Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or Hershey's or... any other companies I might have referenced in this.
A/N: This chapter is actually more like two mini-chapters spliced together. The first one is more like a short transition chapter between the last one and the next one. The second one was put here because I felt bad that Chance wasn't mentioned once in the first. It doesn't take place in the story timeline, and doesn't have much relevance to the plot, besides the...
Warning: Evil Foreshadowing of DOOM
"Okay," Lux announced from her perch on a fence only three feet away from our makeshift "battlefield". (Apparently she thought that was enough. Personally, I was really hoping a stray attack ended up knocking her on her butt. Not that I wish her ill or anything. It would just be incredibly funny.) "This is a one on one match-"
"Like we didn't know already? We've only got one pokémon each."
"-no holds barred, first trainer to wipe out buys ice cream for all of us. I expect no less than three scoops, and sprinkles-"
"Luuux."
"Right. I'll keep my order for later. Okay, you can start now."
Which was so astoundingly anticlimactic that I had to comment on it, even if it was only to shout, "Lux, you fail as a referee. Epically."
Lux stuck her tongue out in an amazing show of maturity, but was unable to respond because Onyx (slash Rocky slash Road slash Bungee slash Gopher slash Bugs: all nicknames Onyx had managed to pick up over the last month. No, they will not be explained; I don't even know where sixty percent of those came from. Maybe someday I'll be able to understand how Lux comes up with these things, but for now I'm just as happily ignorant as the next person) chose that moment to burst in with, "Are we ever going to actually battle, or are you guys just going to sit there and argue all day?" Beside him his machop was stomping around and flexing his muscles.
"Show off," I muttered. Then I said louder, "Just don't start crying when we kick your butts into next week! Let's go, Finn!" I waited for an awkward moment while my hoppip shuffled around on my head unhurriedly and then hopped down, floating the entire way.
Before he had even touched the ground the machop had reached him and was throwing punches almost too fast to keep track of. Finn squealed and twirled out of the way, although a fist still nicked his side and sent him twirling to the ground a few yards away.
I cursed mentally. The machop's wild flailing could hardly be called an attack, but if he managed to land a direct hit on Finn it would still knock him out. After all, machop are incredibly strong pokémon, and I knew from experience that Finn was not the most resilient creature. "Quick, Finn, get up! You need to get in the air so he can't reach you!" I shouted.
At the same time, Onyx hollered, "Crusher, use low kick!" (From the sidelines, I heard Lux add, "Off with his head, Powhatan!" One wonders how you are supposed to cut off the head of a hoppip, but I'm sure Lux could have found a way.)
The machop had nearly reached its target, and Finn was barely stirring. At this point he surely wouldn't have time to become airborne, so I made a quick decision. "Use giga drain, quick!" I yelled. At point blank range maybe the attack would drain enough energy to make the machop pause and give Finn time to escape. It was better than the alternative, at least.
The plan worked. A second later the machop was stumbling around, trying to get its bearings, while Finn was floating above him, looking thoroughly rejuvenated from his earlier crash landing. "Finish him off with another giga drain, Finn!" I shouted, excited to see victory so close.
The machop wasn't "finished" with that attack. Or with the next. After all, the situation was basically the inverse of before: Finn was not very powerful, and the machop was veryresistant. But Finn was still out of the machop's reach, and the machop lost strength with every attack until he keeled over, ending the battle in a manner equally as anticlimactic as the beginning.
Onyx frowned, returning the machop to his pokéball. "That was cheating," he muttered, glaring at the ground.
"That was boring!" Lux echoed. "But you still owe me ice cream. In fact, because you just made me watch that entirely pathetic battle, I now demand four scoops, and whipped cream."
I sighed, patting Finn on the head. He was obviously very pleased with himself; he was cooing happily and every now and then would break away from me to twirl through the air as if he was dancing in excitement. Hopefully he wouldn't notice Onyx and Lux's complaining any time soon. "What did you expect, Lux?" I asked, gently returning Finn to the top of my head. "We're both beginning trainers. We've only had our pokémon for a month. For Mew's sake, my only pokémon is a hoppip, and he only knows one attack that can do damage. How exciting did you expect it to be?"
Lux frowned and then nodded. "You're right, Finn couldn't help it. Rocky, though… low kick? What were you thinking? Your opponent was a hoppip, they only weigh one pound!" As Lux continued to correct every mistake Onyx had made in our short battle (including a few I'm sure she made up; I don't recall Onyx ordering the machop to go for Finn's neck, causing the pokémon to hesitate as he wondered exactly where a hoppip's neck was, and leading to my eventual victory. Sometimes I think I'd like to live in Lux's world; apparently there you can bend reality whenever you want to make a situation more interesting.) Onyx glared daggers at me. I felt kind of guilty, but I hadn't meant to redirect Lux's ridicule to him. I just wanted her to leave me alone.
"So when do you think we can move on to Mauville City and challenge Wattson?" I asked, trying to change the topic.
Lux sniffed. "Onyx just lost a battle against a hoppip. I don't think he'll be winning any gym battles any time soon."
Onyx glared harder. Now the daggers were swords, and dripping with poison.
"Seriously, though," Lux said, twisting a piece of hair around her finger. "Neither of you are as powerful as you think. You both beat Roxanne because you had a type advantage, and she's a pushover anyway. But could you win if you didn't have that on your side?" We were silent for a moment, and then Lux started talking again. "Anyways, gyms aren't what we should be worrying about. Rebecca has an examination here in Rustboro in three days, and Onyx's is two days after that in Verdanturf. We need to prepare! And is somebody going to get that ice cream or what?"
I sighed, resigned to being the one to run the errand if I ever wanted Onyx to talk to me again. "I'll do it," I said. As I left the tiny park we'd been battling in, I heard Onyx and Lux continuing the conversation without me.
"You keep talking about these "examinations", but you haven't told us what they are. How are we supposed to prepare if we don't know what's coming?"
"We're not supposed to tell you anything about it because that would be cheating."
"Oh."
"They're just like gym battles except you don't have to beat them- just impress them enough to let you pass. Since yours is in Verdanturf you'll be up against-"
Finally I was too far to hear what they were saying, but I didn't need to hear any more. I reached the ice cream parlor two blocks away with one thought in my head.
She'd better help me cheat too.
Solaceon Town is an incredibly disgusting place. Its main attraction is a so-called daycare center, but everybody (except possibly Erin, who is still reaching over the gate trying to get a mareep to lick her hand) knows that it's really a place where trainers send their pokémon so they can mate and have oh-so-adorable-how-cute little baby pokémon. The number one moneymaker and tourist attraction in this town is a brothel for pokémon. Now tell me it isn't disgusting.
"Erin, let's go.I don't like this place," I whine, fully aware of how like Erin I sound and hating it immensely, but unable to do anything about it. I can tell she's about to start asking questions, so I cut her off saying, "It smells. Arceus, how can people stand to live in this place?" After all, I don't need to corrupt Erin's mind, too. I'd prefer for one of us, at least, to remain blissfully unaware.
Erin is unhappy, but eventually I manage to tear her away from the fence with promises of ice cream after dinner. Ice cream: Erin's own personal form of crack, and a potential bribe that never got old. In my opinion, the greatest invention since portable music players (except those are more recent, so maybe ice cream was just the first great invention of our time).
I don't plan on making any stops on the way out, but then I am reminded of the pokéballs we no longer have because Erin used them to try to catch a rare pokémon on the road (it later turned out that they didn't work because the pokémon already belonged to a trainer, and he wasn't very happy to learn somebody had been trying to snag his prized possession, even if we hadn't known). Then I am reminded of the Repels that Erin threw away when I wasn't looking, because she said it was cheating. And the pokémon food that we ran out of three days ago because you-know-who forgot to call her pokémon back into their Poké Balls at night and they broke into our bags; we'd had to keep our pokémon in their pokéballs ever since so that they wouldn't get hungry.
So in the end we make a detour to the Poké Mart.
I make my purchases and am ready to go within the first five minutes. Erin is slower, as per usual. First she lets her luxio, Static, out in the middle of the store so that she can try a sample of each and every kind of treat the store carries before deciding on just one. Then, when she's finally picked everything she wants (totaling to some ungodly amount, because nobody's ever taught her how to bargain shop), she insists on chatting up the storekeeper.
The man, like most of the people who live in Solaceon Town (the one good thing to its name) is incredibly friendly, and doesn't seem to mind the little kid distracting him from his job (it's not like the store was that crowded anyway), so at least the situation isn't quite as embarrassing as it could have been. But I can sense impending doom when I hear Erin brag excitedly, "Hey, didja know my birthday was yesterday?"
The man grins. "No, little lady, I didn't. How old are you, now? Twelve?"
It would be so easy for Erin to just nod right now. Just go with the flow. She's always looked older than she is (in complete contrast to her personality, which always seems a year or two behind where it should be), and since that had been the age he'd guessed it wasn't like he was going to doubt her. But of course Erin has never understood the right time to keep her mouth shut, so instead she responds happily, "Nope! Ten."
The man's grin falters. He glances from Static, who had obviously been in training for longer than a few days, to the Trainer Card he's just swiped to pay for Erin's purchases that claims she turned ten an entire year ago. Her mother had it made so that Erin could leave home at the same time as me, assuming (correctly) that if Erin set off on her own they would have found her body lying in a snow drift a week later. But motives didn't really matter; the fact of the matter was that nowadays, with Team Galactic fresh in everybody's memories, the Pokémon League had become ten times stricter about trainer safety, and something like a forged Trainer Card could get everybody involved put in jail.
I wonder exactly how poisonous Repel is to a human. If I poured an entire bottle into Erin's soup, would she die or just become extremely ill? What if I didn't bother to dilute it at all, and just replaced the water from the bottle she carries with her everywhere with it? Would something like that be easy to detect in an autopsy?
And then the man laughs, patting Erin on the head. "You're starting on a criminal record already, huh? I'd hate to see how long it'll be when you're an adult," he says a bit too loudly, drawing stares from the few other people in the store. Then he thinks to lower his voice, whispering, "I'd get myself a real Trainer Card pretty soon if I were you, young lady. I hear the Elite Four run some pretty extensive background checks." Then he winks and waves us out the door before we have a chance to say goodbye.
Now I really want to get out of this place. What if that man changes his mind about letting us go? What if he remembers that the League pays money to anybody who can give them tips to find criminals? What if Erin spills her guts to another random stranger who isn't quite as nice?
With that last question in mind, I grab Erin's arm to get her attention. "From now on, don't talk to anybody unless I tell you to, got it?" I hiss, pulling her behind me in my rush to leave the town. Erin looks like she is going to argue, but I shoot her a glare and she stops. Then the ever-present smile that has somehow remained even through the whole fiasco disappears, and instead she looks like she's about to cry. I feel bad for about five seconds, and then I remember that the events of this entire day have been her fault. I keep walking. Erin and Static follow: Erin still looking depressed, Static looking stuck behind defending her trainer or laughing (or the luxio equivalent) at her.
We're barely out of the city when I hear somebody yelling. I ignore them. If they're yelling for us it can't be something positive, anyways. A minute later the person catches up, and surprisingly I recognize her. She's Isabel Reynolds, another beginning trainer we'd run into and battled in every major city we'd been through so far and whom I am becoming increasingly certain waits behind just to see us.
"What's up? You guys looked like you had a herd of houndoom on your heels!" she asks, laughing and petting her own houndoom, Shadi (pronounced shu-DEE in a weak attempt to hide the fact that Isabel, like Erin, had fallen into the trap of naming her pokémon after its type).
I hesitate, but I doubt that another kid would turn us in. Not to mention that Isabel is the one who taught Erin how to shoplift back in Hearthome City when they wanted to get accessories for a contest- I hardly think she's going to be a pillar of morality now. "Erin nearly got us arrested again," I say, glaring back at her for added impact.
Isabel laughs. "Again? Without my help, even. I must be having a positive influence!" Then she turns to the evil-doer herself. "Happy belated birthday, Lux!" she says, hugging her. It's one of Isabel's strange quirks that she never refers to trainers by their real names; instead, she uses some form of whatever pokémon they battle with most often. Through the same process I managed to pick up the nickname Chance, even though my chansey had evolved a while back. When questioned about it, she only rolled her eyes and said, "Well what am I supposed to call you? Bliss? I'll sound like I'm talking to a piece of chocolate!"
When Erin remains silent, Isabel pulls away and glances between us. "Is something wrong?" she asks.
"Just Erin being stubborn. You can talk now, okay? Just try to stay quiet about that body in our basement." She's still glaring and refusing to talk, but I can see her fighting a laugh. That's one thing I like about her: she can't hold a grudge to save her life.
We start walking again, although with Isabel and Shadi beside us the tension is noticeably lower. "So what are you guys going to do once you get to Veilstone?" Isabel asks during a lull in the conversation.
"We aren't going to Veilstone," I correct.
Isabel and Shadi exchange identical "poor Chance has lost her marbles (again)" looks, and then Isabel says, "Isn't that where this road goes?" She checks her map app to be sure.
One of the places. But I plan on going there last and only staying long enough for us both to get Maylene's badge. It's a pit full of criminals and drug dealers and murderers."
Isabel looks amused. "Then you should fit right in!"
"Isabel!"
"Oh come on, you're over exaggerating. It's just got a bad reputation because it's got the casin- I mean, Game Corner."
"It was also where the main headquarters for Team Galactic was."
"Was. They've cleaned the place up since then." I'm still thinking of how to respond to that when Isabel changes the subject. "So where are you going?" she asks.
"Celestic Town," Erin says, speaking for the first time. "But the only thing she wants to go there for is to look at cave paintings and stuff. They don't even have a gym! How stupid is that?"
Isabel gasps, looking enlightened. "I know! How about you come with me to Veilstone and Chance can go ahead and look at her cave paintings, and then she can catch up with us! And then she doesn't have to stay there any longer than she wants to!" She's grinning and looking proud of herself for coming up with such a stupendous idea. Erin is giving me puppy dog eyes. What the heck am I supposed to say to that?
"I don't trust you two alone by yourselves. Especially not after the whole incident at Hearthome." Both of their faces fell. "So I guess I'll just have to go with you." Immediately I'm tackled by three bodies (the third being Shadi; I could have done without that) and forced into a group hug. Static is still standing in the same place, giving me a look that I interpret as either What have you gotten us into, you idiot or If this girl corrupts my trainer I'm going to kill you and rip your head off and eat it. I probably deserve it.
So now I'm heading into the city with the highest crime rate in the entire country, including Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, and Orre. Moreover, I'm planning on staying there for a week while my best friends go consort with criminals at the casino. Arceus, this sucks.
The worst thing, though, is that I can't even say this is the worst day of my life. The worst thing is that I can't even say this is in the top ten worst days of my life so far. The worst thing is that I can think of twenty other days in the eight months I've been traveling with Erin that were worse than this. Arceus, my life sucks.
