Dear Diary,
It is the following passage that has given me the most information I have yet discovered,
'If not Arceus, but another god was truly the creator and had control over all, why is it that Arceus does not have control over every matter of existence? Surely a pokémon with the powers of creation would be able to control the wind, the rain, gravity and even the pressure of the world we live on? Either the texts are wrong, the pokémon have gotten weaker, or somehow shared out power amongst its chosen?
'There are, after all, several dozen mythological pokémon, each with their own innate abilities.'
Pokémon
Transgression
By Crukix
|Fall Flat at the Second Hurdle|
-O-O-O-
The poké ball shuts with a soft click. My hands shake as I bend down to pick it up. The broken remains of the forest lay around me. A tree trunk lies on its side, split in two by a lucky strike. Cotton and seeds stick to the grass and make it impossibly hard to move. They stick to the side of the poké ball and I have to pry them all free individually, one at a time.
From my shoulder, Mandy trills happily and nibbles at a strand of my hair. Kiki scowls as she slaps cotton out of her path, apparently still searching for something to beat up.
Meanwhile, I just grin as I toss the poké ball between my hands. Hello two days' worth of stalking bugs through the forest. Pascal can say what he likes now, because I hold in my hands the big ugly scyther that caused all of this destruction!
I shall call her Lady Slicey and she shall be the deadliest bug with sickles for arms that anyone has ever seen.
"Well done," Pascal says. He leaps down from a tree branch like the ninja Andy's convinced he is and I see that his puffy black jacket has a few new cuts in it. Oops. I'm sure it totally wasn't the scyther that caused that. If it was, well it was wild at the time so he so can't blame me, no matter what he says.
He plucks the poké ball from my hands and scans it with his pokédex-laptop. What would one of those even be called? A pokétop? A lapoké? Pokélet? Naming things is hard. How do people that create things even manage to do it all the time?
"She's strong," Pascal says. "Et you are certain that she had no young that were still depending on her?"
"She's all alone," I say, shaking my head. After spending two days tracking this big ugly bug and watching her slice apart pokémon and eat them, never nesting in the same place twice and just generally not having any little tiny baby scythers near her, I'm pretty sure she's alone.
Now I want a baby scyther. It'll be all cute with how tiny it will be and having big blade arms at the same time. How do they even scratch their nose if they have an itch?
"Bonne. Well, now it is up to you what you do with her." He hands me back the poké ball and returns his poképad to his bag. "If you wish to train her, continue to do so. Mais if you wish, I can sell her on the hunter's network for you – or I could assist you in setting up a profile. You pay a yearly fee, but they will send you contracts or simply sell on any pokémon you capture and do not want. As I said before, each person they allow to buy and sell is checked thoroughly, so you will be certain that they will treat it right."
I hold up the poké ball to the light. Mandy tries to pry it out of my fingers. I'm pretty sure Kiki glares at it. A couple of pidgey flutter past, confused that most of their trees are gone and this bit of the forest is filled with slice-marks. Mandy trills and chases after them, cawing happily until they're out of sight.
"What happens if I sell it?" I ask. Mandy lands back on my shoulder, staring at the poké ball with interest.
"You register it on the site et they pay you a fixed rate for it. Once it is sold, they give you the difference, minus their fees. They pay less for ferals, so if you train it first, you will get more money, mais you may also become attached to it and not wish to sell it. Selling it now also means you do not have to name it."
I look again at the remains of the forest. Having one of these slicey-bugs on my team would be awesome. But then again, I'm still trying to train Cassie and I've got to fight Blaine next, which means that I'm pretty much relying on Mandy the whole while. Adding another pokémon to my team might be a good thing and all, but will it help if it's just going to be weak against him too?
I hand Pascal the poké ball. "Sell her," I say. "I can't look after her – not yet. I might as well get some money for her so that I can train my pokémon."
He nods as he slides the ball into his bag. "If that is what you want. I'll register it tomorrow evening. If you haven't changed your mind by then, I'll help you set up an account so that they can pay you. Now, excuse me whilst I find the others and see how they are getting on."
With the speed he runs off through the waist-high grass, I'm certain Andy's theory has to be true. Pascal must have done some ninja magic or something to be able to catch his green beedrill in the first place. Jerry says that finding a pokémon that's completely a different colour to normal is pretty rare. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I managed to take a picture of the blue serperior, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't believe me about that either.
Though to be fair, I didn't totally believe it until I saw the picture.
"Do you think I made the right choice?" Of course, it's not like I've got Diz around to help translate my pokémon for me, but given that Kiki needled that carnivine to death, I'm sure they have something to say.
Instead Mandy just continues to try and eat my hair whilst Kiki sort of shrugs and pretends that I'm as important as a shrub.
"It'd be too hard to train her," I say, even though it's pretty clear my pokémon aren't listening. "And I mean, I don't want to be running around trying to train something that's bigger than me and can cut me in two if it wants to. At least you guys can't do that." Well, Cassie could have frozen me to death at any point, but I think she's too occupied chasing glitter in the breeze to think of murdering me. At least, I hope she is.
I should buy more glitter.
"You guys aren't helping. I'm gonna find Andy." I recall Kiki and keep Mandy on my shoulders as I start to try and figure out where Andy's ran off to. He said something about how he's been chasing after a heracross or something. Li, wanting to outshine us all has decided to try and find out if the serperior had any babies. I'm pretty sure she's not about to suddenly find little blue snivy crawling around in the forest, but if she really wants to, I'm not going to stop her. My parents would say it's mean of me to be happy at her failures, but they're not here so I can be as mean as I like. Besides, I haven't forgiven her for being a jerk, even if she says she wants to be friends.
Andy's pretty easy to track. He still can't cover up his footprints that well and he leaves a trail of broken sticks and petals behind him. Apparently he gets bored when he walks and his hands have to do something. I don't think it helps that his ribs still haven't healed. By the looks of it, he walks heavier on one side, which I guess lessens the pressure on his ribs or something, but it leaves deeper tracks in the mud.
As I approach I can hear what sounds like a pokémon screeching. In the small space between a few trees I can see Andy, covered in shadow and with little bits of light streaming down around him. An oddish dances on the ground in front of him and little tiny flecks of what look like dust come out from between its leaves and float through the air.
The fact that Andy has his nose buried in his jacket alerts me to what's actually happening. I cover my mouth and nose with my hoodie and start to creep closer. Mandy looks curiously at me and tries to mimic me with her wings. Mostly she ends up losing her balance and nearly falling off my shoulder.
The oddish shrieks and I see it bounce along the dirt and roll into the nearby high grass. A beam of red light chases it, even as a white light explodes in the little clearing in front. I see Andy's munchlax sat on the floor, apparently more interested in drawing with its fingers in the mud than fighting whatever it is that Andy wants so badly.
I manage to get a bit closer and see that he's fighting a pinsir. It shrieks at him, though it's covered in yellow spores and apparently has trouble breathing. Andy chucks a poké ball at it, but instead the pinsir slaps it away, hisses at him and quickly turns and starts limping off into the forest. Andy chucks another poké ball after it, shouting as his munchlax, but he only misses the pinsir as his pokémon grunts and lies on its back.
"You're so useless," he growls at his munchlax. "All you ever do is eat and sleep." I swear I can see a little rattata in a wheel running round inside his head. "That means you're getting ready to evolve, doesn't it?" He smiles and thinking he's alone, jumps up and down and starts punching the air.
I'm almost tempted to leap out of the bushes and scare him. As much as I want to, it would only make him start creeping up on me and trying to scare me at any time. It might be fun, but with my luck I'll somehow fall into a nest of angry beedrill that want my blood.
"Andy!" I shout, pretending I'm still trying to look for him. He stops jumping around instantly and swivels his head around like a cornered patrat. I should have learnt how to ninja from Pascal, so I can jump down from the trees and scare him. He winces and reaches for his ribs, rubbing them through his shirt.
I burst out from amongst the bushes, feigning exhaustion. Andy smiles as he sees me, though his ears are still tinged red. His munchlax is still sprawled out across the ground, either staring up at the sky or sleeping with its eyes open.
"Did you manage to catch anything?" he asks me.
"A scyther," I say. "But I gave it to Pascal. I've got three pokémon to train anyway and I've only got one badge so far. Well actually two, but only one that I need. I don't think I'd be able to train another pokémon just yet. What about you?"
"I nearly caught a pinsir," he says. "But it got away from me. My stupid munchlax decided to sleep instead of battle."
"That means it's evolving soon, doesn't it?" It's fun to pretend that I actually know loads about pokémon. Mandy, apparently bored of our conversation, decides to yawn as loudly as possible. I can't help but copy her. "I'm bored of this forest," I say.
"Me too," says Andy. "Let's go find Li and see what she says. Maybe Pascal will want to leave too. He might even teach us how to run through trees like him."
I grin. "I hope so. How awesome would it be to run into the trees and scare people?"
He just rolls his eyes at me. "Don't be stupid. It'd make it way easier to catch pokémon. That's how you should use it."
"Whatever. When I'm a master ninja, you'll see how awesomely I'll use all my powers."
-O-O-O-
Viridian City is, in all honesty, pretty boring. After they found out that the gym leader was also the leader of the Rockets, they tried replacing him with a few other temporary gym leaders. But all the local people and the media thought that only another criminal would end up running the gym, so they all quit one after the other. Now the old Viridian Gym is a museum dedicated to the heroes that ended the Rockets' reign of terror, as well as detailing all the ways they held power over KanJo.
As interesting as museums normally are, I don't really want to go to one to learn about some fat man in a suit that loved pizza and having people killed. I mean, sure he managed to get all these people buried in concrete and they're pretty sure that most of the pillars holding up the cycling road have the bodies of his victims in them, but it's not like the actual past, where no one really knows what happened and everyone has to guess about what might have happened.
"Once we reach Pallett, I shall be leaving you," Pascal tells us. Now we're in a town, he doesn't have any of his pokémon out. He looks really uncomfortable with all the people there are walking down the streets. Everything in Viridian is like a dull shade of either green or brown. Since Pascal's dressed in dark greens, he looks almost like he could blend in with a nearby shop. It has to be further proof he's secretly able to use a katana and battle demon spirits or whatever Jerry says ninjas can do on his shows.
"I have business in Fuchsia to attend to."
"Okay," I say. He's already helped me set up my account with his pokémon hunter's website and after saving my life, I'd feel bad if I made him help with anything more. The scyther I gave him is apparently still waiting to be sold, but they've already given me over five thousand poké for it! At least I won't have to suffer with stale food whilst I'm outside in the forests anymore. I can just buy cheeseburgers and steaks and have Cassie freeze them so I can eat them when I'm lost in the wilderness.
Except I'll need something that can heat them up first. I need a fiery pokémon.
"I'm going straight through to Cinnabar anyway." I can catch something fiery there, if there are even pokémon there anymore. Apparently after the volcano erupted, everything left, but Blaine's gone back there because it's his home or something. I mean, there are other little islands around the big one that are still technically Cinnabar, but he's only happy if he's on the big, exploding volcano one. I'd call him weird, but I need him to like me so he'll give me a badge.
"It's fine by us – we've got an internship with Professor Oak anyway."
"What?" I spin around and see the way Andy's grinning. "You said that you guys were only going to talk to him. Since when did you get an internship with him?"
"The more important question is how," Pascal says. "Those are lucrative – it isn't just anyone that gets handed one. How did a couple of ten year old enfants end up with an invitation for an internship?"
"We won it," Li says quickly. "It was a prize that we were entered for before we left school – who could produce the best argument for a new brand of pokémon research. There were five winners from our school. Andy, Toby and I won this year's internship, but now that Toby has quit, I suppose his place will go to someone else."
"What?" I say once more. "How comes I didn't know anything about this? No one ever told me and I haven't had any days off school sick since I was like eight, so when did this happen?"
"After school pokémon training club," Andy answers quickly. "The one that you didn't want to go to because it involved learning how to be a pokémon trainer."
"Oh." There isn't anything else I can say to that. Sure I might not have wanted to be a trainer, but still, if I'd have known I could get an internship at Professor Oak's place I would have gone! In fact, why did they even get a place there and not with Professor Juniper?
"Our school had strong ties with Kanto – they're one of the first ones that began to let Kantonese pokémon into Unova." Li sets about explaining almost everything when I ask. "Because of that, they formed an alliance with a few stronger trainers from Kanto, one of whom happened to be Professor Oak himself."
"Still," I say, "someone could have told me." I pretend that I'm not bothered as I go back to staring at the landscape. Considering how much forest there is between Viridan and Pewter, it's weird that Pewter is almost all stone whilst Viridian is like a blend of mountain and trees. Walking through the dips in the valleys makes the trees seem even bigger, whilst walking along the tops of fallen tree trunks makes the lower parts of Viridian seem even smaller. The fact that the whole town seems to be built on a bunch of hills is pretty cool.
If the place had a gym, it would probably be pretty full with trainers. As it stands, the streets mostly have people in suits walking about chatting on their phones, or people dressed smart and just generally avoiding making eye contact with us. I don't know why, but people with normal jobs seem to treat any pokémon trainers like we're all diseased or something. I don't know why. I mean, sure we're out in the middle of nowhere most of the time and might not always get to wash each day, but that doesn't mean we're all about to infect everyone with stoutland rabies or something.
I can't stop the yawn that breaks out. The others follow me quickly and people walking down the road start moving past us with even more distance between us. It's like they think our every action is going to make them horribly diseased, or that we're all secretly Rockets and we're going to try and mind-meld them and reduce them to our drooling slaves.
Which actually sounds like a good idea, come to think of it.
-O-O-O-
The smell of burning meat fills the air. I shriek as I slide the goldeen off the skewer, stupidly not realising that it's cooking and therefore hot until it's too late.
Andy snorts and spills water out of his nose. Li manages to laugh so much that she drops her own food on the floor. I grin at them both as I stick my fingers in my mouth and try to breathe cold over them. Obviously, it doesn't work.
Pascal just sighs and shakes his head. "How have you managed to live so long without severely injuring yourself?"
"Magic," I say, smiling. "I'm just naturally awesome, so that helps too."
"Of course." Pascal rolls his eyes at me. The sun's setting behind him, making him seem like he's got this massive orange glow that follows him around wherever he goes. I can still see Viridian behind us, with buildings that stretch far higher than the trees. The sounds of pokémon are quiet under the continual hum of motorways from Viridian. Even though we're so close to the city, it still feels quieter and nicer because we're out in the wilds.
Cassie races up and steals the food Li's dropped on the floor. Even as Li mutters about how unhygienic it has to be, Cassie chortles and runs off into the tall grass, dropping pieces of goldeen behind her. I'm pretty sure something tries to steal it off her, because there's suddenly a shriek, the air gets cold and a frozen spearow rolls out of the grass, chased by a very happy Cassie who hums as she kicks it along somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me if she's dug a cave of insanity or something already.
"Your pokémon are strange," Andy tells me. "Why don't you train them to be a bit more . . . normal?"
"Then they wouldn't be them," I say, as if it's obvious. "I met a psychic and it translated their words for me to understand. So now I know what they're like, better than guessing by watching what they do." I shrug and manage to eat the cooled down food. Awesome pokémon hunter and possible ninja he might be, but Pascal is not a good cook. I think Kiki would do a better job. "If I train them out of those habits, what if it changes them? It'd be like if people made us have to do everything in their normal way, instead of thinking for ourselves."
"They're called schools," Li says. She even manages a smile. "They teach us everything we have to learn and the ways we behave in different situations, then we learn something new and teach them and the people that come along after us. It might be how humans are the dominant species, even though we can't breathe fire or make people's heads explode."
Andy snorts again, this time managing not to shoot water from his nose. "You've been hanging around her for too long," he says, pointing at me. "Next you'll be talking fast and getting distracted by deadly pokémon."
"I'm not that bad!" I declare, but even Pascal joins in when they laugh. "Whatever," I huff. "If I was normal, I'd end up being boring like my parents. Well, like my dad at least."
"I don't think it would be all bad," Li says. "Some people must like it. Toby's chosen it."
The mention of him makes everyone grow quiet. The firelight bounces off everyone's faces and makes them veiled in shadows and seem way more serious than they should be. Pascal's metang hovers some distance away, hiding in the shadows of trees, identifiable only by a pair of glowing red eyes in the darkness. It's more than just a little creepy. Li's audino is tucked up in her lap and Andy's oddish is buried in the dirt, only its leaves sticking out.
Ever since the ariados, they've barely ever had their pokémon out. I swear it's just Pascal and I that bother. I get that they're worried about losing them – I thought Mandy was dead too – but surely they can just train them and make them get stronger that way?
But given their strange methods and ways of catching pokémon, I guess I wouldn't be able to convince them otherwise, even if I did try.
"For what it is worth, perhaps being a parent is not a boring life for them," Pascal says suddenly. He's just staring at the fire, not bothering to eat his food, instead leaving it stuck to the end of his fork and in his little metal dish. I half-suspect it's because he's tired of eating his own boring food.
"Your accent's gone again," Andy notices. "It's always there and then it's not."
I look from him to Pascal, confused. I don't really understand accents other than the ones I know. The only time I ended up speaking in one, I was put in the special class in school for a week.
Pascal shrugs. "That's because it's not my actual accent." I notice it that time and try to recreate the way he says ahk-sant.
"My grandparents raised me," he tells us. "When I was older, they told me that my parents died in a plane accident with my mother's parents. My father was from Kalos. Ever since then, I tried to mimic the accent . . . as if it would bring me closed to them, or something. But I do not understand languages, much as I have tried. All I can manage are the occasional words – et, mais, d'accord. I thought it would make me feel closer to them. It doesn't, if I am honest."
"You don't have to speak a language to make yourself feel closer to someone," Li says. "My parents gave me a traditional name and taught me occasional words, but they were always too busy to teach me. My great-grandparents can't speak a single word of English. Whenever I see them, we can't understand each other. That doesn't mean I don't feel close to them. Pretending to be something you're not isn't going to make you feel closer to people that you never knew in the first place."
Andy almost chokes on his food. "Harsh!" he hisses.
"She's right," Pascal says. "Mais, it is also my decision to do this. I will not stop, simply because it doesn't give me the results I want. Perhaps one day I will be able to teach my children, or have them taught this language, so that they may have a connection to the grandparents they will never know."
It's at that moment when Cassie races at us, leaps over the fire and scatters a bag of popcorn she's randomly discovered, effectively destroying any seriousness we had.
I pick her up and manage to keep her in my arms, even though she's cold and making me shiver as much as she does. "I'm so keeping you around the next time my parents get mad at me," I tell her.
She responds by puking up what I'm pretty sure are frozen feathers and popcorn kernels onto the ground.
-O-O-O-
Pallet Town has started to make a name for itself as the birthplace of Champions. Apparently over half of Kanto's recent Champions have been either born or brought up in Pallet. It's not exactly surprising in a way, given that they've got Professor Oak in the town, able to teach at all the schools when he wants.
Pallet itself is kinda sleepy and boring, almost like where grandma and grandpa live. There's a constant breeze that comes over the town from the sea, a huge beach in the south that apparently sometimes has gyarados wash ashore and wind turbines that line the horizon, gathering up as much power as they can for Professor Oak's labs and pokémon ranch.
"I'd like to live somewhere like this," Li says. The streets we walk through don't have any paved roads for cars. Instead they're mostly all dirt roads, with the normal pavement for people to walk on. I understand why when a couple of diglett burrow down the road, singing as they pass us.
As they go, I can't help but sing the song for a cartoon when I was little, "Diglett dig, diglett dig-"
"Trio, trio, trio!" Li and Andy both say, laughing. Pascal just looks at us like we're freaks.
"I loved that show!" Andy declares. "Do you think we'll be allowed to watch it whilst we're at Professor Oak's?"
"We're there to learn," Li reminds him.
"That doesn't mean we can't have fun!"
"You both have to let me know what's happening there," I tell them. "It's the least you can do since you didn't let me know I could have even won this competition."
"I entered," Li says. "You would have never won."
Before I can tell her just how wrong she is, Pascal quickly says, "Why don't we walk with you to the laboratory? We have to head straight to the docks afterwards."
After saying goodbye to Ali and Jerry, knowing that Li and Andy are leaving doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, I've spent nearly two months with them altogether, but . . . I guess I just don't get along with them as much as I do with Ali and Jerry. I'm not sure if it makes me a horrible person or not. I mean, I might miss having them around, but only because it's nice to have people to talk to and not a creepy stalker hypno who refuses to wear underpants.
"How old is Professor Oak now anyway?" Andy asks. "Isn't he like a hundred?"
"People rarely live to that age," Li points out.
"Oui, true. But he is older than time itself." Pascal grins at us. "He was around when pokémon were first discovered, did you not know? He used to hunt them with nothing but a stick and a butterfly net."
"I'm not falling for that," I say. "There's a limit to how much I'd believe." And to be honest, he's just not that good a liar. I saw him trying to tell that nurse in Viridian that he was really twenty and she wasn't that much older than him. She did not believe him in the slightest.
Even from a few streets away, I can see Professor Oak's ranch almost perfectly. Like everywhere else in Pallet, he's got massive windmills in his fields. I don't think I can really call them gardens seeing as he owns a place that's almost as big as a town. A couple of pokémon-shaped silhouettes fly against the midday sun – though I can see a beehive-shaped pattern that's barely visible in the sky. If what I remember Jerry saying is right, then most pokémon researchers that act as storage facilities for trainers have kinetic barriers around their land, to stop poachers sneaking in or the pokémon escaping. Apparently they're maintained by a network of porygon and rotom that manage only to shock pokémon enough to scare them, rather than hurt them.
"Something interesting is going on," Pascal says. "Crowds are outside."
Since he's taller than me, I can't see what he's talking about until we're closer. Sure enough, there's a crowd of people all stood outside the gates to Professor Oak's place. I can see them all bouncing up and down, screaming loudly enough that I can hear them, though I can't hear what they're saying.
Whatever's going on though, it's drawn a bigger crowd than Cynthia did at Diglett's Cave.
"I thought Professor Oak was old," I say. Instead of the little grey haired old man I expected to be at the gates, I can see a man that's younger than my dad stood in front of the gates, wearing a white lab coat, so that has to mean he's a professor. He's got it open, underneath which he's wearing a tight purple top and brown slacks.
As he talks, he brushes a hand through his short, spiky brown hair.
"Look, that's not what I'm saying." As we get closer, I can hear what it is he's telling everyone. Behind him I can see an umbreon, black as night with glowing blue ring patterns along its body. Its eyes are shining like gold, even in the middle of the day. I guess it has to be projecting his voice or something, just like Cynthia did with her lucario.
"Gramps – the Professor Oak you all know and revere isn't dead or anything close to it. God, you people are like vultures aren't you, twisting everything until it's something scandalous." Even his sighs are projected, somehow. "Look, I don't know how many times I can say this, alright? I'm not taking over because of any family favours or any bullshit like that. I earned my doctorates, I studied my ass off and you know what? I'm the best person for this job. Gramps is old and he needs to rest a bit more. Who better to take over things than me?
"So I'll put this in simple terms, so you can't get confused and report something I never said. Gramps is fine. He's just handing over responsibilities where he can so that he's got some more time on his hands. God knows the poor old bastard could use a holiday now and then. Now that's all you're getting. You've got ten minutes to leave before I activate the sprinklers. And FYI: they're filled with arbok venom."
Whoever the man is, he turns around and walks towards the huge metal gates. They start to open and let him past, though his umbreon follows after him slowly, watching the reporters, its teeth bared in a snarl as if daring any of them to try and follow into the gates. It's only when the gates shut behind it that it darts away, almost bouncing down the path towards the huge laboratory.
"Does that mean we're not going to work with Professor Oak?" Andy asks.
"That was Professor Oak." Pascal laughs at Andy's confused face. "Did you not hear what they just said? Samuel Oak is slowly retiring. His grandson is taking over things."
"But that's not who we were promised we would get to work with!"
"People grow old, they can die. You all nearly died in that forest – you wouldn't have gotten to work with anyone if you had."
"I'm sure the older Professor Oak will still be there," Li says. "This one wouldn't have taken over if he wasn't qualified enough for the job."
"I'm still jealous, if that helps," I say. The reporters seem to have realised now that they're not going to get anymore answers. I watch as a couple of them release psychics and try to teleport their way into the lab, by the look of things. Each time they try though, an explosion of black crackles in the air above them and stuns their psychics stupid for a moment. Whatever it is, I need it in my life.
Li keeps staring at the lab, as if she's desperate to try and get in there as soon as possible. I take the hint, even though she's not aware she's dropping it. "I need to catch my boat," I say, "so I'll leave you here. Have fun."
I'm surprised when Li hugs me. I know she said that she wants us to be friends, but I'm not exactly sure we are. "It was good travelling with you," she says. "Though no offence, I'd rather not go through everything like that again."
"I know how you feel," I say. Andy pretty much squeezes the air out of my lungs and I know it has to hurt him because I can feel my elbow being squashed against the bandages still wrapped around his chest.
"Don't die out there," he tells me. "You're not as much of a butthole as I thought you were. I'll miss you."
"I don't blame you," I say before I can stop myself. "And uh . . . I'll miss you guys too." He seems to smile more when I say that. He hugs Pascal, despite it being pretty obvious that Pascal doesn't want a hug, whilst Li seems to understand and instead shakes his hand.
"Take care of yourselves," Pascal tells them.
We leave them to go and get into the lab in whatever way they need to. Mostly it's so that we don't have to deal with the annoying reporters who look like they're going to question a brick if it would give them a story.
"So," Pascal says as we start walking up the road, "how much did you dislike them when you first started travelling with them?"
"I . . ." He seems to know exactly what I'm about to say, so instead I just shrug. "Not a lot," I say. "I mean, I used to be really good friends with Toby, but then we fell out when he started liking pokémon and I didn't. I never got along with Andy and I'd never really spoken to Li properly. I dunno, I mean, I guess I'm better friends with them now, but they're not my best friends, if that's what you're asking."
"That's not what I'm asking," he says. "You just did not seem too concerned with them leaving. It's strange."
"I'm not," I say. "And why's it strange?"
"No reason," he says, in a tone that tells me there is a really big reason. "So Cinnabar." I pretend like I don't notice the obvious change in subject. "Where are you going after that?"
"Probably to Fuchsia," I say. The smell of the sea gets stronger as we walk towards it. I can see it in the distance, over the tops of the houses. The breeze comes towards us, bringing with it the fresh air and the sounds of wingull screeching. "But I guess you'll be elsewhere by then?"
"Probably. The benefits of my job is that I am never frequently in one place, unless I choose to be. Now that you are registered, you may take hunting requests, should you wish to. Though, I would advise that you do not hunt anything too strong, at least not just yet. If you do, contact me."
"Thanks but you've already saved my life and taught me how to hunt pokémon. You can't just keep teaching me stuff."
"I enjoy teaching," he says. "It makes me feel that I'm contributing something worthwhile to the world."
"You're way too morbid." At the bottom of the hill I can see the docks. Huge steel cargo containers are being loaded on massive ships by cranes. I can see pokémon carrying piles and piles of luggage onto ships and queues of people in all sorts of summer clothes waiting to get on their ships.
"Perhaps I am," he says. "Mais you must remember, I deal with the threat of death on a daily basis, each day I spend hunting a pokémon in the wild. I may die out there, left alone to rot and never discovered, though you may also find yourself in such a position. It is a peril of being a pokémon trainer and something that you should try not to forget.
"Though, this is where we part ways, so I shall try to end our conversation on a lighter note. Good luck with your gym battles. Take care of yourself and if I do see you again, try not to nearly die or kick me in the testicles."
I can't help but turn bright red at that. "I'll try," I say. "You take care." Before he can say otherwise, I hug him. After he's saved my life and everything, it's like the least I can do.
He walks off towards his ship to Fuchsia, boarding on the left hand side of the docks. I'm forced to stand in a queue with all these old people that talk about their honeymoons and how amazing things were before the volcano erupted and everything.
To distract myself, I let Mandy out of her poké ball. She sits on my shoulder and eyes some fat lady's fluffy scarf. I'm tempted to let her fly off, steal the scarf and drop it into the sea. Only problem is that the ship people are watching the queue and they might not let me on if they think my pokémon are trouble makers.
I pay the ticket people the money for my boat and end up on a little bus being taken there. The plank thunks under my feet, sounding uncomfortably hollow. After seeing one of those creepy girls on the way to Sinnoh, I'm not exactly sure about travelling on a boat on my own, even if I didn't see one when we were leaving Snowpoint.
Since we don't have to stay in our cabins or anything and I've gotten used to the weight of my backpack, I start to wander around the ship. Mandy squawks on my shoulder, eyeing the flying wingull as she does so. I tell her to stay where she is, because I really don't want to have to stop the boat because my vullaby's gotten lost chasing pokémon across the sea.
Somehow I end up in the VIP section of the boat. Everything is all sparkly and clean and I'm pretty sure the rooms here are the size of my house. From what I can see through the windows, each room has a mini kitchen and a massive television that takes up almost an entire wall. Curious, I poke my head into each window as I pass it, nosing in at the people inside until I see one that makes me shriek and hide beneath the window.
Blaine's on my ship! What if I can get the badge off him when we're travelling? That would mean I could stay on the ship and go straight to Fuchsia.
I knock on his door, again and again and again until finally it swings open. The man that answers it is kind of skinny, with bright, horrible green shorts covered with blue flowers and wearing a white top covered in spaghetti sauce.
He's also my height, because he's in a wheelchair.
"What do you want?" Blaine barks at me. His beard quivers like it's alive. Judging by the way Mandy's watching it, the scruffy white thing could be a new species of pokémon. "I'm not handing out gym battles kid. If you want one, book one at the gym like everyone else."
"That's not what I'm here for!" I say before he can shut the door on me. "I mean, I am, but I'm not. I need a special badge!" I tell him as quickly as I can about the school I need the badges for. I'm pretty sure that as I talk to him he falls asleep a little. I can't tell because of the huge sunglasses on his face and I'm too scared to move them to see if he's actually still awake.
"So I was wondering if I could do the test while we're on this boat or something," I say.
"Of course, certainly. Why I let everyone who asks me so nicely get a special case when it comes to completing League rules."
"Really?" I ask.
"No."
"But I've come all the way here from Unova and you're here now! And I've been kidnapped by creepy hypno along the way and I've nearly been eaten by ariados so why can't you even consider it? I mean, it's not like we're going to be doing anything else on this boat."
Only after I've finished speaking do I notice he's turned as red as a fire. "You want a test? Fine. We'll do it here and now. If you cool a fiery pokémon's flames with a normal fire extinguisher, what sort of chemical is produced?"
I stare at him like he's grown a second head. "I-what?"
"Wrong." I feel like I've been stabbed. What? I didn't even get a chance to answer! How is this fair? "What are the factors you have to consider when having a fiery pokémon battle something capable of spewing fumes?"
"Urm, explosions?"
"Not good enough. If fire stones feel like there is an exothermic reaction continuously taking place, what chemical reaction could have reached equilibrium inside?"
Does that question come in English? "I . . ."
"Too slow," he grunts. "Now tell me, what is the chemical responsible for all fiery pokémon's spontaneous fire production?"
I don't know! What sort of chemicals are there? I can only think of the things in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. "Bleach?" I guess.
Blaine snorts at me. "Congratulations," he says.
I feel my heart soar. "I passed?"
"Yes, you passed," he says. "You successfully proved that you are the single most unintelligent person I have ever met. You failed. Goodbye."
With that, he slams the door shut on both me and my dreams.
(A/N: Quick note; for anyone that's not aware, Cru now has a Facebook page! Check my profile for the link to it.)