After both Hugh and Nate trained some more, they were able to beat Burgh and obtain the Insect Badge. Just as they were about to leave the city, someone stepped in front of them. He looked like a scientist with his grey lab like trench coat, some sort of gadgets on both of the forearms of his coat, and slicked back blond hair with a blue accessory around his head.
"Greetings." He said. "If it's not much of an inconvenience, may I have a look on your Pokemon?"
"Sorry, but we don't show and tell to complete strangers." Hugh denied, not trusting this guy.
"Hmm, very well." The guy shrugged. "That's some good wisdom for youths such as yourselves. From what I've heard, you have three badges, yes?"
"What's it to ya?"
I'll explain that later. I don't know how you're doing it, but you're bringing out the best of your Pokemon far more efficiently than others like yourselves. Oh, forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Professor Colress Jones. I research the potential of Pokemon, specifically how to bring it out. My ultimate question is is it possible to bring out the maximum potential of Pokemon through the bonds of friendship with their trainers, or is it some other method such as just pure training?"
"Does there have to be one answer?" Hugh replied, getting where he's coming from. "I've heard story of a big rivalry between two trainers in the Sinnoh region. One who believes in the bond of his Pokemon and treats them equally, while the other trained them like a drill sergeant, being strict and maybe even cruel. The latter always beat the former, but at around the end, the former would slowly around the end even the odds and eventually beat the latter. So from my perspective, just training your Pokemon for the sake of strength may make them powerful in the short run, but without the heart to treat your Pokemon as equals, you're limiting their potential." Ash and Iris gaped at his story and how he managed to answer the professor's question. Of which whom he chuckled with satisfaction.
"What a brilliant answer. Both have merits and detriments but they even out in the end. That's certainly a perspective I'll keep noted. However, I will need to experiment with this to see if it truly has merit. Team Plasma says we should recognize the potential of Pokemon and liberate them from humans. But I disagree. Conversely, it should be humans that bring out their potential!"
"Well, it is said that between two exact Pokemon of similar base power that one that is trained is capable of performing battle better." Iris pointed out.
"Indeed, but my question is is it friendship, or training. And I need to find the true answer. I know of your names, Ash, Hugh and Champion Iris. I unfortunately do not currently have the Pokemon necessary to fight you, but we will do so in the future." Turning around, he was about to leave when he spoke again. "It's frustrating. If only we could talk to Pokemon like N is capable of, to bring out their power. That boy was something special with his gift." It was then he left.
"Well that was weird." Nate commented.
"A waste of time that was. Come on, let's get going." Hugh groaned impatiently as he continued.
"Must've been annoyed from the mention of N. The brown haired male trainer assumed.
"I hope he'll be okay." The dragon tamer hoped.
"Eh, he'll get over it. Hugh's just moody this time." Nate shrugged as he followed his childhood friend.
It took a day and a half, but after Nate caught a Trapinch and Hugh caught a secret weapon, along with both catching a Sigilyph, they finally reached Nimbasa City in the early afternoon. Nate and Iris were excited to either be coming here the first time or coming back after so long. Hugh did look interested, but his 'tough guy' face and crossed arms were still on display as they walked through the city of entertainment.
"Hey, Iris!" A female's voice called to them. They turned, and the dragon tamer grew joyful as she recognized a friend.
"Rosa, how are you doing?!" The two females ran to hug each other. " I see you got a different outfit!" Rosa was indeed wearing a different outfit, which was a white sweater and dark red jeans.
"Yeah, definitely needed some more season appropriate clothes. I know it looks Christmas-like but I like it." She then gasped. "Nate, Hugh!"
"Rosa!" Both the boys cheered as they hugged their former childhood neighbor.
"I've heard you two started your journeys. You have what, three by now?"
"Yeah, we just beat Burgh two days ago. Although that was after days of training. Burgh is tough. He beat me on the first try." Hugh admitted. Rosa laughed.
"I could imagine. It's like that once it was mandated that gym leaders up their game it's like fighting their 8th level team regardless of badge level. But anyway, I could use some help. I'm battling these train conductors.
"Uh, can it not be the champion please?" Ingo asked, both subway master brothers pointing at Iris.
"She would be too strong and skilled for us." Emmet added. Iris shrugged.
"Yeah, I can understand that." After Ash and Hugh did rock paper scissors, Nate won.
"Alright! Okay Rosa, check out how strong I am!"
"I'm looking forward to see you're progress Nate!" The girl encouraged, tossing a pokeball back and forth.
"Great, now that it's two on two-" Emmet started.
"-We can begin our battle!" Ingo finished. Once they went to an official battle field, Hugh sighed as he spoke in an impatient tone,
"This will be a two on two battle with one Pokemon each. The battle is won when the other loses yada yada yada, start."
"Reuniclus, get ready!" Reuniclus is similar to something of a baby during the pregnancy stage, a small humanoid thing surrounded by a green gelatinous substance, which is mostly a floating orb with small ears and big arms.
"Hydro, let's go!"
"Conkeldurr/Gigalith, go!" Once all the Pokemon were summoned, Ingo went first.
"Conkeldurr, Thunder Punch the Samurott!"
"Gigalith, Rock Blast!" Emmet followed.
"Reuniclus, protect Samurott with Psychic!" As the Life Orb wearing Muscular Pokemon barreled towards the water starter with electricity cackling across its right concrete pillar, but was caught in a blue outline from Multiplying Pokemon's psychic prowess, groaning as it was lifted from the ground. As for Gigalith, it growled strongly as the orange crystals on its body glowed and grey orbs of energy appeared around it, and fired them all at once.
"Hydro, brace for them!" Nate ordered. Hydro unsheathed his swords from the armor over his front legs and held them up in an X formation as the Rock Blasts exploded upon contact, nearly breaking through his defense, though the Discipline Pokemon was blown back a lot. But from Nate's and Rosa's perspectives, the water starter started glowing a blue aura, and swiped the explosion smoke away with his swords, boosted with power.
"Samurott!"
"Alright, I knew you'd survive that!" Nate complimented his starter. "Now use Water Pulse!" Crossing the tips of his words up, a bigger than normal orb of water was being formed.
"Reuniclus, throw Cokeldurr into Gigalith!" Unable to escape the psychic hold around itself, the fighting type yelled as it was moved at high velocity towards the Compressed Pokemon, whom couldn't get out of the way because of its bulky body. When the Discipline Pokemon launched his Water Pulse, the two incoming projectiles collided and then exploded with some droplets of water for added effect. When the smoke cleared, the two Pokemon were already knocked out.
"What the?!" Ingo yelled.
"Down already?!" Emmet cried out.
"Alright! Thanks Nate!" Rosa expressed gratefully as she hugged him.
"Haha, glad to help.
"Bravo, what you showed us is the spark of trainers!" Ingo spoke up, both brothers pointing at the trainers. "Always move on to a greater goal!"
"Your teamwork was perfect! Just perfect!" Emmet finished up. "So strong!"
"Now if you'll excuse us-"
"-We're going to handle the subway trains."
"Farewell!" Both of them yelled before going to the subway.
"Again, thanks Nate. Those guys are tough, even though I could've handled them by myself. I bet they were holding back just to see how good we were."
"You were in the semi-finals of the Pokemon League two years ago." Hugh stated matter of factly. "You should've beat them easily as you did even without his help."
"Well, when Bianca passed down the title of champion, she asked if I could take back her status of middle weight champion, so I did."
"Talk about a downgrade." Hugh crossed his hands. Rosa just smiled bigger in response.
"Buuuuut, in recognition of what I did at the Team Plasma castle and how far I reached in the Pokemon Champion, my siblings each stepped down a rank so that I can be the super heavy weight champion."
"So at least you were doing better than where your life was previously in this city." Iris remarked.
"Yeah. Hey, you guys want to hang out? The park has some new attractions."
"You mean other than the Thunder Rider? Sweet!" Hugh replied with a fist pump, excited for some amusement park fun.
"Yeah, it sounds great!" Iris agreed.
"Let's go!" Rosa shouted with jubilation as they rode the Thunder Rider first just for nostalgia sake, and then rode a new merry go round to calm themselves down. Approaching the old gym, Rosa explained,
"This used to be the gym, but Elesa's modeling role skyrocketed, so she needed a whole new building. Now this is now the place to ride the new Neon Lightspeeder. Been open for months now." Going in, they were strapped in into egg shaped coaster cars of the indoor ride, though not before Iris put Axew into his pokeball for his safety, and glass enclosed around them. Ash sat with Iris while Hugh sat with Rosa. The cars started to go forward with an over head countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! It went and the train just shot much faster than they were going, the teens being pushed back into their seats while screaming. They turned a right bank while the lights were blue. Going through a tunnel, the lights then went through a cycling rainbow as they went up a spiral of the track. However, as they ascended at a rapid pace, the lateral G-forces caused Ash's body to lurch, and the seatbelt he was in suddenly snapped and he went flying into Iris's huge amount of hair!
"Ah! Nate!" She cried out, now worried for both him and herself. The train reached the top of the spiral and went down a steep downward slope, and thus Ash flew right above the dragon tamer within her hair, which provided enough force to snap the bottom scrunchie keeping the whole thing together. Going through the loop was the worst as the two teens tumbled around each other with hair now all over the place. By the time they reached the end, everyone was shocked to see the two teenagers were mildly hurt. After getting a refund and a $1000 dollar compensation to prevent suing, everyone was lucky that all that happened was Nate and Iris were just banged a bit with bruises, though all of Iris's hair accessories were torn off so now it fully reached her ankles. For the sake of easy recovery, they just went to the Ferris Wheel since that's a very calm ride.
"Ow. These new bumps sure sting." Nate groaned, sitting back against the glass wall of the compartment.
"Yeah, it's been a while since I've been this hurt. As a kid I loved to climb trees but bruises and scrapes were very common." The champion sighed. The two were silent as they processed what happened. While nobody saw, they recalled that the tumbling was...also awkward. While neither both or either one of them remembered everything in that crazy mishap in the train car, the things they did know were that they accidentally kissed thus why their lips were busted, Iris got a face full of Nate's butt, and by the time the ride ended, his arm was in her shirt meaning some amount of his arm felt up girly bits, even if there wasn't a lot. The two didn't know what to say, but it became even worse when they stopped at the top, meaning they'd stay up there for much longer. Wanting to get it over with, Nate groaned,
"I'm sorry."
"What?" She asked, both surprised and confused.
"If I had properly checked that the seat belt was weak by that point then this wouldn't have happened to us."
"But Nate, it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known that'd happen." Then Iris looked away, stroking some of her hair with both her hands nervously. "But this will be more awkward to get past than just an accidental kiss." Nate looked down guiltily.
"Yeah. I don't even know how to properly apologize for this."
"That's because it's not your fault."
"But we wound up in such a compromising conundrum! It's like we just lost our dignities to each other."
"Well, it's not like I believe I deserve dignity anyway." She shrugged. "I ran away from being the champion so, I'm not proud of myself in that regard." The two stayed silent like that for a while, unsure what to say until Nate spoke up again.
"I do think your hair protected me." That caught the dragon champion off guard.
"Huh?!"
"Well, while I still got hurt, most of the blunt injuries were covered by the mane that is your hair. I probably would've gotten a broken wrist or ruptured disk if it weren't for your hair. Plus it's really nice ans soft. No wonder Axew likes hiding in there." The teen boy chuckled once, then looked up to see her face...was filled with wonder. "What?"
"That's the first time that someone complimented my hair. I mean, other than Drayden. People are always taken aback by how big it is if they're new to it and trying to cut it is rather difficult so it's been this long since I was 10. You really think it's that great?"
"Uh, yeah." He replied. Sure, he could see why her hair could be considered abnormal but what's wrong with abnormal hair. Iris sort of became extra anxious as she gripped the strands of her hair tighter, but she then said,
"Perhaps I can let you touch it some more, to show that I'm grateful you like my hair?"
"Wha-what?!" The trainer asked, shocked to hear such an offer.
"You don't have to agree if you don't want to! I was just showing a sign of thanks is all." She clarified, shoving her hair back, now internally regretting her offer. After a few seconds pass, he answered,
"Maybe later. I at least want it to not feel so...sudden, if that makes sense." Once his reasoning registered in her mind, the dragon tamer nodded.
"Oh, I totally understand. At least that will give me a chance to sort all my feelings out and think about it. Thank you for giving me that." Nate smiled.
"You're welcome. Once all four of the teens were on the ground, Rosa inquired,
"So, how did things go up there?" Iris and Nate looked at each other before smiling, both replying,
"We figured things out."
A/N:I thought now seemed like a good start to commence the Nate/Iris romance, but given how platonic they've been acting, I wasn't sure how to introduce it without feeling forced. While this may still forced and a bit weird, at least I find it acceptable. I hope you do too. I'm surprised I haven't gotten a review yet. Thanks for still reading.