Author's Note: Hiya folks! I had a bit of free time in my schedule so I wanted to post this chapter while I had the chance. Enjoy! Also, shoutout to that guest who asked when the next upload was gonna happen. I forgot to post this chapter for a hot minute so your reminder made this one possible!
Cooperville. We went towards Cooperville. Honestly in retrospect it would make more sense to go here anyway. I mean.. Why wouldn't we want to choose the actual road instead of somehow crossing a lake. I'd argue it wasn't in my judgement to realize, but let's be real... I just kinda forgot about it.
On the bright side, The walk was going well so far. At least, I think? I can't really tell, since every time I look over at Ryan he seems to be off in his own world. I'm assuming he's doing his whole "revenge" brooding type thing where he thinks about 100 different ways to teach someone a lesson. It's between that or him thinking about rainbows and unicorns. Unicorns? Galarian Rapidash? Damn.. now I'm the one who fell into my own trap...
"Hey. Bahamut? Ugh.. are you doing that weird thing again where you internally think of dumb things?" I woke up from my walking coma to acknowledge Ryan's friendship-filled statement.
"What makes you say that? In fact, since when did you know my habits? We've known each other for like 3 days now at most." I replied, slightly concerned. Ryan just shrugged and said "Intuition I guess. That and the fact that you've done that internal thinking thing like 5 times since we've met. Your face says it all." My face got slightly red as I replied with "No... maybe... yes. Look it's none of your concern. Anyway, what did you need my attention for?"
"Directions. Where are we heading now? We're walking on this long, boring, brown straight road. And we've been doing so for like an hour. What's the plan? Surely you can't be having us walk this singular path for the rest of our lives. Right?" Ryan asked, a hint of genuine concern wafting from his sharp-toothed mouth.
"Interestingly, I did expect this as an outcome", "Huh..? What are you talking about". "OH uh.. Nothing. Anyway, we're going to be walking this route for a little bit longer until we find the next cross road. Or any option for that matter. I'm just as bored as you right now if I'm honest."
"How fun. This surely must be the adventure of a lifetime that I could have been missing". "Hardy-Har Ryan. Look, sometimes life isn't all black and red. It's gotta have that monotonous brown sometimes too! It's like uh... I don't know, I thought by the time I finished the sentence I would have come up with a simile but uh. I got nothing." I stated sheepishly.
Ryan decided he would rather skip out on the rest of this tiring conversation and put his headphones on. Why didn't he just use those earlier if he was bored? Actually, how do those headphones even work? Is he using it like a hotspot or something, is that what the big green orb pendant is for? Whatever. He's not the only one who can pass the time with himself. I'm an expert monologue thinker.
Some time passed before eventually I got back into the rhythm of my inner thoughts. Particularly, I was processing what exactly had happened to me so far. Some of the events stuck out to me like a sore thumb. Ignoring the obvious of 'How did a computer program thrust me into a Pokemon world that doesn't exist', I'm stuck wondering questions on things that have happened in THIS world.
Like for example, why am I so mysteriously lucky? Like how I met an Xerneas who magically saved me from a thief, or me being able to convince Amber to travel with me as well as recruiting Leo; or how I was able to catch a rare Pokemon AND find a trainer all the way from the Alola region who just so happened to give me a free Pokemon? What about how I was able to so smoothly beat the gym leader others took weeks to beat.. All on my first try? I know I'm good at Pokemon, but there's no way I could logically be THAT lucky with the battles. For that matter... Why did Otrera even bother to put trust in me and offer to help me workout? Why did Ryan give me the time of day to go on this journey with me? These questions are racing through my mind like a grand prix race car circuit.
It's not like I can't be lucky. But some of those events just seemed.. TOO convenient. Almost like it was willed to be that way. That's at least what I think from the perspective of someone who's played too many games before. It's a cliché, not only that I got put into a new world, but that I've gotten so far without there being any realistic endings to the stories. Like how there wouldn't have been a legendary to pop out of nowhere and save me, or my charisma invigorating many people I just barely met to act out things I could have only previously dreamed of doing. Even lesser events like the continuous amounts of pains and aches that I've already received yet have already started to cast aside and shrug off.
If I were to be most honest with myself... all this information kinda stings. With each major event going and passing, I'm starting to feel more and more like what I'm doing here is.. Somehow influenced. And I don't really want that. I want to make my own journey, my own STORY. But it feels like I can't. Whether it's being pushed or pulled against me I can't tell. I'd like to know.. But, I'm not sure if I'll get that chance anytime soon. Hopefully I can find some answers to the things I still question daily, because this type of style, this erratic, un-caring nature I've adopted for the random and meticulous feels forced. I just wish I could do things my OWN way for a bit.
"Wake up Bahamut. It's no longer a one-way road." Ryan said, poking me in the shoulder to garner my attention. I shook my head as I steadied my breathing and looked up ahead of us. We had seemingly made it whilst I was in my Daze. "Here it is. Not much of town though." Ryan commented. He wasn't entirely wrong either.
Cooperville town looked more like a road-stop, a place for people to rest for a little bit, maybe grab something quick to eat, and continue on their journey. Aside from the lack of trucks and decent size, this seemed about the same. The dirt road continued straight, but on the left and ride sides close to the grassline stood many vendors and tiny shops ready for business. A handful of trainers and people could be seen buying fresh berries and vegetables, a trainer with a Rattata and Pichu on his shoulder was haggling a guy in one of the stands over a price, and although there weren't too many people, the place seemed friendly enough.
"Hiya you two! Come on over!" Ryan and I looked to our right to see a lady sitting down at a booth, hiding behind the shade of the trees. We both awkwardly walked over and noticed her booth had a bunch of waters on it. "I've never seen your faces around here, usually there's regulars who come and go. Are you fellas travelers?" The lady asked casually, taking a swig from her personal drinking container.
I looked over at Ryan who was hesitant to respond, so I took the lead in the conversation to take the anxiety off him. "Yes Ma'am, we're just trying to pass by, see where the road takes us." She nodded her head in delight. "Goody, I knew you two looked like trainers. Fancy buying some Fresh Water? It's only $50 pokedollars a pop." I contemplated the idea until I realized we had almost no supplies at the moment, but desperately needed some source of water. "Yeah sure, I'll take a dozen." I told her. The women nodded and took $600 pokedollars from me, starting to pour the drinks into bottled containers. As she did, Ryan finally said something. "How come all these booths are put here? This doesn't even really look like a town." The girl continued to pour the drinks, already finished with 3 containers, as she replied. "That's a tad complicated, but essentially Sinope city lacks fresh ingredients for common utilities. Although we have a lake close by, the amount the city is allowed isn't enough to sustain everyone equally, so we have to find other water resources in the nearby springs and ponds often found in this forest. Although there are certain locations in this area that can provide water, sadly some of those are off-limits. The same can be said for things like berry farming, rare item stores, and the likes! At first, only a handful of us would come out quite a far way away from Sinope to look for resources to trade and sell back into the cities main shops, but as more and more people started to come to the city, so did the demand. Eventually it became a sort of Job. Each day around 20-30 residents come out here to solidify natural resources and make sure everything stays in tip-top shape. We even have shifts and a personal Pokemon ride to carry us all here. The only reason why this is considered a town is for supposed tax purposes, but it's not our idea".
That was a bit odd, how come a city wasn't allowed the amount it needs for natural resources? Surely the abundance is enough to go around. As if reading my thoughts, the girl carried on. "The reason why we're in this mess anyway is because of a big corporate entity that has a lot of influential power here in this area of the region. They essentially rule most economical outcomes with an iron fist. For whatever reason they've been squeezing us dry and since they own the lake's property they give us less and less each period. Hence the tax purposes of this "town". The big business promised our mayor less restrictions on resources if they were willing to expand properties and share some of our land. So now we're sorta stuck in this situation of having to call this rest- stop a town to feed into the business's power over us, so that they can give us more resources, only for them to have more power anyway. It's a bit of a ruthless cycle, but legally there's not much we've yet to do about it."
Ryan frowned, replying with "Wow... That sucks", and honestly I couldn't have put it better myself. The whole thing seemed like a complicated mess of political and territorial gain and I honestly didn't feel like I wanted to think about the situation any further. But I had to admit, it still felt pretty unfair.
"Anyway, here's ya drinks. Thanks for coming by, and I hope you good luck on your - "For someone who's got a shiny pokemon, you have quite the wretched team." Everyone in the buzzing area suddenly halted as we all turned to look at the source of the rude statement. Ahead of us, further into the booths, stood the guy who had his Pichu and Rattata on his shoulder, holding a black-furred wooloo between his arms away from the man. Two things instantly came to mind. 1. Who said those mean things and 2. Shiny Pokemon existed. (A revelation I likely will think about later.) a tall, lean man in a white suit loomed over the trainer and his small Pokemon. His long silver hair combed over his face, parted over to the ride side to cover his right eye. Which left a singular cold, blue gaze emitting from the very crazy looking man.
"Back off! I've got a Dracovish and I'm not afraid to use it!" The trainer shouted, pulling out a pokeball and sending out a large, and frankly sad, sight of a Pokemon. I recall seeing these fossil mix-up mons a handful of times, but I slightly cringe at the sight of them, as they all look like they're in the middle of a metamorphosis and seem to look like they could be in extreme pain. However, the Dracovish seemed to bounce this idea back at me by immediately shouting a goofy "VISH! VISH!" At the tall man. The white suited man only gave a faint, but sinister, laugh. "Oh please. That's the best you can do? It seems my original analysis of you was 100% accurate. You're not worth my time anymore." And as suddenly as he said those words, a flash of light emitted from behind him, flinging the Dracovish into a nearby tree which seemed to slightly creak in response. As the Dracovish fell to the ground, bits of frost caked the leaves of the impacted tree. Standing closely behind the tall man was a ferocious looking feraligatr, who had just as much of a deadly glare as his assumed trainer. As soon as he appeared, he disappeared. The trainer quickly ran to Dracovish's side to tend to his wounds.
"Hey man, I don't know who you think you are, but you're kinda a jerk. You should relax." Surprisingly, that wasn't me who said those words to the tall silver-haired man. Rather, it was Ryan, who seemed to be baring his teeth at this complete stranger. The man cocked his head slightly and gazed at Ryan, before shifting his eyesight to me. He squinted at me before slowly making his way over to us, muttering under his breath.
The lady who filled our drinks shook my arm to gather my attention. "What the hell is your friend doing?! That's the representative of the big business who comes here to inspect the resources. Don't get on his bad side!, you've seen what can happen. Get some sense into your friend!" This was a delicate situation for sure... I had no clue how to approach it. "Why do you guys let him push you around though? My friend is only acting out his pure natural instincts. Surely you guys must want the same?" The girl shook her head exhaustingly.
"Of course we do, this strain on our city, our lifestyle, isn't a fun one. But it keeps order intact and the world moving. We're just the people who work, not the ones who act!" She hissed back, trembling behind her booth, similar to most other booth owners around us. I shook my head in disappointment. "Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." I told her, turning back to Ryan to help stand by him against this odd man. The silver-haired giant loomed closer and closer to us. Until he finally froze. His eyebrows shifted as he contemplated before. "Where have I heard that phrase before?" He wondered, puzzling himself before pacing in a complete circle for a moment. He suddenly halted and turned, walking towards me with a sharp glare. "Ah yes. The book-" The man suddenly tumbled and fell face first into the dirt. Allowing a gust of dirt to spread and thin out over his (what used to be) clean and pristine white jacket. Instinctively, I walked up to him and held my hand out, offering to help up this man who was clearly a little insane in the membrane..
The man took my hand, without looking up from the ground, and pulled himself straight up with a quick haste. His eyes shifted from calculating to no expression. His face loomed over mine inches away, as he stared deep into my eyes. Which was an odd experience, since I could only see one of his. "An act of kindness to someone who clearly showed no restraint? Perhaps you're more psychotic than even I, Eteo." He whispered to me, before backing away.
"I'll do you a favor, just for today, and leave. Not all good deeds go unnoticed after all." The man explained, before quickly rolling a pokeball out of his sleeve and unveiling an unfezant, which quickly grabbed on his arms with his talons and flew him away.
Everyone, myself included, was absolutely stunned by the events that had unfolded. A strange man, supposedly named Eteo, had come into town, blasted a dragon type away like it was nothing, and then proceeded to act absolutely bonkers before swiftly leaving after a single sign of kindness was shown to him. I couldn't really BEGIN to understand what the man was doing, or what he was up to. Ryan just shook his head, sighing. The water lady then piped up with "Why, thank you two strangers.. I suppose? That's the most interaction any of us have seen out of the inspector since he got the job. Perhaps this means good things will start to come our way?" The water lady reflected. The other booth patrons cheered and hollered, and I kinda just sat there in stunned silence, before promptly being snapped out of it by Ryan. "Alright, that was super weird, but let's get moving. I'm an impatient man and we need to train soon."
I shook my head in confusion. "We need to train? But why." I asked him. "Because that crazy guy was way out of our league in skill level, he was barely trying with that other trainer and given the chance could have squashed us easily. That makes me infuriated. I'll teach you how to hunt wild Pokemon in the nighttime tonight, since I'm not particularly fond of that nitpicky fighting you did in the wild the last time we trained for battle." I grunted in response as I grabbed the water bottles, making sure they were snug in my backpack, and walking after him. " It's not my fault I was struggling to find Pokemon near my Pokemon's skill level! Plus, just because you taught me how to train against wild Pokemon doesn't mean you get the say on how I go about it Ryan." Ryan looked over at me, "That's actually EXACTLY what that means. Look, just trust me on this and hurry up. The longer we wait to train the farther the gap between our skill level and ".
I would call Ryan out of character for suddenly being so obsessed with training, but I almost felt somewhat the same about the situation, it was all so sudden but that encounter lit a fire in me, egging me on to reach that heightened level of strength; Especially since I don't think I'd ever want to run into a situation like that ANYTIME soon. Plus, I made a promise to not only make myself stronger, but my team too. Too bad I forgot to add pupitar to my team before I left Sinope city though... I guess it was a bad idea to bank on "Coopersville" having an accessible PC.
Night time came and many questions were still yet unanswered as we had made quite the journey away from Coopersville. The events were a vivid reminder in my head as the hours passed. However, something started to linger in my mind, a thought I wish I could push back into the most inner parts of my head. All these events were odd, surely, but the craziest thing was that they started to feel like.. A storyline. In fact, almost like a Pokemon storyline from a game. Although most of the mainline games just have the main character start off normally, some fan games of the assortment involve major events such as a legendary showing up that spurs the character to continue their journey. As well, like almost any Pokemon game, I had seemed to encounter a dangerous enemy with an almost unintelligible motive, which is usually always for the sake of progressive story build up. I shuddered, was my journey so far starting to reflect that type of story?
Surely I would hope not, but the facts were being laid out on the table, and it was starting to make all my other questions like how I'm able to convince people easily or how I seem to be naturally more luckier by nature than most other trainers...
I shook my head and got up from under the tree I was sitting on. I can't keep thinking about stuff like this. Being in this world is a dream come true and I need to take advantage of it. I can't stop to think about all the weird things going on...
Ryan came walking from the other side of the little clearing we were resting at. We decided to spend the night hunting so we took turns taking a nap in the daylight so we could reset our sleep schedules. I wasn't particularly fond of it but it's not like I didn't do this back home anyway. I brushed my shorts off as I walked over to him. We also didn't have a tent, so we kinda just had to wing it in the cold. Again, not particularly fond, but what else can we do about it?
"Ready to train? The sun's disappearing so we'll be getting some night-owl Pokemon to take advantage of." Ryan told me nonchalantly. "Alright I guess, tell me again why we're even bothering to fight night Pokemon anyway? Can't we just be content with the ones we find by day?"
Ryan squinted at me as though he were trying to tell whether or not that was a joke. "Isn't it obvious? There's different Pokemon during the night, and training your Pokemon to be well rounded is KEY to a successful team."
"I suppose that's fair. But how exactly are you so confident about that? No offense, but you only had like one Pokemon before we met." Ryan glared at me, and I quickly decided to drop the subject. He shook his head and sighed, walking into a patch of grass and waving at me to follow.
He settled us down inside a bush and we waited. He's done this before too, so I just continued on and tried to be as quiet as possible. I didn't really mean to offend him, but I feel like my concerns were genuine. However, he WAS the one to teach me to fight wild Pokemon in the first place, so maybe he knows what he's talking about. When we were training for Otrera's gym, he showed me how to properly fight wild Pokemon, which was simple enough in theory. The general idea is that you want to fight them at their full strength, but you need an opening to get in first. Otherwise they'd probably run away even IF they felt they were stronger.
When explaining this to me originally, the first thing that came to mind was fight-or-flight responses. In simile, it would be like if you were alone at your house and you thought you heard a noise in the other room. Your natural instinct tells you to be instantly cautious, and given the chance, have that feeling or desire to flee the area for safety. But then if we were to actually check out the noise and realize it's your pet you would instantly relax. That's basically how the system works. So to counter this we have to sneak up on most Pokemon, especially smaller ones, and then face them head on when they feel like they need to fight back in the scenario.
Admittedly, it's a pretty cool concept. But Ryan's methods aren't particularly my favorite. His favorite hiding spots are in bushes where his body can be concealed, and he likes to wait for Pokemon to get closer, kinda like a Venus flytrap. Or I guess in this world, a carnivine trap? Regardless, I don't like it. My body is significantly bulkier by design than Ryan's, so I take up much more space then he does. Meaning the chances of me being seen are much higher than his. Plus, it's uncomfortable. Cargo shorts are pretty great, don't get me wrong, but they lack that comfort of sitting next to a bunch of thorn bushes without getting too hurt. One of the first bushes we had to hide in during our last training session had thorns in it, so Ryan was fine but every once and a while I'd have to shift around to pluck thorns out of my thighs and calves.
Plus, there's always a chance of some random bug Pokemon living in one of these, and I've had my fair share of that ALREADY.
Back to the situation, we waited a solid 20 minutes in the bush. Ryan took the time to remove his headphones and sit there in complete quiet, only once telling me something out loud in a quiet tone. "Hey, make sure to be extra quiet during night hunts. There's less noise out here in the forest, but the night time often finds it even quieter as a lot of species aren't awake. That means most of the Pokemon you'll find out here are naturally better at hearing, because they rely on it most to sense predators." I nodded and looked forward towards the bushes. I heard the flapping of wings and looked up to a tree across from us, noticing a hoothoot landing on a medium-sized tree branch. In a moment's notice, Ryan had already broken out into the clearing, pokeball in hand. The Hoothoot fluttered for a moment as a reaction , about to run, but decided to land back on the branch and face Ryan.
Ryan threw out his pokeball with Charmander in it, and instantly instructed him to use brick break. Charmander lunged forward and wall-jumped off the tree and slashed down on the Hoothoot, who moved slightly out of the attack's range. The Brick Break continued slashing down as Charmander's arm broke through the tree branch and made the branch, Charmander, and Hoothoot fall to the ground. Hoothoot recovered quicker and tried to use gust on Charmander's direction by flying up and flapping its wing towards it, picking up a current towards the fire Pokemon.
"Charmander, roll out of the way and flare blitz it!" Charmander adjusted it's legs and nodded, sprinting forward in a dash at the Hoothoot who was still trying to aim its gust attack at the Charmander. Charmander then reached Hoothoot and ran slightly under it before jumping up and headbutting the Hoothoot in a fiery blaze. The flame's encircled them both as the Hoothoot took the impact of the hit and fell straight down. Charmander continued to attack it on the way down. They both hit the ground and picked up a bit of dust. Charmander stood up and jumped up and down in victory. "Char! Char!". Looking over at the Hoothoot, it was very much so fainted. Sleep well little owl buddy..
"And that's how ya do it. All about blunt head-first attacking" Ryan explained to me, turning around and grinning. I rolled my eyes at his Cockiness. "Yeah sure, that was cool and all but why would you use a recoil move on wild Pokemon? Look at your Charmander, it got bruised a little from its Flare blitz." Ryan looked over at his Pokemon and noticed a small burn mark was on it's scale-like skin. "Oh.. uh. Sorry about that Charmander" he apologized. Charmander simply shook its head and nodded, probably very used to his recklessness. Ryan returned him to his ball. "Well maybe if I didn't have to get rid of Thunder Punch I wouldn't have had to use that move."
"Yeah, I concede to that, that's a fair point" I acknowledged, "I'll pay for your move tutor session once we get to a town with one, I promise." I told him. Ryan looked at me for a moment before letting it go. Then suddenly, he started throwing his hands all over his body as his eyes dilated and he started freaking out, turning around aggressively as he threw himself at the grass and trees trying to reach for something.
"GET OFF ME! AH, GET IT OFF GET IT GET IT!" He shouted, as he kept turning around and taking off his red and black hoodie. "Relax man, what's wrong?" I asked him, walking over to him as he kept squirming about. Then I saw it, as he turned his back to me a spinarak was just casually sitting right there on his back. It must have gotten on when he was in the bush. Ryan was freaking out to get it off him. I quickly pulled out my pokeball and unleashed Leonidas, who promptly stretched its legs and jumped up in anticipation. "Olu! Riolu!" It cried out. "Leo, go for Metal claw on the Spinarak!" Riolu extended its arms and created small steel claws, running towards Ryan's back and trying to slash down. But Spinarak reacted quickly and shot a web of string from its hide towards a tree, swinging away like Spiderman. Riolu quickly changed course, nearly hitting Ryan who was still freaking out. Riolu jumped up towards the Tree it was resting on, and slashed towards the spinarak who got knocked back onto the ground. The spinarak reacted by shooting another web of string except this time it was aimed at Leonidas. It struck him and wrapped around Riolu's body as Leo struggled to break free. Then the Spinarak started crawling forward at an alarming speed. Keeping my cool, I instructed Riolu to use Quick attack to escape the binds. His body quickly vibrated as it tried to break the string's tension, which worked!
But the Spinarak kept coming. It jumped towards Riolu and extended it's tiny fangs, sinking them into Riolu's left arm. "Leonidas, use reversal!" Leo nodded and spun around, shaking the spinarak grip from its arm. He got it loose just as he threw it, which made the spinarak fly into a nearby tree with a tiny 'thunk'. The Spinarak fell down in a daze, defeated. I quickly checked Leo to make sure the bug bite wasn't poisonous, before thanking him and returning him to his pokeball. I looked over at Ryan, hoping he was calmed down.
He was not. He was still squirming around and throwing his back against trees, thinking it was still on him, clearly he had no patience for the creature. "Relax Ryan, I beat Spinarak. You can calm down." Ryan turned towards my direction and noticed Spinarak was quietly knocked out behind me. He relaxed and quickly picked back up his hoodie he threw off, putting it back on.
"Are you afraid of Bug type Pokemon or something?" I asked him, hoping he would say no. Having to have a travel partner who was afraid of a common Pokemon typing would be intrusive to the adventure. He scoffed. "Not really. It's just spider's that freak me out. They're so weird looking." I didn't really have the heart to tell him that all spider's are bug types in this world, so instead I asked him "So you have Arachnophobia?" To which he nodded. "If that's what you call it, sure. I just hate all the legs they have and the weird way they look, always so gross. Don't you feel the same way about some bugs?" He questioned.
I turned my head, thinking it over. "Well, not really. Where I'm from I never really got scared of stuff like that, I was only really cautious of big scary creatures. That said, spider's don't ever really seem to bother me, so I never really gained an affinity for disliking them. Although Bug types aren't exactly my favorite typing, it's not like I despise them. A lot of them are pretty cool and strong even. Like scizor, now THAT'S a cool Pokemon." I told him.
"Of course you do, Mr. Know it all. Anyway, I think we're done here. I'd rather not continue training anymore. Let's call it a night". "So soon? That Spinarak must have really freaked you out..." I stated. Ryan just looked at me and stuck his tongue out, clearly unable to make a clever comeback.
We both sat at the bottom of trees, using it as a surface to sleep on. We were faced on the opposite sides of the tree. I had the backpack Amber gave me huddled around my chest, throwing my purple hoodie over my legs as warmth and the backpack as something to protect my chest in case there were gusts of winds at night. Ryan just curled himself up under his hoodie. I figured he would do that trick where you tuck your knees under the hoodie, but it seemed he cared more about his clothes then I did.
Looking up at the sky, I noticed shimmering stars reflecting the darkened sky. I took a sharp breath in as I recounted this night's similarity to the first night I spent outside in this world.
"Hey... Ryan?" I asked, hoping he was awake. Ryan groggily replied with "Huh? What's up?" I could hear him shifting up to be attentive. "What do you do when you can't figure out what's going, or there's so much that happens with you that it's overwhelming?" I asked him, solemnly thinking. His breathing steadied, as I could sense him trying to find a way to appropriately answer me. "Honestly. That's a tough question man. I uh- I'm not exactly the greatest at answering thought-provoking questions. But I guess for me, when there's a lot of stuff on my mind I try to think about my goal, my endgame. Do you have a goal like that to hold onto?" He questioned.
"Yeah, I guess I kinda do. Up until very recently I came from a very VERY far away place. So far that If I were to tell you, you'd probably not know what I was talking about. The idea of being a Pokemon trainer there was.. Let's just say unrecognizable. So, now that I'm here, in this region, I've gotten the chance to finally have Pokemon, go places and explore the world. The problem is I've kinda encountered so many crazy things all at once that I feel like it's taking away from who I want to be as a person; most importantly, I feel like everything I'm doing is influenced by some other outside factor, like what I do is predestined. As for my goal... I want to be the strongest there is. I want to be the best Pokemon trainer, maybe become a champion in not just one region, but all of them. The best of the best. I've heard about it a lot before and I always figured I could do it. So I learnt everything I could about Pokemon. But I'm still finding myself asking if what I'm doing is what I truly want."
"I can see what you mean Bahamut. That's honestly a lot to take in, and I can also kinda relate to that on some level. I'm also from a far away place, and my past is a pretty haze place mentally too. But.. I think you're here Bahamut because you want to be. I'm sure if you truly felt you weren't ready to be here, or that what you were doing was predetermined, you would go back to where you came from. You're here now and there's a lot you can do to change that, but you're not that kind of person. And that's what makes you.. well, genuine I suppose. You're a goofball, don't get me wrong, but I can see where you get at and how you approach different things. I think, honestly, that if you feel like what you're doing isn't what you want, then don't do it. But if you truly want this, if you really want to be the 'best', then you'll do it. Reach out for your goals the way you want to. And, if you come across any ruts in your path, or Psycho's, or adventure buddies who leave you, that's fine too. Because you'll still have your Pokemon. If you also find yourself questioning who you are, then it's never a bad thing to reflect. Being flawed is kinda what being human is all about, it's about learning those flaws and deciding what to do with them; some choose to cover their flaws, some choose to respect them, others learn to use them to their advantage. But in the end, what makes us stand out from everything else is our ability to be fragile, to make mistakes. I just wish some mistakes didn't have to be so... severe. Otherwise maybe then I wouldn't be here."
"The fact is, good people can still do bad things. But what makes them a good person is how they turn around and choose to react to the bad things they did. If they never own up to it, if they believe what they did is right, they're most likely a bad person. But if you choose to admit what you did was wrong, and try to change that, you're still a good person."
We both sat still for a long time, just waiting for the other to respond. Finally, I smiled and looked to turn around to him on the other side of the tree. As I was about to say thanks however I noticed Ryan was fast asleep and lightly snoring on the tree trunk. I smirked at him and turned back to my sleeping position, nestling up to the trunk. "Thanks Ryan.." I said, as I closed my eyes to escape into the world of dreams.
Daylight broke and I opened up my eyes. It seems I woke up first, so I got up to make sure we had all our supplies and nothing got stolen in the night. Walking over to Ryan, I noticed another Spinarak was quietly sleeping on his head, to which he was oblivious. I quietly chuckled as I slowly and carefully took the Spider Pokemon and removed it from his head, walking a bit far into the bushes across from us to lay it down somewhere safe. As I walked back to the tree, Ryan had stirred awake and was removing all the dust and grime nature had left him. He turned towards me and frowned. "Why were you over there in the bushes?" He asked. Not wanting to give him the fright of his life, I simply said "Oh uh, nothing. Just had to use the bathroom." He squinted and went into the backpack, bringing out fresh water. "Make sure you clean your hands then. And wash your face, you've got a few pimples showing." P-pimples? Dammit, I guess even in this world I can't run from teenage acne. I shrugged and did as he was told, to make sure my story was straight.
We soon got up and continued walking, having made it pretty far to this location from Coopersville, I was confident we would soon make it to a nearby town or city. Anything that wasn't a rest stop, hopefully. As we were walking, I noticed a strand of string most likely from Spinarak was still on his back, so I quickly brushed it off for him while he was walking ahead of me. He turned towards me instinctively and looked at me, questioning what I'm up to.
I turned and avoided eye contact as I pretended like I did nothing. But quickly regained focus as I noticed a sign up ahead. "Hey look Ryan, a sign! It might tell us where the next town is!" I exclaimed excitedly, hot footing it towards the sign that was a bit hard to make out from here. Ryan quickly pursued, almost instantly catching up to me and continuing on ahead of me. As I finally made it to the sign, he turned back towards me in anticipation. "Interesting." He said.
"Huh, what's up?" I asked him. Ryan turned towards me and pointed at the sign. "Says here that the next town is pontem-burgh. Hope it's actually a town this time and not a street in the middle of nowhere." Ryan grumbled. I continued to walk past him as he followed after. "It wasn't a street in the middle of nowhere, it was a street in the middle of Coopersville." I said, smirking. Ryan paused to look at me.
"I hope to god I never have to hear something like that out of your mouth ANY time soon." He said, as I laughed at his response.
"Alright I guess. Hey I got a question for you Ryan." I told him, changing the subject. "Sure, what is it?" He said, adjusting his headphones slightly. "How do your headphones... work? Does it play any music or like what? How does that even work.. I mean especially since we're out in the middle of nowhere, is it wireless?" I pondered. He shook his head at me and took off his headphones, tossing them towards me. I caught them and put them on as he said "See for yourself".
Taking a listen, I heard.. Well.. nothing? "There's no sound coming from these?" I confusingly stated. "That's because no sound is supposed to come out, they're only noise cancelling headphones for sleep. I like to put them on and put my headband over my eyes whenever I have difficulties sleeping." He explained. "Oh, neat." I said, handing him back the headphones.
30ish minutes passed before we finally got to the edge of the town, which was actually a town this time. In fact, it was a super old looking town. All the houses looked more like ruins with moss and vines hanging from each one, and most of the houses were made out of pure wood materials, only rarely seeming to have stone-like structures on them. As we entered the city, many folks were walking around with very traditional clothing, the type of stuff that you would find on colonial era reenactments. They all seemed very content though. Children ran around playing and having fun in the main square, as Pokemon were littered all around. Like a large stoutland watching over two children playing in front of their house, or a tree composed of bird houses containing varying regional birds like starly, pidove, fletchling, pidgey, taillow, etc etc. The town seemed bustling and pretty comfortable, all things considered. It was definitely a step away from Sinope City, which found itself in a much more modern place.
However, what caught my attention the most was a beautiful large bridge just past the main square. There seemed to be a stream of water under the bridge that divided two parts of the town, with housing situated near our side, and a suspiciously large ruined castle on the other side, as well as a strangely vibrant building next to a pokecenter. Me and Ryan walked through the town. Some of the townsfolk noticed us but generally paid no mind as we walked. "Huh. This place is pretty old looking, but I gotta hand it to them, it looks very comfortable.." Ryan noted. "I agree, pretty beautiful place. I assume the reason why they're not paying us too much attention is because this looks like a one-way road, so there's a chance they get many visitors like us passing through." I assumed.
We continued up to the bridge, who's wooden structure creaked slightly as we stepped on it. I took a mental note that it seemed to creak more when I was stepping then when Ryan was. Reaching the top of the Arch, we looked both directions trying to scan everything. "What do you suppose that Castle is doing here?" Ryan questioned, taking a look upwards towards the top. "Honestly.. I have no clue" I admitted, "But perhaps it's a famous location? Or maybe even a spot for tourist attraction. Who knows." We both leaned against the bridge rails, which were beautifully decorated with vines wrapping around the length of the arch.
Moss could also be seen growing under the bridge from an angle, away from the light. Looking down, I noticed a handful of fish Pokemon following down the stream, like finneon.. And of course, magikarp. "It's a very nice location, all things considered." Ryan noted.
"Yeah.. it's a pretty peaceful place, isn't it Bahamut?" I froze. Ryan didn't say that. Ryan turned to me without looking behind him, furrowing his eyebrows as he mouthed to me "Who..?". We both turned around slowly and my eyes widened as I saw someone who I didn't think I'd see anytime soon.
"H-Hi...
Amber."
And that's all for now. Hope you folks all have a good one!