Inspiration

The hike through Route 228 wasn't so bad, the next day. Cynthia had certainly been through worse terrain before. The sandstorm that often brewed around the area was slightly calmer that day but was still raging the vicinity, regardless. Behind her, Steven didn't look all too fazed by the strong gusts of wind that blew sand into the air from time to time. He had provided them both with a pair of go-goggles to fend off the sand blowing all around them.

She had Garchomp walking in front of them, striding through the sand easily and actually appearing to be enjoying the sandstorm occurring. She noticed Steven staring curiously at the dragon-type and explained, "Garchomp is a half ground-type, so sandstorms don't affect her at all."

He appeared impressed. Even she had been perplexed upon first finding out the pokémon's mixed typing. Upon looking the pokémon, she would have guessed it to be a dragon-type, but never a ground-type mix.

But Steven blinked and asked, "Wait, it's a 'she'?"

As if on pure instinct, Garchomp jerked its head towards its trainer's companion and glared. Cynthia saw Steven flinch back in surprise and promptly went over to rub her pokémon's back affectionately to calm it down.

"It's all right, Garchomp," she murmured softly. Garchomp looked back at the champion, bowed its head apologetically, and then returned to walking ahead of them. She turned back to Steven and said, "You can tell they're female by the dorsal fin on their backs. Male Garchomps have a slight notch in them, while the females don't." She gestured to her pokémon's back and no doubt, he saw what she was referring to.

"How interesting," he said and turned towards the pseudo-legendary. "Forgive me for my careless comment earlier. I…didn't mean to sound so blunt."

Her Garchomp glanced at him for a fleeting second but then turned back forward. If she didn't know any better, Cynthia could sense that her pokémon didn't seem too fond of Steven – which wasn't uncommon, regarding new people they'd meet. Garchomp only ever respected a few individuals, which only included herself, her grandparents, and her younger sister. Steven would have to prove himself worthy if he wanted to earn its trust.

"Don't worry so much about it," she told him. "Garchomp's a little sensitive on these kinds of matters, since there aren't many people out there who can differentiate between the genders of her species. Plus, male Garchomps seem to be more prevalent on trainers' teams nowadays." She smiled at the dragon-type looking back at her. "It just goes to show that she's one of a kind, really."

With approval, her Garchomp nodded with a growl at its trainer's words of praise.

They continued onward for a bit before Steven was curious to ask, "So, where are we going exactly? I'm not entirely sure why you suggested I should check this route out when all I see are sand and boulders everywhere."

Cynthia looked at him and only smiled knowingly. "You'll see when we get there."

From past visits to the route, she and her pokémon had previously located a hidden cave somewhere in the middle of the desert-like terrain. She had frequented the cave before when trying to seek solace from the raging winds, but upon exploring further into the cave, they discovered some glittering stones protruding from within the rock walls.

She had tipped it to the former champion in hopes that he would be able to locate it on his own and see the stones himself. But in the end, Steven ended up calling and asking her to accompany him to which she gladly agreed. She'd been curious to see what the mystery stones in that cave were the moment she saw them, but had very little knowledge in the art of excavation, herself.

It was past noon by the time they got halfway through the route. They'd been walking for almost two hours, and though it felt like a long period of time, they were making good time so far. Cynthia had heard of stories of people taking almost an entire day to walk from one end of the route to the other – possibly because they were walking in circles. The area was pretty straightforward for her to easily memorize the exact location of the cave's entrance.

A little while later she finally saw the small landslide that would take them down to the cave's entrance. Steven went down first, followed by her, while Garchomp merely jumped off the cliff and landed on the ground below them, with a light thump from the sand's cushioning effect. Cynthia called her pokémon back inside its poké ball when they stood in front of the entrance. And once Steven realized she was taking him to see a cave, he laughed heartily.

"A cave in the middle of the desert?" He grinned at her. "I suppose Hoenn and Sinnoh are pretty similar in more ways than I thought."

She raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

"There's also a cave somewhere in the middle of Hoenn's desert," he replied, "which is said to have the legendary Regirock sleeping inside."

"Well," she began as they walked inside. She took off her go-goggles while Steven walked beside her, already holding a flashlight to light the way in front of them. "I'm afraid there aren't any legendary pokémon in here. Just rocks."

He instantly perked up. "Rocks?"

She smirked at his sudden enthusiasm. "If we go a little deeper inside, you'll see what I'm talking about."

Indeed, once they reached the end of the cave, Cynthia pointed to specific areas on the cave walls where small stones protruded from them, many producing different colours whenever Steven shined light on them.

"These look interesting," Steven muttered as he surveyed the whole area with his flashlight. "I'll have to excavate them to see what kind of rocks they are, though."

He was beyond amazed at this point, she could see by his delighted smile. He handed her the flashlight for her to hold while he set his backpack down and rummaged through it to find the necessary tools he needed to begin his excavation.

If it were left up to her, she would probably have resorted to just having her Garchomp simply hack away at the walls. However, seeing as how they were inside a cavern, there was a possible chance that the walls could collapse and cave in from the strong force delivered by the powerful blows. It was certainly best to just leave this kind of stuff to the experts.

Steven rolled up the sleeves to his shirt up to his elbows and slipped on a pair of thick gloves over his hands, as well as some protective glasses over his eyes. He handed her a similar pair and warned her, "Put these on and stand back a bit."

He picked up some sort of hammer tool from his backpack that appeared quite heavy with its massive steel head. How Steven was able to carry that thing in his backpack (on his back, no less) was beyond her. Nonetheless, she did as told, keeping a few feet away from him but also held up the light near the area he was going to dig in. Then, to her astonishment, he swung the hammer into the wall horizontally, with great force, causing debris and rocks to crumble from the area he smashed. He repeated the action several times; the sound of the hammer striking the rock wall being the only sound that resonated through the cave.

Once he finished, Steven set the hammer down and waited for the cloud of dust to clear away.

And Cynthia saw, in absolute fascination, that by hacking away at the walls like he did, it exposed the glittering stones better than before. And by doing so, there appeared to be even more stones hidden beneath that were encased in the rock than she initially thought before Steven hammered away. Though they all were still embedded into the wall, they could see clearly what kinds of stones they were now.

"Amazing," she found herself saying as she moved closer to where he stood. He grinned at her reaction.

"Look here." Steven pointed to a few of the glittering stones and explained to her what they were with great detail. Some of the stones he named she had not even heard of. Though many of them looked all similar, notably the ones with similar shades of colour, he disagreed and explained that they were completely different stones based on small nuances he was able to catch.

His extensive knowledge of the subject fascinated and inspired her immensely. There was no doubt in her mind that Steven was quite the admirable man she'd ever had the chance to become acquainted with.

"These are all very pretty," Cynthia commented as she shined the flashlight on various stones. "I've never seen so many of them grouped together like this…"

"It's rather uncommon, I suppose, but –" His attention averted elsewhere. "Oh wow, would you look at that," he suddenly said. "It looks like there are a couple of evolution stones in here, as well." Steven picked up a smaller tool next – a pickaxe – and began to carefully chip away at the bits of rock surrounding the stones.

For a while she simply stood there next to him, keeping the flashlight steady on his work site, and watched as he became deeply engrossed with the task at hand. The way his blue eyes held a hard stare, as he concentrated, and the way he would narrow them whenever he chipped at a particularly stubborn spot, set loose a flurry of tingles inside her, strangely enough. His jaw would clench every time he had to use a little more force to get a piece of rock out of the way.

But at that point, the Sinnoh champion couldn't help but simply stare at him. She found that he was rather attractive in this new light than she'd ever seen him in. Her eyes travelled from his jawline down to his arms and watched how the firm muscles in his forearms flexed ever so slightly when he moved. If his sleeves were rolled up a little bit higher she'd probably be able to see the rest of the muscles along his arm and –

"Aha! Got it!"

Cynthia jumped at Steven's sudden outburst of excitement, which he happened to catch when he turned to her. "O-Oh, my apologies, did I scare you?" he asked her with concern.

Her cheeks were probably as hot as the sun when she realized she had been practically checking him out the entire time he was working. She couldn't believe herself. He could have turned to her at any given moment during those few minutes and catch her simply staring at him, which thankfully was not the case here, had she not been so lucky.

Cynthia tried to compose herself, attempting – but failing miserably – to calm her rapid heart beating against her ribcage. Her words ended up coming out in an uncharacteristic stutter, "N-No, no, I'm fine! Just keep going."

He only blinked once. "I'm done, though."

"Oh."

Silence fell between them.

If he had noticed how red her cheeks were at that moment, he was certainly doing a good job at it making it look like he didn't. And if she hadn't been so busy fantasizing about the man before her, she wouldn't be feeling so embarrassed and ashamed right now. How could she have been so careless?

So I changed the pace a little and had this prompt told through Cynthia's point of view instead (it's her turn to feel embarrassed now!).

Also, the cave I mentioned is kind of made up, hehe. I realized that Rock Peak Ruins is the only cave located in Route 228 only after I finished writing this and I didn't exactly want to revise the whole thing because it was already done.

One last thing! To commemorate reaching 10 chapters so far, I'm going to reveal how many chapters this fic is going to have. Ready for it?

There will be...one hundred. No joke, you read that correctly. 100 on the dot. Now you all know why I said I was probably crazy for wanting to do this back in chapter 1! We're a tenth of the way there, people!

Thanks for reading everyone!