, a foreigner of both Johto and Pokémon training, would catch the interest of someone like Clair.
"So I gave you Dratini in hopes that you would qualify for my gym. And you've passed my test. Hailey, would you train with me and my other trainers here, in my gym?" Clair finally asked, her gaze bold and serious.
Hailey and Lilly exchanged glances. The air grew quiet aside from the bursting of lava bubbles below and the cries of dragon types on the platforms. Hailey slowly nodded. "Ok."
Clair's eyes lit up in satisfaction. "Excellent, training will begin right away. Head down to platform B, section C. Brendan will begin to strengthen your Dratini."
"But what about Lilly and Hart?"
"They aren't dragon types, and not even your Herdier can learn a dragon type move. Your Eevee can't evolve into a dragon type either, so Dratini's going to be the only useful Pokémon in my gym. However, once Dratini reaches the appropriate level, your other Pokémon can join in." Clair explained, pointing towards Section C.
Hailey nodded obediently, gesturing for Lilly to follow her deeper into the gym.
Ok, basically Lilly's evolution has been determined so you can stop voting. Unless there's an enormous spike in votes for another evolution, Lilly's evolving into the one that got the most votes over the past week. Thanks for voting!