Becoming the Best

Chapter 28

The next morning, Sarah was awoken by the sound of rain hammering against the window of her room. With a sigh, she glanced at her watch and saw that it was 7o'clock in the morning, not a time she particuarly wanted to be awake at. But once she was up, she couldn't get back to sleep, so she got a shower and sat down on her bed, towelling her hair dry. All of her pokemon were still asleep, Arcane was snoring gently and kicking around in his sleep. Air was curled up happily in the corner and Zen was lying peacefully at the foot of her bed. A smile found its way onto her face as she looked upon her sleeping team, at how peaceful and cute they looked. She couldn't bring herself to wake them up, so she carefully slipped out of her room and made her way down to the pokecafe for some breakfast. A strange sene of loneliness washed over her as she sat down to eat. Alone. She realised that it was the first time in what seemed like ages since she had been anywhere without any of her team. She got lost in her thoughts and didn't realise when another trainer entered the cafe,

"Mind if I sit here? Only I don't really want to sit alone," a voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she looked up to see a young girl of about eleven grinning at her with blonde hair in two pigtails. Torn between two decisions; on one hand she didn't wat a random kid sitting with her, on the other she didn't want to make the kid sit on her own. Fortunately, the choice was made for her when a mad orange dog came hurtling towards the chair she was sitting on and jumped up, almost knocking her over. The young girl ran off, terrified of the Growlithe that had just jumped up at Sarah.

"Hey little guy," Sarah laughed as Arcane started to lick her face. After she had eaten breakfast with Arcane sitting right next to her, his face hanging over her food, she went back to her room; where her pokemon were sitting 'talking' to eachother. When they saw their trainer enter the room, Air flew over and tried to sit on her shoulder again, but since she was bigger than when she as a Pidgey, her attempt was unsuccessful. Zen hopped down from the bed and walked over to Sarah's feet, staring up at her with a small smile on her face.

"Well, I have no idea what to do today, so let's just go train for a bit," Sarah said, and together with her team, she went out to find some pokemon to battle.


"That's not fair!" Seth whined, he had run into Kaleb who had told him that he would be going along on the journey with them,
"Suck it up," Kaleb replied, slapping Seth on the back,
"Why are you coming with us though?" Seth glowered, folding his arms and standing still.

"Coz I want to," Kaleb shrugged.

"But why?"

"I'm not allowed to talk to my best friend now am I not?"

"Don't you have any other friends?"

"Yeah, but we decided to split up-go our seperate ways then meet up at Woodham every year, makes the whole thing more exciting then," Kaleb explained with a hint of annoyance in his voice,

"If you think it's so exciting to go off on your own then why don't you?" Seth asked reproachfully,

"To make sure nothing bad happens," Kaleb said darkly, then walked off.

"Idiot," Seth muttered after him. Psycho suddenly let out an ear splitting yowl and ran off at a shocking speed after something, and Bree swiftly followed. Seth felt something fire up inside him as he raced after his pokemon, hoping they had found something. He ran all the way across town, his feet pounding across the pavement as he tried to keep his pokemon in view. Soon, he was running out of the town and into the outskirts, where trainers were ready to challenge those who passed by, but they didn't even try to stop Seth as he bolted past them, following his speeding pokemon. He skidded to a halt as he turned a corner to see Sarah lying on the grass near a pond, looking like she was in agony, blood seemed to be seeping through her hoodie; Arcane trying to fight off a pack of angry Luxray, who were quickly wearing the orange dog down. Seth's own two pokemon ran into the fray and tackled two of the Luxray away from Arcane.

"Sarah!" Seth cried and ran over to where she was lying,

"Seth, thanks. Can you please let Zen out?" she mumbled, her voice weak. Seth nodded and grabbed her bag which was several feet away from her, then let Zen out. She stood and looked around for a second, taking in the scene; then let out shocking attacks on the Luxray,

"Blair, you help out too!" Seth yelled and threw Blair out into the mix. Air was safely inside her pokeball, away from the electric attacks that would surely knock her out cold. After watching the battle for a moment and seeing that their pokemon were holding up well, Seth turned back to Sarah, who was sitting slightly up, holding her side and wincing in pain.

"What happened?" he asked in concern,

"Those Luxray were attacking a group of eggs, they were left abandoned. I think... I think they killed the parents because when I got here the Luxray already had blood on them," Sarah said. She was looking down at the ground, totally shaken. Sensing she was really upset; Seth gently put his hand under her chin and lifted her head up. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Oh god," Seth sighed, then pulled her into a hug. Sarah hugged him closely, glad to have someone there to be with and she couldn't hold back her tears anymore-she broke down into floods of tears on Seth's shoulder.

After the battle was over-it was obvious all of the pokemon would need healed-as would Sarah. She tried to stand up, but the pain in her side was too much and she fell back down-her head hitting something hard.

"Ow! What is that?" she cried out, twisting around to see what it was. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw, amidst the destroyed nest, was an egg.

"Seth, this egg..." she trailed off and picked the egg up. It was cool to the touch; it's white colouring giving way to a gentle blue tinge near its base.

"Well it only makes sense that you keep it, but right now you need to get to a pokecenter," he said and helped Sarah up, while she was carrying the egg. All of her pokemon (including Arcane) had been returned to their pokeballs, as had Seth's. Sarah put one arm around Seth's shoulder and he used one of his hands to support her as they made their way back to Tinalt's pokecenter.

At the pokecenter, Sarah was taken into a room and inspected. The gash in her side was very deep and needed stitches; she would probably need a few days rest in the town before she could set off travelling again. Her pokemon were all healed and their pokeballs lay next to her hospital bed on a tray and the nurse had told her she wasn't allowed to let them out in the hospital ward. So she was resigned to the ward for the next few days, which wasn't something she was looking forward to. After a few hours of sitting around doing absolutely nothing, Sarah was insanely bored. A knock on the door saved her from her boredom and she practically ran to the door to open it.
"Oh my god, I'm so glad you're here, I mean come on, I've been sitting in here for hours with absolutely nothing to do. It's so boring!" Sarah rambled, as Seth walked in and sat down on a chair.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Sarah was wearing a hospital gown and her torso had a large bandage around it,

"Yeah, yeah I'll be fine. I just wish I could get out of this place. I mean there's this little garden thing where I can let my pokemon out, but I just want to keep on going-you know what I mean?"

"I know exactly what you mean. Oh, by the way, where did they put that egg?" he asked, looking around the room for it,

"Ah, I hid it under the bed," Sarah said excitedly and reached down underneath the bed-bringing out the cool egg in her hands.

"I wonder what's in it," Seth wondered,

"It's got to be watery, but I have no idea what it'll be. When it hatches I'll have to train it up loads won't I?"

"Yeah, probably. Imagine if it's like... A Tentacool or something. How gutted would you be?" he laughed,

"I would disown it. There is no way a poison pokemon is becoming a part of my team," Sarah stated, looking worriedly at the egg in her hands.

"Nah, I'm just kidding. It'll probably be like a Buizel or something like that. Anyway, are you gonna have to stay in the ward overnight, or will you get to stay in the trainer rooms?"

"Erm... They say I have to stay in this ward for a few nights, how boring is that?" Sarah rolled her eyes,

"That does sound pretty boring," Seth answered, looking around at the bare room.

"Oh, by the way... Did Kaleb tell you?" Sarah asked uncertainly, she sensed the animosity between the two,

"Yep," Seth answered shortly. He really didn't like Kaleb and knew that travelling with him would just be plain awkward. Something told him that the only reason he was tagging along was just to spite him, so in return, Seth had decided not to tell Kaleb that Sarah was now in hospital.

"Seth?" Sarah asked quietly,

"Yeah?"

"Please. Just try to get on with him," she pleaded, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. He sighed and rolled his eyes at her,

"I'll try, but I'm not promising anything,"