Episode 14: Honey and water

"Alright wartortle, just like we practiced. Water pulse!" Brittany shouted. The turtle pokémon attempted to conjure yet another glowing blue orb of water, this time in front of himself instead of above its head. The orb suddenly burst in between wartortle's hands with hardly any effort. "Dammit!" She said in frustration. She looked at her first pokémon, who seemed a little dejected by the outburst, and calmed down. "Sorry…I'm just mad that we can't seem to get this right."

Since leaving Eterna City, Brittany has spent much of her time trying to teach wartortle water pulse, and with little luck. Occasionally it looked like the water type might have figured it out, but shortly thereafter the orb would burst without being directed at any particular target. On one unfortunate occasion, wartortle accidentally shot it at Lauren and chimchar, who were busy working on fire swipes. The orb burst, dousing the two, and certainly pissing off the chimp pokémon, who rushed at wartortle and attacked it with fury swipes. Nevertheless, Brittany and wartortle persisted.

Meanwhile, Niko and JJ were also eager to try their hand at water pulse, teaching it to piplup and azumarill, respectively. Like with Brittany, however, the two trainers and their water type pokémon found the move difficult to learn, and much less to teach.

All the while the four trainers were slowly making their way to Hearthome City. After an incident along the foggy route 206, JJ sprained his ankle and found himself on a crutch for the following few days as a way of balancing out the exertion caused from walking all day. The slow pace of their travels also gave the four of them an opportunity to train for their upcoming competitions in Hearthome City.

The trip would take them east along route 207 until they hit Mt. Coronet, a massive mountain range that split the Sinnoh region in half. Not wanting to travel along it through the night, the group opted to camp out on the western edge of the mountains and continue in the morning. It was at this point that Brittany had her small outburst over water pulse.

She sat down against a nearby tree trunk and eased her breathing as a means of further calming down while she watched the other three training their pokémon. Wartortle sat down next to her, still looking disappointed.

"I understand it isn't easy buddy," Brittany admitted. "This is definitely one of the harder moves we've had to learn up until now. Somehow, even skull bash was easier. But…I guess maybe that's because you don't naturally learn water pulse, do you?" Wartortle shook its head after thinking it over. "Yeah, that's what I thought. But we can't give up, especially when piplup and azumarill are learning it too, right? We can't let them beat us!"

Wartortle cheered in response, and tried clasping Brittany's hand. They got back up and began trying again for another half an hour when everyone stopped for the day to eat and get to sleep before traversing Mt. Coronet in the morning.

"So…do we go over it?" Brittany asked, looking up at the steep mountain range in front of her.

"No, we can't do that. Mt. Coronet goes up pretty high. At least, high enough that it snows pretty heavily at the top," Lauren noted.

"Well, then can we go around it?" Niko proposed. Leaning on his crutches to look at their map, JJ simply shook his head.

"Also no. Mt. Coronet cuts through most of the region. We'd have to go further south than…well, Sandgem Town to get across. And then to reach Hearthome we'd have to go back that same distance. It'd take weeks to do that, I guess."

"So we just go through it, then?" Brittany asked. "I don't see any cave entrances anywhere."

The group then split up to look for a way through the cavern, eventually finding one roughly a hundred yards north of their campsite. After packing up, the group slowly made their way into the cavern.

Unlike the cave from route 206, the inside of Mt. Coronet certainly didn't look man-made, but was far more spacious. The group had initially entered through an uneven tunnel, but eventually hit a large chamber half a mile into the mountain. In the chamber were small lakes and ponds on the bottom with stalactite-shaped rock formations of varying shapes and sizes lining the ceiling.

Inching their way forward, the four of them walked for some time through the chamber, eventually taking a break by one of the lakes on the opposite end of the chamber. While the other pokémon ate, Brittany and wartortle took the opportunity to practice water pulse, as did Niko and piplup, and JJ and azumarill. The three stood along the lake's edge and watched as their water pokémon practiced moving the water around, trying to bend it into the shape of an orb. Wartortle was the first to accomplish this, but his burst immediately after. Piplup and azumarill succeeded in making their orbs last long enough to launch them, but they burst relatively quickly afterwards. They all kept this up for some time before they began to get hungry and took a break, also allowing their trainers, now also somewhat exhausted, to eat as well.

"Geez, you weren't kidding, Brittany," JJ said as he removed his crutches and sat on a nearby rock, "That's a difficult move to learn. I feel exhausted just watching azumarill figure it out."

Brittany nodded wildly in response. "Yeah! That's why I keep getting frustrated! But I think it's because our pokémon might not naturally learn that move. Think about it, my wartortle knows skull bash, and that move was easier to learn than water pulse. But that shouldn't be the case, right?"

JJ pulled out his pokédex, interested in learning this. "Well, piplup doesn't learn it. Azumarill doesn't learn it. But…wartortle does. Huh…wonder why…" He put away his pokédex, genuinely curious. "Either way, it doesn't matter. All three of us are going to learn this move with our pokémon, regardless of how natural it might be, got it?"

Brittany nodded, smiling from JJ's affirmation. Meanwhile, Lauren and chimchar were training on their own, still attempting to figure out fire swipes. For a few days now, it seemed like chimchar was finally starting to understand it, with its hands now lighting on fire from the ember. The problem was, it wasn't lasting long enough—extinguishing itself after one or two swipes, which wasn't as effective.

"She's getting it…" Niko muttered to himself as he watched Lauren and chimchar practice. For whatever reason, he kept gazing at the blue-haired woman, watching her as she instructed chimchar or watched it use its move. She seemed more confident about it after their talk a few days prior, and it pleased Niko to see it.

After another round of training, the group continued on through Mt. Coronet and, after a few more hours of walking through tunnel after tunnel, eventually reached the other side. As they stepped onto route 208, according to JJ's Pokétch, they took a quick break on the mountain ledge. To their left was a waterfall that crashed down along the side of the mountain and fed into a large lake nearly a hundred feet below. There were bridges that allowed travelers to cross along smaller mountains that would lead them safely into the valley below, where a large forest awaited them a couple miles away.

By sunset, the group made it to the bottom of the mountain and into the valley, near the edge of the forest. Once more, they trained for a bit, but with little success relative to what they accomplished earlier in the day. As they went to bed, Brittany sat wartortle's pokéball next to her, suddenly feeling a closer connection to the turtle pokémon than before. Occasionally she would do this when she felt in danger or needed company. And, compared to her other pokémon, wartortle had by far the strongest bond with her, and that wouldn't break.

The following morning, Brittany and wartortle got up early to continue their training on the edge of the forest. Wartortle spent time practicing water pulse on the trees closest to their camp. However, it simply wasn't able to hit the tree. After half an hour, Niko and piplup joined in, practicing on the tree to wartortle's immediate left.

"Alright wartortle, we'll use it one more time, but after that, we should eat something and get going. We're a couple days away from Hearthome City by now."

"JJ estimates only a day, actually," Niko said, not turning to look at Brittany and instead focusing on piplup. Just as Niko finished speaking, wartortle slammed a blue orb of water into the tree trunk, creating an explosion of water that splashed across the bark of the trunk and onto the ground, as if the turtle pokémon had thrown a water balloon at it. Seeing this, piplup immediately picked up the pace and attempted it once more, also getting it correct and splashing the tree as well.

"Great job, wartortle!" Brittany cheered. "We finally did it! Now, let's try it aga—huh?"

A small orange, hexagonal-shaped creature collapsed on the ground, falling on one of its two transparent wings. Before she could run to examine it, the brunette was stopped by a loud buzzing noise emanating from the top of the trees above them. Suddenly, a large yellow cloud erupted from the trees. It looked like the wall of honeycomb with small black specks littered across them, similar to the smaller orange pokémon that fell from the tree. "Uh…Niko, JJ, Lauren…we've got a problem…"

JJ was the first to respond, as he was trying to fix up some pokémon food. "Brittany, what'd you—oh my god," He said in both fear and surprise as he turned and saw a massive wall of orange hexagons towering over them, blocking out the sun. Instinctively, he pulled out azumarill, growlithe, shroomish, and umbreon, ready to fight. As he did so, the wall crumbled into smaller hexagons, all the same size as the pokémon that Brittany saw fall from the tree. Immediately, JJ also pulled out his pokédex:

"Combee, the tiny bee pokémon. Bug and flying type. The trio is together from birth. It constantly gathers honey from flowers to please vespiquen."

"Vespiquen, huh? Must be the queen of these bees…" JJ observed before shouting out commands from his pokémon. Lauren, who was standing several yards behind him, also relied on chimchar, haunter, and roselia to fend off the attackers. Niko and piplup, and Brittany and wartortle joined in, but the effort was pointless, as the vespiquen revealed itself sooner than they imagined.

The bug type—which took the shape of a queen bee, only standing vertically in the air, moved its small black arms forward, causing the combee to rush at them. Once more the attacks flew back and forth.

It was then that Niko decided to simply take out the vespiquen. "Piplup, we're going for the queen. Use bubble!"

The penguin pokémon shot a stream of bubbles at the beehive pokémon, who blocked itself with a small wall of combees, again manipulating the small trio of bees using its hands. Biting his finger, Niko then ordered piplup to try water pulse again, which nearly hit, but vespiquen dodged the move. Seeing this, Brittany and wartortle joined Niko.

"What if we both tried to use water pulse, at the same time?" She suggested

"Worth a shot. Piplup!"

"Wartortle!"

"Use water pulse!" They shouted simultaneously. The penguin and turtle pokémon both conjured glowing blue orbs of water and launched them upwards at an angle towards vespiquen. The beehive pokémon once again blocked itself with combee, but the combined powers of the individual water pulses broke the wall, knocking the combee out of the air and into the trees below. Leaving vespiquen vulnerable to attack, Niko and Brittany both commanded the move again, only this time they heard a third person join in.

"Azumarill, water pulse!" JJ commanded. The aqua rabbit pokémon also conjured a blue orb of water and launched it, albeit with less power. The combined force of the triple attack was enough to knock vespiquen out of the air and into the forest below it. Seeing their queen injured, the horde of combee retreated back into the forest.

The group all collapsed onto the ground alongside their pokémon, all exhausted from the fight, knowing well enough that part of it was due to the sheer fear of having to fight the large bees and their even larger queen.

"Great job, guys," Niko said, throwing a thumbs up to each of them, including Lauren and chimchar, who smiled back with a tired look. "Piplup, you did amazing. You learned water pulse!"

"Pip! Pip-lup!" It said proudly, puffing out its chest. JJ and Brittany said the same to their pokémon, who also expressed feelings of pride.

"Oh, Brittany, look," JJ said, pointing back to the tree wartortle was practicing on earlier. "There's one left."

Standing up, Brittany and Niko, alongside their pokémon, ran over to examine the abandoned combee. Lifting it up, Brittany noticed one of its wings was bent at an awkward angle. She turned and walked back to the group to show them.

"Can we fix this?" Brittany asked. JJ and Lauren both looked at it, and seemed to shake their heads.

"We can't, but maybe a Nurse Joy can?" Lauren replied with bemusement.

"Well, I'm not just going to leave it here. Combee, we can help fix you up, but we'll need to take you to Hearthome City first. Is that alright?"

The tiny bee pokémon looked at Brittany, all three of its faces showing expressions of pain and sadness. Eventually, it nodded, and the brunette placed it on the ground.

"Let's feed it first, and then we need to get to Hearthome as quickly as we can," She said. The other three nodded, and as soon as they finished eating they walked off into the forest, not stopping for lengthy breaks like they had been since leaving Mira's town.

Once in Hearthome City, the group rushed to the Pokémon Center, which was close to the middle of the city, and therefore another half an hour trek. Once inside, Brittany hurriedly placed combee on the front desk, alerting a seemingly bored-looking Nurse Joy of her presence.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" She asked in a pleasant, yet slightly concerned, tone.

"Please, I found this wild combee's wing all bent out of shape, and I was wondering if you could fix it for me."

Nurse Joy examined the wing before looking up and nodding with a smile. "Of course we can. Is it your pokémon, or was it wild?" Brittany responded again with the latter, and Joy nodded again. "Let me take it out of your hands. I'll let you know when I'm done with it."

Brittany nodded, and walked over to one of the couches in the lounge, where the other three trainers were sitting, with JJ's egg in Lauren's lap, as she had grown accustomed to holding over the past few days.

The wait for combee took longer than expected, but eventually Nurse Joy walked out of one of the emergency rooms with a combee happily floating at her waist level. Brittany turned, noticed it, and got out of her seat to greet the combee.

"You're looking better—and happier, too."

"Indeed. The wing wasn't too difficult to fix up. You were wise to bring it here. Combee's wings are very fragile, and require a very careful operation to mend. But we were fortunate enough to get it done, and combee was very willing to let us work on it."

"Well, guess it's good-bye then, combee," Brittany said, turning to lead it out of the Pokémon Center. However, the tiny bee pokémon didn't seem to want to leave. "You're coming…right?"

"It looks like it wants to stay, Brittany," Lauren observed, standing up and walking over to the combee. "Do you want to stay with Brittany and the rest of us?"

Combee responded by hovering over to Brittany and floating by its side, evidently choosing its side. A little surprised, Brittany accepted this conclusion and caught a pokéball that Niko tossed over to her. Crouching down to combee's level, she placed the pokéball against it, and the tiny bee went into the ball before wiggling around in her palm and ultimately clicking.

Brittany smiled as she stood back up and turned to her friends and Nurse Joy, whispering a "thank you" to the nurse, who nodded and walked back behind her desk to continue working. Looking over to her friends, she added, "Time to eat? I'm pretty hungry, I don't know about you guys. And, Lauren, we've got a contest to prepare for in the morning."

Lauren smiled with a look of determination evident in her eyes. "You got that right!"