Good God, I'm back! Hoo, boy. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long, but I'm finally back, got my diploma, got another musical under my belt, and got tons of time to continue this story! It ain't dying on me yet!

Also, note: even though Pokémon Sun and Moon versions are GUARANTEED to come out before I finish this story (probably) I'm going to give minimal reference to that region in this story, if at all. The reason right now is because I want to get into that region blind and without the hype culture. The reason (probably) when it comes out is when I suddenly start referencing a region that didn't exist for the first part of the story, it'll become weird and stinted. Something I want to avoid. So don't expect any references to Poké-Hawaii anytime soon(probably). Unless I change my mind, or decide where it fits. This story (probably) is (probably) pre-Gen VII (probably probably)!


POKÉRUS
By Multikirby

Chapter 9

A rhythmic creaking and cracking sounded off underneath West's feet. Tatami, she thought, is a very strange choice for gym flooring.

She knew it was supposed to be atmospheric. But imagining epic Pokémon battles here was hard when each move and step and such was accompanied with the wooden equivalent of a groaning old man. Still, she had to give credit where credit was due – it definitely was atmospheric. Everything radiated a...what was the word they used...? Kanto-jin sort of feel. She was pretty sure that was right, using Kantonese as the language. It felt like she was in a historical Kanto or Johto house. The smell of bamboo drifted through the air, along with the lingering scent of tea and incense. It was almost comical how much atmosphere this place had.

Of course, the trainers were different. She'd expected them, from the look of the Gym, to be in traditional Kanto or Johto historical garb. But when she encountered the first one telling her to fight, she noticed that the guy was sporting a sleek red jacket, and had a full head of green hair. Definitely not traditional. She was almost a little disappointed. But nonetheless, she quickly explained that she wasn't here to battle them, and passed through the rest of the rooms. She was here to talk to Norman.

It wasn't anything too serious. She just wanted to have a friendly chat with him. Like any friend would do with the parent of one of their friends. Except...she was doing it behind East's back. Decidedly less normal, but hey, travel the road less taken. Or whatever the saying was. She wasn't entirely sure, but she was set on justifying why she was here in the gym in the way of just a friendly chat. She wouldn't admit to herself that she had at least somewhat selfish reasons. But like she'd subconsciously told herself, she wasn't going to admit that.

Eventually she arrived at the final chamber. Her heart skipped a beat as the final door slid out of the way, revealing a very intimidating figure standing at the opposite end of a very professional looking Pokemon Battle arena. This was Norman Erdet. East's father, leader of the Petalburg Pokémon Gym, and expert on the Normal Type. His short black hair was neatly combed and cared for, framing a stoic expression on a hard weathered face. His eyes pierced into West's as she entered the room, his strong hands folded against his arms as he regarded the girl.

Suddenly, he relented his expression, the corners of his mouth turning up. "So, Westrose. I heard from your old man that you finally got your first Pokemon. Are you here to test your strength?" His hands unfolded and went to his belt, going for one of the first Pokeballs.

West's heart skipped a beat. Chris and Apple? Battle Norman?! No way, they weren't ready yet! She lifted her hands in a defensive pose and backed away a bit in a show of submission. "N-no, sir, I just wanted to-"

A loud hearty laugh erupted through the room, nearly vibrating West's head with its pulse. "Oh, relax. Johnny up front already wired me up on what was going on." His eyes met with hers, this time with quite a bit more light in them. "So what did you want to talk about, Westrose?"

West sighed in relief, her shoulders sinking from the tense position she hadn't realized she'd assumed. "Well, I'm travelling with your son, now, and I figured that...well, y'know, if I was going to be with East for a while, I oughta get to know his folks, right? So-"

"Hold on a minute, Westrose. What did you call him?" Norman asked, pointing idly at her.

West blinked. "Um...I...I go by West now, actually," she said. "East says it's shorter than Westrose."

Norman's eyebrow raised, and he opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, before shutting it. He drew his mouth into a hard line, obviously thinking about something.

This, understandably, made West incredibly nervous. What was so important about their names? Sure, east and west were opposing cardinal directions and saying them together in a sentence like that – East and West – kind of makes them sound like cute couple nicknames or whatever, but this was West thinking! Surely Norman didn't think the same things an adolescent female mind did! Her eyebrows drew together and she bit her lip in apprehension, waiting for Norman to say something to either allay or confirm her fears that something was wrong.

"So how's the journey been so far?"

West blinked in surprise. Okay, not what she was expecting. He must have dropped the subject...unless he was probing her! Oh my gosh that's totally what's happening, West said, gulping. Okay, stay calm...stay calm...

"Good."

Norman exhaled through his nose, bringing back his crossed-arms pose. "Come on, Westrose – West – you came here to talk with me right?" he said, a smile playing at his lips. "You've always been with Birch before, sure, but you're a big girl now. You can come up with something a little better than 'good', can't you?"

He was right, West decided. It'd be better if she just spoke her mind. Well, not that much. But...maybe a little bit. Just recap.

"It's been good so far."

Seriously?! Come on, West!

"We left Littleroot yesterday afternoon," West said. "We've had one or two battles, nothing too major. He and I both caught our second Pokémon. I caught a Wurmple, and he caught a Ralts. He's actually back on the route training his Pokemon up for the Rustboro Gym. We're meeting back at the Pokémon Center later today."

"Now why does he never tell his father these things?" Norman sighed. "Wish I could've been there when he was reaching those all-important milestones. And now I'm hearing that I'm not going to get to test him for his first Gym Badge?"

West shrugged. "He doesn't really want to face you yet. He's really really set on Rustboro."

"Wonder why that would be," Norman murmured, tapping his chin with his pointer finger.

"How's he been behaving?" Norman asked, changing the subject. "Treating you well, I hope?"

"Yeah, for the most part," West said with a nod. "We talk and stuff. He's kind of antisocial, but I think I just need to break him out of his shell first."

Norman nodded in understanding. "From what I can tell he wasn't thrilled about the move to Hoenn. You know where he's from, right?"

"Johto, yeah."

"I'm sure you can tell how different Hoenn is from there. 'Specially considering he used to live in Olivine. Littleroot is a pretty big change."

"Mmhmm," West agreed. "How long d'you think it'll be until he gets used to Hoenn?"

Norman looked away from West for a moment to think. Then he turned back to her and smiled. "I'm sure that it'll happen any moment. Hoenn is a great region. It'll just take a bit of time for him to realize that."

West smiled a little at the words of encouragement. "Well...it was nice talking with you, Mr. Erdet," she said, bowing at the waist before she realized what she was doing. Must have been the Kanto-jin surroundings getting her into character!

Taking it in stride, Norman gave a chuckle and bowed right back. "It was nice talking with you, West. Now get to that Pokémon Center. Don't keep my son waiting."

West nodded. "Alright. See you, sir!"


East wasn't very happy. He was still pretty scraped up after that 'Treecko-is-going-to-kill-me' charade his mind had pulled on him earlier. Cheshire now had one up on him. His dignity as far as he was concerned was pretty much nonexistent. And somehow, in a cosmic sense, he knew West was going to find out about this. So in short he was scraped, sunken, and screwed.

He and Cardinal weren't doing any battles anymore. He was utterly drained. Funny, East thought. I'm not the one doing the battling. Cardinal and Cheshire were talking behind him. And of course, he couldn't understand what they were saying. It drove him mad. If he and they were supposed to be best friends forever or some crap like that, he should be able to understand them. But of course nobody else agreed with that notion and so understanding the creatures upon which the structure of the global society is based is obviously and rationally determined to be unnecessary in the public schooling system. Let's remove it and teach children how to diffrentiate a to the x and square root the vertex of a parabola instead. Because they're going to use that in life.

He looked back at his Pokémon for a few seconds. Whatever they were talking about, they were really damn into it. Or, at least they were, until they noticed East was looking at them. That shut them up. East sighed and turned back to the path where he was walking. He hadn't meant to shut them up. But whatever. Wasn't his problem. Soon enough he reached the edge of the forest, checking his Pokégear for the time. He still had a bit before he had to meet West in the Center at 3:00. He could probably stop off at the Mart first and buy some stuff.

He'd battled a few Trainers on the route after training Cardinal enough – the wild Pokémon after a while didn't seem to cut it in giving Card the experience she needed. It didn't take long to catch Cheshire up either – so he'd used the Pokémon Trainers' trained Pokémon. Despite the redundancy, and the fact that Trainers were almost all scum of the earth that deserved to die in a fire, these Pokémon were quote unquote 'professionally trained', which meant that whether the trainers themselves are any good at all, the Pokémon would still be better at battling than wild ones.

And East was surprised – despite being a really dumb computer, he was using the Pokédex surprisingly often. It was most useful during battles, when it gave him the interface of how well his Pokémon was doing, and displayed their HP in a convenient bar format. Not only that, but it told him what moves his Pokémon were capable of, and tracked their experience progress.

But this was getting really dull. And it was becoming clear that neither Card or Chess were getting anything out of these guys anyways. And the trainers didn't really seem too happy that he wanted a rematch so soon. So after he'd beaten each trainer on the route, he'd had to go back to battling wild Pokémon. So after a while he just quit the whole business and began to make his way to Petalburg.

The cityscape slowly rose up in the horizon like an army of giant concrete gravestones. That analogy didn't really make much practical sense, especially since Petalburg City paled in comparison to Johto cities like Olivine or Goldenrod. But East definitely felt the fear and dread that came with the symbolism. Because not only was West waiting for him there – probably with a bunch of questions about how his training went – but his dad was there too. And no doubt he'd be trying to seek East out. He was pretty sure that Norman had promised to do that on that phone call back in the moving truck. Way to use up my roaming data, by the way, Dad, he realized sourly.

Well, there wasn't much of a point prolonging this any longer. He took a deep breath and entered the city, hoping to Arceus that Norman wouldn't find him.


West hoped to Arceus that East wouldn't find her. Maybe he went on without her. Maybe he decided he didn't need or want her or vice versa and went on to Rustboro without her. Anything so that she wouldn't have to explain what she had been doing here since they'd parted ways. Because if he found out East was probably going to skin her alive.

Maybe. She wasn't even sure. Maybe he'd be totally fine with him talking to her dad behind his back. It was just a conversation with the gym leader of Petalburg, right? No problem there. Except the gym leader was also his dad and they'd definitely talked about him. So there was a problem there. A pretty big one. And it was really eating at her.

She stared at her feet in the Petalburg Pokémon Center, sitting uncomfortably on the bench. This felt so morally wrong. She had to tell East what she'd done. But she couldn't. But she had to!

West looked up at the door, trying to act casual as it opened up...even though it wasn't East that walked through. Just another random citizen. But every time she heard the whiiirrrr of the automatic doors slide open she had a miniature heart attack. She was so nervous...what could she do?

Five seconds later she released Chris from his Pokéball, slumping back into the chair. "...Chris I need someone to talk to," she said with an air of exhaustion.

Chris chirruped and tilted his head, hopping up onto the chair beside West.

She turned to him almost immediately. "Okay, so you know how I went to the Petalburg Gym and talked with Norman about East? I don't know what to do. He's not going to be happy and he's my travel partner and possibly my potential friend so it wouldn't be good if he wasn't happy with me. But then again if I keep it from him he's probably going to find out at some point and then he'll be angry that I talked with his dad and lied to him about it which would be twice as bad." She bit her lip, and shut her eyes tightly. "Also I'm really hungry but I don't want to eat anything from the Pokémon Center because the food is always gross but I don't want to not be at the Pokémon Center in case East gets here while I'm gone and I don't know what to do about that either! And on top of that I still have to worry about how to help you guys beat Roxanne even though she's a Rock specialist and you guys are Fire and Bug types, neither of which are good against Rock types, so that's weighing on me too, and-"

West halted as she felt something on her leg. She'd stopped paying attention to Chris as she had begun rambling. But now Chris was resting his head on her, grounding West and bringing her back to reality. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Alright. Sorry, Chris, I...got a little out of hand."

He looked up at her with mild derision, an amused smirk on his face.

"Alright, alright, a lot out of hand," West admitted. "But they're still all legitimate concerns! I'm just...I just got worked up about them." She leaned back in her seat. "But still. What do I do? What can I do? For at least one of them?"

Chris thought for a moment, then gave another chirp. West blinked. "Right. I can't understand you..."

The Torchic huffed in response and nudged her bag. She took it off and placed it between the two. Setting to work, he took the zipper into his beak and began to unzip the bag, before digging into it. He swept his head around, his legs sticking out of the gap in a rather comical fashion. He poked his head back out, looking at West pointedly. She giggled a little and unzipped the bag a little more, digging through it herself. Eventually she came up with something that Chris reacted to – the map.

It was a folding electronic map, sort of like the Gameboy Advance SP that they'd advertised on TV a while back. Or a fold-up phone, depending on whether you're twenty or forty years old. Even though it was mostly just called a 'Town Map', it contained data on the entire region of Hoenn. She started it up and navigated to Petalburg City. As it was a city, they didn't record wild Pokémon data for it, as the wild Pokémon in most cities varied wildly from day to day. She knew from experience that wild Pokémon were both rare, and extremely varied, so documenting their occurrences for future Pokémon Trainer reference would be useless. She zoomed out to the surrounding area, finding vague Pokémon Data for Routes 102 and 104.

There really should be more cooperation between the field researchers and the map manufacturers, West noted with a frown. This data is all outdated.

The map only said that Zigzagoon and Wurmple were encountered on Route 104, but West knew for a fact that Taillow, Wingull, and Marill all had habitats there! She'd been there on the route nearly every time she came to Petalburg City with her dad...but that was probably the furthest she'd ever travelled from Littleroot. She'd never been allowed to go into the Petalburg Woods. She let her mind wander about what Pokémon could be there...and then it clicked. It was the woods. There'd be Grass types there, which are good against Rock! That could be great against Roxanne!

Chris beamed a little as he saw that she'd realized his point. She could tell he was pretty proud of himself for figuring that out from the way he puffed up his chest and closed his eyes as if he expected to be awarded some sort of medal. It was honestly pretty cute.

"Thanks, Chris," she said with a small smile, extending a hand and ruffling his head affectionately. She looked back at the door, and took another deep breath. She could do this. She could do this.

Abruptly, she got up from the chair. "Hey, Chris. I'm going to go look for a café to get something to eat. You want to come with?"

In response Chris hopped down from the chair and looked up at her with pride.

"Okay. Stick close to me. City streets can be scary when you're on your own," she warned her Torchic, who strode up right next to her. She walked to the doors, and heard the whiiirrrr of them open as she approached. She stepped outside into the street, smelling the salty seaside air. Just a quick bite to eat. They wouldn't be long, and East wouldn't mind.

"West. Thank Arceus," a familiar voice said from behind her.

Frick.


Paranoia comes from the greek word of the same pronunciation, which means 'madness'. This term was used to describe any sort of mental affliction that had to do with beliefs of the brain. So while it would be used to describe someone who is afraid that everyone and everything is out to get him, it would also describe someone who believes that they are a deity, or something similar.

Now you, as an informed and intelligent reader, may infer that I'm telling you this because East – who we are now switching to because of the line break – has been afflicted with some form of paranoia. And you would be right, at least partially. He wasn't entirely terrified of everyone around him being in league with Norman, but he was plagued with the thought that his father could pop out from any corner to initiate a conversation with him. And his conversations with Norman were not enjoyable in the slightest. And so though his mind revolted in him using the words 'West' and 'thank' in the same sentence, he was at the very least happy that he'd encountered her before he'd encountered Norman. Because here, West was the better option.

"...Um...hey, East!" West turned to face him with a strained grin. "It's...um...you're here early!"

"Were you planning on going somewhere?" East asked coolly, careful to keep his tone level.

West looked back over her shoulder. "Ah yeah, my Pokémon and I were just about to get to a café to nom on something."

East was silent for a moment. "...nom?"

"You've never heard that word?"

"Not off of the internet. Not out of someone's mouth."

"Nom is from the internet?" West blinked. "It's the sound you make when you bite into something! Nom!"

East brought a hand to his forehead. "Okay, no. Nobody makes that sound."

"Well...I guess that means you don't wanna come," West said, quickly turning around and making for the café. "That's a shame. Well, why don't we meet in an hour or so and keep going to Rustboro?"

Immediately East became suspicious. Why wasn't she inviting him along? It wasn't a secret to either of them that West wanted to get all buddy buddy with him. That was made pretty obvious day one. But the fact that she was in such a hurry to get to that café without him raised some red flags.

"Hey, I'm pretty hungry too," East said casually, bringing his hands up behind his head in a relaxed position. "Maybe I'll come with you to that café. Arceus knows I haven't been to enough of those lately."

Again West forced a strained smile to split her face. "Okay, great! You want to let your Pokémon out?"

East shook his head. "No, they've been fighting all day. They're probably dead tired. I...don't really know how the whole Pokéball system works with that sort of thing, but I'm going to play it safe and keep 'em in there until I've healed them up."

West took a breath as if she were going to say something, but she shut her mouth and turned around. "Well, let's get going then."

What did you do? East thought suspiciously. Instantly his mind gravitated to Norman, but he ushered the thought out of his head almost immediately. Some strange part of his mind felt that if East thought about him it'd make it more probable that he'd appear. And he didn't want that to happen. So what could West have done that would make her not want him with her? Was it some weird girl thing? Was she embarrassed of her appearance or some crap like that? Or...

...oh. That's why. Frick. Well, he accepted, so there was no backing out. He'd just have to tread really carefully and hope that he didn't do anything that she thought was stupid. Did girls even get like that this early? How old was she, anyways? They were the same age. He shook his head a little, attempting to derail this train of thought before it got out of hand.

"...What about Apple? Why haven't you let her out?" East asked carefully.

West didn't look back. "...Apple doesn't like Chris, I think. It's a little early to tell, I know, but I'm trying to ease them into this."

"And by 'this' you mean..."

"The relationship. I mean, they're on a team now, so whether they're friends or not they're going to be working together at some point. So I'm trying to ease them into the possible future relationship without making them tread on each others' toes."

Oh, okay, so forcing relationships is a thing you do with everyone, not just me, East noted sourly. Of course, he didn't say this. Because that'd hurt her preciously fragile feelings and good Arceus did it feel weird to even think like that.

"So...have you been here before?" West asked. "To Petalburg, I mean."

"Only once. And I don't remember it that well."

"Why, you were young?"

"No, I thought it was dumb that I was in Hoenn in the first place." FRICK what the heck did he just say!?

"Hey, Hoenn isn't that bad, is it?" West turned to face him and crossed her arms. That look on her face was definitely annoyance. He'd pissed her off. Frick. Frick. What was he supposed to say?! "I mean, it's no Johto-" she continued.

Thick thick sarcasm, East noted grimly.

"-but I like to think that Hoenn has some perks?"

East was put on the spot. Should he lie? That was his first instinct, but if she found out he'd be crucified. But if he told the truth he'd be crucified right now. It was better to take the chance that he wouldn't. But his panicked mind couldn't work out exactly how to lie best to someone who was this incredibly sensitive, and he could tell that she was getting more impatient the longer she had to wait for an answer so he eventually just blurted one out.

"The starter Pokémon are okay."

Ha ha, what?! Did he just compliment starter Pokémon?! At least the lie seemed to soar over West's head. She beamed proudly. "Aww, thanks! That means a lot coming from someone like you."

Okay. Hold the phone. What did that mean? Women always laced their sentences with hidden meanings, didn't they? That was like one of the requirements of being a woman. So what on earth did that mess of cryptograms mean? It meant a lot coming from someone like him? What did she mean, someone like him? Who was like him? What kind of archetype of human being did he fit into? What stereotypes did they have? Was she trying to tell him that he was a biker punk or something? And that 'means a lot'. Why would complimenting the starter Pokémon mean a-

She's the professor's daughter.

What in Arceus's name did I just do?


Okay, so the subject of Norman hasn't come up yet. Well, it did, but she was able to use one of East's complaints to successfully derail the conversation. Not only that but she actually got a compliment out of the kid. It was...weird, but cool! Maybe they were actually getting somewhere in their relationship. Of course, that way of thinking quickly looped back to the lie that she was keeping behind East's back. He was going to find out sooner or later, and if she wanted their relationship to improve, she was going to have to be a lot more forward with him than she currently was. Either she was going to tell him or he was going to find out himself, and it didn't take a lot of thinking to figure out which one was more favourable. But she would still have to work up the courage to actually tell him first, and that in and of itself was going to be tough. After all, she was spending pretty much eighty percent of her efforts right now just to keep the topic off of Norman.

"Your command, Sergeant?" Private West stood at the ready.

The sergeant stared at the video feed, her hands folded in her lap, her brow furrowed in an expression of deep thought. "We're at an impasse, girls. The right path is clear. But I'm not sure if we have enough Bravado to pull off the journey the entire way."

"So in other words you're afraid we're going to bail mid-mission," Corporal West mumbled.

"There's a chance that if we go for it we'll build up enough steam to keep running on fumes until we're finished the conversation," Private West provided.

"Nonetheless, the consequences either way would be dire," the sergeant reminded them gravely. "Remember, East is our one and only candidate for lifelong friend that we have at our disposal."

"Your command, Sergeant?" Private West repeated. "Should we go for it?"

"We're stalling!" Lance Corporal West shouted. "Target's suspicion level estimated at twenty percent!"

Sergeant West swore under her breath. "Do you have a growth rate?"

"Five percent per second," Lance Corporal West said gravely.

"What?" Private West exclaimed incredulously. "But he isn't waiting on an answer of any kind!"

"Doesn't matter," Corporal West growled. "This is a situation we vets call the 'awkward silence'. It's a dreaded thing...and about time a newbie like you finally encountered one."

"...Lance Corporal," Sergeant West barked. "Check our stores for conversation starters!"

She nodded and left the social readings station for Procedual Memory. "I'll radio you as soon as I find one."

"Corporal, I want you to focus on appropriate body language and small vocal sounds to fill the void. Understood?"

"Yessir," she said, taking controls alongside the private.

"And me, Sergeant?" Private West asked.

"Stand at the ready."

"Understood."

West scuffed her feet a bit on the sidewalk, blowing her bangs away from her face. Chris looked up at her quizzically, and she gave him a half-hearted smile. Goodness, East must know that something was definitely off by now. She'd been silent for a good five seconds. Both of them have. And things weren't getting any better as time went by. She began praying that the café would just show up so that they'd have something to distract themselves from the growing gap between words. She desperately scanned both sides of the street for anything resembling a restaurant.

"What about you?" East finally asked. "Have you been here before?"

"With my dad," West affirmed. "Not too often, though. We mostly stick to Oldale since it's closer. But here's nice too." She frowned a bit. "...A lot bigger, though."

"Probably wouldn't like Johto then," East remarked. "I think even Cherrygrove is bigger than this place."

"I didn't say I didn't like it," West huffed. "Only that it was bigger."

That shut East up. Why? She looked back at him trying to conceal a look of surprise. Why did he suddenly go quiet?

"That looks like a café," East said suddenly, nodding his head.

Maybe that was why. In that case she was safe. Thank Arceus. She directed her gaze to where East had indicated, spying something called The Riviera.

"Looks more like a sit-down restaurant to me," West said. "How much money do you have?"

"Oh, tons," East said passively. "I did most of my training against other trainers. The system's pretty easy to abuse."

West gave him a small look. "There is no system."

"Try telling that to the hive mind back on one-oh-three."

That earned a little chuckle out of West. "I have no clue what you're talking about. So...you in the mood for sitting down?"

"I'm pretty hungry, yeah," East said. "Though look at that."

West looked at where he was pointing. There was a sign on the outside of the door, in gold plating. She rolled her eyes a bit. This was Petalburg, there was no need to be so darn ritzy! But as she moved closer, she began to realize why East had pointed it out.

"...In the interest of equality for our patrons and guests, no Pokémon are allowed outside of their Pokéballs on the premises." West frowned a bit. "Equality, huh? Guess that means someone complained about Mr. Castform being let outside while their precious little Hariyama wasn't."

"Still up for it?" East asked. "I mean, they used the word 'patrons'. If they aren't a five star restaurant, they're definitely trying to be. I bet they use the word 'purchase' at least three times on their menu."

"I think you've had enough café visits to last a lifetime," West joked. "Let's go inside. Maybe their food'll be really good."

Chris chirped indignantly up at West from her feet.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll save you something," West said, returning him to his Pokéball.

West looked at her Pokéball after Chris had finished retreating into it. It felt wrong somehow to be eating without him. This could have been good bonding time with her lifelong partner, something besides battling. But rules were rules, and...well, East had spotted The Riviera anyways, so that settled that. "Shall we?" she asked, gesturing to the door.

East said nothing in response, instead walking into the restaurant before her, sparing her a glance before making his way through the glass doorway. Realizing that he was gone, West scrambled to catch up with him at the host stand. After answering the pleasantries, they were seated at a table for two, getting a few suggestive looks from some of the more peering adults in the restaurant. It was past lunch, but wasn't quite dinner yet, so the restaurant was pretty empty.

West took her glass cup from the table, noting the water ring it'd left behind. She swirled the liquid around inside the cup, listening to the clink of the ice cubes against the edge.

"What are you doing?" East asked. "It's not wine."

"You do the stirring thing with brandy, actually," West said, looking back up at him. "But nice try."

East frowned a bit, but said nothing in response. Weird. She thought for sure that he'd have a comeback to that. She was almost disappointed.

"So what's the plan?" West asked, putting the water down on the ring and folding her arms on the table.

East leaned back on his seat and gazed up at the ceiling. "We go to Rustboro. Simple as that."

"Why Rustboro though?"

"That's usually where first trainers start off, right?" East asked, bringing his head down to look back at them. "If I'm going to be doing what literally every kid does, I'd ought to do it in the way literally every kid does."

"Well, no," West said, looking off to the side. "I mean, new trainers get their Pokémon from my dad in Littleroot. From there the closest gyms are either in Mauville or Petalburg. Though usually people don't go for Mauville because you need to either be a really strong swimmer, or have a good Water type Pokémon to get there. And the gym's Electric, so Water types don't do well anyhow. So most people start off with their first badge here."

East's eyes had a faraway look for a moment. "...Well, why do we need to do what everyone else is doing, huh? Why don't we break the mold and go do something different for a change?"

"Do you have someone in Rustboro?" West asked. "I mean, don't worry, I won't judge. I'm just wondering."

"What makes you think I want to go to Rustboro specifically?" East asked, crossing his arms. "I just don't want to be waist-deep in toddlers who think they're big shots for taking down the worst Pokémon type."

"Normal isn't the worst Pokémon type!" West huffed. "I personally don't think there is a worst Pokémon type."

East gave a laugh. "Oh, that's rich. Look, Normal type moves aren't strong against any other type, and they're weak against three, and can't even affect one. Normal type Pokémon aren't resistant to any types, and are weak against one. I don't think those are very good odds."

"Ah, but they have great move pools, usually," West said. "They're also usually better equipped than other Pokémon, stat-wise."

"In any case, I think we should hold off on Petalburg. When I plough my dad into the ground I want it to be so overwhelmingly easy that he'll regret-"

West leaned back in her chair, taken off guard by the sudden outburst. What was his beef with his dad? "...regret what?"

"...Where's our waitress?" he mumbled, resting his head on his arms, which were rested on the table. "...They're taking forever."


Did I just change the subject? East thought with a mental grimace. Yes. Yes, I did. And I also just answered my own question. Dammit.

He was a mess. How the heck was he supposed to socialize while dancing around her toes like this? He'd just narrowly avoided a scene right there, and it'd taken a laughably terrible lie to get out of it. He brought up his menu and tried to distract himself from the conversation by trying to make up his mind on what to eat.

"So we're going to Rustboro, then," West said, nodding to herself. "Guess that means I'm going to have to get something good against Rock types. Both Chris and Apple would have a hard time fighting Roxanne."

"...Roxanne being the gym leader?" East asked. If he knew Gym Leaders, this Roxanne chick was going to be a freak. All of the gym leaders in Johto were. Especially Morty...him and Whitney."

"Hum?" West looked up from the menu. "What were they like?"

"Morty was like your classic goth. Fixated on death and ghosts and more death. He was the Ghost type gym leader. And then there's..." he sighed. "...Whitney."

"...Who's Whitney?" West asked.

East rested his hands on his forehead. "We knew each other in school. She was...not pleasant to be around." He withheld a shudder. "She was a few grades over me...and never let anyone forget it. It was...damn near insufferable. She was, I mean."

"She was a diva?" West asked.

He shook his head. "Not the right word. I...probably shouldn't say the right word, though."

West gave him a sideways grin. "Gotcha. But I'm sure Roxanne is fine. She's a student, still, actually."

Really? Roxanne? A student and a Gym Leader? "Interesting combination," East said. "Does it work?"

"She puts a lot of her booksmarts into her battling," West affirmed. "Though sometimes she lets some of the dumb rock stuff in."

"Dumb rock stuff," he said, crossing his arms. "Like what? Metamorphic slash sedimentary slash igneous?"

"Oh, no, that stuff's the cool stuff," West said. "Her stadium's all modelled after the different types, see? At least I think that's how it is. And she knows how to use it. Like, igneous is volcanic, sedimentary splits easy and is soft, and metamorphic is all hard and smooth, like glass. At least, I think that's how it is? And you're supposed to use all of that to your advantage. I've heard it's a pretty cool opportunity to fight her."

"How do you know about this?"

West blinked. "W-well, I...may or may not read Hoenn League Weekly...and Gym Leaders may or may not give them exclusive interviews every so often...and I may or may not have saved them in a drawer in my room and pored over them in preparation for this journey."

At that moment, the waiter came and took their orders, destroying the way the conversation was going. If East was careful he might be able to salvage the subject and milk it, but things weren't looking good. This magazine thing seemed like something he could use as leverage against her in the future. All he had to do was ask about the magazines. All he had to do was ask about Roxanne in the magazines.

"So about Roxanne," East said, silently cursing himself for not being specific enough. He could see the segway coming a mile away.

"Yeah, she's pretty cool," West said. "Her gym's probably one of the more plain ones out there, though."

Dammit. "Yeah?" Sip. Casual.

"Uh huh," West affirmed. "They used to have their gyms all built so that they'd have a home advantage. F'rinstance, Watson in Mauville? He had his entire stadium built of conductive steel so that his Pokémon's Electric attacks would carry through it so he didn't have to be accurate about it. The Fed put a stop to that pretty quick though."

"So what's it like now?" It was an empty question. He was barely even listening to her. He didn't care about this! He wanted that weird PokéNav, he wanted his data, he wanted his internet, he wanted his radio. That was it. Four simple things. He had a much longer list of 'don't wants', but he wasn't focusing on those right now. They tended to put him in a sour mood. He sensed a pause in the conversation and gave an absent 'uh huh' to make her think that he was paying attention. It seemed to work – she kept blathering on.

The rest of the visit to the Riviera passed by quickly. As the conversation about gyms came to a close, the thought of Norman began to once again permeate East's mind. He couldn't stop thinking about Norman. How his dad could pop out of any corner at any moment and ambush him. He had to get out of Petalburg, and fast. He'd have to get West out too, in case she tried anything behind his back. She'd probably already reported to Norman her findings already. She was still, after all, his chaperone. But with any luck she was too naive to actually realize what East was doing, and her 'reviews' of him would be at least somewhat positive. But this settled things: he had to get out of Petalburg before Norman had a say in things. And he had a pretty good idea on how to do it.