And like that, I've returned. Many mortals will wonder if I was intentionally updating regularly only to skew it with another late update. I wasn't, this is just when I got around to finishing this chapter, but wonder they will regardless of what I say about it.
Anyways, this chapter is mostly filler. Character stuff happens, not too much plot stuff. Until plot stuff decides to show up no matter what I told it to do.
Let's kick it.
Dubs had told him she'd have Bastion delivered to him in Slateport. What she didn't tell him was where in the city he was supposed to receive the pokemon. Knowing her, she'd have someone find him and deliver it, take the little bit of control he had out of the situation. He wasn't thrilled about it.
In the meantime, he was walking around the port town with Brendan trailing behind him. There wasn't any animosity that Luke could tell, just thinly veiled worry and a bit of suspicion. Honestly, the Unovan couldn't blame the younger boy. The rookies had witnessed him send out a Gyarados with the intent to kill Brawly's Makuhita. The worry was as easily explained, he hadn't ever seen someone lose a pokemon to Luke's knowledge and didn't know how Luke would react.
Except they were only concerned because they had seen Shigure killed and the immediate effects of the bird's death. As far as Luke knew, they had no idea Ewan was dead instead of sent to the ranch he housed the pokemon that weren't currently on his team.
The amount of concern that even Brendan was showing was touching really. The boy with a one-track mind over training and getting ready for the next battle or challenge expressing concern for him? True, it might just be an attempt to protect his source of information and training, but it was still touching. And if he was showing this much, how much were May and Julia expressing when he wasn't there?
The last thought was concerning, they didn't need to worry about his well-being or safety near as much as they needed to worry about their own. Losing a team member sucked. It sucked real hard, and if he had a say in it, the rookies wouldn't have to experience it. But try as much as he would, he didn't think he'd be able to stop it. Just delay it as long as he could.
Some people said that losing pokemon never got easier. The Unovan had decided that they either hadn't lost that many, or that they deserved all the pity he could spare them. Because it did get easier, at least for him. Shigure's death stung, but the grief wasn't incapacitating like the first had been. Luke was infuriated by the situation that had killed the bird more than he was the death itself. Which, from a humanitarian standpoint, was horrible.
Which was not to say that he didn't care for his pokemon as friends and companions anymore. He definitely still did to keep the mutual trust of protection that he had told Julia about. He still got attached to every pokemon he caught and trained, even the ones like Matthew and Serra that he didn't keep on his team. They weren't expendable, and each one was special to him.
But he still had a job to do, a task that needed to be completed. As much as he'd like to take time to mourn the flying-type, it simply wasn't an option. Luke needed to move forward. He might not be alive anymore, but Luke wouldn't be able to forget him. Not the morning he'd caught him, not the training they'd done, not the way he chirped when the team was out relaxing, and not the way he'd been killed. His nightmares wouldn't let him.
Regardless, he was touched that the rookies were so concerned. Their innocence and care were bright enough Luke wanted to shield them as long as he could.
The blue-eyed boy suddenly realized that they had almost made it to the northern edge of the city, where a crowd was gathering in front of a huge building. From the outside it looked like a concert hall, or a small sporting arena. Eyeballing it, Luke assessed it was only a bit smaller than a league gym.
"Want to check it out?" he asked Brendan, jerking a thumb towards the crowd.
Brendan's snort was nearly enough of a response on its own. "Hardly, I'm not interested in contests, kinda surprised that you are."
"What's a contest?" Luke asked, frowing as he edged closer to the crowd. "Contest of what? Some kind of race or sport?"
"Well, if you must know," a familiar voice that Luke did not particularly want to hear said from his left, "they're pokemon contests. Coordinators compete to see who has the coolest, most beautiful, smartest, toughest, and cutest pokemon. For refined people who don't want to watch the brutish thing you call battling."
As Brendan started to reply back, Luke cut him off with a raised hand and a deep sigh.
"You say that Syd," Luke said as he turned to look at the woman, "but if memory serves, you're a battler too."
Sydney, or Syd as Luke tended to call her, was by no definition a large woman. She was barely over five feet tall, and incredibly slim, although she had filled out some since he'd last seen her in Unova. Her brown hair fell down to her waist, held back in a high ponytail. She was wearing an orange shirt under a grey windbreaker. Her legs were covered by skinny jeans going down just above her ankle with low-cut sneakers protecting her feet. Her brown eyes were partially obscured by the glare on her glasses, but still seemed to ooze warmth from her coffee-brown irises.
"So, uh," Brendan said, looking between the two awkwardly, his mouth partially agape, "I guess you know her Luke?"
"Yeah, she's a friend from back home." Luke said with a sigh as he handed Brendan his money card, "Go back and find the girls, get a suite like you guys always manage to do. I've got some catching up to do with Sydney, just text me where we end up."
"Aww," the girl pouted, although her smirk was barely hidden, "is that how you introduce me now? Just a friend?"
"Yeah, I'll go ahead and leave." Brendan said, taking the card and heading back towards the market May and Julia had been walking around last the boys had seen them.
Which left the two Unovans alone in the crowd, staring one another down. Luke jerked his head to the north. "Let's get somewhere a little less populated for this talk, yeah?"
Syd shrugged, her eyes hard behind the glasses. "Sure. Lead the way."
"Please," Luke said, his arm making a sweeping gesture with his right arm, "after you."
The pair walked out from the crowd, moving past the final few buildings and an obnoxiously large red and blue tent. Within half an hour, they were alone, not a single other person in sight, and likely not anyone in earshot either.
Luke's right hand hadn't left his hip pack the entire walk, just like how Syd's hadn't strayed far from her jacket's pocket. With a sigh, the two turned to face each other.
The metal of Heracles' ball was cold against his fingers as he tensed and relaxed his hand around it. There was not a world where he wanted to have a battle with Sydney at any point, but even less when he only had two real battlers on him compared to the four or five that she normally carried. Gojira and Heracles were stronger than any given pokemon she owned, and better trained, but he didn't like the odds in a five against two battle. Luke liked them even less when he remembered what pokemon she used.
Sydney moved suddenly, closing the distance while the blue-eyed boy was distracted by his thoughts and couldn't react quickly. Both her hands were by her sides, ready to shoot out and either release a pokemon or strike him while his guard was down.
Instead, she wrapped her petite arms around in what he assumed was supposed to be a bone-crunching bear hug, planting her forehead in the center of his chest. Luke's arms moved without the trainer needing to think, gently wrapping around his old friend.
It was a familiar, comfortable position for them both. Neither said anything for several minutes until Sydney broke the silence. "I hate to say it, but we do need to talk."
"I know." Luke sighed, but didn't move his arms until she did.
As much as he would have liked to just keep sitting and enjoy his friend's company, the did need to talk. A lot.
Julia had waited until they were all in the sitting room of their suite before she brought it up. It wasn't exactly something that anyone who might be listening needed to hear, and something that certain people, she had no idea who, could absolutely not be allowed to hear them say.
Brendan and May were on the couch, lounging comfortably just far enough away from each other to not be in physical contact. Julia spun one of the table's chairs around so that she was facing them directly. She propped her chin on her hands as she collected her thoughts, working through how she would tell them.
"After my battle," she started, not looking directly at either one of them, "Brawly said something to me, in response to me bringing up what happened with Luke."
The two sixteen-year-olds were no longer lounging back, but sitting up straight to hear more. They all felt horrible for what had happened to Luke, May feeling sorry for the Tailow more than its trainer, but the two of them had no idea why it had happened.
Julia felt bad for keeping it from them for so long after her battle but needed to be sure that Luke wouldn't catch them talking about it. She didn't know how he would react to the possibility of being targeted by some weird conspiracy, although she knew enough to guess that he wouldn't take it very well. He'd probably make some excuse about them being safer away from him and run off into the night. Which she was trying to avoid.
"He didn't say much," Julia explained, watching as their faces fell, "but he did say that he was just doing as he'd been told. And that he didn't have a choice in the matter."
"Tauroshit." Brendan said as he stood up to pace the room. "He's a gym leader. The only people he answers to are the Four and Champion Winstrate. And they wouldn't just tell him to kill a challenger's pokemon."
May sat silently, her fingers laced, and lips pursed. Julia wished she could tell what was going through the other girl's mind, but she wasn't a psychic. If she had to hazard a guess, it was likely just reinforcement to her ideal that the league, and battling in general, was atrocious.
"He said that it wasn't from in the league," Julia said, her voice sounding stronger and firmer than she expected it to, "but he couldn't, or didn't, tell me anything else. Something about how weird it was that wet season was late, but that was kind of a non-sequitur."
"Do you think it's Team Aqua?" May asked, making the siblings both turn to look at her. "Or the other one, Team Magma?" The younger girl's eyes were downcast, a small frown tugging at the corners of her lips.
"It would make sense, right?" the younger girl continued, "We ran into them before, and Luke is the one that really dealt with them between the one he fought and the unconscious ones he took care of for us."
"I mean, yeah, but if that were the case why wouldn't they try anything on me or Julia?" Brendan asked, sitting across the table from Julia, "Why Luke?"
"Well, he fought Brawly first, right?" May said, balling her shirt in her hands before relaxing them and repeating the process, "The message only needed to be sent once. And it connects the comment about wet season, since they've been boycotting a lot of the shipments to and from Dewford Island."
"I'm not saying I disagree," Julia said as a knot of anxiety and dread formed in her stomach, "but I don't think we can just jump to that conclusion with what little we know."
The steel-eyed girl really hoped it wasn't Team Aqua. One less than friendly interaction with them was more than she ever needed to have.
May shrugged. "Sure. But either way, it does mean that the gyms aren't as safe as we thought they were. Brawly was told to kill either one or both pokemon Luke was using. And he did. What's to say the other gym leaders won't be given the same instructions? Or, my way of saying that you guys now have another reason why you shouldn't be challenging gyms."
Brendan frowned, saying "I'm with you, the gyms aren't as safe as we thought. But the idea of someone, or a group of someone's, being after us is just as much incentive to keep training and getting stronger. If people are going to come after or attack us, I'd rather be overprepared than overwhelmed."
Julia squeezed her eyes shut before she spoke again. "None of this is good, and there isn't a good way out of it. If we keep training and keep challenging gyms, we're practically inviting the conflict. But there's no guarantee that it'll stop if we stop the circuit. It's effectively a lose-lose situation."
All three teens sat in silence for a moment, contemplating her words. She wished she knew what to do, or that she could ask Luke or her dad for advice, but neither of those were good ideas. Luke because he'd likely just up and leave, her dad because he'd probably send them back to Littleroot until they were in their thirties. And she couldn't give up the freedom she'd just gotten a taste of.
"I'm sorry for just dropping this whole thing," Julia said as she vaguely gestured to the room around them, "but you guys needed to know, and not telling you sooner was tearing me up."
"Luke doesn't know, does he?" Brendan asked after a brief pause, chocolate eyes meeting steel.
"No."
"Good. Let's keep it that way."
They had walked back to Sydney's apartment when she'd asked if they could go somewhere more comfortable than the edge of the city. Luke had agreed without hesitation, inviting her to lead the way.
That's where they sat, on her couch with the news on the television just loud enough to dissuade people from trying to listen in as they talked.
Luke enjoyed her company. He almost always had, and likely almost always would going forward. She was easy to relax around, something that he'd had an acute trouble with recently. Which she noticed, of course.
"You're twitchy," She said, poking his side with the television remote, "and aggressive. Sure, you're better than you were right after it happened, but that's hardly saying much. This trip was supposed to be helping you. Or, at least, that's what the boss-lady told me."
The teen sighed, slapping the remote control away from his side. "It's hard," he said, and continued before she could ask the question he knew was coming, "all of it. From not having you guys around, to training a whole new team, to mentoring a group of rookies, to the search, all of it."
As soon as he finished, he wished that he hadn't. Sydney's eyes froze, locked on his own before he looked away with a cringe. This is why being so relaxed around people could be bad, some things didn't need to be said.
"You're telling me," she started, her face inching closer to his own, "that you let her wrap you back up in her wild Swanna chase again? After what it did to you last time?"
Their faces were only inches apart, although he was making a point of not looking at how upset she was. As much as he cared for her, his job was important. It wasn't just a job, it was his reason. That didn't mean he was OK with her being this upset with him, or that he wasn't upset at his slip-up.
Emotion began to boil up at the corners of his eyes as he processed the information he'd let sit for too long, emotions that he'd pushed out of his consciousness. But as soon as the saline drop streaked down his face, he put them back in check, bottling and capping the emotions.
"I'm sorry you're upset about it," Luke said in his best attempt at a flat voice, "but it was always my purpose when I came here. My own health and well-being are secondary. You know that."
Sydney pulled back, crossing her arms with a pout. "You're more important than you give yourself credit for. People care about you, apparently more than you do yourself. Do you think Bel would be OK if you succeeded but didn't come back? What about Pitch? Or Wh-"
"I get it," Luke said, cutting her off as his voice rose, "I disagree, but I get it. But how do you think I would feel if I came back after I failed? I'll give you a hint, it looks like more of ten months ago."
"I don't think you do." Sydney said, her own voice barely audible over the television. "What about your friend here in Hoenn, who has no idea? How would he react? What about someone like me, who is much closer to you? Your mom? Sister? Brothers? All over something that isn't your fault."
"It is my fault, and no matter what any of you, Bel, or Dubs say I won't be convinced otherwise."
"Hold on," Sydney said as she raised her hand palm-out, "even she agrees that it wasn't your fault? Dude, get over yourself and look at the picture. I've heard you say that you aren't important. Hell, just a minute ago, you practically called yourself expendable, something I wish I could say I'd never heard you say before. If you're so inconsequential-"
"Stop" Luke tried to interrupt, his voice shaking, but she would not be deterred.
"If you're so inconsequential, why do you blame yourself for this-for everything really? You can't have it both ways, being both the reason everything that does go wrong does and not at all impactful in any of the things that go correctly. For crying out loud you turn twenty in what, five months, yet you haven't learned to see past the end of your nose."
Luke's frown was immediate. "What do you mean twenty? It's this region's excuse for winter, my birthday is in the fall."
"You do realize that the seasons are flopped, right? We're in the southern hemisphere. It's summer back in Unova. Besides, we're close enough to the equator that there's hardly a temperature difference between the seasons, the big difference is in the amount of precipitation." Sydney replied as Luke's jaw dropped.
He'd always had trouble keeping track of the months without knowing what it felt like outside. And he had roughed it out in eastern Unova for a while before Dubs and Bel convinced him to try another region, but it never really hit him. He'd been nineteen the entire time he was in Hoenn and never processed or realized it. The date had passed back in Unova, but he was too preoccupied to even notice.
With good reason, a part of his mind wanted to say, age is just a number that society placed a certain value on. The planet had made another revolution of the sun, big whoop.
He must have been staring into space for a while, because when Sydney interrupted his thoughts, her face was a mask of concern. Making her worry and stress was just another thing he'd have to bear the guilt of.
"I never really thought birthdays were important," he said, eyes fixed on his boots, "but I guess missing one puts things into perspective, huh?"
He knew he wasn't fooling her. The fact that he'd missed a birthday was inconsequential to him. It was the idea that he'd been so dissociated from the world around him that he didn't recognize how much time had passed. Rather, he hadn't processed how the days were adding up in the months that had passed. He was nineteen, not eighteen. Which meant Chris was sixteen and probably starting on his own journey. Amelia was probably finishing her internship. It was anyone's guess where his older brother was, but Thunder and Snowfire he was twenty-three!
"So, what brought you to Slateport?" the Unovan female asked, placing what he was sure was supposed to be a reassuring hand on his back. Instead, it added to the pressure. He knew she was walking on eggshells so she wouldn't set him off and it frustrated him to know that he would lose his temper so easily. Maybe she'd been on to something with him being more aggressive lately?
"It's more or less a pit stop for us," Luke said, leaning forward and away from the touch, "we're resupplying and getting some light training in before we head north toward Mauville. What about you? Why do you have a full-blown apartment here?"
"I got offered a position as a judge at the Contest Hall," she said, reaching for a glass with a fizzy liquid inside that Luke didn't remember seeing her pour, "plus a spot in the orchestra. Temporary of course, but still good money and experience for the future."
"Oh, also," she said as she dug around in a purse left open on the floor, "this was addressed to you at my mailbox. Any reason someone thinks we're living together?"
She passed him a padded orange envelope package about the size of a notebook. From the weight, he already knew what it was. To think about it, Sydney probably did too. At least, she probably knew what it was in general. Luke would bet money she wasn't sure which one though.
"Thanks," Luke said as he folded it and squeezed it into his hip pack, "out of curiosity, is Patti doing alright? It's been a while since I've seen her."
Sydney smiled.
"Why don't we go ask her?"
A woman with long, ash-blonde hair led Keith around the museum. Rebecca was a year older than him at twenty-one, although the pale woman seemed to have the energy of an eight-year-old the way she dragged him from exhibit to exhibit.
He'd asked her if she wanted to do something after her shift when he went for lunch for the third day in a row, but this wasn't quite what he'd been thinking of. He wasn't one to complain though. Truthfully, he'd been surprised that she agreed to do anything.
But Keith assumed it had less to do with him and more to do with just getting out and about. Since she'd been in such a rush to get away that she was still wearing her waitress uniform, knee-length black skirt and white button down shirt with the restaurant's logo on the breast pocket, white knee-socks and shoes that he estimated had a zero percent chance of being comfortable for long shifts or walking around the museum. She had put a light black jacket on to cover the logo though.
Keith reckoned it looked ridiculous, him being pulled around by someone nearly forty centimeters shorter than him, but he was fine with that. He didn't need a woman his height dragging him around. In fact, a woman the same size as him would be fairly terrifying. Even one that was only slightly shorter than him, like the boy with the white hair standing so close to the girl with a red bandana, would be way tall.
Then a bunch of pokeballs opened. Inside the museum. Which was odd, but maybe they were just part of one of the exhibits? Rebecca was pulling him toward the stairs faster than she'd been going before, but he didn't mind, his legs were plenty long enough to keep up with the increased pace.
He noticed the look of panic on her face when they got to the second level. Her increase in pace didn't have anything to do with wanting to get somewhere faster, it was her trying to get away from something. Because she was afraid.
The panic got worse when they she pulled him into what looked like a mugging. Five people in almost identical baggy white and black striped shirts with blue bandanas stood around one man in a navy polo, pokeballs at the ready.
Keith sighed as he pulled Rebecca behind him and stepped towards them, pulling a couple pokeballs from his pocket. Boss hadn't eaten since that morning, so he would have been cranky. Mimi was probably still tired from battling at lunch. Minnow was too big to be sent out indoors. Rocky and Skittles were good options though.
"So, uh, not that it's really any of my business or whatever," Keith said as the goons finally took notice of him, "but I don't think this is the time or place for all that." He gestured at the five of them surrounding the single man.
"You're right," one of them said, a man with a pale face and red moustache, "it is none of your business. So scram before we do something to you and that girl behind you." Keith decided he'd call that one Ready. After all, he seemed so ready to attack whoever he wanted. Keith didn't think Ready was ready for the whooping coming his way though.
The dark-skinned man clocked Ready in the jaw as they all sent out pokemon, his own Sableye and Skorupi emerging and immediately attacking the horde of Poochyena and Zubat the goons had brought out. Plus a Marshtomp and Grovyle that came from behind him to start helping his pokemon, which was helpful, but he didn't know Rebecca had such rare pokemon.
"HOLD IT!" a voice shouted from behind him, making all the freaks in bandanas stop. Keith took advantage of the pause to knock Ready down to the floor again before turning around.
The man stood across from Keith and between a group of teens that he assumed were the actual owners of the grass and water types. And damn, he was big. Not quite as tall or broad as he was, but still a huge guy. Maybe around 190 cm? And if he was a tractor, this guy was at least a heavy-duty work truck.
Soot-black hair was barely held back by a familiar blue bandana stylized with a rounded 'A'. His hair went down his dark face in sideburns that fed into a pointed beard. The white button-down shirt under a dark blue jacket had the top three buttons left undone to show off his toned chest and a necklace that ended in a golden anchor. Tight blue pants were held up by a gold belt with several pouches hanging from it, plus a freaking cutlass by his right hand. By the mountain this guy was a badass no two ways about it, and he had a swagger made Keith look at him.
"I'd like to apologize for my subordinates," the man said, spreading his hands in a placating gesture as he moved toward Keith, "but first, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Archibald Tribuo, but please, call me Archie."
The boy with the white hair Keith had noticed earlier took the chance to speak, "Wait, what do you mean your subordinates? Are you in charge of-"?
"Quiet little guy," Archie growled without taking his eyes or focus off Keith, "the adults are talking. As I was saying, I'm terribly sorry for my subordinates. I'd asked them simply to find the illustrious Captain Stern so I could talk to him about helping me design something, a little pet project of mine. It had slipped my mind that Charlie has a tendency for being a bit aggressive. And I'm afraid we don't actually have the time to discuss it. Unless any of you are interested in Team Aqua?"
"I'm not really a joiner." Keith said with a shrug as two of the grunts picked up Ready and carried him between them, followed by the other two grunts, then Archie himself.
Silence was left in the wake of the men leaving the room, the trainers inside left looking at each other and the broken display cases. Keith returned Skittles and Rocky before double checking that Rebecca was alright. Thankfully she was, so he turned to the man he'd helped.
"Will you help my parents feed me?"
And that's the chapter. We got to see Luke interact in person with someone from Unova, the rookies talking, and Keith fight some grunts. This chapter had everything I wanted it to. Yes, we are going to ignore that I literally decide what goes in the chapters.
Regardless, I figured I'd add something to the ending AN's, an extra bit of information that I haven't really been talking about in the story or AN's. Levels. They don't really exist in-world, but they are incredibly important outside of the story and inside the game. After beating Brawly, Luke and Julia's teams were as follows:
Luke:
Rebecca, 22
Dart, 22
Franz, 17
Amelia, 16
RIP Shigure, 21
Gojira, ?
Heracles, ?
Julia:
Oliver, 21
Chocolate, 16
Kord, 20
Zatarra, 15
As you noticed, this is only for the pokemon that they carry with them, since it doesn't include Matthew or Serra. Or the Lotad that we haven't seen in a while.
Anyways, I'll be gone until I'm back again. Stay safe y'all.
