Ch 29: Fairies Ferry

By a rare stroke of good fortune, Eliza was finally released from the center on the same day that I earned the Bug Badge, so we came together again in ecstatic moods. I had rushed past Nurse Joy while she was ringing up a young trainer for healing their team, turned a few corners until I came to the right room, and found Eliza standing in the center of the room holding her knapsack, looking perfectly replenished and like she was on her way out the door as I was coming in.

"Guess what," we both said at the same time.

"They discharged me."

"Got the Bug Badge."

We came to a hug, something I was finding increasingly easier to let myself enjoy as Eliza and I had bonded over time. I wasn't sure at first what our limits were, but she was an open book and I had come to find that quality endearing. She really was a sweet girl when her walls were down, if not fiery around the edges due to some past traumas.

"Adam, oh my Arceus. I'm so proud of you. How'd you win, did you get a lucky poison on one of his mons, too?" Eliza teased, referencing the way I beat her in our first battle so long ago. I was surprised she remembered such a minute detail and wondered if she held some kind of grudge over that for a moment, but brushed the thought away.

"Actually, the Passimian you gave me really pulled his weight in his first gym match, he opened and closed the show. Everytime his ability came into play, and his attack power went through the roof, I think the opponents just about shit their pants - or leaves in Leavannys case." I complimented earnestly. "So, thanks. Your intuition was right about us working well together."

Eliza smiled appreciatively, but there was a certain withdrawal to her, as if she was holding herself back from saying something she really wanted to. I cocked my head slightly and furrowed a brow at her, which she knew was my way of letting her know I can tell she wanted to speak and that she could freely.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking. About your proposal to join you on your quest as your sidekick-" Eliza started, but I had to cut her off because her words stung.

"No, hold the phone, not my sidekick, I never used those words and I never would. As my companion. As my friend. Watching each other's backs. I think you're just as good of a trainer as I am, Eliza. We can help each other here, can't you see that?"

"I don't even know where the last gym is, it could be miles and miles away and I'm starting to doubt whether I even have the energy to-"

"The last gym is in Snake's Canyon, which is a - you guessed it - small canyon in a corner of the Isle of Naporia, which is actually really, really close to here because literally all we have to do is head south of Goldenleaf, like, one mile, and then we hit the shore where we can rent out a ferry that takes us straight to the island. It will probably only take us a couple hours to get over to Naporia if we leave now. Come on, Eliza. Just come with me to Naporia. It's supposed to be the most beautiful sight in all of Ilragorn." I was just quoting what Trevor had told me when I asked how to get to the fourth gym after beating him earlier that day.

Eliza had clearly been torn with indecision on figuring out what to do when she was released from the center. But the information that the final gym on my agenda was so nearby, just a stone's throw away, was probably what swayed her the most. That even if she regretted the decision, at least it would be over by the end of the day and she wouldn't be stuck in Exeter Forest with me for 2 months or anything.

There was a map conveniently pinned to the wall of Eliza's hospital room showing the entirety of the island of Ilragorn that I had never really stopped and paid attention to with too much focus in Geography classes back at school, probably because I was too focused on avoiding Evan's douchebag younger friends in my class chucking spitballs at me per his request. But for a few observant minutes with Eliza, I studied that map and slowly came to impress myself as I uncovered what I found.

Ilragorn was a small island compared to some of the others like Kanto or Hoenn, and was pretty much a square block of a shape. On the far west of the island, where I had originated, there was Lunaris Town, tucked away in the bottom left corner, with the Gord Woods stacked on top, filled with tiny footnotes in the map like the Vendor's Market and Gord Lake in the woods too, just to show how detailed this map was and how informed its creator was. There was Peltagrow City at the top, which made me instantly think of Zach and made me realize he wasn't as bad as I originally judged him, and there was that old Duggie's Ruins just east of the town where I first met that charmer Marvin Bloom and first met Kabutops. And when I learned that I really needed to make sure my pokemon had moves of their actual typing, I remembered with a shiver the frustration at Tropius fighting a rock and water type pokemon using only the move Headbutt.

Comprising the majority of the middle of Ilragorn was Exeter Forest, with Mt Roland centered near the top of it, with the incredibly long, tumultuous routes used by the Greyhoundoom Bus shuttle service curling in a U-shape under Exeter. While it wasn't marked in the map, I knew somewhere in the depths of that forest, there was a cemetery housing some incredibly dangerous ghost types that had picked on a certain sharp Haunter just enough to drive him to the point that that Haunter jumped at the first opportunity to flee the forest with a capable trainer that he got - and we both walked out of that situation far better and stronger than we were before. He was now a Gengar and I was now a serious trainer with 3 badges to my name and a solid team of 5 mons.

The east side of the island contained Wintervale City at the top, with Goldenleaf City at the bottom. One could certainly take the Greyhoundoom Bus Route from Wintervale to Goldenleaf, but it stretched in complicated curves around the northern mountains and looked like it took much longer than simply walking along the eastern coast of the island from the top to the bottom, which housed Rocky Road, Scalding Springs, and a cute ? over the Restricted Zone that I preferred to call No Man's Land. Then just a thumbprint below Goldenleaf, tucked away in the bottom right corner, there lied a small dock called Fairies Ferry, where the artist had drawn pink boats that sailed a short distance to reach the much tinier island of Naporia, which was still part of Ilragorn despite not being a part of the mainland, from what I remember back in History classes at school. But the thing that struck me most was when I saw that Lunaris Town and Fairies Ferry were on perfectly opposite sides of the island, and for the first time, it dawned on me that I had basically traveled over the entirety of the island, from one side to the other, covering most of the key areas of the island and probably seeing more in this past year than most people living on this island ever had. I'd even stopped in some nowhere places like Celmont to leave my mark on putting disrespectful young drunk trainers in their place.

But the final gym was in Naporia, the final stretch of what this has all been building to was waiting for me there, and I felt it in my guts, in my heart, in my brain. It was all building to this. And it would just help so much to have a friend by my side. The fact it was a pretty friend also helped.

"I promise everything will be fine," I assured Eliza as she officially signed her name out at the registration desk with Nurse Joy, and though she tried to stop me when I paid for the significant health cost, I insisted. I had made plenty from battling and lost count of the money I'd accumulated, since I almost never lost.

"What's your plan, exactly?" Eliza wondered as we walked together toward the herbal store to stock up on some final supplies just in case of emergency on our way through the sea to get to the final gym. "You're going to enter the Ilragorn League, then what?"

"What do you mean? I'm going to win it." I responded as I purchased a few full revives and inserted them into the pokeballs of Tropius and Lapras, then jammed a full restore into the nozzle of Passimian's pokeball. I wanted them all in tip top shape. Only losers slacked off and got lazy when they were nearing the finish line. I spent a few thousand dollars there to the delight of the shopkeeper, but to his credit, he gave me a nice discount over my helping him with the couple burglarizing him earlier.

"Okay, so say you win the League. You still have to face the Elite 4, and win. And then, you got to face Ava. Who hasn't been beaten in, like, decades." Eliza rationalized while we walked south through the city, doing our best to ignore the sad sights of the huts and the even sadder people living inside of them.

"Well, actually, because one of them died in some freak cave tunneling, there's only an Elite 3 this year. No time to find a proper replacement to their name with the League being so close and all. There's actually been some rumors from the other trainers-"

"What trainers do you talk to?" Eliza questioned doubtfully.

"It's just talk around the pc storage system at the centers in the waiting room. All trainers do it. Compare mons and teams. Anyway, there's some gossip saying the winner of the League this year will automatically be entered into the Elite 4 due to Morgan's death. I mean, you still get to face the Elite 3 and Ava, but they need a fourth Elite member. It's like the unspoken rule."

"Okay, so say you beat everybody, as impossible as that seems. Say you beat all the others trainers that beat the 4 gyms this year, and you beat the Elite 3, and you end up being the one - after all these years - you're the one who's going to take Ava's title as Champion from her. Say all that happens. What do you do now with the title? Do you go back to your bedroom in Lunaris like you wanted, like your parents wanted? Or do you make your own way?"

"I never want to go back to Lunaris again," I answered from the heart. "If I don't have to see my parents or my brother ever again - I'll be fine with it. Actually, I've found myself getting more and more serious everyday with my battling career. Especially when I don't see anything interesting for me to do on this entire island, and I've been in nearly every town. There's just not much competition on Ilragorn, I think, in terms of battling. It's a dying island. The art of battling is almost extinct here, to the point the gyms have been brought down from 8 to 4, half of them don't even have a proper staff - point is, there's not much for me here after I beat the League. So I see myself just traveling to a new island, starting over somewhere fresh. I hear Kanto's nice."

"Wow," Eliza replied. "You're really serious about this."

"If I didn't think I had a shot at winning the whole thing, I wouldn't be. I know I got the skill to do it. I mean. have you seen half the trainers on this island? These guys don't know what the hell they're doing half the time."

Eliza and I laughed as we walked together southbound out of Goldenleaf, following a clear brick-laden path titled Route 17 that was directed toward the South Beach, where we could rent a boat from Fairies Ferry and be on our way into the doors of Snake's Canyon Gym in just a matter of hours.

As a show of our good moods, we both took it upon ourselves to let a pokemon or two on our team travel along the route with us to stretch their legs/wings/tails. My Tropius and Eliza's Staraptor were gliding in the air side by side, looking like two kites together in motion, enjoying the feel of the sun warm the back of their wings while they raced. Eliza had also let Golem out of his ball, though apparently Golem enjoyed the tight squeeze, as Golem had retreated his head, arms, and feet into his massive rocky, ball-shaped body, and was rolling alongside Route 17, occasionally crashing into the bottom of a tall tree and spooking the flying type pokemon perched on the branches above who could feel the tremors. We were a unique sight, the five of us traveling together in the far southeast corner of the island. The hills and trees with their bustling green surrounding Route 17 had a lot more life to them than their northern counterparts; the wild pokemon looked more healthy in general, they were larger in stature from more food available I guessed. I was in such a good mood, I almost felt compelled to stop and catch a Slaking that was just tanning right off of the route, napping in the grass with his hands over his eyes to shield them from the sun. Then I decided I didn't want to disrupt his nap, and continued on with Eliza down the road, opting out of catching him just so as to not ruin that Slaking's potentially really good nap, because I wouldn't want anyone ruining my good mood, so I was just treating others how I would want to be treated in that moment. My ecstatic mood over Eliza's company as well as being so close to my goal was almost childlike in nature

Eventually, while the sun was still high in the sky shining down on us, we arrived at South Beach. South Beach, like most beaches, had brown sand, and some of it was moving on its own which gave me the impression that this was where Gladys of Wintervale had caught her Palossand. There were only a handful of people hanging out at the beach or swimming in the waters, which was to be expected considering how isolated this whole side of Ilragorn was, but it was still a sad sight and another example of how few of the citizens even went out to enjoy a nice day at the beach. None of the people had pokemon with them.

As my eyes wandered further down the beach, I noticed a spot where several cargo ships and motor boats were docked or anchored along the docks that extended significantly out into the ocean, but there was one boat in particular that really assaulted the irises. A very recognizable boat painted mixed shades of the lightest pink with off white stole my attention. The sickly sweet pink boat had to be Fairies Ferry, so we recalled our pokemon to their balls and escalated from walking to running along Route 17 until we finally reached the entrance of the docks, where a large sign hanging overhead read Shorebridge Docks - FOR ALL YOUR OCEAN TRAVEL NEEDS.

"I'm guessing it's the pink one," Eliza stated the obvious. I simply nodded and we headed down the docks together until we approached the massive pink and white boat that was near the end of the boat lineup. A woman was stepping off of the boat just as we got near, and she had the frustrated look of someone who worked there rather than someone touring, with a worried crease in her forehead and her mousy brown hair tossed aloof as if she'd been running laps around Gord Lake all day.

"Uh, hello?" I greeted with a friendly wave as she got stepped toward us, but the woman looked more bothered to deal with me than she had looked a moment ago.

"We're closed for the day," she snapped without missing a beat, then turned around and started walking back onto the ship where she came from.

"Uh, this is Fairies Ferry, right?" Eliza called to the woman, who did not slow her strut or turn around.

"Yup! Closed!" the woman replied as she boarded back onto her ship.

"Um, but you guys are never supposed to be closed? Especially so close to the League Isn't this a year-long tour?" Eliza called out to the woman still walking away, undeterred from her clear disinterest in us. Thank Arceus Eliza knew some information about this shit because I certainly didn't.

It was this comment that stopped the woman dead in her tracks, as she was all the way back onto her ship, leaning over the side and calling out to us to respond: "Well, I very well can't be open when my whole crew just gets taken out overnight, now can I, Ms. Smarty Pants?"

"What do you mean?" Eliza pushed for more information. Thankfully, Eliza pushed the right buttons to get us the answers we needed.

"I mean, little girl, my crew of 15 Clefable and 15 Wigglytuff got ambushed while out on a standard trip to Naporia and back! That ferry sunk and I lost 30 pokemon, my entire staff! I was just transporting some goods to the Isle so luckily there weren't any people on the boat so my insurance won't skyrocket too much higher, but I'm out a crew and a ship and the police are sure taking their sweet time looking for whatever monster did this to my business and I'm not about to lose my last boat left and I'm just really pressed for time these days so if you children will excuse me -" the captain of Fairies Ferry stormed back into the safety of her boat to justifiably stress out, leaving Eliza and me standing on the docks, unsure about our options.

"Monster?" Eliza repeated. "Taking down a ship and 30 pokemon?"

"It's a bunch of Wigglytuff and Clefable that work on a ship. Hardly battling experts. Whatever's in that water, we can take it." On cue, I looked out into the ocean as if whatever monster had pirated Fairies Ferry would reveal themselves from the waters depths.

"What are you talking about?" Eliza asked, worry showing in her voice. Then, as if realizing the answer, and sounding relieved: "Oh, you want to rent a different boat to Naporia?"

"Screw that, I say let's save the money and just hop on good old Lapras and ride her there."

"I don't know, Adam…"

"Eliza, she comes from the ocean. It's an easy swim for her. And I got four other pokemon on me, and you got two. Whatever trouble we bump into, I think we're more than prepared to deal with it."

"There's a reason most trainers - even the best ones who have already gotten the Peltagrow, Wintervale, and Goldenleaf badges - rent boats to Naporia even though they have flying types and water types that could take them there. It's just a lot safer to use the usual channels rather than risk it with-"

"But we just found out that this gigantic ship with 30 pokemon to defend it got overtaken and sunk so - apparently it's not that much safer." I argued.

"So you want to ride out into the ocean with the only thing between you and the monster that did so much damage is Lapras' belly?" Eliza countered back.

"I think you're over worrying."

"And I think you're downplaying how dangerous this is. Are you always so reckless with your life?"

"Eliza, the League starts in, like, a month, ok? Just like that poor captain crying in there-" I jabbed a finger at the Fairies Ferry for emphasis. " - I don't have much time left, either. When I'm on borrowed time, I just need to kick it in overdrive sometimes to power through what I know needs to get done."

"Did you say a month?"

"Huh?"

"A month. You just said the League starts in a month, right?" Eliza asked, an unsure look on her face.

"Yeah. And?"

"Adam...the League starts in two days."