The sun was high in the sky, Pidove sang their song to the world, Patrat and Lillipup foraged through the grass and brush. Much to Wade's surprise, most of Route 1 was a flat plain, with islands of trees spread sporadically throughout the great expanse of plains. It was kind of breathtaking, it was warm, with a pleasant breeze that made the view even better. This was seriously at the doorstep of Nuvema Town? The young man shook his gaze as he took a glance behind him to his companions. Each of them seemed to be holding up surprisingly well given that they've been walking for at least seven hours.
'Good thing my job wasn't a desk job. I could probably go at this for a few more hours' Wade thought as he then looked down at Houndour. "Say bud, are you hungry?" The canine barked his thoughts halfway and then his stomach covered the distance. The distinct sound of an empty stomach had reached his ears. "Eh, you're a growing Houndour, it makes sense that you gotta eat. Especially with how we're now going to be using up a lot of energy on just walking to towns, cities, and potentially catching more team members."
Wade glanced back at White, now with a better look, it seemed like she was holding her stomach. As was Bianca and Cheren were. The trio's stomachs gave a chorus of growls, their stomachs protesting being empty for this long. "Yo, if y'all are hungry, you should've spoken up. We can stop at any time, since we definitely got time to kill. How long is it until the League Conference?" Wade asked. "Because you won't even make it to the League Conference with an empty stomach."
"Well, the League Conference actually happens once every year and a half. I'd say we've started at least a month later than everybody else did, so we do have time," Cheren noted. "Let's find a nice spot under a tree, then stop for lunch. I'm hoping we find a rare pokemon. I don't want to have a Watchog on my team, and Lillipup and Pidove don't look very promising either. So hopefully the smell of food can lure something out."
"That looks like a good spot," White pointed towards a sizable oak tree, with a huge overhang. Its large branches reached out and sprawled above, branching into smaller branches. Its leave provided a nice, welcoming shade to anybody who was fortunate enough to cross paths with it. It was the perfect spot to stop and have lunch. The others in the group quickly agreed and piled underneath the shade.
Wade pulled out a couple baggies of food, two bowls, and then let Feebas out. The fish let out a coo and swam in the air for a bit, only to stop once she felt her stomach rumble a bit. Feebas then gave Wade a sheepish grin and floated down to ground level, where her trainer had just poured two bowls of pokemon food he had made. Even if it was several hours old(and cold!), the plastic bags did wonders in preserving the tastes in the two pokemon's meals. Wade grinned in delight as his pokemon still found the food enjoyable. "Perhaps I should buy a thermos or three later. I'm sure you two would love a warm meal… or a portable pan. Then I could just make your food while we're out on the road."
Feebas and Houndour simply nodded, they really didn't seem to mind what temperature the food was, their trainer had put the effort into it, to make it tasty while still being healthy. Sure, it wasn't an original recipe or anything, Wade probably had a couple recipes from that old cookbook saved somewhere, and had made a bunch of servings for being out on the road. It still tasted good to them, and didn't seem to have gone bad. Though some warm food, they both mentally admitted, did sound nice.
The two pokemon looked over to the children's pokemon, who had received League branded food, with no added seasoning or mix. Just plain, old, nutrient dusted pokemon food. "I think I'm glad I have Wade as a trainer," Houndour whispered to Feebas.
"I know, I snuck into the kitchen once and got into the pokemon food… Wade's right. It does taste like cereal, and yes, I did steal some cereal to confirm this. Though I think the cereal was more enjoyable. That league branded stuff tastes like dirt," Feebas whispered back. She then suppressed a giggle when Oshawoot cringed at the flavor. "I do feel kind of bad for them, perhaps we should get Wade to cook those three poor souls something with flavor," Feebas suggested.
"Well, that does seem nice in concept, but it probably would cost Wade a lot. Heard the limit on a legal team is six pokemon, each of which are registered with their pokeballs, and there's three humans in our group excluding Wade. That's eighteen mouths Wade is then responsible for feeding, which is neat and all, until you realize that Wade also has to account for us and our future teammates. In other words, Wade probably couldn't afford to feed that many pokemon in one sitting, even if he would like to do so," Houndour pointed out.
"Jeez, you're like a teacher. You might as well have written out a 'real world situation' question and then promptly answer it yourself. I think it's a good thing Wade doesn't understand what we're saying. If he could, his brain would be fried to bits," Feebas giggled.
"That just means we'll have to get Wade a new brain. Surely as long as it smells and looks like Wade, then it's Wade. Actually that would be Wade, but if a Ditto were to try and convince us that it was our trainer," Houndour chuckled. "That would be horrifying actually, so let's not break Wade's brain. I want my human to last me quite a while if you haven't noticed."
Feebas nodded and vacuumed her food.
"So Wade, why don't you take part in the Gym Challenge? You seem like a competent trainer, so why not have a go at it?" Cheren asked. Both Feebas and Houndour began to tune into what their trainer would say on the topic. They've heard it a few times, but it would be surprising if Wade changed his mind. Wade shrugged and patted Houndour on the head, to which Houndour grabbed a hold of the hand with his teeth, and gently held onto it. Wade chuckled and looked back up at Cheren.
"Honestly, I'd probably get my ass handed to me on a silver platter," Wade winced, he could see Professor Juniper giving him a stern look and talk if she caught wind of what was leaving his mouth. "I'm not that good of a battler or trainer. Just about any Gym Leader could make quick handiwork of me, regardless of if I had Arceus himself backing me or not. Plus the Houndour line is considered too aggressive to be a part of any League hosted events. Not only does that mean I can't use my ace, but what's the point of battling without my best friend at my side?" Wade managed to drag Houndour onto his lap and flopped the canine on his back.
"Since Houndour can't participate, I won't. Plus it seems stressful as hell, to have so much riding on your shoulders. From potentially being a representative in the government for winning some fancy tournament to being a disgrace. It all just seems like too much for me. I'm just used to being a nobody, and I kinda like being a nobody as long as I can live comfortably. Most importantly though, is that I could not stand watching from the sidelines while I watched Feebas, Houndour, or any pokemon under my care tossed around like a ragdoll." Wade took a deep breath.
"Honestly, I couldn't handle that. Coming out of a battle win or lose, and seeing Houndour either knocked out on the ground, covered in his own damn blood, or a smiling Houndour who's barely conscious. Hell, if I were to see Feebas, soon to be Milotic, covered in cuts, bruises, with her skull cracked open, I'd puke. I… they could probably take that sort of punishment and be fine in a week, but I won't be fine. I won't be fine with knowing that I willingly signed up for a losing battle, and then getting my pokemon getting beaten into the ground because I was a second too late to react."
"I'd say that's a fair reason to not participate. Besides, there's plenty more to being a trainer than just being a good battler. Pokemon Contests show that, where you can show your ability to train your pokemon in stuff that isn't brute force," White said as Oshawott crawled onto her lap. The otter let out a sigh in contempt. Wade shrugged and took in the scene before him. To him, White was straight up adorable. From the innocence in those gray eyes of hers, to just how sweet White could be, the girl was adorable. Perhaps in a 'this is my child' sort of way,
"Say, what's that whistling?" Cheren asked as Wade took a glance over his shoulder.
"Can't be much, it's probably just a Pidove. Those things love to sing and whistle their little lungs out, and I'm tempted to catch one. I won't, though. I got tackled by one of those dumb birds when I first get off the boat here!" Wade chuckled. The man then ducked, expecting to be struck by another Pidove, who wasn't happy about being referred to as unintelligent. "Huh, no bird that wants my head on a pike?" Wade began to wish that was what had just shown up.
With a loud BOOM! The group shot up, with their pokemon ready to fight, as they turned to face the smoke cloud that had shot up from whatever had made impact with the ground. "Hey guys, hide somewhere, hide in the grass, hide behind the tree. Whatever the fuck just touched down is probably strong if it sent that much smoke up," Wade instructed. He glanced back to see that the children were standing their ground, ready to fight alongside their fresh out of the lab pokemon. A pair of red, glowing eyes pierced through the smoke and Wade began to make a prayer to whatever was considered a god in this world. "I'm fucking serious, hide somewhere."
"No! We can't be considered Lab Trainers if we let you get mauled b-by whatever that thing is," White declared. The smoke began to give way to something Wade fully wasn't expecting, but still wasn't excited by the sight before him. Standing in a fairly small crater, which still probably took a lot of force to make, was a Genesect. It was staring daggers at the group, but it seemed to be calculating its next more. Wade figured if they even tried running, there would be zero chance that they could get away. With how big the crater was, Genesect had to be traveling pretty quickly, combined with the cannon on its back, a fight with the modified pokemon was risky.
And so was fleeing.
"Fucking christ. We aren't gonna win against this thing," Wade said through his teeth. "White, take your friends and run. I'll try and buy some time… down!" The group, excluding Houndour, jumped to the ground as a ball of energy was shot at them, and Houndour attempted to try and bat the attack away with a Flamethrower. Even though the attack looked like an Energy Ball, it still completely overpowered Houndour's attack, and struck the tree behind the group. Genesect began to approach them with a cold, hard stare.
"Alright… so Genesect were modified by Team Plasma, who is a group known for not treating their pokemon well, and this was just a bi-product of some experimentation. So… I don't think Genesect's gonna be a fan of people," Wade mused. He looked behind him for a second and saw the fleeting forms of White and her friends, who were likely trying to find some cover. "Say, doesn't this thing have thermal vision or something? If so then that guarantees that we're all dead," Wade took a deep breath. "Houndour, Feebas, let's stall Genesect out. We are definitely gonna die here, but we'll give death a run for its money!"
Another Energy Ball was shot towards Wade and his pokemon and he winced when Houndour was once more overpowered by the Mythical Pokemon. Suddenly a white barrier surrounded the trio and blocked the attack from striking them. Girafarig had seemingly come out of nowhere, ready to fight with all his might to protect his human. "Where the hell? Y'know what, I don't care. Thank you for showing up when you did."
'Girafarig's Protect took that Energy Ball pretty well. I don't know how Protect works, but I'm willing to bet that it might've taken a bit of energy out of him. Eitherway, we now have a much better chance at stalling this thing out.' Wade took out his Pokedex and scanned Girafarig once more. He smiled in delight when it turned out that Girafarig did, in fact, know Hypnosis. "Girafarig, try putting that bastard to sleep," Wade instructed. Genesect's left claw began to glow in white, and began to make a beeline towards Girafarig. As soon as the Paleozoic pokemon picked up speed, it came sliding into the ground. Its eyes were closed and it was asleep.
"Alright, I'm not even gonna bother trying to catch this thing. Five Pokeballs ain't gonna cut it, and I ain't risking this fucker waking up any time soon when I hit him with a Pokeball. Let's collect the kids and book it towards Accumula." His pokemon nodded and ran to catch up to where the kids had run off to.
Later that night, the group decided to make another stop, this time in an island of trees and brush as an attempt to hide them better. Wade was explaining what had happened, and how Girafarig practically saved the day. "And this young man decided it would be smart to run and fight a Genesect, despite the fact that he's still recovering from being starved!" Chuckled as he wrapped an arm around the Giraffe's neck, who was now blushing as Wade sung his praises.
"I didn't want to see my trainer get blasted into oblivion, thank you. Though can you stop praising me? All I did was use Protect and Hypnosis," Girafarig said, letting his telepathy connect to the children as well.
"And if you didn't, I'd be dead. Heck, we'd all be dead," Wade said.
"Why didn't you catch Genesect if it was put to sleep?" Cheren asked.
"Well, there's an index for how easy it would be to catch a pokemon, right?" Wade asked, this was answered with a nod from Cheren. "Well, with a pokemon like Genesect, I doubt I could even catch that thing with a pokeball. And if we did, I'm pretty sure he'd blow my head off as soon as I give him some food," Wade sighed. "I kinda wish that I caught that Genesect, those things are pretty strong, and it'll save people a lot more trouble. but I was just thinking about getting away from that thing. And tomorrow we'll be in Accumula Town, meaning we'll at least be safe." Wade stretched. "I'm gonna hit the hay, I'm beat after running for so damn long." Wade then flopped on his back, Girafarig and Houndour in tow, with Feebas acting as a pillow for her trainer. The four were out in an instant,
As soon as Wade went to sleep, Cheren began to rub his chin. "I don't even know how Wade knew about what a Genesect even is. Given Wade's apparent lack of knowledge, he shouldn't. Especially since I don't think anybody's heard of Genesect before," he noted with a shrug.
"Well, let's not worry about that for now, let's sleep. My chest feels like it's gonna cave in on itself," White said. Her friends nodded and they began to get their tents out.
Sitting above them was Genesect, now watching the group with curiosity. Despite trying to kill them, he was spared being captured or being killed by the eldest of the group. "I'm going to keep an eye on this group from afar. Girafarig seems to show some potential, as does Houndour. That Feebas, once she evolves, could be useful. And their trainer doesn't seem too bad for a human…" Genesect curled up on the branch he was occupying and closed his eyes. "They'll be useful for getting revenge on that damned scientist," he grumbled before succumbing to sleep.
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gonna take a second to thank everyone for the follows, favorites, and reviews. I usually don't pay attention to the numbers(I just write whatever and if people like what I write, cool). but it's pretty cool to see this story gain some traction.
as for the whole Genesect thing, that came to life from a a reviewer(ty Khaos321999) making such a suggestion. However, I'm gonna hold off on making Genesect a member of Wade's team for a really long time(it'd be stupid to give Wade three pokemon before he even reached Accumula town and then give Wade a legendary on top of those three pokemon).