"Violet City... the City of Nostalgic Scents... What the hell does that even mean?" Hamish asked, his head tilted to the side as he stared at the sign near the entrance of the city mentioned in said blurb.

"I don't know... Nostalgia means old right? Maybe the whole city smells like an old folks home." Crystal asked, standing next to the short, bucket hat wearing Hamish.

"What great advertising. I need to go in there to get a gym badge and now I want to avoid it like the plague." Hamish shook his head. Gym badges were important, the more he had the more experienced the trainers he fought would be, and the more experienced ones would have more money. He had to make a living doing this and if so he couldn't rely on beating up schoolkids anymore. Well he could if he beat a lot of them but there probably weren't enough, and even he felt a little bad about winning money from kids. Turns out he has a conscious after all. "But lets go, if it smells that bad we can just by some clothes pegs or something."

"A good pegging might just help."

"...Please never say that again."


"And for defeating me I present to you this gym badge that... hey what the... where are you going?" The young, dark blue haired gym leader looked dumbfounded as he stared at the brown haired girl, who had just snatched the gym badge from him and was already walking away, a single hand up in the air to wordlessly communicate 'bye'. "Aren't you... I haven't finished talking yet..."

"Yeah sorry, you are cute and all but you are not my type. I have bigger fish to fry. Plus my cute little Quilava is badly hurt so I need to leave, buh bye." Lyra replied, not even turning around as she walked out of the weirdly, bird caged themed gym. Really she just wanted to get the hell out of here, the straw floors and the tons of small bird Pokemon that were flying around did not agree with her tastes in visuals in the slightest. Throughout her battle with Falkner she was more concerned with what would happen if one of them right above her needed to use the toilet then the fight itself. It was gross to even think about. It is why she disliked all birds, apart from hers of course, her Hoothoot was way too cute to be annoying. But after a few more quick strides she was out the door, feeling the sun on the face that had a huge old smile on it. Her new, tacky wing shaped badge was in her case and she was ready to treat herself. Maybe trying out a lovely, decadent bowl of ice cream of sorts? One covered in caramel and chocolate and other things. Of course she had to go to the Pokemon Centre first, she was already missing having her cute Marill following her around.


"Alrighty girls. Here are you treats!" Lyra cried out, placing down four big bowls of ice cream which were completely covered with various sweet toppings onto a big table outside of an ice cream store. Standing on the edge of said circular table were three Pokemon. The first two were a Marill and a Hoothoot, both of whom had a bandana wrapped around them, as a cute little accessory, with the Marill's being pink and the HootHoot's being blue. The final Pokemon was a Quilava and it would have a bandana wrapped around its neck too, if it weren't for the fact that the flames it just loved to expel from its back constantly lit any and every one Lyra tried to put on it. "This is what you get for beating the gym on our first try and... wait are Pokemon supposed to eat ice cream?" Lyra paused, scrunching her face up to think about that. Maybe this was a mistake. However, her Pokemon were already chowing down, so she just shrugged, plopped down on her seat and started to slowly spoon the cold treat into her mouth.

"Hey Quilava, I know you are happy but can you tone down the fire? You are melting everyone's ice cream." Lyra asked, noticing just how soft everyone's dessert was already.

"Quil quil." Her Quilava nodded, putting its right hand on its head and nodding, shooting the fire from the spots on its head and butt out once as if to say 'loud and clear'. Lyra's eyes closed a little as she stared at Quilava, making it realize that it just did what she told it not too do, and it proceeded to get a little sheepish and get right back to eating. Lyra giggled, and went back to eating herself.


"Alrighty... so my Dad just sent me a bunch of money for our victory so why don't we find the best spa place we can and relax in there for the rest of the day?" Lyra asked, and she was met with the cheers of her Pokemon. "Sounds like a unanimous decision. Now then... let's google one of these and then we will be on... our... way." She said, pulling her phone out and allowing her fingers to quickly move all over the phone as she began to research.

"Sounds like a splendid situation to squander your Saturday away doing. I hope you don't mind if I interrupt those perfectly prepared plans do you?" A voice suddenly called out. Lyra and her Pokemon turned to be greeted with the sight of a guy with long red hair, wearing an expensive looking red and dark purple coat. Lyra didn't know who he was, but she already didn't like him. He just had that 'unlikable' aura around him, just like Hamish did.

"I... I don't even know what to say to that. Do you have some sort of weird disorder? Have you misplaced the bike helmet that you have to wear always? Are you one of those incels or whatever?" Lyra asked, putting her phone down. Meanwhile her three Pokemon jumped off of the table they were all sitting on and were now standing in front of her near her feet, like they were being protective of her. Like they could sense trouble was brewing. However they were all rather small, so even Quilava barely stood higher than her legs.

"Helmet? Incel? What sort of silly, stupid slew of sentences did you just subject me to?"

"Surely that is effort to talk like that right? Like... you cannot be serious."

"Serious? Oh sweetie I am serious. Seriously good." He was briefly interrupted by a loud groan coming from Lyra. That hurt to listen to. When she was done Silver ignored it and continued. "But I shouldn't hold you in suspense any longer. For you see my name is Silver and I am here for... what are you doing?" Silver asked, stopping as he noticed Lyra was doing something peculiar.

Lyra had reached into her bag and pulled out a book and a pen, ripping a page from said book and was writing stuff down, talking to herself. She was doing an equation it seemed, jotting down numbers as she said stuff like "cute face... seems loaded... probably insane... the way he talks... guhhh." Eventually she finished her calculations, and smiled, kissing the page to get a nice lipstick stain on it before handing it back to Silver. The end of the huge, long and complicated looking equation was circled at the bottom of the page, and was right next to her lipstick mark. It said '19 drinks'.

"What... what does this even mean? Explain!"

"It means you would need to buy me at least 19 drinks at a bar before I even consider talking to you and telling you my name and stuff."

"But you are underage."

"Well... like a drink equivalent I guess... Hey how do you know I am underage?" Lyra assumed she could pass as an 18 year old.

"Oh... I know lots about you Lyra, which is your name right? Lyra. And I also know that you recently received a rambunctious Pokemon from a Professor Elm correct?"

"I... yeah... huh?" Lyra was rattled at this point, she took a step backwards, and so did all of her Pokemon.

Silver chuckled, brushing his hands through his hair before saying "Yes yes... fear me. For you see I am about to take that Quilava away from you. For you see I need to complete it for my mission to..."

"Fuck off." Lyra shouted, she wasn't much for swearing but in that once sentence her rattled state had turned to anger. Silver meanwhile looked absolutely appalled that such language was being used in front of him again.

"I... I beg your pardon! Seriously can you plebeians not disgust me with your foul language? Maybe try being refined for a single conversation. You are going to be as difficult as Ham-..." Suddenly his speech was cut off as Marill shot a rather weak but large jet of water into his face, forcing him to close his eyes and make gasping noises as he was covered in water.

"Oh please continue... no seriously continue. Are you saying you tried to pull this stuff on Hamish? Did... did it work?"

"I... how dare you. I shan't answer a single..." He was once again cut off, all Lyra had to do was nod at Marill and the circular ball of a Pokemon was again shooting water into Silver's face, drenching him even more.

"I am going to give you another chance. Now... did you steal Hamish's Chikorita? Am I going to have to give that dweeb his Pokemon back."

"Alright you win... yes I did try and no it didn't work. But I will have you know that is only because..." Once again, he was cut off by a jet of water hitting his face. When it stopped he could only glare at Lyra in a weak, pathetic sort of way. He was lucky his face was dripping wet, now it would be harder for Lyra to notice that his eyes were leaking tears. Why couldn't this just go the way he wanted? Why couldn't these buffoons just give him what he needed. He needed those Pokemon, he was going to achieve things greater than they could possibly imagine. He was going to fix this region, this wasn't fair. It isn't fair at all. "I hate you..." he let out a little sniffle, which caused him to go bright red, and caused Lyra to laugh loudly at him.

"Okay... whatever loser. I am going to go now and you can like... rethink your life or something." Lyra said, turning around.

"NOOOOO. I am taking your Pokemon! Go Zubat!" Silver was shouting at this point, as he pegged the ball as hard as he could onto the ground (which isn't that hard), opening up and releasing a small, blue bat looking Pokemon that loudly screeched out.

"A Zubat? Really?" Lyra asked, turning back around and pulling out her Pokedex. At least Silver was providing her Pokedex stuff, because there is no way she is going into a cave by herself. "Zubat, the Bat Pokemon. It has no eyes. Instead it relies on ultrasonic for echo location. It is like this due to it living in dark places that would be hard to see with eyes." Lyra shuddered, gross.

"Okay... when my team and I display our dominance over your diminutive, decrepit Pokemon then you will give me that Quilava. Deal?"

"Why would I ever say yes to that? And Quilava... Flame Wheel." Lyra said. Her Quilava nodded, loudly shouting its name out and let its fire shoot out of the 'firey bits' on its body, charging at the Zubat as it covered it completely, jumping into the air and colliding into it head first, knocking the Zubat out of the air and onto the ground. It was unconscious after a single attack.

"I... I wasn't ready!" Silver cried out, stamping his foot on the ground like he was a child.


"Hey we should check out Sprout Tower. It seems like it would be amazing"

"Why?" Hamish turned to face the blue haired girl he was talking to, his hands were full of a sleeping Chikorita, meaning they had to walk slowly and carefully. It was too cute to risk waking up.

"Because it is cool. Don't you like old looking buildings? It was made over 240 years ago." Crystal said, pointing at a certain paragraph of the brochure she was looking at.

"Not particularly. Besides doesn't that think have a shaking pillar in the middle of it, it doesn't seem very structurally sound."

"Yeah buuuuuut you can battle the sages there, a great place for training before the city's gym. It even says so."

"You know just what to say to me don't you?" Hamish asked, smirking. Violet city itself was designed to have a more classic feel to it, with old buildings being littered everywhere. Even the new buildings seemed to be using the same design principals and style as the older ones. It was like you were in literally 1800s or something... except there was electricity, and most importantly ice cream stores, like the one they were approaching right now. "I could really go an ice cream. Could you?" Crystal nodded, and the Skiploom that was resting on her head cried out happily too.

"NO. NO YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN ME! NO NO NO NO NO. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT I NEED THEM FOR. I... I HATE YOU." Hamish and Crystal both suddenly stopped as they heard that all too familiar shouting, and stood there as they saw an all too familiar looking redhead whose top half was completely soaked running away from the ice cream store and crying.

"Is that?" Crystal asked.

"Shhhhh, don't say anything."

"But isn't that."

"Do not make eye contact... and don't move either. Rich kid vision might be based on movement." Hamish said, content with letting Silver run away from him. He didn't want to have to deal with him, and he pitied the poor soul who was dealing with him. Well... he pitied them until he saw the person in question anyway. Stepping out onto the road and facing toward the crying boy, Lyra waved her hands, as if to say 'goodbye' and really rub the victory in, and her Pokemon were doing the same thing. "Oh good... Crystal keep perfectly skill. I know for a fact that the vision of harpies are based on movement." Hamish hissed, looking panicked.

Crystal tilted her head "Harpies? What do you mean? Are you okay?"

At that moment Lyra turned around, and her huge smile dropped as she saw Hamish and this blue haired stranger. "Oh... it is you. You know you could have warned me about that guy. He did try to take that Chikorita right?" Lyra asked, pointing at the sleeping Pokemon in Hamish's arms.

"Yeah but speak of 'could haves', you also could have not been born. That is the reality I would prefer to live in. How did you beat him anyway? Every time I was about do significant damage to him he would withdraw his Pokemon to hide them." Hamish asked, smirking at what he believed was a great opening insult.

"But if I were never born who would be here to remind you of your creepy eyes and your weird hair? And dorkus malorkus tried that on me too but then I kept getting Marill to shoot water at him whenever he did that, as well as other things I didn't appreciate. He stopped pretty quickly, so the loser incel can learn. Getting to torture him like that was a real..." Lyra didn't finish her sentence, instead pointing at the aforementioned Hoothoot and pointing at it, which chirped out "Hoot", finishing her sentence in a way that made Crystal and Lyra laugh but caused Hamish to roll his eyes and sigh.

"I think other people would be able to tell me that Lyra, that doesn't justify your existence. But at least he didn't take your Cynda... wait it looks different now."

"Yeah it evolved stupid. But speaking of evolving, you are evolving up the social ladder aren't you? Who is your tall friend over there?" Lyra asked, her attention turning to the taller, blue haired girl.

"Yeah... ummm my name is Crystal..." Lyra let out a little giggle snort at that name. "And I am Hamish's mentor. I am teaching him about Pokemon."

Lyra nodded, smirking and looking Crystal up and down. She wasn't ugly at all, so why was she spending time with Hamish? Maybe it was some sort of 'pity' thing. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and what not. "Yeah... he needs a lot of help. And good on him, he managed to find someone with hair that is coloured in a more stupid way then his is. All he needs now is someone with creepier eyes and he has a perfect 'hey I look normal compared to these guys' group that he can use to pick up women."

"I... yeah..." Crystal didn't know how to respond to that, turning to Hamish as if to ask for help with this rather rude friend of his. Hamish however was ignoring them, scanning the three Pokemon of Lyra's with his Pokedex. "Quilava, the Volcano Pokemon. It intimidates foes with intense gusts of flames and superheated air. Its quick nimbleness lets it dodge attacks even while scorching an enemy. Hoothoot, the Owl Pokemon. Hoothoot has an internal organ that senses and tracks the earth's rotation. Using this special organ, this POKéMON begins hooting at precisely the same time every day. Marill, the Aqua Mouse Pokemon. Marill's oil-filled tail acts much like a life preserver. If you see just its tail bobbing on the water's surface, it's a sure indication that this POKéMON is diving beneath the water to feed on aquatic plants."

Once Hamish was done he quickly put his Pokedex away, going back to holding Chikorita with both hands as he turned to face Crystal and Lyra. "Yeah... well it wasn't nice seeing you and all but I have to get going. I have badges to earn and a sanity to maintain and all the good stuff that happens when I am not near you."

"Oh yeah, I already have this town's badge. It only took me like one try so it will only take you about... 15 or so." Lyra teased, before turning to her Pokemon and clapping. "Come on ladies, the spa is calling for us!" Her Pokemon loudly cheered and followed her off into the distance.

Cyrstal and Hamish both sighed, looked at each other and then sighed again. "I didn't know you had a friend like that. I always thought you were more of a loner." Crystal added.

"Oh Crystal... you sure know how to help a guy's self esteem." Hamish lathered on the sarcasm as he spoke. "But we aren't friends at all."

"Whatever you say." Crystal replied, as the two headed into the nearby shop for some well deserved ice cream.