Chapter 6: Bonding and Training

Seb

Dagger (Alolan Sandshrew) - Scratch, Defense Curl, Powder Snow, Mist

Rattata - Tackle, Tail Whip, Quick Attack, Focus Energy

Captain Jack (Spearow) - Peck, Growl, Leer

April 21

In the early morning, Jasmine, Myron, and Sebastian met to say their goodbyes on the outskirts north of Viridian City. "Still no Gym Leader?" Sebastian asked when they approached. The air was cool, but the sun was shining warmly, promising a pleasant Spring day, perfect for traveling. Seb noted that Jasmine was wearing pants and a heavier jacket rather than her usual attire.

Jasmine shook her head, but Myron answered. "It was to be expected, I guess. The Kanto circuit is a bit unique with the gyms." He explained. "The Viridian Gym is always the last badge for every trainer. You can't enter it without having the other 7 badges."

Seb frowned. Assuming his otherworldly knowledge played out, he knew why the Viridian Gym Leader wasn't in town, but this information about the gym structure was news to him. "Why do they do it that way?"

"They like the secrecy." Myron continued. "The League and the Gym Leader, that is. Unlike the other gyms which all at least have basic pokemon data and often filmed recordings, there are no publicly accessible records of how the Gym challenges go down in there. No trainer going in knows what they are getting into. That adds to the challenge on its own, but also it means that going into the final tournament, there is a gap in the trainers' knowledge of each other as well. Basically, it allows for more surprises all around and so more drama."

Seb nodded along, understanding taking root in his mind. "So because he is always the last Gym to be challenged, he can get away with spending a lot of time away from his Gym at the beginning of the season."

Myron gave Seb a coy look. "Who said it's a he?"

"Yeah, women can be Gym Leaders." Jasmine finally spoke, though it was behind a yawn.

Seb winced. "I wasn't trying to say they couldn't be. Women are just as good at training and battling as men are." Recognizing there was no way to stay on this topic without looking sexist or suspicious, Seb changed tacks. "So are you going to head back to Olivine now?"

"Yeah," Jasmine said tiredly. "Apparently, a couple of trainers have shown up for Gym challenges. Grandpa is making me conduct my first Gym challenge tomorrow."

"On that note," Myron interjected. "We should be flying off soon. Want to get home before dark after all."

Dagger stepped forward and Jasmine crouched down so they could hug. Seb worked hard not to roll his eyes. He was pretty sure she was trying to tempt Dagger away from him. "You take care of yourself, okay Dagger?" Dagger nodded. "And more importantly, make sure he takes care of you." Dagger nodded again. Now Seb did roll his eyes.

"Thanks for the advice about grooming and care. I do appreciate that." He told them both as Jasmine stood back up and Dagger came back to stand by his side. "And thanks for helping me get a start on Rattata's Focus Energy."

Myron smiled and nodded. "Oh, my pleasure. I like the idea you've got with him. I want to see how far it can take him." He had worked out an idea of stealth debuffing and buffing with Rattata after his match against Jasmine. He was hoping to train Tail Whip and Focus Energy to be subtle so that the enemy wouldn't notice.

"Have a good flight, I guess?" Seb said awkwardly. Is that the proper phrase for flying away on pokemon? Myron gave him an odd look and Jasmine smiled with amusement. So… probably not.

Jasmine and Myron both pulled out pokeballs and released Skarmory. Myron's was much larger than Jasmine's. Seb didn't know enough to know if his was large, her's small, or both. A small smile crept up on Seb's face. Seeing a new pokemon for the first was still a wonder to him.

Myron and Jasmine stood in front of their Skarmory as each one lifted themselves ten feet in the air. Seb noticed they each had leather harnesses rigged to their bodies. As Seb watched, Myron and Jasmine strapped themselves into hanging harnesses. Seb blinked, but quickly schooled his expression. Well, it explains why she isn't wearing a dress again today.

"Well, umm… goodbye. Until next time." Jasmine said quietly.

"Yeah." Myron followed. "We'll see you around Seb. Good luck with Kanto. We won't take it easy on you next year in Johto."

"Wouldn't want you to." Seb responded cheekily. "Bye you two." He concluded. Then they were off. The two Skarmory gained altitude with impressive speed given they were each carrying a passenger. He waved for a few moments and watched till they disappeared.

"Nobody in this world is afraid of anything, apparently." He said mostly to himself, but Dagger gave him an attentive glance to let him know she was listening.

"How is everybody so fearless?" He asked her. "I lost my family and I am just… desperately keeping it together if I'm being honest. Jasmine, she…"

Seb sighed. He had looked into the Olivine Gym background. Four years ago, when Jasmine was eleven, the ship her parents were on for vacation was attacked by a swarm of rampaging Gyarados, the largest swarm recorded to date. Being experienced and skilled Trainers, they fought and held the swarm back until the other passengers could get to lifeboats and away to safety, but ultimately her parents were lost with the ship.

Myron, who had retired years ago to let his son take over as Gym Leader, returned to the post. And it seemed Jasmine had dedicated herself to picking up that legacy as quickly as possible. There was a lesson Seb supposed he should learn there. Pokemon were not always safe, but something about it just felt wrong to him. He didn't want to fear pokemon.

"C'mon Dagger, let's get into the forest and then we'll let the boys out for some exercise." Seb led the way north out of Viridian and was through the checkpoint and into Viridian Forest only a couple hours later.

The tree canopy muted a lot of sound and Seb found himself moving with more care for silence than he typically did. It felt odd to make a loud noise in this world under the trees. A path was laid out for Trainers to follow. Seb was pretty sure he remembered Ash getting lost as he made his way through so he was careful to pay close attention to the trail. He freed Rattata and Captain from their pokeballs, Rattata missing the memo on silence with an energetic "Rattata!" the moment he was out.

Captain was more mellow and tuned in to the local atmosphere, contenting himself with looking around thoughtfully. They both looked to Seb for instructions.

After a moment's thought, Seb began. "Alright, here's what we'll do. Rattata, you're working on Focus Energy today. Captain, sorry, but you still aren't cleared for active duty but I th-"

"Aha!" A voice which, similar to Rattata, did not feel inclined to follow the silence of the forest rang out nearby. "New to the forest?"

Seb looked around to see the source of the question. It was a boy with a butterfly net. Unlike the Bug Catchers Seb remembered from the games though, the boy was not wearing the wide brimmed hat or clothes that generally accompanied it, wearing instead a long sleeve shirt and jeans. Seb cleared his throat and answered. "Yeah, just got here. Why?"

The boy grinned. Seb guessed he must have been only 10 or so. "Then I want to be the first to challenge you!"

Seb frowned. "But aren't you too young?"

The boy looked annoyed at that. "What do you mean by that? I'm not a baby. Just cause I can't compete in the League yet doesn't mean I can't catch and train pokemon. Or battle!"

Seb held his hands up to ward off the kid's anger. "Okay, okay. Sorry, I didn't realize."

"Pfft. What are you, stupid?" The boy scoffed. "Everybody knows that."

Why are kids so mean? "So why do you want to challenge me?"

"Because you are an official League Trainer and that means you can have matches for money." He thought about it for a moment. "You are an official Trainer, right?"

Seb held his Pokedex and Trainer ID up for the boy to see. He wasn't close enough for details, but still enough to confirm he was officially registered. "You want to put money on the line, huh? Parents don't give you enough allowance?"

The boy growled. "Shut up. Let's battle."

"Are you sure about this? I am older and all official and all. You sure you want to risk your money?" Seb asked in what he thought was reasonable concern. He did not want it to be said he was bullying kids into battles for their lunch money.

"You're by far the slowest to reach here. That means all the other trainers are better than you." The boy smirked and brandished his bug net dramatically. "You're easy money."

Screw it. Bullying children, it is. "Alright, you're on. Let's do this. How much you want to wager?"

Seb watched as the boy tallied up his money. The end total he wagered ended up being about enough for a meal. A meal off the dollar menu… Okay, this might actually be his lunch money.

"The name's Doug, I'm a Bug Catcher and I'm going to be a Bug Master someday!" Seb really wished this kid would dial it back by about half, but it didn't look to be happening.

As they were getting themselves ready, a visitor arrived. Slowly coming down from the trees above, a Weedle descended via Sling Shot in the middle of their makeshift battle site. Doug's eyes lit up. "A Weedle! Hold on, I want to catch it!"

Seb held up a hand to stop him. "One second kid." Doug was again affronted at being called a kid, but listened as Seb addressed the Weedle. "Did you come to watch our battle?"

It nodded. "Weeee."

"Do you like battling?"

Another nod. "Weeee."

"Want to join the winner's team?" Seb asked with what he hoped was a charming smile.

It dropped to the ground and squirmed its way to him, nodding the whole time. "Wee. Wee." Seb pointed it to the side where it would be out of the way and could observe the match.

Doug snorted and it grew into laughter. "He said 'wee wee."

"Doug, you're ten years old. You need to be better than this." Seb said with complete seriousness. When the kid got his laughter under control, he continued. "So what do you think of the updated terms? Winner gets to try to catch Weedle?"

Doug grinned viciously and pointed his bug net at Seb in what he must have thought was an intimidating pose. "You're on! And soon, I'll have another Weedle."

Seb got down to particulars. "I've got one pokemon on the injured list, so I only have two available. Two on two sound good?"

"Fine. But I have three and mine aren't even injured." Doug boasted in response.

Was I like this as a kid? There is no way I was this obnoxious. "Okay Dagger, you're up." Dagger stepped into the arena.

"I was wondering, where did you find a shiny Sandshrew?" Doug asked.

"She isn't shiny. She is an Alolan Sandshrew."

"So you got a shiny Sandshrew in Alola?" Doug asked, missing the point.

"No. All the Sandshrew in Alola are like this."

Doug's eyes bugged out. "All the Sandshrew in Alola are shiny?! Holy smokes!"

Seb closed his eyes and groaned. He just wanted this to be over. "No. She is what's called a regional variant. While she is the same species, the Sandshrew there evolved over time to have a Steel/Ice typing." Doug's mouth opened, but Seb cut him off. "And no, I don't mean she is a Sandslash. Just… Sandshrew in Alola are different from the ones in Kanto. Let's just leave it at that."

Doug smirked. "Doesn't matter. Everything falls to Poison Sting." And he threw out his first pokemon. A Weedle appeared on the field in front of Dagger.

Seb rolled his eyes. This was going to be arduous. An easy battle, but an arduous experience.

Seb watched Doug huff his way out of the forest back towards the city with a resigned sigh. Dagger had beaten his Weedle handily by burying it in Powder Snow while basically ignoring Poison Sting. After that, Rattata had run circles around a Kakuna. Doug hadn't even realized Rattata had been largely undoing his Kakuna's Hardens with Tail Whip. Seb would like to consider it a proof of concept for the battle style he was building with Rattata, but Doug didn't strike him as the best metric to measure against. Then, because Doug insisted he should get to use his full team, Dagger beat his other Weedle.

He kneeled in front of the Weedle. "I know I said winner could catch you, but I mostly did it to stop that guy from grabbing you right away. I would love to have you along, but if you wanna stay here I'm okay with that."

The Weedle thought about it for a moment and then shook its head.

Seb realized he wasn't sure what it was saying 'no' to. "Is that a 'no, you don't want to be caught?" It shook its head again. "You do want to come with me?"

It nodded. "Weeee!"

Seb grinned at its enthusiasm. "Did you want to battle for it first? Rattata did."

Weedle thought for a second then looked at the piles of snow where the other Weedle had both been buried. Ruefully, it shook its head.

Seb chuckled at its self-awareness. "No shame in that." He retrieved a pokeball from his bag. "Well, what do you say we go on an adventure together?" He tossed the ball the pair of feet between them and the pokemon was absorbed inside. With no pause at all, it clicked confirmation. Seb picked it up with a smile and released it instantly.

"Okay, Weedle. Welcome to the team. This is Dagger, this is Captain Jack, and this is Rattata." He gestured to each of his pokemon. "We are still working on a name for Rattata and we'll need one for you too. My first thought is Burt, but that i-"

"Weeee!" It exclaimed excitedly, dancing around.

Seb blinked. "You… like 'Burt?"

The Weedle, Burt now, nodded vigorously. I was joking, but… if he likes it. Actually… "Burt, are you male?" Burt nodded again.

Seb sighed. "Alright. Burt it is. Everyone say hi to Burt." Seb watched as his team talked back and forth. Captain being more reserved and Dagger gesturing amicably and wildly. Rattata and Burt got along quite well, both being energetic and quick to action. Though Burt was seemingly less prone to challenging anything he possibly could.

While they talked, Seb pulled his Pokedex out and began looking over their moves. With a startled exclamation, he turned to Dagger. "When did you learn Bide?"

She turned, sheepishly scratching the back of her head. With a reluctant sigh she put a pair of claws on her head to look like a pair of spikes. "Jasmine…" Seb growled. "When was this?" Dagger pointed at Rattata. "When Myron was helping me with Rattata's Focus Energy?" She nodded.

Seb let out a breath. "I'm not mad. I'm just jealous. I'm worried she'll steal you away from me." Dagger came over and hugged his leg. "I know. I don't need to worry. You didn't go through all the trouble of keeping me alive in the ocean just to leave the first chance you got."

Dagger nodded her agreement. "Oh, come on. You were supposed to like… return the… fine." She laughed silently into her paw.

"Moving on then…" he looked to confirm Tackle, Quick Attack, Tail Whip, and Focus Energy for Rattata. Captain knew Peck, Growl, and Leer. Finally, Burt only knew Poison Sting and String Shot. The Pokedex told him Bug Bite was viable for him though.

"Alright, Rattata and Burt, you guys are spending the day gnawing on things. We want you to pick up Bite and Bug Bite respectively." The two nodded eagerly and both scurried off to find suitable targets to chomp on.

"Dagger, I assume you know how to access Ice type energy?" Seb asked his starter. She nodded easily so he continued. "Excellent. I want you spending the day trying to channel it throughout your body. When we stop for the evening, we'll see about applying that to Ice Ball. It might become a decent movement option for you and would be a stronger attack option than Powder Snow as it relies on physical attack rather than special and from what I read online, Alolan Sandshrew are better at channeling extraphysical energy into their bodies than in external attacks." With another nod she set to it.

"Captain, you've been looking fine today, but we need to let you rest the day out and hope we don't see any more issues. If all goes well, tomorrow I want to start working on Pursuit for your move training." Captain stared back steadily as Seb laid out his plan.

Seb thought over his next comment for a moment. "I've been wondering, you must have been one of the Spearow closest to Pikachu when it let out its attack." Seb looked to Captain for confirmation and the pokemon nodded once, though Seb saw apprehension in his eyes at the topic of conversation. The Spearow definitely had a fear of Electric types. It had displayed a similar reaction when Seb battled against a Trainer's Voltorb the previous day in Viridian City as it had when it saw Jasmine's Magnemite.

Seb pushed the matter out of his mind for the moment and pressed on with his original thought. "Okay, so does that mean you were one of the fastest in your flock?" Captain smirked and puffed itself up a bit before nodding again.

"Excellent, that means we can work on your stamina." Captain deflated a bit at that, looking confused. "I know most single battles don't last long enough to be a test of endurance but a lot of bigger matches can require stamina. And you are my only flier right now. That means you are going to be on scouting duty up top. I need you able to keep an eye out as much as possible. And if I am remembering correctly, Fearow are known for their long distance flight capabilities." Captain begrudgingly nodded.

Seb pet Captain's back feathers. "Don't worry, though. We'll get you in battle condition too. You are going to be destroying all the bug catchers in here." Captain grinned in response to that.

April 23

Evening was coming on and a wind whipped up, rustling through the trees. A storm was rolling in. Seb and his team had been slowly making their way through the forest, training and battling as much as possible.

"Nice job Burt! Now out of cover and Poison Sting!" Burt popped up over the foot high rock he had taken shelter behind and loosed a dart at the opposing Caterpie.

"Caterpie, block with String Shot!" The young bug catcher shouted, but it was too little, too late. The poison dart cut through the thin, silk strands in its way and hit the Caterpie square in the face. The Caterpie flung its head back and tried to shake off the blow, but Burt covered it in his String Shot while it was distracted.

"Now close in and try out your new move!"

"Weee!" Burt cried exultantly as it charged forward at its maximum crawling speed. By the time Caterpie was clear of the sticky material coating it, Burt had covered the distance and closed its jaws around the Caterpie's tail delivering the newly learned Bug Bite.

Caterpie screamed out in shock and pain and tried to shake Burt off, but to no avail. A moment later it fell over unconscious.

"Aw, man!" The bug net wielding boy pouted. Seb had already forgotten this one's name. He had faced so many over the last couple of days they just strung together. With a sudden brilliant light, all attention was drawn to the center of the battleground.

Excited, Seb's face lit up almost as much as Burt had. "Burt! You're… you're evolving!" Seb exclaimed the obvious.

"Weee!" Seb heard from the brilliant white mass in front of him. It slowly grew and changed shape. Slowly the light faded. "Una…" came Burt's new voice, low and rumbling.

"Way to go buddy!" Seb ran up to his first pokemon to evolve, the hard yellow shell waiting for him. Obviously, not like he is going anywhere like that.

"Here's your money." The bug catcher said moodily, handing a fistful of crumpled bills and coins to Seb before wandering off into the forest back towards Viridian City.

Seb turned back to Burt and the rest of the team gathered around to congratulate him as well. "I'm so proud of you. Why, it feels like only yesterday I caught you and here you are already a Kakuna."

"Ratta?" All of his pokemon gave him confused looks and Dagger held up two claws.

"Yes, I know it was actually two days ago, but that was sort of the joke." Seb explained, but they all just kept staring oddly at him. "So… not funny then?"

The team collectively shook their heads. Except for Burt who shook his whole body back and forth as much as he could. "Okay, fine. Pearls before swine."

A gust tore through the clearing and Seb looked around. "Right, storm coming in. We need to find the best shelter we can and get our camp set up. Captain, go up and see if you can find us a good bunch of dense trees." The Spearow nodded and took off into the air. It was good to see him freely mobile.

Thirty minutes later, Seb was pitching his small two-man tent underneath the high branches of a particularly large Oak tree. He liked it. It felt metaphorical. He had his camp fully set up and as weather ready as possible an hour later. The rain had already started by the time he finished, but he was slowly drying off in his tent.

It was crowded with all of them in there, but none of them wanted to be left in their pokeballs so Seb made do. They ate and drank and chattered. It was like every camping trip Seb had ever been on except he was the only one that spoke English. The rain was preventing their evening workout so Seb just had the four pair up to practice status moves on each other for a little while and then decided to call it a night.

"Row. Spearow?" Captain asked hopefully while watching Seb prepare his sleeping bag.

Seb frowned. "Sorry, Cap. Don't quite follow."

Dagger stepped in and through a series of back and forths and a lot of gesturing, Seb finally got to "Name? You want to know about your name?"

Captain nodded. "Row. Row."

"I said I would, didn't I?" Seb scratched his chin. "Alright, let me crawl into my bag here, I'll dim the lights, and I'll tell you about Captain Jack Sparrow."

Seb snuggled in, his pokemon gathered around watching him expectantly, and he started telling them the story of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. "So first off, your namesake is not as sober-minded as you are, Captain… or as sober as you are either actually, but he was a bold and clever buccaneer."

Seb never would have seen himself having bedtime storytime with a team of pokemon, but at that moment, he wasn't sure there could be anything better.

April 26

"Rattata, one more time." The rodent exploded forward and bit clean through the branch Seb was holding out. Seb tossed the two pieces to the side into the pile that had grown there.

"Well done. I think we got it down pat now." The pokedex had showed Bite in Rattata's move list the previous morning, testament to the work he had put in, but Seb had been running him through the ringer practicing it. Bite was a critical foundation for a lot of moves he would learn in the future. It would also be useful in the immediate future in trying to tackle the Pewter City Rock type Gym.

Dagger had learned Ice Ball. Technically. Seb thought as he looked over at her spherical form. She was covered in frost. She was a ball. But she hadn't figured out moving in that form yet. Samus would have been a good name too. Seb shrugged.

"Rattata, dash drills for a bit." The pokemon nodded and darted off with his boundless energy to run back and forth between the two points Seb had set.

"Dagger, how is it coming?" She unrolled and looked up at him, laying on her back. She let out a sigh. Seb laughed. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. So tell me what the trouble is."

She gave him a cross look at the bad joke, but pointed at her eyes and then swept the claws wide, pointing around the clearing. "So, you can't see? Yeah, okay. I can see how that would be a problem."

She glared and threw a twig at him. "Whoa, whoa. Okay. Bad mood. Bad puns are off the table. Got it." Seb thought the problem over for a bit. "So you could move, but you are afraid because you don't know where you are going if you do?"

Dagger nodded morosely. "Alright, do you have a tremor sense? Do you feel movement through the ground?" She waggled a paw back and forth. "And you can hear?" She nodded.

"Hrmm… what about a… a temperature sense? Cold sense? As an Ice type do you have the ability to sense strong sources of cold nearby?"

She shrugged in confusion. "Okay, spray that tree over there with Powder Snow." She did so and Seb stared at the newly winter coated tree in appreciation. "Okay, I'm going to slowly approach the tree and I will tell you when I can sense the cold."

About ten feet away he stopped. "Okay, I am just now noticing a change. How about you?" Seb laughed when she started walking farther away. "Okay, okay. That is fine. That proves the point. How about this? Coat each of the trees of the clearing with snow for now. When they start to melt, do it again. Then you'll know where the boundaries are. The rest of us training are making noise so you can avoid us that way. Does that work?"

She looked around at the trees and nodded slowly. Then, turning back to him, she made a battle stance and shrugged a question. "Yeah, in battle, I think you'll need to throw some Powder Snow around to give yourself a bit of a mental map for it before you try to use Ice Ball. If the enemy isn't loud or stompy enough, you'll have to trust me to guide you. Think you can handle that?"

She nodded vigorously and clenched a paw. Then turned to cover trees in snow. After a moment she began rolling tentatively around their makeshift practice area.

"Row!" Came an exultant cry from Captain.

"Tatta!" Followed by an immediate pained response from Rattata.

Seb turned to see Captain flying away from Rattata with the barest hints of dark energy trailing behind him. "Pursuit?!" Seb snapped open his pokedex and saw he was correct.

Seb looked on with a smile as Rattata chased after Captain. His plans were coming together. They were all getting stronger. They would be ready for Pewter Gym.

April 28

Seb walked through the checkpoint out of Viridian Forest with a sigh of relief. Captain was overhead on lookout and Rattata was walking alongside him, practicing Focus Energy. Dagger and Burt were both safely in their pokeballs. They lacked the consistent mobility Seb had wanted for the last push. It was a couple of hours till evening and he wanted to check out the Gym before checking into the Pokemon Center.

With an eye on Captain, Seb made his way into the city. Captain knew what Seb was looking for and circled overhead when he found it. Seb shook his head with a smile. It's like being a professional falconer after only a week.

"Rat Stevens? No. You know what? Maybe I should give up on the idea of a pun. None of them seem to fit." Rattata rolled his eyes. "Why is naming you so hard?"

They arrived at the Gym and Captain swooped down and landed on Seb's head. "Ack! C'mon. You're messing up the hair." Captain chuckled and started nesting down. "No. Captain, return." And the bird was drawn into its pokeball with one last laugh.

"C'mon Leopold Von Corningham." Rattata gave him a look of horrified disbelief. "Fine, that's a no."

As they entered they heard a loud crash come from deeper within and Seb realized there must be a battle taking place. With a grin, he dashed into the main auditorium and saw exactly what he had hoped.

He climbed up to the balcony level after letting Rattata jump up on his pack. An Onix and a Pikachu were fighting in the arena. No, not a Pikachu. The Pikachu. Seb thought with another wide grin. The Pikachu that looks at type immunities and sneers at them.

Pikachu was wrapped up in the Onix's Bind and was shooting Electricity all around the arena. Seb heard Ash Ketchum call out. "Hang in there Pikachu! It's working!" Ash Ketchum in the flesh. The iconic hat, the blue and white jacket, all of it. Seb smiled almost as much as he did when seeing a new pokemon for the first time.

"Onix, bind it!" Brock responded as the noise and light of the match worked to drown them both out. Seb watched as the match played out much how he remembered it. He glanced upward and saw fire snaking its way along the upper rafters towards the sprinkler system. He dug into his pack and pulled out the best thing he had for the circumstances.

He had it up and ready right as the water started pouring down. He watched as their battle continued, as Brock's siblings all dogpiled on Ash to stop him, and watched as the match concluded with Ash resigning due to the unfair circumstance in his advantage and promising to return for another challenge. Misty followed soon after while Brock gathered up his siblings and sent them on home ahead of him.

Brock looked up at Seb in the rafters. "Are… are you okay up there?"

Seb smiled and waved. "Yeah, I'm good. Good match."

Brock gave him a curious look. "Uh, thanks, but… are you using a skillet as an umbrella?"

Seb started and then winked at him. "Oh, right. Sprinklers are done now. I can probably put this away." He placed the cookware back into his bag and then turned back to Brock, but turned his gaze at the challenger's doors where Ash had left. "He stuck to it with his team and got them to a place where they could give you a good match despite type disadvantage."

Brock was thoughtful. "Yeah…"

"The only reason he didn't win today was because he didn't want to hurt your Onix due to an unfair advantage. He cares about pokemon. All pokemon." Seb went on, pushing.

Brock's fist clenched around something in his hand. "Yeah, you're right. I've gotta go. If you are here for a challenge, I'll be back tomorrow."

"That's alright." Seb said, knowing Brock wouldn't be back. "You do what you need to. I'm in no rush."

Sebastian's Journal, April 23 -

The pokemon are all asleep around me, bundled up tightly together in this tiny tent. I told them of the story of Captain Jack Sparrow for about thirty minutes. I even got Rattata and Captain to act out the part of Will and Sparrow respectively for their duel in the blacksmith shop. It wasn't perfect, obviously. It was cramped, they tripped over me and bumped into the others, but we all laughed and had a good time. I plan on continuing the tale tomorrow night.

It made me realize that I no longer have access to a lot of pop culture I took for granted and I don't have access to anybody who I can reminisce about it with. All the movies and books and games and songs and anime I enjoyed are beyond my reach. This isn't the worst thing. Which isn't to say I see it as a positive. It is just that there are things I miss more.

Fortunately, I can kind of do a tiny little bit about the lost media thing. This journal is no longer just my "I Died and Was Isekai'd Into the Pokemon World so Now the Title of My Journal Must Be Overly Descriptive" therapy journal.

It will also be where I try to collect what I can remember of all my favorite media from my home. It will be my Earth pop-culture time capsule for somebody to open up and find after I die (again). So I guess I might as well get started. First up is an absolute icon of culture. A treasure that must be preserved for all ages so it can be enjoyed even across universes.

We're no strangers to love

You know the rules and so do I

A full commitment 's what I'm thinking of

You wouldn't get this from any other guy…

A/N: Bit of a filler chapter, not the most story progression, but I managed to fit a few little things in there while getting them from point A to point B. And I was quite happy with a few of the scenes in terms of characterization.