Episode Fourteen: Falkner, the Elegant Master of Flying Pokémon
A week had passed since Falkner became the official gym leader of Violet City, and for the most part he was beginning to get the hang of it. The gym trainers that he had chosen seemed like good choices, he had hired a referee, the gym passed the quality inspection that was required, and he had even had a few challengers. Most of them were too young and inexperienced, and Falkner had beaten every single one that he had faced so far. To be honest, the boy felt a little bad defeating such young challengers, some of them didn't even seem old enough to be out of elementary school. He didn't want to dash their hopes of becoming great Pokémon trainers. But most of the challengers, even when beaten, just promised to train harder and looked at Falkner as an image of dignity and power. It felt good being seen as a role model to younger children.
A sign was added outside the gym doors that read:
Violet City Pokémon Gym
Leader: Falkner, the Elegant Master of Flying Pokémon
Falkner couldn't help but snicker to himself in slight depression. Elegant? If only they had seen him in Ecruteak last week with Whitney and Morty. Elegant would be the last title they would give him. But still, Falkner was happy with the title, albeit it seeming a bit too grandiose for him.
The weirdest thing for Falkner was having people under him who worked for him. The cobalt teen was not used to having power over others. The oddest part was being called titles like "Sir", "Boss", or "Leader"; which Falkner had been called repeatedly during the past week. At first Falkner had no idea how to respond to such labels. Eventually he learned to reply immediately to those names, but sometimes he still felt slightly awkward.
Sitting on the rafters of his three-story tall gym, Falkner talked to his bird Pokémon, having a day of down time so far. The sun shone through the skylights and illuminated the neatly pruned plumage of the birds surrounding the teenage boy.
"Falkner-san! There's someone at the door!"
Falkner looked down from the rafters to see the young man addressing him. It was Toki, the gym trainer that was closest to Falkner in age, and a bit taller. The brunette had graduated from the Trainer's School of Violet City a year ago and was also the only one of Falkner's three gym trainers that called him by his name.
"A challenger?" Falkner hollered down at Toki from the rafters.
"No, I don't think so" Toki yelled back. "I think it's a gym leader."
"A what?" Falkner exclaimed in surprise, starting to climb down from the rafters by a few steel beams that held it up. Gym leader? Falkner wasn't expecting anyone.
"Is it okay if I let him in?"
"Sure."
The brunette ran to the door, said a few words to the guest, and returned with the other man.
"Hey, Bluebird." Morty waved at his lover, who froze in mid-step climbing down from the rafters upon hearing the deep voice of the blonde. Unable to keep his balance with only one foot, Falkner slipped and fell the rest of the way to the floor and hit it with a thud. Luckily, he was only a few feet above the ground when Morty surprised him.
Yeah, they definitely shouldn't have put Elegant on that sign…Falkner thought to himself in pain.
"Are…are you okay, Falkner-san?" Toki stammered, running to attend to his boss.
"I'm fine…" Falkner grumbled in irritation and embarrassment, his head on the ground and rump in the air. Morty just stood over Falkner chuckling, while Toki just looked at both of the leaders in confusion.
"That's an interesting side of you, Bluebird." Morty said, winking. Falkner bit his lip.
"Why can't you call before you come over like a normal person?" Falkner muttered, moving to get up from his position of failure.
"Because that wouldn't be nearly as much fun" Morty smirked, offering a hand to Falkner. The younger gym leader reluctantly took it, and Morty pulled Falkner onto his feet, and right into his arms. For a second Falkner relished in the feeling of Morty's embrace, but then he remembered that Toki was in the room too. Pushing Morty away, Falkner addressed Toki.
"The gym's closed for the day" Falkner said, waving his hand dismissively at Toki. "Do whatever you want."
The gym trainer took another confused look at the two boys, nodded in agreement, and hastily made his exit.
"So," Falkner said once they were alone. "Why are you here, again?"
"Do I need a reason?" Morty asked, embracing Falkner.
"Well…" Falkner said, overtaken by the hold. "Not really, but…"
"But what?" Falkner paused. Did this really matter? Morty was here. Morty. His boyfriend. His face buried in Morty's chest, Falkner inhaled the familiar scent. It was Morty. It didn't matter why he was here. All that mattered was that Falkner was in his embrace. They were in their own little world of two again, and Falkner was overjoyed.
"Nothing" Falkner murmured, returning the hug and nuzzling against Morty. "The reason doesn't matter. I'm just glad you're here."
Falkner looked up and the two boys' eyes met. Looking lovingly at his Bluebird, Morty leaned into a kiss, which Falkner graciously allowed. Lips met, tongues fought, hands roamed, all done by the boys to caress their lover, to feel, smell, and taste that familiar presence that they adored so much.
"I missed you," Falkner said in a breath between kisses. "Things just haven't been the same without you."
"It's only been a week" Morty retorted, smiling. "But yeah, I've missed you too. I've missed you so much."
"HIIIII, FALKNEEERRRR!"
Jumping in surprise, Falkner barely had time to react as Whitney appeared and jumped on the boys, forcing all three gym leaders to topple to the ground. Morty fell backwards as Falkner fell on top of him, with Whitney landing with a thud on Falkner's back.
Great. The Pink Haired Wonder was back too.
"What are you doing here?" Falkner asked in irritation, folding his arms as he paced around the room. The three had moved to the living quarters inside the Violet City gym, which consisted of a leisure room with couches and television, a kitchen area, and a small bedroom. Some of these sections were separated by walls, some weren't. Morty was lounging on a sofa and sipping a soda as Whitney sat backwards on a chair nearby, arms and chin resting on the back of the chair.
"What do you mean? I came to visit you," Whitney pouted. "You're such a whiny ingrate. Morty invited me here."
Falkner whipped his head around to glare at Morty, who quickly picked up a nearby magazine in an effort to appear to be reading, his face partially covered. He sipped on his carbonated drink.
"Figured I'd get the whole gang back together again," Morty said after a moment of silence, his face still covered by the open magazine, the Johto Trainer Enquirer. Falkner sulked in his corner, murmuring inaudible curses. He had been expecting alone time with Morty.
"Oh! Is that the new issue?" Whitney exclaimed at the magazine Morty was holding, and snatched it out of his hand. Falkner's attention was shifted now to her and the journal. He didn't remember having any magazines in his gym. And he definitely wasn't subscribed to the Johto Trainer Enquirer.
"Yep," Morty said, sitting up and sitting his drink on a nearby table. "I brought it here to show you, Falkner. It's what I wanted you both to see."
This comment made Falkner suddenly curious about the magazine. He watched Whitney scan through the pages fervently, until she finally came upon what she was looking for.
"AHA!" The girl shouted in excitement. "Falkner! Morty! Here it is!"
The two boys gathered around the triumphant and giddy girl to see the pages she was pointing at. "Violet and Goldenrod's New Faces", the title read. Underneath was the subtitle "After a period of hiatus, both cities return to the gym business with promising rookie leaders". The article was several pages long, and included quotes from many people, including Falkner and Whitney, as well as their pictures that Falkner did not remember posing for or allowing it to be published in print. His brow furrowed as he tried to figure out where exactly the picture came from. At least it wasn't an embarrassing photo. Suddenly it hit Falkner that now he might have to keep an eye out for paparazzi. This idea displeased him. A constant flash of light and noise of nosy people did not appeal to the blue haired teen.
Whitney, on the other hand, was ecstatic.
"Look!" she squealed. "We're total celebrities now!" She kicked her feet excitedly and smiled.
"Falkner, the Elegant Master of Flying Pokémon" Morty read aloud the title under Falkner's name.
"Pfft!" Whitney giggled. "THAT's your title?"
"I didn't choose it!" Falkner protested. "Someone just wrote that down and they went with it!"
"Well, I did mine," Whitney said proudly. She pointed at the section about her where she was labeled "Whitney, the Incredibly Pretty Girl".
"What?" Falkner interjected. "What kind of title is that?"
"An awesome and accurate one, that's what." Whitney said in response, still smiling smugly.
"But it doesn't say anything about your gym!" Falkner seriously did not understand this girl sometimes. How were trainers supposed to prepare for her when they didn't even know what sort of battle to expect?
"No, but it says everything about me." Whitney said. "Everything important, that is."
"What, that you're an idiot on an ego trip?" Falkner mumbled under his breath.
"What?"
"Hey, hey, hey," Morty said, breaking up the inevitable feud between the two newbie leaders. "Honestly, in the end, it doesn't really matter what the title on the sign says. All that's important is the town and leader's name. Nobody really cares what comes afterward. I mean, it's common knowledge what towns have what type gyms. If somebody new doesn't know, I'm sure there are plenty of other ways they will naturally find out what kind of battle to expect."
"What's your title, then?" Whitney asked curiously.
"Morty, the Mystic Seer of the Future. Like Falkner, somebody else made the title before me and I just went along with it."
"You can see the future?" Falkner asked confusedly.
"No, not really," Morty chuckled. "The title was made by some idiot who can't tell the difference between communicating with ghosts and predicting the future."
"And the Ecruteak elders didn't throw a fit?" Falkner thought that the council of elders that Morty had to deal with was made up of a bunch of angry senile old prunes, at least from the information Morty had told him about them.
"Surprisingly, no." Morty said. "I guess they had worse things to get their diapers in a bunch about."
The trio continued chatting nonchalantly about the various aspects of their jobs as gym leaders and things that had happened over the past week. Eventually Whitney and Morty began discussing some new singer or actress that Falkner didn't know or care about, so he tuned them out and flipped through the copy of Johto Trainer Enquirer that he had discovered that Morty had brought. Apparently that was the reason that the Goldenrod and Ecruteak leaders had come to visit today, besides to just see each other and relax. Leafing through the pages, Falkner stopped on one article and stared at it, perplexed.
"What's this article talking about?" Falkner asked, interrupting his two friends. They both moved to look at the open magazine with the cobalt trainer.
"Oh, you didn't know about that?" Morty said.
"How could you NOT know about something this big?" Whitney chuckled. "You're sure ignorant sometimes, Fal-chan"
"You mean this is real?" Falkner yelled in surprise. The article he had The Enquirer open to was titled "S.S. Anne Begins Making Regular Cruise Trips between Johto and Kanto". Underneath was "The Johto gym leaders mark this special event by taking a three day cruise with passengers. Get your tickets now!"
"Yeah, it's kinda a big deal" Whitney said in a superior tone.
"As gym leaders, we're expected to help with PR stunts like this" Morty added. "There's a similar boat leaving Vermillion City in Kanto with their eight gym leaders."
In reality, the S. S. Anne was actually a boat fleet with a dozen or so identical cruise ships. The luxury liner had always offered yearly cruises, but if you wanted to simply travel to the neighboring region, you needed to find a smaller cruise line willing to take you or board the Magnet Train from Goldenrod to Saffron. The S. S. Anne specialized in worldwide cruises that took about a month. But now they were offering to take a shorter, similar, one way cruise from Johto to Kanto or vice versa. (A round trip would also be available for a larger price) This promotional stunt, however, was just to make the new S. S. Anne cruise known. For this first voyage, they were just sailing around for three days and returning to their respective regions that they set out from. After that they'd have regular trips between Johto and Kanto.
"Ugh…" Falkner groaned. The idea of PR stunts like this was exhausting. He wasn't good with public relations, and he had never ridden a boat before, preferring to fly between towns and regions with his bird Pokémon.
"Relax, it'll be fun!" Whitney chimed in as Falkner leaned back in his chair in frustration. "It's a three day trip on the world's most famous cruise line, and we get to ride that ship for free! There'll be expensive food and wine, waiters and waitresses to wait on our every need, big beautiful luxury suites, pretty clothes, sexy sailors to flirt with, rare Pokémon to see, and all kinds of stuff!" Stars danced in Whitney's eyes as she daydreamed of the extravagant cruise that awaited them.
"Of course, we're the real part of the PR stunt" Morty stated as Whitney remained off in her own little world. "We'll be expected to interact with the other passengers and occasionally give shows and stuff like that. Still, it's a great experience that normally we'd have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for."
Although Morty and Whitney were completely sold on the idea, Falkner still wasn't too thrilled. Why had nobody told him about this before? Why were the gym leaders always forced to do things like this? The Violet city gym had only been open a week, and soon it was going to be closed again for three more days. Three days that seemed like torture to Falkner, who was also worried that he wouldn't handle the change to sea legs very well. These things never went smoothly for him. Irritated, but knowing that arguing wouldn't change a thing, Falkner glanced at the article one more time, skimming over the details of his impending aquatic hell.
"Wait." Falkner said, his gaze hovering over a certain bit of information. "We leave for this in TWO DAYS?"
"Yep," Morty answered calmly, watching the gears turn in Falkner's mind as he got more and more agitated. His Bluebird was silent for a moment as he tried to process all the information, but eventually just threw his head back and breathed out heavily in irritation and exhaustion.
"God damn it all." Falkner moaned, exhaling in exasperation. Morty just chuckled and put his arm around his Bluebird, rubbing his back gently as Whitney continued to remain in her dream world of the amazingness of the fast approaching cruise.
End of Episode Fourteen: Falkner, the Elegant Master of Flying Pokémon
A/N: GAAAAHHH! I HATE IT WHEN THE CHAPTER TITLE IS TOO LONG AND I HAVE TO EDIT IT TO FIT!
I've had this chapter done for a few days, but stuff kept happening that prevented me from logging on and uploading. But it's here now.
Finally, a brand new arc!
I'm happy because I've had this one planned for a while, it just took forever to successfully end the last arc.
All 8 gym leaders are gonna be in one place...that sounds kinda crazy...*rubs hands together mischeviously*
I have a LOT of things planned.
Until next time. Hopefully it won't be too long til I have something uploaded again.
On a side note, I looked at the original upload date, and it's only been 7.5 months since I started this. Wow. It feels longer.
Also, in Microsoft Word, this makes the story 69 pages.
...
*giggles immaturely*