Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Most notably by me. I'm not dead. Yay.
Regardless, I should have known better than to make consistent uploading a new year's resolution. It fell apart even faster than my resolution of not singing flat as a member of the tenor section. I ran into more than a couple problems trying to get this finished, not limited to losing my computer for a while, but I'm back, and slow as ever. Regardless, here I am, and here we go.
Luke was pretty sure he'd found Steven. Now the only problem was making sure of it and delivering the letter to the former champion. Which really wouldn't have been too hard if he weren't doing so through an internet message board centered around rocks and stones.
But even if this person was Steven, Luke still needed to draw him out in person to deliver it. How to do that? He couldn't just ask if the man was in Dewford, and he didn't want to tip his hand by bringing up either the league or Devon Corp.
Maybe lead him on thinking he had an incredibly rare rock type pokemon, feel out his interest in meeting? It had a better chance of working than just asking if he was the former champion and if he'd like to meet in person. At least it did in Luke's head.
The pokenav vibrated with a message from Bel that he dismissed. He could talk to her later, he needed to focus on Steven for the time being.
With a few more keystrokes, a new message was sent to 'Daigo_Stones' and Luke closed the communicator. If he worked this angle right, he'd be able to both advance his own plans and finish being an errand boy for Stone. Although finding out about the former champion had been more exciting than he'd bargained for.
First, the epiphany when he'd clicked on 'Champion Stone' to see that the person he'd been searching for was formerly a dominant champion and battler. Rising to power with a defensively focused team with high powered offensive bursts, he focused on steel and rock types.
Then the realization that his reign had apparently been incredibly corrupt going from what comments and articles said about him and his connection to the Devon Company. Luke was less than thrilled to effectively be working for a rotten company at the moment, but there was more to it, he was sure. Whether what was underneath the surface was more corruption or less was anyone's guess.
The sources claimed that Stone had dumped region and corporate money into a research project separate from his father's company, under his own direct supervision. The same sources claimed he was using said project to embezzle millions of…dollars? Luke suddenly realized that he wasn't sure what Hoenn citizens called their currency, and the articles only specified the numbers, not the units of measuring them. He'd been using his card almost exclusively and hadn't bothered to listen when others had been talking about it. He would ask one of the rookies later.
There was a problem with the idea of him embezzling the money though. It wasn't until after he'd been forced from his championship by Wallace, but evidence had apparently come up that the research team had existed. When asked, Steven refused to answer what their goal had been. Which made him look all the more suspicious.
In short, the Unovan had no idea how to feel about the other man. How could he seem so guilty and innocent at the same time? The evidence pointed towards guilt more than innocence though, and if Luke were to meet with the man, he would be fully prepared. Flames forbid he have to battle the other man with only Gojira and Heracles as his higher powered 'mons.
As he pondered, his 'nav lit up with a new message from Daigo, which he readily opened.
"So, he wants to meet at the entrance to the Granite Cave mine?" Luke muttered to himself, unable to stop the apprehension from rising in his gut. After all, what person with good intentions wanted to meet with a teenager in a dark, secluded area outside of the city?
"Looks like I'll be doing some spelunking after all."
Julia followed Luke the morning he went off to train with Dart. When she had asked him about it, he had said something about "just making sure" and "necessary precaution" without actually saying what he'd be doing.
It was oddly vague, and, she had to admit, suspicious. The Gyarados had been perfectly behaved ever since his evolution outburst, acting more like a Poochyena pup than the wrathful leviathan his species was known for being. The past few days had been nothing but Luke verifying the water type's placidity.
She had to get up extra early to tail him through the town outskirts and toward the quarry lake they had made into their training ground. To her surprise, he kept going.
So she followed him some more until he was at the entrance to the old mine, known by most as Granite Cave ever since the operations had stopped. And then he let his full team out as he propped his back against the stone wall and sat down, Rebecca taking her place beside him.
Amelia curled up beside her trainer, gnawing on a scrap of rock as she watched Franz and Dart run and slither in circles, playing a game only they knew the rules to. Shigure took to the air, chirping every so often as he monitored them all.
She stood to the side watching for almost half an hour as a spectator while trying to decide how to proceed. She could send her team out, or just approach him. Either way she would need to figure out what she would tell him to justify her being there, be it admitting that she followed him or trying to make him believe she was there coincidentally.
Julia walked towards him before she lost the nerve to do it. All of him team members gave her glances as she walked by, but none of them moved to stop her as she sat beside their trainer.
"So, what brought you all the way out here this morning?"
Luke bolted upright at her question, hand digging in his hip pack until he realized it was her. He gave a huge sigh as his hand went to his chest to calm himself down.
"By Storm and Fire Jul," he said once his breathing slowed to a more normal pace, "you scared the daylights out of me. Any reason you needed to sneak up on me like that?"
Julia recognized that he was talking, but her focus was on the other teen's eyes. Specifically, his right eye. It wasn't the cold blue she was accustomed to seeing, but a soft silver instead, almost like a sliver of the moon was in the boy's eye. She couldn't stop herself from staring at it.
When the boy realized, he slapped a hand over his right orb, obscuring it from her sight. For another couple minutes the two of them said nothing, letting the tension in the air sit.
"I thought I imagined it." Julia said, her voice seeming small even to herself. "I saw it when you woke up in Oldale, but I convinced myself it was a trick of the light. How have you been hiding it this entire time?"
"Color contacts." Luke said simply, keeping the hand over his eye. Even his pokemon had stopped moving to look at the two humans.
"Anything else?" she pushed, switching from staring at the hand over his eye to the exposed blue eye. Julia felt the advantage she had in the conversation and wanted to press it. The information was close enough she could feel it, taste it almost.
It wasn't even that she was suspicious of Luke like Brendan, or that she was so desperate to know more about him as the guy she liked like May wanted her too. She just wanted to understand the puzzle that the Unovan trainer was. She just wanted to know.
After another moment of silence, Luke responded. "What else is there to know? They're custom made and I don't wear them when I sleep." His hand still refused to move from the right side of his face. "I'll be honest, I really don't want to talk about this. Like, at all."
"Why?" Julia asked. She couldn't see it, but she was sure that her face was expressing the confusion she was feeling. "It's just your eye color."
"You know," Luke said as he turned away from her and fished something out of his hip pack, "I misspoke when I said I didn't want to talk about it. What I meant to say was that I'm not going to be talking about it." His voice was grating, like a knife being run across a stone. When he turned back to her, his eyes were both blue again, his hand slipping the contacts' case back into his pouch.
"Besides, that doesn't answer why you're here." He said, blue eyes boring into her skull for the answer.
"I was-"
A metallic clang from inside the mouth of the cave cut Julia off, followed by the sound of a pokemon being returned to their ball. Then, a man walked out from the cave entrance, black hiking clothes smeared with mud and a mining helmet on his head. His face was similarly smudged, hands only clean because he'd taken off the gloves that were now beside his feet.
Luke's head whipped between the two of them like a kid playing with someone else's toy. Then he shrugged and motioned to Julia.
"Daigo, I assume? This is Julia, one of my friends. Julia, this is Daigo, someone I met on a message board about rocks."
"Lucas!" Daigo said, moving to shake the trainer's hand, "I know we haven't spoken for long, but I am glad to meet you. And you brought a friend too! Is she similarly interested in stones?"
"You're interested in stones?" Julia blurted, unable to contain her surprise, "And that's why you left so early? To talk to someone about rocks?"
"She doesn't, just tagging along," the Unovan said, "as you can probably tell. And not all stones. There's just one or two in particular that I'm interested in for the moment."
His eyes flicked to Daigo when he said the word 'stones' as though it held a special impact. Truthfully, she had been hoping to learn more about Luke, Julia just wasn't ready for what she was learning about him to come out of left field like this.
"You seem to be a decently powerful trainer for only having one gym badge." Daigo's words brought her attention back to the stranger, who was now busy inspecting Luke's pokemon. His attention almost seemed like it was locked on Amelia, who had cracked the rock from earlier open to chew on the iron ore hidden within. "She's doing well, decent enough diet from the luster on her plates and teeth. You've got yourself a fine little Aron."
"Thanks," Luke said as he returned them all but Amelia and Rebecca, "So, the cave?"
Daigo's eyes lit up as he motioned for them to follow him. "Of course, this way. I've only laid out one set of gear, but I can unpack another for your girlfriend."
"Not his girlfriend," Julia interjected before Luke followed the man, "and what are we doing? Never did catch that bit."
"Well, your 'not-boyfriend' wanted me to show him through one of the paths in the mine. Something about maybe finding a stone or mineral that's rare in Unova." Daigo turned back to address her, patting Luke on the shoulder. "Which is something I'm interested in too, although I have no idea what mineral it could be."
"I'll know when I see it." Luke said with a small shrug. "You don't have to come if you don't want to Julia. This is a personal thing, I'd get if you want to hang back or go back to the suite."
"I'll come," she said, walking up beside the two men, trying to get a read on Diago. He was taller than Luke and her by a good bit, standing somewhere around 180 cm. The angles on his face were hard and defined, high cheekbones not hid at all by a couple days' worth of blond stubble. His clothes looked worn, but that was mostly from the mud that coated them. None of his hair could be seen from under the gray hard hat he was wearing. Going off so little information she'd have guessed he was anywhere from his late 20's to mid-30's.
Just inside the mouth of the cave, Daigo pointed out a set of gear that Luke quickly put on over his normal attire, yellow cover-alls with a white hard hat, and a detachable light strapped onto his shoulder. Julia was fitted similarly once Daigo unpacked a second set.
"It's too bad you didn't find what you were searching for," Daigo said as the trio emerged from the mouth of the cave into the afternoon sunlight. "I was rather looking forward to what you could have been talking about."
"I'm used to disappointment." Luke said with a shrug as he stripped off the suit and helmet. "But really, thanks for this opportunity, not sure how long I'd be here waiting for someone else to guide me through that, especially someone as capable of answering all our questions."
Despite his efforts, Luke couldn't help but think of the events as half a failure instead of half a success. He'd been able to slip the letter, safely sealed in a plastic bag, into Daigo's dry bag without the other man noticing. At least he hoped the other man hadn't noticed.
Julia, for her part, did not seem to have enjoyed their little adventure. Being in the cave seemed to make her uncomfortable, which was understandable. Tight, dark, damp places like that tended to make people anxious. He suspected the only reason he hadn't been terrified on his first time was from the adrenaline being pushed through his system.
The two trainers bid farewell to Daigo as they began the trek back towards town, remaining silent until they arrived at their training spot.
"Go ahead and take a load off," Luke said as he released his team, "you're due for some relaxation after being in that cave for five hours."
The look Julia gave him said that she didn't believe him. So he shrugged.
"Being in caves is-well, it isn't fun for me, but it gives me a certain thrill, a different sense of enjoyment. You very clearly don't have the same experience, it seemed to make you anxious, and I'm sorry for effectively dragging you into it. So just relax now. No training or workouts for the rest of the day." After speaking, he shrugged at Julia's frown. "My pokemon are going to be out and playing. I'm taking a nap."
With that, the blue-eyed boy turned away from his charge and sat down, leaning against a boulder. The sound of pokeballs opening let him know that Julia was taking him up his invitation, and the rhythmic breathing let him know she sat down a couple feet away from him.
He couldn't hear her, but he knew Rebecca was either sitting or standing just behind and to the side of him. Dart was alternating between gliding beneath the surface and on top of it from the sounds of the splashes he could hear. Shigure's chirping let him know that the Tailow was flying above the rest of the party, while Franz chased him from below. Amelia was still adjusting to being in such a large group and was likely sitting beside Rebecca since he couldn't hear her trying to chase after Franz.
Julia's team was harder to place. He assumed that Oliver was steadfastly waiting beside her, but he could also be contributing to the splashing. Kord didn't really make much of a sound when he waddled around and was likely just soaking in the sun. Chocolate was probably with Franz chasing Shigure? Or maybe curled up to take a nap. And her Abra didn't make noise anyway, levitating above the ground and teleporting to get around. Really it was anyone's guess where the psychic fox was resting.
"How are you so comfortable with it?" Julia asked, breaking the silence between the humans. Luke had to stifle a yawn as he sat up to look at her as she stared straight ahead to where Dart was splashing in the water.
"I trust my pokemon to keep me safe, even when I'm napping. It's one of the things about being a trainer that took me the longest to really accept, the mutual trust to keep each other safe."
"I meant how are you so comfortable with lying to us and going out on your own. You told us that you'd be training with Dart today, not going cave diving." She said it in an even tone, but Luke could feel the accusation behind her words.
"Oh. That. To put it simply, this is the only time I've really lied to you about what I'm doing when I go off. And I did it because if I had told you that I was going to the middle of nowhere to meet with a stranger significantly older than me by myself, you'd have been worried." He turned so that he was facing forward again, watching Dart slither in the water. "And you guys really shouldn't worry about me or my safety. Your concerns should be for yourselves and experiencing your journeys, throwing me in there is just adding stress."
"What if we want to be concerned about you? You're our friend, and what happens to you matters."
"Word of advice," Luke said with a sigh, closing his eyes. He succeeded in blocking out the sun, but not the memories. "Don't get too attached to me. I tend to disappoint the people that are."
"So we're just supposed to believe whatever you tell us, even when I can prove that you've lied to us before? Like now?" Her voice was incredulous, edging towards anger. "Your own point can be used against you: what would have happened if Daigo wanted to hurt you? Do you think you would have stood a chance? And where would that leave the rest of us?"
"I'll answer all of your questions in a word: yes." Luke had to force his tone to stay even. "You should believe what I say, like when I say that it was safer for me to go alone than to bring you guys along. I might not have been able to beat him or out-muscle him, but I'm willing to bet I could have gotten away from him and back to you guys."
"You honestly don't know how arrogant you sound right now. You have one gym badge. He could have sent out an Aggron or something! For all the experience you have, you're still just another eighteen-year-old trainer!"
"First of all, I'm not just another trainer. Second, I've earned eleven gym badges to date. Third, an Aggron would be far from the hardest thing for me to escape from." Luke said as he stood up, recalling his team except for Rebecca. "I need you to understand that the safety and success of other people is more important than my own, and that when I don't tell you something or deceive you in some small way, it's for your safety."
"That's Tauros-shit and you know it." Julia said as she stood up, blocking Luke from the path toward town. "As though we would be better off without you there, or you'd be better off on your own."
Luke gave a mirthless snort. "Both of those are probably true. For instance, we'll use the Aggron example. I know exactly how I would get away from it. I don't know how I'd get the rest of you out. Now if you'll excuse me, since I can't rest here, I need to go somewhere else to do it."
"Not until you-"
"It's also funny how you never mentioned anything about who Devon Stone is before you agreed to be his courier, or how you didn't say anything about Steven Stone. It'd be kind of important for me to know what we were dealing with, yeah? Unless you just assumed a foreigner would know the politics. Or did you think it was better I didn't know?" Luke said as he walked around Julia, who kept looking at the spot he had been, mouth agape. "Think about that for a while before you criticize me for holding back information again."
Julia had apologized to him that evening for not telling him about Steven. In turn, he apologized for loosing his cool. She had also tried to get him to promise to not keep secrets like that from her and the others in the future, but he'd dodged around doing so. They hadn't talked to one another in the following couple days beyond simple good mornings.
Now he was in the Dewford Gym's waiting area, which was a locker room with an actual gym attached to it, getting ready for his battle against Broly. His team wasn't particulary strong against fighting types, but not weak to it either. Shigure would be the lead, with either Dart or Rebecca as his backup depending on the situation.
When the aide came in to escort him to the battlefield, Luke was already standing, waiting by the door. Something had felt off ever since his meet-up with Daigo. No, 'off' wasn't quite the right word. There was something coming, something hanging over his head. An odd sense of dread almost, but that shouldn't be it, he was more than prepared for a tier-two battle.
Sure, he was still upset about the argument with Julia. Not at her so much as that the argument had happened in the first place, which was his fault really. He shouldn't have said anything to the rookies about what he'd been planning on doing or kept it vague enough that what he said would have been true. Regardless, the argument and irritation was his fault, no point in being upset at Julia.
But that wasn't what this was. He'd gotten in plenty of arguments with his friends before without feeling like this after. It wasn't the argument, it wasn't nerves, it wasn't fear, so what was it?
Luke tabled the mental discussion as he made his way to the center of the pitch where Broly was waiting. He was taller than the Unovan by a head, easily standing over six feet tall. A tight-fitting orange tank top and grey sweatpants made it look like he was getting ready to work out instead of take part in a pokemon battle. Spiky black hair came up from his head, with skin the color of warm bronze covering his muscled arms and neck.
Luke, by comparison, was in his Briney Co./BW Agency jersey, with jeans and boots.
The two met in the middle with a handshake. "Lucas Williams, here for a tier-two gym battle to earn the Knuckle Badge."
"Brawly, gym leader of Dewford Island, here to stop you from getting the Knuckle Badge." Brawly, not Broly, said as he took Luke's hand. "Don't take it personally kid, but I was told that I've been giving out too many low tier badges recently. Gotta make an example out of you, feel me?"
The Unovan shrugged. "Not like I expected you to just roll over and give me the badge. But you'll need to make an example out of somebody else, I don't plan on losing today."
"Sure kid, whatever you say." Brawly said as he turned back to go to his side of the plot, "Just don't cry when you lose. It gets on my nerves when the cocky ones cry."
Luke didn't respond to the bait, instead rolling Shigure's ball in his hand. Maybe he should start off with Dart instead, go full tilt from the get-go? No, the Tailow needed the experience, and timid as Dart might be, Gyarados had a reputation for losing control for a reason.
The referee said something about it being a two-on-two battle, and the rules that everyone there already knew. Then the flags dropped, and the battle began.
Luke tossed Shigure's ball high into the air as he walked toward the middle of the pitch. Brawly stood next to his Machop, approaching slowly, watching the Unovan and his Tailow.
Likewise, Luke was studying the gym leader. The other man was clearly physically stronger than him, and, given the way me moved across the pitch almost gliding on the balls of his feet, probably an actual martial artist. Which didn't bode well for Luke if the two of them went at it along with their pokemon.
Instead, he stopped several yards short of the center before making a finger gun with his left hand.
"Bang."
And Shigure dive-bombed the grey humanoid, buffeting it with his wings and jabbing with his beak, easily drawing blood from the muscly pokemon before retreating back into the air. A simple hit-and-run tactic, but effective all the same. After the first one, Luke didn't need to give the auditory signal, Shigure already knew what to do and when to do it.
Not that he would have had the chance to give the cue. He was too busy getting beat up. Brawly was fast, way faster than Luke had been expecting, and his blocks were only going to go so far if Shigure didn't finish it up.
Luke never knew how, but he was always able to remember what happened in the pokemon battles more than his own fight. By the time Shigure had finished dealing with the Machop, Luke was hurting something fierce. He didn't remember taking many shots to the head, but that was definitely blood coming down into his eye, and it was anyone's guess if the blood he tasted was from inside his mouth or drip from the nosebleed he'd been given.
Regardless, he was thankful for the momentary respite Brawly recalling his pokemon gave the Unovan. As Shigure flew towards him, he realized it would be even shorter than he'd expected.
"Hito, vital throw."
Faster than Luke thought a Makuhita could move, the yellow pseudo-sumo pokemon shot forward and grabbed Shigure out of the air by his wings. In a single, sickening motion, the gym leader's pokemon make the swallow look backwards with a horrific crunching sound.
"You should be glad he knows moderation, it would have been just as easy for him to tear its head off completely. Now then, are you going to give up or send another pokemon out?"
Shigure's body dropped to the floor as the crowd cheered for the battle escalating.
"Is that what this is about? You getting your popularity back by killing my pokemon?" Luke's words were cold, laced with barely restrained fury. He rolled a pokeball in his right palm.
"You were talking all that good shit a minute ago. What happened to your bravado, where's your confidence now?" Brawly's words barely registered as the gym leader walked towards Luke. "You know what they say: talk smack, get clapped."
Luke dropped the lure ball, releasing his leviathan. As soon as he emerged, Dart's eyes were blazing, feeding from his trainers fury. His roar when he saw the corpse of his party-mate could be felt through the ground, the vibrations traveling up the trainers' legs. The Unovan didn't even have to point to the fighting-type for the atrocious pokemon to launch itself towards it.
"The saying, Broly," Luke said as his Gyarados tore into the much smaller pokemon, spilling its blood all over the arena floor, "is talk shit, get hit. Now where's my badge."
After Luke's battle, Julia was too busy comforting a sobbing May to congratulate the other trainer. It had started off simple enough if she disregarded Brawly beating the Unovan teen to a pulp, but then being forced to watch the Makuhita wring Shigure's neck? It was nearly enough to make her sick, and more than enough to disgust her.
Put simply, May was a mess. The contents of her stomach had vacated onto the bleachers when Shigure was killed. The dry-heaving and panic attack started when Luke had sic'd Dart on the fighting type. It didn't help that the announcer commented on approximately how much blood was supposed to be in a Makuhita's system.
On the other hand, Brendan was just outside the bathroom door, pacing to and fro in an attempt to work the anger and helplessness out of his system. He would be the next one from their group to fight Brawly, first thing tomorrow morning. Granted, he would be with her comforting May, but opted to 'guard' the door to make sure they weren't bothered instead.
Meanwhile, Julia was busy soothing her friend and worrying about how Luke was holding up. One of his pokemon had just been killed in front of him, and he had the injuries from the fistfight to deal with. He couldn't be in a good space. Although she'd have to bet that he'd still be doing better than May was at the moment.
Thirty minutes after she'd run from the stands, May stopped dry-heaving. Twenty after that, she stopped sobbing, and claimed she was well enough for the trio to walk back to the suite, although her hands never left Brendan or Julia's arm at the same time, clinging to her friends for support. Even when they were back at the suite and she was sat down on her bed, the shaking didn't stop, even as she folded into Brendan's embrace, clinging to his shirt like a lifeline.
Julia decided to give them space, not wanting to crowd May. Instead, she knocked on Luke's door, only for it to swing open when her knuckles struck the wood. His gear was in a pile at the foot of his bed instead of sorted in his pack the way it usually would be. His vest wasn't there, which meant that he had dropped by and picked it up after the battle. Then she saw Shigure's pokeball resting on the desk, and her heart broke for both the boy and his dead pokemon.
Her search didn't stop there though. She went to the hospital next to see if he had checked in to get his injuries looked at. The receptionist responded in the negative. Which meant that he probably went to the training spot to get away from both them and the city in general. Maybe there was even a strong enough connection for him to call Dubs there? Regardless, it'd be her next stop.
She stopped when she walked by the PokeCenter. Julia didn't know why, but she felt like she should check inside. Rationally, it'd make sense for him to be at the center to heal his team. But she doubted that he was being rational. Regardless, she entered the building and asked the nurse.
"The boy with the Gyarados? Yes, his pokemon are being treated at the moment. He paid for two hours of international video call time and is in booth four at the moment, he seemed quite distraught." The nurse had worry in her eyes even though she managed to keep her voice steady.
Julia thanked her for the answer and made her way to the video booth. Although they were soundproofed, Hoenn law required them to have a transparent wall and door, which allowed her to see the boy she'd been chasing. Well, the back of him anyways.
Luke was sitting on the bench with his back toward the glass, slumped forward with his shoulders bowed in. His head hung low, chin resting on his chest, elbows on his knees. His hair had grown enough that it hung in front of his face, obscuring his face from her view. She couldn't see his eyes to tell if he'd been crying, or his face to see if he'd gotten the injuries looked at.
In a word, he looked defeated.
Then Julia noticed the people on the video screen. One of them was a young woman with long brown hair held back in a ponytail, with piercing dark-blue eyes. Her face seemed frozen between concern and irritation, some odd in-between of emotions. The bags under her eyes indicated she either wasn't sleeping enough or that whatever sleep she was getting didn't do anything for her. Or she was just tired from a couple days, Julia had no real way to tell.
The other person on the split screen was her polar opposite, with short blonde hair mostly covered by a hat and bright green eyes that seemed to smile even though her face was being pulled down in concern.
Julia stayed to watch the conversation for a few minutes. The women took turns speaking, sometimes not moving their mouths to leave room for Luke to contribute, although Julia had no idea if he was or not.
After a while, she went back to the suite. Luke apparently had his own way of dealing with the death of his pokemon. For now, her job was to help her other friend.
RIP Shigure the Tailow, Lv 3-19. He was a good bird.
Well, I don't really have much to say here this time. Thanks to maycontestdrew for the fantastic reviews, everyone make sure to review or PM me if you have any questions.
Anyways, I'll be gone until I'm back again. Stay safe y'all.
