Well, I am pleased to inform you that this chapter took me less than a month to get this chapter up. Big 'Rona is killing me softly as my essential job continues to work me dead and my feet still getting used to the inserts for my shoes.
As always, thanks to maycontestdrew for her reviews! If you have any comments, drop them in a review or a PM.
The blue-eyed teen had essentially given up on locating the rookies in the wilds after a torrential downpour had destroyed what he had been assuming were the tracks of the other trainers two days out of Slateport. The forced acknowledgement was painful to say the least, but he focused the pain in the way he'd always been most comfortable with. Exertion.
Without the rookies there to question him or divert his attention, Luke was able to get actual training sessions with his entire team for the first time since Littleroot. Bastion, Gojira, and Heracles all served as immovable training partners to his younger team, shining examples of what they would become.
The correction of would become to could become came automatically to the Unovan, the memory of Shigure's broken body rising to the front of his mind unbidden. He did his best to push it and the acrid bile back down. After all, that's what sessions like these were about.
Sain, the Electrike that had been caught for him, and Franz were weaving around Gojira's restrained attacks to either find or force an opening for one of them to land an inconsequential blow to the titan. Amelia observed the electric and dark type pokemon but paid more attention to the monster they were "fighting".
Rebecca was playing a high-speed game of tag with Heracles that Luke knew she couldn't win. Even though she was the fastest and most agile member of his team, she couldn't compete with the sheer difference in experience and training. Every so often the trainer would have them switch so Rebecca could work on evasion and escape, but he allowed her natural desire to be on offense to reign most of the sessions.
Meanwhile, in the ocean just to the east of the rest, Bastion and Dart swam.
To his credit, the leviathan seemed to be doing the best in comparison to his teammates. Luke knew better than to trust that appearance though.
Bastion was literally swimming circles around his junior, winding around him with speed and power the serpent hadn't ever encountered in the lake he'd spent his life in as a Magikarp. Each time the Gyarados' temper boiled over, Bastion was quick to reassert which of them owned the span of sea they were in though controlled blasts of water or slamming into the younger pokemon.
Every day, Luke would change who trained who and which of his pokemon would get his personal attention in battling the few other trainers he came across and the wilds but kept falling back to this arrangement. Why fix what wasn't broken?
If he kept at his current pace, it would only take a few more days to reach the next city. What was it called? Maui? Mooresville? It was lost in the training, and it didn't really matter anyway. He'd finally be able to find the rookies again and make sure they were staying safe in his absence. Maybe he should have taken a bus on the triathlon bridge like the people back in Slateport had recommended to make sure he beat them to the other city, but hoofing it had let him train without distractions or having to worry about the rookies seeing the pokemon he'd smuggled into Hoenn.
Honestly? The training was worth delaying his arrival in the city. It had to be. Sessions like this, short as they might be in the bigger picture, saved the lives of his team, his friends, and could help him keep his charges safe. He just had to trust them to be there when he arrived.
Which, ironically, was easier than trusting his own decisions.
The three of them had been in Mauville for two whole days and Julia's clothes still weren't dry, no matter how long they spent in the machines. Or, even if they did get dry, the humidity made it so they still clung to her and made it feel like she was walking in soup whenever she left their suite. It was, in a word, disgusting.
It was also part of the reason she and Brendan had not yet gone to the gym to apply for their preliminary battles. The on-and-off rain showers and obscenely high humidity made going anywhere a chore, even across the street to the 'center's cafeteria.
The other reason indirectly had to do with the absent member of their party. Luke had helped them with the registration and paperwork in Dewford and done the entire process for them in Rustboro. Her brother might be supremely confident that he would do it correctly, but she wasn't. Not by a long shot.
Besides, it felt wrong to do it without him there. Skies, hiking and camping without him felt like riding a bike with only one side of the handlebar. Perfectly possible, but why would you do it? In her case, sating her brother's desire to progress and soothing his irritation at the lack of progress he was making.
Speaking of, Brendan was once again tired of waiting, fastening the buttons over the zipper of his rain jacket. Patience never had been his strong suit.
"You're worrying too much," he said before she had even opened her mouth, "it's just some paperwork, agreeing on a date and time for the prelim, and a signature or swipe of our license. You don't need him holding your hand for something a kid could do."
"Well, she doesn't need him holding her hand," May said as she entered the common room, "but a couple of us would be incredibly happy to see it happen. Better than seeing pokemon tear each other apart."
Julia watched her brother's face contort in annoyance. Thirteen days back, the fourth day out of Slateport, Brendan had been challenged by an unusual trainer in a red jacket with the oddest wager she'd ever heard of. If Brendan won, he would 'win' one of the pokemon the other trainer used. If he lost, he had to go to some interest meeting for a conservation company.
Brendan had won the battle pretty handily, the naturally occurring rain doing no favors for his opponent's fire and ground types and letting Usopp battle in his natural habitat. Brendan selected the Torkoal, which the stranger had released and let the rookie catch. When she'd asked why he was so willing to give away one of his pokemon, he shrugged and told her it was freshly caught, and his company was sponsoring his mission to raise awareness. Nobody actually expected him to win any battles, just see faces and spread the word about what they were doing.
Funnily enough, Julia still had no real idea what it was the company was doing beyond a half-explanation of sustainable agriculture and researching better irrigation methods. But she didn't really have a problem with what he and his company were doing, she just thought it was an odd way to advertise it.
May, on the other hand, had remained silent on the matter until the stranger was out of earshot and lit into Brendan about responsible ecosystem management and how he shouldn't have agreed to the battle, and shouldn't have accepted the Torkoal as a prize. After all, according to May, pokemon weren't something to be given out as trophies or prizes. It was one of the few things she managed to agree with the league about, Wallace's administration having banned pokemon from being sold as prizes for the game corner.
And that was all it had taken for the two of them to resume an old argument, if battling for sport and competition was right or wrong. The two friends had gone from practically flirting to being passive aggressive junior students over the course of a couple hours.
Thankfully, Brendan let the comment pass as he straightened his jacket. "C'mon guys, we're burning daylight. Let's go get our names in the books."
The walk to the gym wasn't too long, the rainclouds having broken above them for the time being, sun shining softly against the trio. While her brother seemed to revel in it, the added warmth just made the humidity all the clearer to Julia. She wasn't just walking through soup. She was becoming the soup.
A boy was standing in front of the gym doors, head tilted back so far the black-and-white cap on his head threatened to fall off. He was diminutive, to say the least, probably not even 160 centimeters, and about as thin as a rail. He barely looked older than a child, dressed in a pair of green rain-pants with a white rain jacket.
There was a man standing at the boy's shoulder, but Julia's attention was focused solely on the boy with pale green hair. She wasn't sure what it was, but something felt off about him, yet strangely correct at the same time. Brendan slowed so that they were side-by-side as they approached the pair.
"Oh, hello." the boy said without turning his eyes from the entrance, "You two are on the league circuit, aren't you? Would you mind helping my practice before my preliminary match?"
The boy's voice was flat until the end of his question, peaking with the slightest bit of hope. She was about to answer in the affirmative, but Brendan responded faster.
"Sorry kid, we have our own battles to sign up for and fight." He said as he walked right by him to push through the door, leaving his sister and friend outside. Julia glared at him until the doors closed behind him before turning to the boy.
"I'd be happy to help you practice." she said before pulling a couple pokeballs off her belt, letting them roll around in her palm. "Where do you want to practice?"
His eyes lit up as he grabbed her hand to pull her into the building, dragging her past the reception desk to lead her to a small, side gym battlefield. The man who'd been with him, presumably his father, and May followed through the door several seconds behind the two of them.
Julia was left rubbing her wrist as the boy dashed over to the opposite side of the gym. His grip was a lot stronger than she'd expected someone with arms like twigs to have, plus he practically dragged her through the lobby and hallway. She was nearly 20 centimeters taller, and probably a few kilograms more massive, but the steel-eyed girl wasn't sure she could have stopped him if she wanted to.
"Sorry about that, my uncle said I had to be polite to everyone I asked to battle," the boy said, taking his hat off and handing it to his uncle with what she could only describe as reverence, "and you're the only one to have agreed. Oh, and by the way, my name is Wally."
"Well, Wally," Julia said with a smile as she tossed her team members between hands in an attempt to distract herself from the dull ache that had settled in her wrist, "like I said, I'm happy to help you practice, but is it ok that we're in here? These gym rooms aren't open use like the plots at the park."
He waved off her concerns as he slid the jacket off, revealing a white button-down shirt, with the top button being done despite not having a tie. "Everything's fine, Mr. Norman talked to Mr. Wattson and got this room reserved for me."
The girls could hardly believe what they heard. In fact, if he hadn't been so sincere in everything else, Julia was sure that she wouldn't have believed him. May seemed to still be having problems though.
"Come again?"
He'd finished out the last three days of his team's training rotation before finally stepping foot in Mauville City, striding past the seedy casinos and 'adult arcades' that he had no doubt were neon-colored scams to arrive at the pokemon center. The Unovan barely managed to catch himself and not hand over Bastion, Gojira, and Heracles, instead just handing the blue-smocked nurse the team he'd assembled in Hoenn, before looking for a room to rent.
To Luke's surprise, there weren't any suites listed as available, and only a few double rooms left, with a dozen or so single rooms. Seemed like his charges' luck with rooms finally ran out. So he rented one of the singles, a corner room on the bottom floor, windows on both walls, and placed his bag down just beneath the east window. Then, he grabbed the less-damp towel and headed for the showers, dropping off a set of pants and a shirt in the laundry dryer so he'd have something to change into once he was sufficiently clean.
Once he was clean and dressed, the trainer put the rest of his laundry in the washing machine and went back to the lobby to wait for his pokemon to be given back to him. He took them, dropped his laundry off in his room, and headed for the gym. Luke might not really care about the gym challenge here in Hoenn, but it was the convenient cover for him to be there, and it would be strange for someone who'd had a fairly exciting first couple gym matches suddenly stop the circuit.
A morbid warning came from the back of his mind about the dangers of going forward with the battles after what had just happened to Shigure, but he choked them out. After the training they'd just had to endure, there was no way his team wasn't ready for a third-tier battle. Even Sain had melded and adapted incredibly well with the rest of his team in training, making himself into an excellent training partner for both Franz and Rebecca, although the sparks that were constantly shooting from the scruff of his neck kept him from ever being paired with Dart.
Then Luke entered the gym lobby and saw the decorations. The electric gym. His leviathan would not be participating in any sort of battle here, either in the prelims or in the gym match itself.
"Thanks again for all the help Ms. Julia, I'm sure I'm ready for my matches now!" Luke turned to the voice and couldn't help it when his skin froze and blood burned at an eerily familiar scene. It only took a moment for him to force the feeling out of his consciousness and plaster a smile to his face as he approached the pair.
"Well well well, what do we have here?" he asked, steel and green finding blue, "Looks like I finally caught up to you guys, and you've managed to run into Wally while I was away. How's it going?"
He reacted on instinct, jumping to the side to avoid the bull rush that was Wally. The younger boy fell flat on his front after the target of his hug-lunge moved to the side, but Luke was quick to pick him up. "Sorry 'bout that bud, you surprised me."
After three days of training with Ms. Julia, Wally knew he was ready for his match. Sure, he hadn't managed to beat her yet, but she had two more badges than him, and had been training for a lot longer. Plus, Mr. Norman was her dad!
Although being around her was much different from being around Mr. Norman or Mr. Brendan, or even Luke. Mr. Norman and his son were like mountains, solid stone and unshakeable. Luke was an overcast day that could turn into a thunderstorm at any moment and tear through whatever was in front of him with thunder, wind, and rain. Ms. Julia was like a lake, tranquil until disturbed. Except when a stone was skipped across her surface, waves would break out instead of ripples.
She was also different because her pokemon seemed to emote for her, like she was a blank slate when battling. Especially Oliver, her guardian Marshtomp. Plus, some of the time, Wally even thought she was like him.
When she would kneel down beside her pokemon and look into their eyes. It was like she knew what they were thinking, understand them just by looking into their eyes and soul, the kind of recognition that brought a new meaning to the term intimacy.
Then Luke greeted the two of them and Wally could feel the humidity coming from him. He had been a storm recently, but had finished raining, returning to a grey sky. And when he'd made his presence known, the green-eyed boy felt something agitating the waters in Julia's lake when he turned back to look at her after he'd missed his hug. Did she know Luke?
He felt a stab of jealousy as the older trainer didn't dodge her hug attempt, instead returning her embrace for a moment before pulling back and smiling at the two of them. The smile didn't reach his eyes though. If he looked long enough, Wally would probably be able to see the lightning behind those orbs.
Then Luke blinked and the threat was gone, his clouds casting a protective shadow instead of threatening to bring a storm. "Well, how about it? Feel like letting me take a stab at helping you practice?"
Wally couldn't say yes fast enough.
Keith had gotten used to the looks people gave him whenever he walked into a room. Judging looks, suspicious squints, men pushing their shoulders back and girls their chests out.
No, no, wait, that last one wasn't happening because of him. That was because of Rebecca, who'd managed to pull him all the way to Verdanturf Town so he could watch her compete in a battle tent competition or something of the like. She was still holding onto his wrist when they got to the registration table, switching it from her left to right hand so she could fill out the paperwork to enter.
He was there anyways, so he went ahead and filled out a set of forms as well, although he stumbled over a couple of words while reading. Sure, he was fluent in the language shared by Indigo, Hoenn, and Unova, but that didn't mean he liked dealing with it or had adapted to seeing it everywhere instead of the Hokkaido language he had grown up reading and writing.
The receptionist gave him a funny look when he'd finally finished filling out the forms. He returned it with a flat stare, daring him to say something. He wouldn't be wrong to criticize Keith's handwriting of course. It was sloppy in his primary language and alphabet and even worse when he was using 'global basic characters' or whatever they called their symbols.
However, that didn't mean he'd let the receptionist get away with making fun of him. Not when the Sinnoh native could make the other man laughably uncomfortable.
The clerk ended up snapping his gaze away and shrugging as he filed the paper just as Rebecca tugged him out of the tent and towards a restaurant on the other side of the road from the obnoxiously colored structure that was big enough for a pair of Gyarados to have a tumble.
"You know," the blonde said as she pulled her hair over her shoulder, "I've never lost in this tent event. They started calling me the unbeatable girl a while back."
"You'd also never lost a dinner challenge before I showed up," Keith said, "and if I didn't know the rules to that one and won, I'll probably be able to win at this too." He had to lean back from the table as the waitress set a glass of water and a glass of lemonade on the table. "By the way, what are the rules? I didn't bother reading them."
"Of course you didn't," she sighed, letting her head slump down onto the table for a moment before straightening, "did you even use your real name?"
Keith tried very hard to look offended. At least, he tried hard to look like the people who were trying to look offended on the television. He doubted she believed him, but that didn't matter. He had fun doing it.
"The tent format lets you choose three pokemon to fight." She said as she raised her glass to her lips, taking a long draught from the cold water. "You're not allowed to give them any instruction, just watch them and switch them out if you need to."
The brown-eyed man laughed, a deep rumble from his chest and belly. "No, really, what rules are there? What kind of hoops do we have to jump through?"
"I'm being serious," the woman said with a frown, setting her water back on the table, "the challenge is not being able to command your team, they have to function completely on their own."
Keith was about to respond when the waiter placed their food on the table, instead flashing them a smile as he thanked him for the food. The conversation stopped for a moment as he dug into the buttered Wishcash, starting at the tail as was his norm.
"But really," he said after finishing the mouthful of potatoes he'd shoveled in, "how is that a restraint? And how does a trainer win that, shouldn't it just be the pokemon team that wins? It sounds like all the trainer does is stand there and look pretty."
Rebecca took a moment to look up from the pasta she was eating, some tamato berry sauce dribbling down her chin. She swallowed before batting her eyelashes and putting on a sickly-sweet smile. "I did say I've never lost at it, didn't I? Or am I not good enough at looking pretty?"
Keith didn't care that his laugh drew attention from around the restaurant's patio. He was just happy to be eating good food. And maybe, he reasoned as Rebecca took his much larger hand in her own as she batted her eyelashes at him, happy he was with her.
But really, the Wishcash they had was excellent, he'd definitely be coming back here to see if the other menu options were as good. Of course he'd bring her along too, it'd cut down on how much time it would take him to get a personal opinion of every item on the menu.
Their chat turned idle as Keith finished both of their meals, Rebecca paying as they left. The trek back to the hotel wasn't long, but it was plenty long for his thoughts to wander.
How in the Void did he manage to wind up in Hoenn catching feelings for someone he'd known for all of a couple weeks? It wasn't really a question, he could trace it back to each of the branching paths that he ignored and let Arceus decide where he should go. After all, in the scope of things, he was just one person in a world of millions and even more pokemon, so why should he worry about where his life would go?
As far back as he could remember, he'd been a passive boy and man, letting everyone else worry and stress themselves out. When he turned 18, he decided to be adopt a complete hands-off approach to his life. In the two and a half years since, the flow had taken him from place to place, putting him on a journey he'd never intended when he left his parents' house for a sandwich. When he told Rebecca about it, she laughed and told him it sounded like he wasn't on an adventure, an adventure just happened to be going on around him.
Which wasn't incorrect. He had very little agency in what happened around him at any given time. In fact, helping the captain Stern guy back in Slateport was the first decision he'd actively made in almost a year where he actually considered what effect his actions could have for himself and others. Although he could make an argument for how he didn't really have a choice in the matter, the goons had threatened him and Rebecca and taken his agency away. Except he could have just left and let the goons harass that guy. But he wanted to beat their faces in on behalf of the other people.
Maybe it was a sign from Arceus, telling him that it was time for him to take control of his life back. Maybe Arceus was just another pokemon that happened to be stronger than the rest, not the deity the people of his region believed it was.
As Rebecca led him through the hotel room door and pushed him onto his bed for him to wait his turn in the shower as she took a change of clothes into the shower room, he reasoned it was alright to stay hands off. It'd gotten him this far after all, and he was happy with where he was.
Well, I don't have much to say about this chapter, I had fun writing it and hope it was a fun read for you guys.
As per norm, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or quandaries, let me know.
Also, if there's a specific pokemon you want to see in the battle tent, let me know.
Regardless, peace out, stay safe y'all.