They had agreed to meet up again tomorrow at 10am, which meant Dante had woken Molly up at 8:30am. She moaned, she groaned but sure enough she arrived at the park and found a bench and went right back to sleep. She had only stopped studying basic textbooks meant for children at 7pm ish… And crawled into bed at 9pm, so a sixteen hour day and it was hard she refused to be shamed for it.
Soon enough Molly was rudely awoken by her Ghost with no appreciation for how much sleep she needed. Both Steph and Lily were eying her with a strange look.
"Not a morning person huh?"
Molly squinted her eyes at Steph and then yawned as her answer, and then gave an actual answer.
"My bus pulled into town at like 5am yesterday and I hadn't slept well on it."
"Molly you didn't sleep overnight in this park right?"
"What kind of impression do you have of me Lily? I slept in a hotel room."
Dante took this opportunity to press the lidcup of her thermos into her hands, she didn't know why she had the world's most helpful Ghost in existence but she wasn't about to complain, she just enjoyed the oversteeped black tea.
She stood, yawned once more and then looked at the two standing before her.
"Right then I owe you some advice on fighting Ghosts."
They had relocated to a nearby training ground and found an empty spot to start off their training session.
"Before we start on fighting Ghosts, let's get your Duskull practicing moves first. What moves do you want him to learn?"
"Will-O-Wisp, Night Shade and Mean Look, in that order."
Molly quickly responded, she barely had to think about it, there was so much she could do with those moves.
"Umm Molly, could you explain why those Moves in particular? I'm curious how you would use them."
It was a fair question and it didn't take a lot of thought.
"Will-O-Wisp gives us something that deals damage over time without tiring Dante. We can just use that and then have him phase away until they collapse. If they don't have an answer to phasing, we just win. Night Shade gives us a ranged option, which lets us have more options during hit and phase combat and gives us a counter to Flying-types since Dante has to either confuse them or hit them when they try to hit him. And I want Mean Look for when we go and try to catch more Pokémon for our team. Plus if we have Will-O-Wisp we can also use Mean Look to prevent people from switching to Pokémon who aren't burnt."
"Solid logic kid, right then I'd recommend going for either Night Shade or Mean Look first. It's harder to learn a Move if your Pokémon doesn't already know a Move with the same type."
Steph set Dante to practicing feeling the energy he used while using Leer; a move Molly rarely had him use since Confuse Ray was a superior status effect in her eyes. Instructing him to use Leer but with the Ghost-type energy he used with Astonish should in theory teach him to use Night Shade. Lily returned to the picnic table they had claimed after instructing her Ralts to practice using Double Team, the little psychic would turn around and glare at Molly whenever she thought no one was watching. Steph had her team in dodging practice, the little Shellos from yesterday was taking potshots at a Luxio, Staraptor and a big Tangrowth.
"Right then so you want advice for fighting Ghosts? I can't tell you much about what Moves they might use for, ah obvious reasons."
Steph just scoffed at her understatement. Molly pulled out the ring binder she had taken out of one of her Cubes last night and looked out over Steph's team and started hunting for the right entries.
"Right then, Staraptor can learn Thief which is a damaging Dark-type Move, your Luxio should know either Bite or Crunch by this point, it can also learn Thief, Fake Tears and Snarl but you're better off spending time to get type coverage for your other Pokémon, Tangrowth normally learns Knock Off and can learn Thief, Fling, Brutal Swing and Payback. Gastrodon learns Memento at some point and none of your Pokémon can learn Ghost-type moves."
Both Steph and Lily leaned over to look at the ring binder while Molly talked. It wasn't quite a Pokedex but those had only been announced by Professor Oak a few months ago so she made do.
"You just have a notebook with every single Pokémon and if they can or can't learn Dark or Ghost-type moves?"
"Ah yea? I need to know what I'm sending Dante in to fight… So anyways, that's type coverage down. You don't really have any ranged options so you'll probably land one hit before they take it to range, and they'll never go near your Luxio."
Molly paused for a moment as she collected her thoughts. She never fought a Ghost-type before so she had to go off what she would really hate someone doing.
"The question you need to be asking yourself is what's your answer to phasing. Not every Ghost can phase but the ones who can will be using it, they'll hang low and whenever a move comes their way, dodge into the ground and use it as a cover. Do all your Pokémon know set up Moves?"
"Set up Moves?"
"Molly means stuff like Harden, moves you use when your opponent gives you time, Lily. Sparks knows Charge and Ivy knows Growth, setting up while you can't see your opponent is standard tactics Molly."
"But can't the Ghosts just do what Molly did and use Disable?"
"Exactly, which is why set up means more than one thing. You can start setting up the terrain in your favour, I'm not sure what the exact interaction between phase and Stun Spore or Poison Powder is but I bet it's not pleasant. Like you fought me yesterday, you had both Recover and Harden and I had to pick one to Disable."
Molly paused to think of what else would seriously annoy her.
"The other trick you can do is use Moves like Ancient Power to make obstacles they can't phase through without hurting themselves. That's why Dante didn't phase through all of Pinky's Water Guns and only unphase to hit her, the Water-type energy in Water Gun would have hurt him. Not nearly as much as getting hit by a Water Gun normally but it still hurts."
"Finally you can just force them to come to you if you can fly, your Staraptor would destroy Dante because he can't fly nearly as fast and Dante doesn't have any ranged Moves. If it knows Double Team you can just spam that and they won't even be able to use the ground for hit and run tactics even if they have a ranged option."
"It's like fighting Dig basically but you have even more options."
"Pretty much yea, if you have a Pokémon with Earthquake too, you can force them out since the Ground-type energy will mess a Ghost up when it wouldn't hurt most Pokémon that do know dig."
Molly poured herself another cup of tea and looked out to Dante, his Leer was looking a little different now.
"It's good advice kid, let's test out that idea you had with Stun Spore."
Molly had a new note in her journal, Stun Spores do hurt while phased, and so does Poison Powder but they hadn't tested that one as much. She still had the rest of the day ahead of her and Steph had recommended she try to have Dante try to use Night Shade in a fight, hoping that instinct would guide him but first she owed Lily some help. The older of their trio had remained practicing some tricks to put Molly's advice into practice but Molly and Lily headed out to the same training fields as yesterday.
It was interesting watching someone else fight, Lily wasn't like Molly or Steph, she didn't have that confidence to shout an order and trust it was the best thing to do. Actually she should write that down for Lily, imperfect orders are better than hesitating. The hind part of your brain would scream at you "What if, what if it makes things worse?" but in Molly's opinion if shit was hitting the fan, throwing the fan out the window might make things worse but it's arguably better than cleaning shit off every surface.
Hesitation would end with confidence, and that could be built up. No, what Lily really needed is a foundation to build off so that asked the question of what would Molly do with this Ralts. Confusion seemed to be how Lily did her damage, which had interesting implications from what she could see. Confusion was basically a little force push with Psychic-energy attached to it, if it was fire and forget you might be able to chain the moves into a more serious attack. That had potential but what really interested Molly was that the move was invisible, kinda. Whatever Psychic-energy in the Move didn't show itself and Molly only assumed it was there because the Pokémon hit by it were taking far too much damage for the little shove. The only sign you would get that someone used Confusion was the seeing the little shockwave of air and the look of concentration Ralts would make. The force push always seemed to come from in front of Ralts, but was that necessary? Was that the only vector Ralts could use or could she choose another?
If Lily could train her Ralts to not show any sign of concentration and if it was possible to use vectors not immediately in front of Ralts, you could have an invisible undodgeable attack so long as you pushed at a location out of your opponent's sight and at an angle that would hit them. Molly wrote down her thoughts and some diagrams to explain what she meant by vectors.
The Bidoof that Lily was fighting, tried a tackle and bounced off the barrier that appeared in front of Ralts. Lily had told Molly that she had come to Hearthome City to do a barrier course that the League offered, do a quick course on how to referee Pokémon Battles and pass the test and they would give you a TM of Reflect and Light Screen and help you train your Pokémon on how to use them. The Sinnoh League wasn't willing to give teenagers money to spend on themselves but they were more than happy to fund programs like these if it meant more safety precautions were taken in Pokémon Battles. That said you had to pay to take part in the program but it was cheaper than buying a Reflect and Lightscreen TM.
The thing was, it wasn't very efficient how Ralts used Reflect and Lightscreen, for a start they weren't exploiting physics. The barriers Ralts placed were always perpendicular to the angle of attack, which must be a hold over from the training the League gave it. You needed to block the entire attack if you were protecting an audience, but in a battle where no one was behind you? Ralts should be putting the barriers on an angle so attacks would rebound instead of either stopping or breaking the barrier. Or if you wanted to be really efficient you could make a staircase of barriers and then stand on one well above the Bidoof and fire Confusions down at it.
Missy the Ralts had potential, the little psychic hated Molly after all and she only ever saw that in strong Psychic-types like John's Slowbro. No, the problem was Lily. She just didn't have that spark, the feeling of pride after winning, of overcoming a challenge. Not once had Molly seen Lily excited by a victory, it meant respite to Lily, that it was over. It was a trait the best generals had, but in a Pokémon trainer? If you couldn't enjoy the challenge, the struggle to be better, then why were you fighting?
Lily had fought three battles before losing her third and Molly had to confirm to a Police officer that she didn't have any badges and this was her first season after going 4-0 after continuing her bet from yesterday, someone had accused her of lying about her badges. She capped her bet at $100 if you win, $50 if you lose since her prize pool would require her to find a representative of the League or a Police Officer if she kept her old plan of half the pot per loss. Plus she started feeling bad about taking these kids' money.
Still over $500 in two days wasn't chump change which is what brought her to her current position.
"Molly, you don't really need it."
Lily was quickly becoming a valuable friend with her ability to point out the glaring flaws in Molly's ideas. She was right of course but Molly had just fought a few battles with Dante's proto Night Shade and it was amazing. It didn't really do a whole lot of damage yet but it worked off eye contact so it was pretty hard to dodge. Just having the Move changed so much, and another ranged Move that slowed people down could be interesting. But as she stared at the price tag on the Icy Wind TM, Lily's words of reason crept in.
Lily started tugging at her sleeve since she had been ignoring her for a solid minute now.
"Molly…."
"So lunch right?"
Molly just started walking out the door instead of acknowledging anything that just happened. She was curious how Lily would react to that, Lily just pouted at her before speaking.
"What are you planning on doing?"
"Today? I was going to head to the library and start taking more notes. Gonna do some research on Swablu."
"Isn't that what you did after lunch yesterday?"
"I was pretty tired, I didn't get much done. I don't want to miss anything as basic as how to train Moves again."
"That's fair I guess, I don't suppose I could join you?"
Molly paused at that, it was pretty apparent what Lily was really after but the question was could Molly fit friendship in her schedule? She didn't mind spending time helping Lily but she kind of had to head into the wilderness for nearly an entire month to find some more teammates sometime soon.
"Lily, what do you want?"
"To.. Learn?"
"No I mean what do you want to do this Season? Why are you going on a Pokemon Journey?"
"Oh… I don't really know."
Molly knew that look on Lily's face, it was distant to her now but she remembered seeing it in the mirror a thousand times. She had been working towards these exact moments for so long, she could barely remember the indecision that plagued her first youth, the weight held by the knowledge that her life was defined by these moments. It was crueler here than her old life she thought, here they would fill their children's heads with dreams of being the best and never once tell them how few could reach it. Not dreams like being a doctor, or a teacher or a thousand other careers, only of being a trainer, everything else was a reluctant compromise. Something you did after you failed.
It almost reminded Molly of Santa, a lie every parent would tell their child of something wondrous and magical, only for the truth to shatter that illusion. How many of those children she saw at the training fields today would return home in a few months with their tails between their legs, only for their parents to tell them stories how they once believed in that illusion too before it had been shattered. This world could be kind but some cruelty remained universal it seemed.
"It must be hard."
It was a different kind of stress than the one Molly faced, Molly worried she was taking too long, that she was wasting her precious time. Lily knew she was.
They walked in silence for a few minutes before Lily asked.
"What do you want Molly?"
Such a simple question and yet, Molly could have answered in a dozen ways. A strong team, funding for her goals, to be a Pokemon Professor, to see this world like she wished she had seen her last, to reach new heights, to discover, to be remembered, to be someone, a home. Molly wanted all of those and a thousand more but she knew her real answer, her first desire, what had motivated her for so long now.
Molly Cypress wanted answers.
They had settled into a routine, each morning they would meet at the same park bench, at the same time and train together. Steph wouldn't always join them but more times than not she would. From there, Lily and Molly would find someone to battle them. Molly would write down observations for Lily before taking her own challenges on. She had made a name for herself in this short time, new trainers who wanted to beat the local legend among the first season rookies, and older trainers with similar offers that Steph had made.
On the fifth day she finally lost to someone who wasn't John, it had hurt in a no small sense. John had always been unbeatable in her mind, it was always the Pokemon he used that caused him to lose, the tools rather than the craftsmen. Molly hadn't brought into her own hype but it hurt to see her Ghost so remorseful as if he had failed her when she knew it was the other way around. The cheering her opponent received from everyone watching had annoyed her too, she had made a few detractors with her "cheap" tactics and refusal to fight "fair".
It was the ninth day now, Dante was progressing with his new Moves. He had Night Shade down by this point and Mean Look was progressing well, the Move was interesting. In the games she remembered it prevented Pokemon from fleeing, in practise it seemed to make Pokemon flinch if they tried to run or if their trainer tried to return them the recall function would fail. It might change as her Ghost got stronger but right now it wasn't exactly what she had wanted but it'll work for catching Pokemon. As for Will-O-Wisp, well Dante could make the air warmer now. He was starting to get the hang of Fire-type energy but she'd have to have him work while on the Eevee Hunt.
Which had brought her to her current destination, the Ranger Building in Hearthome City. The librarian she spoke to recommended she come here for the topographic maps she wanted, which served her purposes well since she wanted to come here to hand over an intentions form. She had gotten directions from Steph before parting ways, she was giving Dante the day off so she hadn't joined Lily in battling.
She walked up to the front desk, it had never failed her before. The woman running the desk seemed surprised to have a visitor.
"Hi there, I was hoping to find some topographic maps here and sign an intentions form?"
"An intentions form?"
"Do you not have them?"
"No, we do, it's just rare that we get anyone signing them here. Most intentions forms are handled by Pokecenters. Give me a moment to print one off."
Molly just waited as the woman got up to retrieve the paperwork. It was a little surprising to see a computer at the front desk. The Police and Pokecenters didn't use them for front desk work, the Police had them available for checking or updating the Police Database only, but that might just because they were kind of underfunded from what she could tell. As for Pokecenters, well they might just be in the process of transitioning to a digital workplace, Molly hadn't really interacted with pokecenters very much to be sure why they hadn't taken to computers.
The woman returned with the paperwork and asked what maps she would like to look at. As she hurried off to get those, Molly started filling out the forms.
The paperwork was familiar, who are you? Surprisingly more complicated than you'd think but she just wrote Molly Cypress. Emergency Contact was John. When do you plan to leave and return by required a quick check of her calendar, she was keeping her schedule and she still had research to do so leaving early wasn't necessary. Do you have a PLB if so what is it's registration number? She actually had to move to the little waiting room set up they had, to pull it out of the Storage Cube she kept it in. She'd keep it in her bag when she left but she sincerely doubted she'd need a Personal Locator Beacon in the middle of a city and she needed space for her notebooks she wanted on hand for battling. Medical conditions and if so what medication do you take? Molly only had one medical condition and you couldn't treat that, but she wrote it down because it was important if she went missing.
The only real differences between this intentions form and the ones she had filled out in her last life dozens of times, was the lack of a mobile number question; since they were still in the brick phase, the accompanying Pokemon question, she wrote down some quick details about Dante, and one final question which would have been a joke on Earth, do you plan on catching Pokemon on this trip? Who knows maybe in the nine years she had been dead that might actually be a question on Earth, assuming time passed at the same rate which was a big assumption since time was governed by a Pokemon in this world.
Molly quickly filled out the rest of the questions instead of thinking of the existence of super powerful creatures with an alien morality system. She had only one question left, and she needed a look at those Topo Maps to decide what route she would be taking before she could answer where are you going.
On the twelfth day she finally rang John, there was no real reason she hadn't yet, she just hadn't really felt a need to yet. John had always appeared in and out of her life with little warning, almost like an uncle who lived far away, she had actually seen him more frequently than she saw her actual uncle in her last life so perhaps that didn't fit. Family friend maybe?
Her thoughts were interrupted by John finally picking up the phone, she had just used a public phone booth, not one of the fancy video calls the Pokecenters were in the middle of rolling out.
"Superintendent John Rockwell speaking."
"Hey John, it's Molly, could you put Char on the phone? I miss him."
This could go three ways, one he might laugh and they would have a normal conversation, two he would actually put Char on, which jokes on him, she actually did miss Char, or three he might pretend he doesn't know a Molly because she took too long to call.
"Alright give me a moment."
Bless John's sick little mind, he didn't even hesitate and she quickly heard the distinct sound of a Pokemon being released. She didn't really plan for her bluff being called but Molly quickly rallied and started regaling Char with what she had been up to. She only got to talk for a bit under a minute until Char grunted and presumably dumped the phone back on John, if her interpretation of noises she heard over the line was right. Char only rarely played along with their games unfortunately.
"Oh it seems he doesn't miss you as much as you miss him Molly."
Molly sniffed. Knowing full well that Char could hear her talking to John.
"Oh.. It's just been really hard since I left."
"Are you alright kid?"
"I'm fine, I just wanted.. To talk to Char.. He was always so good at listening.."
Molly started to take short breaths.
"It's alright, I shouldn't have assumed…"
"Is everything alright Molly, you can talk to me if you need to?"
She could hear shuffling which meant that Char had presumably moved closer to the phone, it was time to cut the act.
"Oh really that's so kind of you John, so how have you been?"
Molly spoke clearly with none of the mock dismay she had been putting on, she could hear Char growl in the background.
"You're a piece of work Molls."
"I'd blame you but we both know you were the straightest lace Detective to ever exist."
"If anything, you were the bad influence on me."
"Oh yeah absolutely, I lured you to the dark side, we have cookies."
He laughed and paused as if remembering something.
"Do you remember when you baked me those cookies, I told you they were the best thing I had ever eaten."
"I was what? Like ten right?"
"You used salt instead of sugar."
Molly laughed, she remembered that his acting was almost as bad as hers was back then.
"I neither confirm nor deny that I intentionally used far too much salt to see your face as you desperately pretended they were edible."
"Why are you like this?"
On the fourteenth day Lily finally asked, Molly had told her and Steph her plans to go catch some new teammates yesterday, a sentence that made no sense in any other context. Steph had asked her to watch her Gym battle in a week's time but had understood when Molly explained her badge requirement to keep her sponsorship. Lily hadn't said anything really about it until now. They were on their way to this Ramen place, one of the few she had left on her recommendation list from the Joy a fortnight ago. He had excellent taste.
"We're friends right?"
"Of course."
Lily paused herself and said the words at last.
"Could I join you on your trip?"
The first question had thrown Molly off, but she had been preparing for the second for the last day now.
"What do you plan on catching for your team?"
"I don't know."
"Just gonna ad lib it? Catch whatever looks cool?"
Lily looked frustrated at that, and for the first time since she had met Molly raised her voice.
"I don't know Molly! I'm not as confident as you, how could anyone be? You just… Do stuff."
Lily had drawn a few eyes with her outburst, Molly just calmly made eye contact with those watching and pulled the middle finger. Lily just laughed when she saw it.
"Like that! They talk behind your back you know, calling you names, the Ghost b-word. Do you even care?"
"No."
"Of course not, why would you? I wish I could be-"
Molly interrupted her, she didn't think she could stop herself from laughing if Lily wanted to be like her.
"Lily, why do you want to be a Pokémon trainer?"
Molly watched as she floundered for a moment before collecting her. She took a big breath.
"My sister always wanted to be a Pokémon trainer, Dad didn't let her go on a journey because he wanted her to take over the company. So when it was time for me to go on one she got my Ralts Missy and made sure I could even though Dad didn't really want me to."
"So you're doing it because she couldn't?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that the same thing as your Dad saying she couldn't do it?"
"No, it's diffe-."
"He wanted her to work in the company, she wants you to go on a Pokémon Journey. Neither person asked what do you want to do. Are you sure you want to be a Pokémon trainer? Is that what you want, Lily?"
"I don't know, but shouldn't I be one? I have an opportunity not everyone gets."
That resonated with Molly, hadn't she always wondered why she got to live twice, was it something everyone got? Did she deserve this second chance? She might not be the person out there who deserved this most but..
"I don't know Lily, I can't tell you who you are or what you want. Just that you deserve to be happy."
They had a quiet dinner.
The walk to Lily's hotel was tense, the unfinished conversation hung between them, until they finally reached her hotel. Molly had some rapid thoughts when she took in the structure.
"I assumed you were rich but isn't this a bit much?"
"We umm, own the chain."
"Of course you do, no wonder your dad wanted your sister to keep the company in the family."
Molly wasn't an expert on Hotel Chains but this place was fancy enough to explain why Lily had never once given her last name. She wouldn't have recognized the Hotel Chain, but Chandler's Delights was a fantastic pun and she would have absolutely made candle puns all week if she knew.
"Lily Chandler, your presence has me alit with a new shine."
"Please don't."
"I suppose I could extinguish the light your family has set aflame in me."
"Please Molly."
"You're no fun."
"Oh thank the guardians."
Molly just grinned, puns were the best. One day she'd convert Lily.
"Thanks Molly. I don't know what I'm going to do yet but you helped."
"Don't be a stranger alright, it's nothing personal I just don't think wandering around in the woods is what you want."
"Didn't you just tell me not to let other people tell me what I want?"
"I mean you're welcome to join me on the condition I can tell as many puns as I want about your name."
"Strangely I think I'll pass."
"Alas, a mystery to haunt me to the end of days."
Lily laughed and Molly joined her. Molly hadn't planned on making a friend, but it was nice.
"Time for me to bid you adieu."
"Is that goodbye? You're so weird sometimes Molly."
"Not my fault you don't know French."
"What is French!?"
Molly just laughed harder and walked away, waving goodbye as she left.
"Stop making words up!"
Authors Note: Did you know the word adieu comes from the phrase "à dieu vous commant," which means, in French, "I commend you to God." Which doesn't exist in the Pokémon World at least in my world building, since worship of Arecus never became a mainline religion.
Hell, multiple languages might not even exist, no one would blame me if I said they all speak Pokenglish.