Chapter 10: Hold On to What You Believe

It had been bright and sunny when Delaney had walked through the arch leading out of Striaton City. As she reached a sign that welcomed her to Nacrene City, the lights were on in the artsy lofts that made up the town, and the people that walked the streets wore jackets, as the temperature had fallen after the sun went down. It was still a lovely night though, and the streets were alive. Despite the events of the day, Delaney found herself smiling as she walked through the doors of Pokemon Center. She had spent most of her afternoon sitting in the cave, trying to find breath in her lungs, trying to find some sort of words to say. In the end though, Delaney had decided that maybe this was a fluke. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time (story of her life), and as long as she stuck to the beaten path and just focused on beating gym leaders, she didn't have to worry about Team Plasma.

She was not going to become a hero again. That was that. Team Plasma was not her problem.

She handed her pokemon to the nurse on duty and asked for a room key, if there were any available, before taking a seat in the waiting area. She picked up a newspaper sitting on a table, and was disheartened to see that the main headline featured Team Galactic and their invasion on Hearthrome. Her father had mentioned that they had begun to move there after Veilstone had been completely taken over, but still, the idea of them being in her favorite place broke Delaney's heart. She could only hope that they would stay away from route 212, and her father. She was hoping that this time, the gym leaders (and the so-called authorities) were doing their part to get rid of Team Galactic. Delaney recalled her father stating that after the invasion of Veilstone, Maylene had been forced to close her gym. Didn't that mean that Maylene now had the time to dedicate to defeating Team Galactic? And surely Fantina was now being granted the same luxury, now that Hearthrome had been invaded as well. Perhaps the two of them together could convince the rest that they needed to take action. After all, there was no way that Delaney could step in and save the day this time.

This time, when the nurse called the name Christa, Delaney's head snapped up instantly, and she went to collect her pokemon and room key. It bothered her slightly to think of how accustomed she was getting to being called Christa White, but it also meant that there was a very slim chance that anybody would take a guess at who she really was, and that was a good thing (or at the very least, it would please her father). She was more than happy to take Perry, Charlie and Dibs, the drilbur she had caught in Wellspring Cave, off of the nurse's hands, as well as take the key for her room (she was getting rather lucky with not being forced to camp- not that she was complaining). The night was still young- perhaps there was something Delaney could do to redeem what had been an overall not very good day. All of those people on the street had to have something to do, right?

After placing the three pokeballs and the room key in her trainer's bag, Delaney walked out of the Pokemon Center, glancing around. The lofts and cobbled streets gave Nacrene an artsy feel to it. She smiled to herself as she paced away from the Pokemon Center. Musicians played outside of door frames and fluorescent bulbs lit up galleries filled with pictures of people and pokemon. "It's you again," she heard said behind her, but she ignored it. She had met so few people that it wasn't really possible that the speaker could be talking to her. She continued to walk, and passed the gym, which was still brightly lit up. Maybe the leader would still be ready to battle… Maybe that was where she should be heading.

"Christa, right?" The voice was back. Delaney spun around, only to see the guy with long mint green hair that she had battled in Accumula- her first Unova battle. His name was… N, if she was remembering correctly, though she was sure she wasn't, because after all, who only had a single letter for a name?

"Right," she said with a small smile. She hadn't realized she had made a big enough impression on anybody to have them remember her. "And you're N. We battled in Accumula." Or at least she hoped he was N. If he wasn't, this was about to become very embarrassing.

"I remember you," he stated. Delaney couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not. "Your pokemon spoke to me. I'd like to hear their voices again, if that's okay with you."

Delaney wasn't sure if this was some sort of act, or if this guy really believed that he could somehow really understand her pokemon that well. She often got the drift of what Perry and Charlie were trying to communicate to her, but she wasn't even remotely under the impression that she could understand them, or that they "spoke to her" without ever speaking. Somehow, she found herself playing along with him, saying "sure, but this time it won't be such an easy battle" (and then inwardly cringing at how stupid the words that she had actually spoken aloud were- apparently the clichés spouted off by Cheren in the cave had somehow sunk into her vocabulary).

N was frowning as he grabbed a pokeball and released a small blue and black tadpole. "Trainers are so quick to battle," he said softly with an air of disapproval on his breath. Delaney also frowned as she took out her pokedex to check out the unknown pokemon. She didn't understand how he could be so critical of trainers battling when he himself had pokemon and battled. Capturing pokemon only to make friends with them (as he had claimed during their first battle) was one thing, but it had been N who had challenged her to battle the first time. That made him no better than she was.

"It didn't take you too long to agree to the battle," Delaney pointed out as she checked back at her pokedex, which informed her that her opponent's pokemon was called tympole, and it was a water-type pokemon known as "the tadpole pokemon" (she never would've guessed). Thinking for but a second, she called out Charlie, who was wagging his stubby tail as he was released, a determined glint in his small eyes. Since battling Cilan in Striaton, Charlie had battled with a new sense of focus, one that Delaney was pretty grateful for. There was no doubt in either her brain, or Charlie's, that this tympole would soon be done for.

As Charlie slid back, unable to battle any longer, he was still wagging that tail at her. Delaney smiled at him, told him he had done a wonderful job and recalled him back so that he could rest. The timburr that had knocked Charlie flat was eagerly preparing to continue battle, but his trainer had a look of wide-eyed concern written all over his face. "Is he going to be okay?"

Delaney looked up at him. "Charlie? He'll be fine. A little resting and he'll be brand new," she said with a smile.

"How can you claim to care about your pokemon when you just let them get hurt over and over?" N asked, his tone becoming angry.

"Charlie's just tired, and maybe a little bruised up. He needs to rest and heal up and then he'll be fine," Delaney stated indignantly. "I care very much about my pokemon. How about you, N? You just commanded your timburr to attack my lillipup. Don't you love all pokemon? Why do you battle then?"

"Release one of your other pokemon." It was a statement, not a question.

"Excuse me?"

"One of your non-injured pokemon. Release one of them, so I can speak with them." N was adamant.

There was no sense in fighting further. Delaney grabbed both pokeballs of her other pokemon and released both Perry and Dibs. "Here. Converse all you want, N," Delaney stated with a roll of her eyes.

N bent down to wear Perry and Dibs stood, both clearly confused. "Can I ask you some questions about your trainer?" N said softly. Delaney was surprised by the change in his tone of voice. No longer was there frustration or indignance- just a bit of a childish giggle, and a smile as he continued to speak in a low voice. The two small pokemon were animated as they made noise and waved their small arms.

And the more they spoke, the quicker N's smile faded.

"I don't understand," he said, more to himself than anyone.

"N, by battling, we become friends with pokemon. We help them unlock their potential and they help us unlock our own," Delaney explained.

"Do you really believe that your oshawott is happier with you than it would have been with its family?" N asked, his voice becoming angry again.

"I don't know that. I do know that he lived in a pokemon lab before I got him and he was spending his time in a pokeball on a shelf and yes, I believe he's happier with me than he was on that shelf." Delaney paused, taking a deep breath. "I'm not the best trainer, N. I'm sometimes impatient and sometimes, yes, I push my pokemon too hard. But I know they're my friends first and foremost. Some trainers don't think like that. You probably encountered some of them and that's why you are how you are, and I'm sorry. Those trainers didn't deserve to have pokemon."

With that, N grabbed a pokeball and recalled his timburr, who had been looking at him quizzically since N had ceased to battle and began talking instead. "I'm sorry, my friends," he muttered.

"N, what are you doing?" Delaney asked.

"I don't want to battle anymore," was all he said, and with that, he walked off, leaving Delaney, Perry and Dibs to stare after him in utter confusion.

"What?" was all Delaney could say. In all of her time training, she had never once had her opponent just walk off in the middle of the match. For some reason that she couldn't explain, Delaney felt sorry for him.

"Still talking to yourself?" came another voice from behind her. Delaney spun around, only to see the trainer with the lillipup that she had battled before reaching Striaton City (Cream was her name, if Delaney remembered correctly) leaning against the post of a nearby building. "You've gotten a lot better. I'd challenge you myself if I didn't see the way that guy's timburr totally smashed down on your lillipup. He's a weirdo."

"Were you watching the whole thing?" Delaney asked, a bit unnerved. The idea that somebody had been watching her without her knowledge scared her. And why didn't N say something? From where he was standing, Cream had been directly in his sightline.

"What can I say, a random street battle was the closest thing to entertainment here," she said with a smirk, shrugging her thin shoulders "Even better when I saw it was you battling. I was hoping I'd see you lose, but unfortunately I didn't get that pleasure. I can't believe that kid just walked off in the middle of your battle."

"It was… definitely weird," Delaney muttered. "Are you here to battle the gym? Maybe we can battle tomorrow as practice."

Cream laughed. "Gym? Please. I've never seen the point in battling them. You train, and you stress and you agonize over what? A shiny hunk of metal? I find much more worthy things to fill my time."

"And what would that be?" Delaney asked, genuinely curious. She had taken the green-haired girl's words to heart- she remembered all too well wondering why she was doing the gym challenge in Sinnoh, when none of the badges ever seemed to matter to her.

The smirk on her face vanished. "I… I don't know," she admitted. And then the scowl returned. "But the badge thing? A waste of time. Do you know how few trainers actually complete all eight and get to the Pokemon League?" Yes, Delaney did know. Out of all the trainers she had battled, only herself, Dax and a small handful of others actually made it all the way. "You have to have a special kind of talent for that, and you're not going to get there by winning just because your opponent walks off."

"Well good thing I can win with my opponent still present at the end," Delaney said with a grin. "You proved to me a few days ago that I could do that."

Cream rolled her eyes. "That was a fluke," she said. Cream appeared to think for a moment, and then moved from the pole that she had been leaning on. "I've got to get to Castelia by the end of the night," she said finally. "I hope that gym leader really lays into you."

And with that, the green-haired girl was gone.

Delaney looked down at Perry and Dibs, who were still standing there, rather puzzled. "Well, it seems like every time we go out for some fun, we get interrupted," she said with a chuckle. "Let's just go back to the Pokemon Center. This has been a rather eventful evening." The two trailed behind Delaney as she began to head back.

Eventful evening indeed.

There they stood, all in a line. Their voices were low, and their attention so focused that they hadn't even heard Delaney walking up towards them. They were plotting something, but she didn't know what, nor did she want to know. Delaney figured the forest adjacent to Nacrene would be the best place to train for her upcoming battle at the gym, but with Team Plasma there, there was no chance in hell that Delaney was going to get the training she needed there. Besides, with their line formation, there was no way for her to get past them.

She headed back in the direction of Nacrene, only to notice a small patch of grass that she hadn't noticed on her way into the forest. She also noticed that the patch of grass wasn't lined on the side opposite of her by trees, but by open space. Perhaps she had a place she could train after all…

Delaney had one hand on the pokeball that contained Perry as she wandered through the grass. To her surprise, it was not open space on the other side- it was more grass and a large boulder, where a person in an oversized blue jacket and straight, shoulder-length dark brown hair was sitting. As Delaney got closer, she realized that it was a girl, and that she wasn't alone. Also on the boulder sat three small brown pokemon, with beady black eyes and buck teeth. A wide smile came across Delaney's face. Though they had once been the bane of her existence traveling in Sinnoh, Delaney had never been so happy to see them.

"Bidoof? Do they have those here?" she asked herself aloud, but the girl's head popped up. Delaney had apparently gotten her attention.

"No, they're from Sinnoh," she responded. "I brought them here with me." The girl looked thoughtful for a moment. "That's the first time anybody has recognized them. You're not from around here." It was a statement, not a question.

"No, I'm from Sinnoh," Delaney admitted, her face turning red. Why had she opened her stupid mouth? What if she had just totally blown her cover to this complete stranger? Oh, her father would be furious. "I'm Christa White," she added, as if that would make up for her slip.

"I'm Paul," the girl said simply. Wasn't that a boy's name? Oh well, wasn't Delaney's concern.

"I didn't think anybody would train bidoof here," Delaney stated. "They're not exactly… native." She had almost slipped and said special, seeing as how there were a million and one of them in Sinnoh, and almost every rookie trainer had one. Why anybody would want to train three of them in a land where there were so many more potentially cool pokemon (well, maybe- it wasn't like Delaney knew about more than a small handful of them) was a mystery to her.

"I don't train them," the girl explained, putting the emphasis on train. "I'm a bidoof coordinator."

"A what?" Delaney asked. She had heard of coordinators in places like Hoenn, but those had to do with contests, and Delaney hadn't cared much for them back in Sinnoh, but a… Bidoof coordinator? Did they really have those now?

"A bidoof coordinator," she explained, her tone growing impatient. "Nobody understands how really great they are." With that, she beckoned to the three bidoof on the boulder. "Show her what we've been working on, guys!"

The three pokemon just sat on the boulder, blinking up at the girl, who was turning quite a shade of red. "Cinn, Jin, Lynn… Come on. Please?" But the bidoof were unrelentless in their quest to do absolutely nothing. She turned back to Delaney. "They don't like me much," she explained, a bit embarrassed.

"Mine are still getting used to me, too," Delaney explained understandingly. "So you're not a trainer then? You don't battle?"

"Well, I have a timburr, but he doesn't like to listen to me either," she stated a bit sadly. "If we battled, it'd be an easy win for you, but I guess trainers like to win so we can battle if you want."

Delaney shook her head. "No, that's okay," she said. "Can I ask why you're a coordinator and not a trainer? Don't all kids want to grow up and be the best trainer ever?" Delaney certainly had. It had taken her awhile to begin her journey, but she had dreamed of being a gym leader or elite 4 member since she was little. Most trainers she knew had been aspiring to greatness since a young age as well.

"Well, I really want to be a ranger," the girl confided. "I went to ranger school and everything. I saw a bidoof there for the first time when we were doing practice battles. Nobody else wanted to use Bidoof, but I thought they were so cool. I realized that before I become an official ranger, I want the world to see Bidoof the way I do. So I got Cin, Lynn and Jin and headed off here."

To have that sort of passion about anything was enviable to Delaney. Once upon a time, she had felt so strongly about battling, back in the days where it had just been her, Blitzkrieg (back when he was an unnamed chimchar), Samuel and a random psyduck named Quackers that she had picked up in hopes of beating Roark (he had eventually gone to stay in her father's garden). Back in those days, her badges really meant something to her. In the last six months, she hadn't been able to find anything that made her feel quite so alive. The look on this girl's face as she talked about her dreams- Delaney envied it.

Delaney smiled at the girl. "I hope you get what you want," she said to her.

"Are you doing the gym challenge?" the girl asked Delaney.

"Yeah. I'm on badge number two," Delaney told her.

"Good luck," the girl said with a smile. "I met Lenora when I visited the museum. She's really nice, but I hear she's tough."

"Good," Delaney said with a grin. "I sure hope so." She paused. "I hope I run into you again somewhere, but if I don't, good luck on your journey. I'm sure you'll make a great coordinator."

"Thanks," the girl said as she turned to the three bidoof on the rock again. "We have a lot of practice ahead of us, guys." Still the three of them sat, looking puzzled at the girl.

And with that, Delaney headed further into the grass. Her hand had never left Perry's pokeball and now, she grabbed the ball and released the small otter pokemon. She also let Dibs and Charlie out. "Come on guys, we have a lot of work today. We're going to beat Lenora tonight," she said with a smile. To believe in something so strongly… Maybe that's what Delaney was searching for on this journey. Passion, determination, strength… and something to believe in, something worth fighting for.

A grey and white bird (Delaney recognized it as a pidove) landed right in from of Dibs, who looked up at her eagerly, ready for sparring. "Let's go!" she shouted with a smile on her face.

Author's Note (12/27): Before I say anything else, I would like to give a HUGE thank you to two people who have really been a huge help writing this story: YamiRuss, an awesome reviewer, has been going through my outlines and such and helping me out with plotting, and Noteleks, another awesome reviewer whose story I'm beta-ing (Gotta Steal Em All? Johto- read it. Seriously.), has been helping me refine ideas that I've been quite hesistant about, as well as giving me constant motivation and encouragement. These two are AWESOME. Thank you both so much for your help! In other news- I'm a day later than I intended to be, so I'm so sorry! Chapter 11 will be much quicker. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Lastly, note two OC appearances in this chapter- Cream, who we've seen before, still belongs to maddiepink5, and Paul, the bidoof coordinator, belongs to Sunbean. This isn't the last we'll be seeing of either of the two.

Thank you to all of you who continue to read and review. I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for the feedback, whether it's negative or positive. Thanks! (: