A/N: That writer's block…

Not to worry, I killed it with fire before it could lay eggs. Are you proud of me? :)

"So, what seems to be the situation here?" asked Flannery with a chuckle, returning her Torkoal into its pokéball.

Jake was still quite surprised at the fact that Flannery had shown up, but then again he didn't have any reason to complain. After all, it had been either that or getting bitten by the Arbok while making a run for his backpack (not to mention the possible scenario where he could have failed in attempting to reach it). "What do you mean?" he asked, putting his jacket back on.

"I was there when Jacob talked to you on the phone." said Flannery, stretching her hands with a yawn and a shrug of her shoulders. "He thought you were in trouble so he wanted to go look for you, but I offered to go instead so that he wouldn't have to quit the tournament. It took a minute or two to convince him, and even after that he insisted on me taking his Pidgeotto to help me look for you."

"I see…" said Jake, looking up at the sky and noticing Jacob's Pidgeotto hovering above them, "So that's how you found me so quickly…" He couldn't remember an exact number, but he was fairly certain that it has been only a few minutes since he and Jacob had spoken to each other on the Xtransceiver.

"Yeah… Good thing I had Pidgeotto with me…" said Flannery with a look of uneasiness, looking at the fainted Arbok. "How did your backpack end up all the way over there?" She had a hard time imagining that Jake tried to scare the wild poison-type by throwing a bag at it, and she couldn't think of a logical reason as to why he had taken it off to begin with.

"It's a long story." he said, walking over to his backpack in a hasty manner and picking it up. "No time, gotta dash, thanks for the help!"

"Hey, w-wait!" said Flannery with a confused look on her face, running after him. "What's the rush?"

"Poisoned pokémon, possibly dying!" said Jake in between breaths, looking around at her over his shoulder. "I have to get it to a pokémon center!"

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?"

"Do you have an antidote with you?" he asked with a hopeful expression, coming to a stop and allowing her to catch up.

"No." she said with a smile. "But I can help you get there much faster." She took out a pokéball and, after a few seconds, a Rapidash materialized in front of them. "Well?" she asked after hopping onto the fire-type pokémon, chuckling at the way Jake was staring at the pokémon with awe. *

"That is so cool!"

"Are you coming or not?"

"Will it be able to carry both of us?" he asked, out of curiosity.

"…Are you trying to say that I'm fat?"

"Um… No…" There was a short silence. "I'm, uh… trying to say that I'm fat? I mean look at me! I'm as chubby as you can get!"

"No you're not. Nice save, though." said Flannery, chuckling once before rolling her eyes. "Geez, can't I tease you a little? Just get on board already."

Jake silently nodded and climbed onto Flanney's Rapidash (with some difficulty, of course), sitting behind her. "Uh… Is this safe?"

"I'm not sure." said Flannery with a smile as Rapidash began to speed up. "Worst case scenario – you'll fall and break a rib or something." She laughed as the fire-type pokémon they were sitting on continued gaining speed. "I'm just joking. You can hold onto me if you're really scared, though. I won't mind."

"What did you say?" asked Jake after a short silence. Apparently he had been too busy admiring the speed in which they were moving in order to listen to what Flannery was saying.

"Nothing." said the Hoenn Gym Leader, pouting and rolling her eyes.

It didn't take Jake and Flannery longer than perhaps a minute or two to get back to the city on Flannery's Rapidash, and while neither of them knew the exact location of any of the pokémon centers they didn't experience any trouble in finding one. They would have asked for directions hadn't the streets been empty due to the fact that literally everyone was in the stadium because of the tournament but, again thanks to Rapidash, they came across a pokémon center rather quickly.

"Go on and head inside." said Flannery as Rapidash came to a stop in front of the pokémon center. "I'll be right there."

"Right." said Jake with a nod, getting off of Flannery's Rapidash. "Thanks for your help." He looked at her Rapidash, "You too."

Similarly to the streets, the pokémon center was also empty (with the exception of the two nurses who were sitting at the counter and probably a few others who were somewhere in a different part of the building, of course). The two nurses looked like they were about to fall asleep in their chairs, something which made sense, in a way, considering the fact that all of the town's residents were watching the tournament / participating in it at the stadium.

"Excuse me!" said Jake in a slightly loud voice, causing the two nurses to spring into full awareness.

"Oh my! Uh… yes! Welcome to the pokémon center, how may I help you?" asked one of the nurses, rubbing her eyes in order to help herself focus.

"This pokémon's been poisoned and it's in a really bad shape." said Jake as he handed the pokéball to her. He didn't know Ponyta's exact condition because he hasn't released it from the pokéball ever since 'capturing' it, but he was quite certain that the situation was worse compared to when he had first caught the wild pokémon. "Can you help it?" The nurse handed the pokéball to her associate, who took it and headed into a more inner part of the building. "Shouldn't you also go with her? You know, to help out?" asked the worried-looking teenager after a short silence, noticing that the nurse wasn't going anywhere.

"Don't worry, there's an entire staff in there." said the nurse, taking out a pen and a sheet of paper. "Now, if you won't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Uh… sure, go ahead."

"You said it's in a bad shape." continued the nurse. "How long exactly has it been since it was poisoned?"

Jake scratched the back of his head, thinking. The wild Ponyta must have been bitten before that wild Pidgey began flying towards the City to look for help. Then there was also the time it had taken Jake to get there, the extra 10-15 minutes before Flannery arrived, and lastly the roughly 5 minutes during which they had to make their way back and look for a pokémon center. "Um… I'd say 30 minutes at the very least." There was a short silence. "Why? Is that bad?"

"Well it's certainly not a good thing." said the nurse as she wrote down a couple of notes on the paper. "Haven't you ever heard of an antidote? You can buy them at pretty much any pokémart, they're quite affordable."

"This isn't my pokémon." said Jake politely, once again getting a feeling of déjà vu from when he had found Charmander. Well, at least this time the nurse wasn't pulling him by the ear. "I found it outside of the city and brought it here."

"Oh, I see. My mistake then, I'm sorry. I was going to ask you whether you happened to see the pokémon that caused all of this but I'm assuming that you didn't."

"I did, actually. It was an Arbok."

"Okay then. We'll do our best."

"Will it be alright?"

"I can't make any promises." said the nurse with a sigh. "Either way, you might want to sit down." She pointed at a small area with a couch and a vending machine. "This will take a while."

"Right… Thanks." he said with a hint of concern in his voice, walking over to the couch and sitting on it. "Well…" he said quietly to himself, "Isn't this familiar…" Ironically, the pokémon center he was now in looked a lot like that one specific pokémon center in Pewter City. "Hey," he said after a while, again looking at the nurse who was sitting by the counter, "is it okay if I let my pokémon out of their pokéballs in here?" Since he was going to have to wait there for some time he could at least use that time to feed them and let them interact with one another.

"Sure." said the nurse with a smile. "As long as they listen to you and don't break anything, that is."

"Okay, so Pidgeotto flew back to the stadium." said Flannery, who came in through the door a minute or two later. "Jacob said he'll be here soon."

"Did you talk to him?" asked Jake, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"Uh-huh." said Flannery, nodding her head. "We exchanged numbers when he lent Pidgeotto to me."

"Oh, I see. What happened, did he lose in the top 16?"

Flannery shrugged. "I didn't ask him. Maybe he did. Or maybe he just wants to make sure you're alright. Perhaps both." There was a short silence. "You're not having any regrets about being disqualified, are you?" she asked, staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

"What? No, not at all." he said, shaking his head with a chuckle. "It's just a tournament. There'll be others in the future."

"Good." said Flannery with a smile. "Because I think you did the right thing."

"Besides, I made it quite far and all of my pokémon got to participate. Well, except for Dratini… He didn't want to battle." He looked at Cyndaquil, who was lying on the couch next to him. "Did you have a good time?" he asked, smiling as the fire mouse pokémon nodded his head with enthusiasm. All of a sudden he realized that he and his pokémon were pretty much occupying the entire couch. "Oh, excuse me…" he said, picking Cyndaquil up and holding him in his arms in order to make some room for Flannery, "You can sit down if you want. The nurse said that this whole thing is going to take some time."

Flannery silently thanked him with a smile and sat down. She was about to say something else but decided against it when she noticed that Jake looked like he wasn't in the mood to talk. On one hand she couldn't blame him but, after a while, she thought that perhaps having a conversation could help lighten up the mood (as long as they wouldn't accidentally end up talking about that Ponyta, that is). "So what's it like?" she asked, breaking the silence. "You know, being your aunt's nephew?"

"It's weird." said Jake with a blank expression. "Well, weird and somewhat annoying because people recognize me all the time." He chuckled. "I've never been a big fan of attention."

"You seem to be becoming quite popular. At least, that's what I've concluded from the way the crowd reacts when you battle." said Flannery, staring at the ground in front of her. "Wouldn't you say it's somewhat stressful?"

"Not really, no." said Jake with a shrug. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's no big deal…" replied the Gym Leader with a smile, "This just somewhat reminds me of when I first became the Gym Leader of Lavaridge Town…"

"How come?"

"My grandfather was once a member of the Hoenn Elite Four. When I took over the Lavaridge Gym and turned it into a fire-type Gym after the previous Leader had left it everyone was so excited about the fact that a granddaughter of a former member of the Elite Four was becoming a Gym Leader."

"So what happened?" asked Jake after a short silence, intrigued.

"Well, at first all I could think of was trying to meet everybody's expectations of me… All I had in mind was living up to my grandpa's legacy…" She paused for a few seconds. "I ended up trying too hard to be someone I wasn't and instead of doing my job of posing a challenge to the trainers who came to the Gym I ended up losing to almost all of them with only a very small amount being forced to challenge me more than once. At some point I realized that I was also becoming more and more insecure about my abilities and I even considered resigning. Some people treated me like a laughing stock…" At this point she paused and stared at the ground with a somewhat annoyed look on her face.

"Well, some people are morons." said Jake with a roll of his eyes, causing Flannery to chuckle. "You seemed to be feeling alright when I first met you." he added after a short silence. "Therefore I assume that things worked themselves out?"

"Yes." said Flannery with a nod of her head. "Have you met the current Champion of the Hoenn region?" Jake shook his head. "It doesn't matter. He came to my Gym one day for a Gym Battle. It was a long time ago, way before he challenged the Pokémon League. Anyway, after our battle I realized that I have to do things my way. If I don't, my pokémon will be confused."

"That sounds like a lesson well learned." said Jake with a smile. "But why are you telling me this? It sounds quite personal."

"What I'm trying to say is that, while you are your aunt's nephew, you are also your own person. It's important to remember who we are and where we've come from, but it's even more important to be ourselves and to do things the way that is natural for us; not the way that people expect us to." She smiled. "You seem to be doing fine in the regard, don't get me wrong! But if you ever find yourself pondering people's expectations too much, I'd like you to remember what I just told you."

"Oh… Thanks! I'll be sure to keep that in mind!" He then looked to his right (Flannery was sitting to his left) and saw Boldore and Dratini playing with each other.

"Aww, that's cute!" Flannery couldn't help but chuckle as Dratini accidentally rolled off the couch and landed on Flareon's head, waking the sleeping Eeveelution up. She noticed that the rock-type was giving his trainer a quiet stare and smiled. "I think it's hungry."

"See that plate next to you?" asked Jake, motioning to a plate Charmander was eating from that was filled with some berries.

"Oh, yeah." The Gym Leader took a berry from the plate and looked back at the rock-type pokémon, holding her hand out towards it with a smile. "Here you go!" She was slightly surprised, to say the least, when Boldore cowered from her. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, please don't be offended…" said Jake with an apologetic look on his face as he took the berry from her, "Boldore won't take anything from anyone but me..."

"How come?" asked Flannery, obviously curious. Being a Gym Leader, she was used to meeting trainers and pokémon that were comfortable around one another. She could also recall seeing pokémon that were slightly reserved about meeting new people, but a pokémon that was scared of people was something completely new.

Jake let out a sigh. They weren't in a hurry to go anywhere and it wasn't that long of a story, so he went ahead and told her about first meeting Boldore's trainer (or stealer, to be more precise) and how he had decided to take the rock-type away from her when he realized what a horrible person she was. "It took him quite a while to get used to my other pokémon. I usually let them all spend a lot of time outside of their pokéballs but I can't let him out when there are many people around because he just panics…"

"That sounds awful…" said Flannery, looking at Boldore who was calmly eating the berry Jake was holding. She knew that it wasn't her or Boldore's fault, but scaring a pokémon by simply trying to give it something to eat still made her feel very uneasy.

"He did get used to Jacob and Melanie, however." said Jake after a short silence. "It took him a few days, but that still made me a little optimistic."

"Yeah, I suppose that is a good sign…" She was about to say something else but was cut short by the sound of Jake's Xtransceiver, which started ringing all of a sudden.

"It's Jacob." said Jake with a blank expression, picking up the call. "Hello?"

"Hey, Jake? Remember how I said I'll be there soon?"

"You mean like an hour ago?" asked Jake with a chuckle. "Yeah, I remember."

"There are so many pokémon centers here!" exclaimed Melanie, who was standing behind him. "We can't find the one you're in!"

"Your Pidgeotto came here with us before going back to you, Jacob." said Jake bluntly, raising an eyebrow. "Just ask it to show you the way."

"Oh, that's true…" There was a short silence. "Uh… We'll be right there!" Jake couldn't help but chuckle and roll his eyes as Jacob hung up the call.

Later, in the evening

"I'm sure glad everything turned out alright." said Jacob.

"The nurse said that it was a very close call, but who cares?" said Jake with a shrug of his shoulders. "That's part of the past now."

"So what are you going to do with it now?" asked Flannery, who was doing her best to ignore the way Melanie was constantly staring at her hair.

"Wait here." The group was standing at the outskirts of the city so he went ahead and walked for about half a minute, leaving the human-populated part of Cinnabar Island behind him. After making sure that they hadn't followed him he released Ponyta from its pokéball. The wild pokémon (wild in spirit, technically) looked at its surroundings for a few moments, as it trying to adjust to being outside of the pokéball again, before setting its eyes on the trainer in front of it.

"Here we are." said Jake with half a smile. "Good as new. Well, except for the bite mark on that leg of yours." he pointed at one of Ponyta's hind legs., "The nurse said it might take a while for it to disappear. Run along now." The trainer couldn't help but chuckle at Ponyta's rather surprised and disbelieving expression. "I said you could trust me, didn't I? When I do catch you, I'm gonna do it my way; fair and square. You better go," he chuckled again, "before I change my mind."

"That was sort of anti-climatic." said Melanie with a blank expression as Jake came to a stop next to them.

"It's a shame you had to drop out of the tournament." said Flannery. "I could tell how much you wanted a chance to battle me and Chili."

"Does that mean you'll battle me now?"

"Uh, no… I have a plane to catch in about-" she checked her handwatch, "-10 minutes!" She chuckled and gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry… I'm sure we'll come across each other again in the future!"

"Good." Even though Flannery's response kind of resembled an invisible wall in the middle of a corridor leading to a huge bowl of ice cream, he still wasn't regretting dropping out of the tournament in the slightest. "I'm looking forward to it already."

"Hey, why don't we swap phone numbers?" asked Flannery with a smile. "I'll be happy to give you some tips or advice if you need them! I also don't mind an occasional chat."

"Sure!"

"Well, I should get going." Smiling, she let out her Rapidash and climbed onto it. "Roxanne and Winona are obviously wondering where I am."

"Okay, no worries." said Jake with a smile. "Bye, thank you for your help!"

"See ya!" Flannery then gently pressed one of her heels against Rapidash, causing it to break into a gallop.

"Goodbye!" said Jacob, waving his hands, "And Best Wishes!"

"Seriously?" asked Jake, looking at him with a frown.

"What?"

"Best Wishes?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"There are so many things wrong with Best Wishes." **

"Look at how fast that pokémon goes!" exclaimed Melanie with awe as she watched Flannery and her Rapidash. "How cool is that?"

"Yeah." said Jacob with a smile. He looked at Jake after being silent for a short moment, "Hey, listen, I've been thinking about something…"

"About what?"

"Well, it'll be kind of next to impossible to earn a Gym Badge from Blaine with my current team." said Jacob, "So I figured that the best option for me right now is to travel to other Pokémon Gyms and challenge other Gym Leaders. I think I'll have an easier time dealing with the type advantage Blaine has by catching different pokémon and training the ones I already have."

"That sounds legit."

"You've decided to stay here and join Blaine's Gym, right?" Jake nodded. "Well, that doesn't mean we'll never see each other again."

"Of course not. We can always talk on the phone. I'm sure that you having a Pidgeot one day will help us see each other more often, too."

"Or you having a Charizard. Maybe even a Dragonite."

"Or me having a Charizard!" exclaimed Melanie, jumping into the air with excitement.

"So," said Jake with a chuckle, "what are you going to do now?"

"Well, Blaine said that the next ship to Fuchsia City leaves tonight and that there won't be another one for an entire week after that…" said Jacob with a pout, "Which is kind of unfortunate…"

"What about you, Melanie?" He looked at the brunette, who was still calming down from imagining what owning a Charizard would be like.

"I don't want to challenge Blaine relying only on my Onix because Seadra and I obviously need some work…" She smiled. "Besides, if I go with Jacob I won't have to travel alone. That'll make things ten times more fun!"

"When will the ship depart?"

"Um… Soon…" said Jacob, rubbing the back of his head with a hand.

"Oh! I guess this is goodbye then. For the time being, that is."

"Yeah…"

"So, what, um…" There was a short silence. "You don't want a hug, do you?"

"What? No."

"Good." said Jake with a blank expression, "Because you're not getting one."

"…" Melanie frowned. "Honestly, you two are such little kids! Just hug already!"

"That has nothing to do with-"

"NOW!"

* She has one when you rematch her in Emerald, so why not…

** Ugh… :l

A/N: The next chapter is going to take place after a time jump. Since it has been mentioned more than once in the story that the Pokémon League will take place in 7 months, the length of the time jump will be 3 months. I'll be sure to add a reminder in the next chapter as well.

SO! Time jump. Don't forget. Bananas. Uh… bye. l_l