Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
A/N Hey there, everyone! I meant to have this chapter up a week ago, but that obviously didn't happen. This thing was just so hard to write! D: I tried my best with it, but it may or may not be up to par. I was struggling over this thing for quite some time until I decided that this really was the best I could do. But I'm still a newbie, right? So please have mercy! Or chew me out. Whatever suits your fancy.
To everyone who has been keeping up with story (and reviewing and following it!), thank you so much! Every time I get a new review, or see all the hits I've gotten, I get all happy inside. :D
An anonymous reviewer asked me how Gold understood what people were saying. Well, for one thing, Gold is an apt lipreader, so he can usually catch what people say when they aren't signing. Also, if it's been stated that someone can sign, you can safely assume that they do that when they're talking to him. If they're only signing (not speaking out loud) to him, the text will be in italics. Hope that clears thing up for anyone who might have been confused.
Enjoy the chapter.
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Chapter 4: Lay of the Land
When Gold entered Cherrygrove's pokémon center, only a few other trainers were there, and they were all sitting on the couches and chairs in the main lobby. Well, good. He wasn't a big fan of crowded buildings.
He approached the front desk where a kindly-looking Nurse Joy greeted him with a smile.
"Hello, and welcome to our pokémon center!" she said, still smiling. "What can I do for you?"
He responded by placing Cyndaquil's pokéball on the desk. It was apparently the correct thing to do, for Nurse Joy took it without hesitation. She handed the ball to the chansey standing next to her, and the pink pokémon trotted away with it.
Nurse Joy turned back to him. Gold watched carefully as she spoke again. "I'll let you know when your pokémon is ready to be returned to you. Is there anything else you need?"
Gold eyes briefly swept around the counter for something to write on. Finding nothing, he typed his request on his Pokégear and showed it to the Nurse.
Could I reserve a room for the night? Trainers reserved rooms during the daytime, right?
Maybe they did, because the Nurse didn't give him a strange look or anything (but then again, she hadn't reacted to his silence, either). She simply handed him a card with the room's number on it and smiled again. "There you go! You could drop off your things," she said, gesturing to Gold's backpack, "before you head back out, if you want."
Gold hesitated for a moment before giving the sign for 'thank you.' He could have typed it out, but hey, he had a right to speak his own language if he wanted to. People had brains, and they could figure out what he meant by context. With that thought in mind, he walked to the hallway before Nurse Joy had a chance to look at him weirdly.
The room he entered was fairly nondescript, and didn't have a lot in it. Its main accessories were a bed, bathroom, TV, and videophone, though that was certainly more than enough. Gold nodded in satisfaction as he tossed his backpack on the bed and left the room. Now all he had to do was wait for Cyndaquil, then they could head out again.
He walked over to the main waiting area and took a seat on a vacant couch. He let himself zone out as he thought about his immediate plans.
He'd probably just do some training with Cyndaquil for a few hours today. Then, tomorrow, they would make their way to Violet City, home to the flying-type Gym Leader Falkner. Gold couldn't wait to feel the thrill of participating a real live Gym battle. It was going to be amazing, that was for sure. Well, unless Falkner kicked his butt. That would be very uncool, very uncool indeed.
After what must have been no longer than ten minutes, Gold noticed a chansey skipping up to him (was skipping allowed indoors?) Here you go!the chansey said.Cyndaquil is all healed and ready to go!She held up Cyndaquil's pokéball, which sat on some tray-looking thingy. Gold snatched it up.
Thank you.
You're welcome! she said, not looking surprised at all.
Well, that was new. All the other pokémon he'd ever encountered had at least expressed some slight surprise when he spoke to them. He wondered if all chansey were like that. But Gold didn't dwell on it for too long.
Gold walked some distance away from the center before releasing Cyndaquil. His pokémon looked up and him, then crinkled her nose. What happened to you face? was the first thing she said.
What are you talking about? Gold asked, automatically reaching to touch his face and feel for signs of damage.
It has red on it! she said, looking very concerned. Did you get beaten up?
Gold rolled his eyes.It's called sunburn, Cyndaquil,he said patiently. It's sunny out, in case you didn't notice.
But . . . couldn't you just have shaded your face with your hat?
Well, yeah, but mine's been on backwards.
. . . So you just made it completely useless. Um, okay.
You make it sound a lot dumber than it is,Gold grumbled, then turned his cap the right way around. Let's just go look around now.He walked smartly away, and Cyndaquil scampered after him.
Cherrygrove really was a pleasant city. The streets were free of litter, the houses all looked nice and well-kept, and here and there, Gold would see some kids playing with their pokémon. It reminded him a little of New Bark Town, except that this place was bigger and didn't have quite as many trees. North of them was Route 30, which would eventually lead them to Violet City. They would start the trek there early tomorrow morning. Gold would've gone today, but he'd already received a text from his mom telling him to stay in Cherrygrove until the next day, 'or else.'
Well, at least there was something he wanted to do first anyway. On one side of the city was a small beach, which would make a nice place to train, so long as it wasn't too crowded. Besides that, he hadn't been to a beach in years.
Not really sure of the way to get there, Gold just followed the scent of the sea breeze coming from the west side of the city. And sure enough, after about ten minutes of walking, they were gazing at vast blue ocean, sparse beach grass, and soft sand.
Cyndaquil hopped around, kicking up sand as she went.It's so pretty around here!She paused and stuck her nose in the air.And it smells really weird, but in a good way. Oh! Can you hear the water from here? It's so cool!
Gold smiled in amusement. I'll take your word for it on the sound aspect.
What? Oh, yeah, that. Suddenly, her face lit up.Hey, we should make a big pile of sand and jump in it!
At that, Gold let out a laugh. Sorry to break it to you, but landing on sand would hurt a lot.
But it's soft!Cyndaquil protested.
Not when you fall on it! Besides, we're here to train. We can play with sand later.
Cyndaquil pouted. Oh, fine then. So, what are we gonna do?
Gold considered on that for a moment. How to start. . . . I guess we can sort of warm up first. Let's start by jogging around until we get tired.That seemed like a good plan to him.
Cyndaquil looked at him with somewhat doubtfully. I've seen you jog. You get tired after, like, two steps.
Excuse me? I'm just a bit out of practice, but I'm not that bad. Two steps, give me a break—
Wait, you want a break already?
Gold threw his hands up in the air. Let's just get started already! We'll just keep going until I collapse from exhaustion, okay? And after this, we're working on your firepower.
Well, if we just run until you drop, this should only take a few minutes. . . .
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"Okay Chikorita, use razor leaf!"
The grass-type sent forth a small flurry of sharp leaves, most of which hit their intended target—a small piece of driftwood they had found at the beach. Chris smiled.
"You've already improved a lot, and on the first day, too!" She crouched down to rub his head. "We make a pretty good team, don't we?"
"Chikor!" the pokémon said in agreement. They had been traveling for several hours now, training as they went. Now they were practicing Chikorita's razor leaf along Cherrygrove's shoreline. They had made an impressive amount of progress so far. At least Chris thought so.
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "we should really look around for someone to challenge. Show them what we got, you know?" Her eyes scanned the area, searching for any sign of other trainers. She didn't see any people, but she did see one—no, two—sets of footprints, one in the wet part of the sand, one in the dry. One was clearly made by a human, and the other by some sort of small pokémon. Well, it couldn't hurt to follow those. Chris walk in the direction the footprints were headed, gesturing for Chikorita to follow her.
The human's footprints, in the beginning, were well spaced, as though the person had been running, but they soon became much closer together. The pokémon's prints, being in the dry sand, were much harder to distinguish, leaving Chris with no idea as to what species it was.
After ten minutes or so, they came to a section of beach where some training had obviously happened. More footprints were here, going in all sorts of directions. Where there had once been grass, only bits of burnt plant remained. Several pieces of driftwood were here, their surfaces charred and sooty.
The place was abandoned.
Crystal placed her hands on her hips. "I guess they already left," she said unnecessarily. "Maybe they went a little farther away." She was about to look elsewhere, but some black-and-yellow thing sitting on a nearby boulder caught her eye.
Walking closer, she realized that it was a baseball cap, probably belonging to the absent trainer. Crystal picked it up and looked around. Chikorita eyed her curiously. "Chikor?"
"I guess they forgot about their hat," she said in explanation, then put the hat back in its former place. "Let's just wait here for a little whil." She sat down on the sand and got some food out from her backpack, with the intention to wait for the person to come back. She hoped they were ready to take a challenge.
Crystal opened up a bag of pokémon snacks for Chikorita, who ate them out of her hand and licked her fingers after they had run out. She watched as her starter settled down next to her and curled up in the sand, his warm body pressed against her leg. It was weird, she thought, being this relaxed. Or really, being relaxed at all. She could really get used to this.
It was apparent an hour later that whoever left their cap here wasn't coming back, so Crystal packed up her things, feeling slightly let down. She hesitated briefly before grabbing the stranger's hat and stuffing it in her backpack. She'd just take it to the pokémon center and leave it in the lost-and-found . . . place. Area. Thingy. Whatever it was called.
"Well, Chikorita, I guess we can just explore around Route 30 and see if we can't find some challengers. Maybe we'll catch a friend along the way."
By the time they checked in the pokémon center that night, they had fought and won several battles, checked out the local trainer's market, and snagged an energetic caterpie in Route 30. All in all, it was a fairly productive day, as far as she was concerned. Had her parents witnessed this, they would have said otherwise. But they didn't even know where she was right now, so there were no despairing sighs and disappointed looks to be had. Chris fell asleep quickly that night.
Her backpack sat on an armchair in the room. The baseball cap, still inside it, lay forgotten.
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Gold huffed as he stared accusingly at the boulder that had previously held his cap. Yesterday, he had taken it off, the physical exertion he had gone through that afternoon making it hot and uncomfortable to wear. He had failed to bring it with him after he and Cyndaquil returned to the center later on. When he had gone to look for it in the morning, it had vanished. Just his luck.
So now he had to wait until they reached a different city to get a new hat—Cherrygrove's trainer's market didn't have any black-and-yellow baseball caps in stock. Gold thought it was completely ridiculous—Cyndaquil thought Gold was completely ridiculous.
You could just buy a differently colored hat, you know,Cyndaquil informed him. They had gone back to the beach for one last search for the hat. They had given up after about ten minutes, and now Gold was having a staring contest with a rock. The rock was winning.
Well, maybe I don'twantto buy a different-colored hat,he snapped. Is that such a crime?
Cyndaquil looked hurt. I was just trying to help. . . . she said pitifully.
Gold sighed. I know, sorry. Let's just get out of here now. He began to walk away, but was called back by Cyndaquil.
Hey, wait! We never played in the sand yesterday! Can we play now?Then she got an 'I thought of something genius' look on her face.We can make a sand pile!
Again with the sand piles. . . .
Fine, fine. But then we're gonna get out of here and head to Violet City. Understood?
Yup!
Gold counted himself lucky when Cyndaquil quickly grew bored of making a sand pile, and, instead, tried to melt the sand with her newly-learned ember attack (and, again, got bored after a bit). So they were on their way to Violet City before eight o' clock that morning, both in good spirits. That didn't last long, however.
Gold started to get really annoyed again an hour later, for several reasons: he had received (and answered, mind you) seven texts from his mom asking if he was all right; Cyndaquil, while ready and willing to battle whenever they approached a wild pokémon, also insisted on trying out her ember attack on anything that looked dry; and, most of all, there was . . . this kid.
'This kid' was probably around ten years old, and was wearing the stupidest pair of shorts Gold had ever seen. They were deep blue, and very, well, short—they looked kind of like brightly-colored underwear. But that wasn't the most annoying thing about him (though it was the creepiest).
The kid wouldn't. Stop. Talking. Gold had nearly stepped on the boy's rattata while jogging along a narrow trail, and the owner threw a fit. He had waved his arms around and yelled quite a lot—what he was saying, Gold couldn't tell. After about a minute, the kid put down his arms, looked affectionately at his purple rat—and started talking again. This time, it was slower and somewhat easier to understand. Gold wasn't sure, but he though he saw him say something about 'top percentage of rattata,' and also something about his shorts being 'comfy and easy to wear!'
Um, okay. Either he had entirely misinterpreted what had been said, or this kid was insane. There was no other explanation.
Maybe he should just walk away now. That's what his mom always told him to do when people were annoying him. Don't hit them, don't throw stuff at them, and don't try to gauge out their eyes with sharp objects—just walk away. That was easy, right?
Of course not.
Hey Gold? We're being followed. And he's still talking.
Dammit! Why can't he just leave me alone?
I can ember his face if you want—oh. I think he just challenged us to a battle.
Gold whirled around to find the kid standing about ten feet from him. He had his blue cap turned at a weird angle, and his feet were wide apart. He seemed to think he looked cool or something. He spoke again, more clearly this time. "I, Joey, challenge you to a battle!"
Didn't he already do that a second ago? This kid was so redundant. Gold scowled.All right, let's get this over with.He looked at Cyndaquil and pointed to the rattata. Maim the rat.
Um, right.
There wasn't much to say about the battle. Joey kept having his rattata use quick attack, and Cyndaquil just embered the thing whenever it got close. It was no exaggeration to say that the match lasted about thirty seconds—ending when Cyndaquil defeated her opponent with a quick tackle. She jumped around happily, reveling in her victory . . . and the fact that she had burned up almost all of the grass within a five-foot radius.
Joey returned his rattata to its pokéball. He stomped over to Gold and glared at him. "No fair! You didn't even tell your pokémon what to do!"
Gold raised an eyebrow and stared haughtily down at the younger boy. He had been directing Cyndaquil during the battle, of course, but even if he hadn't, so what? It wasn't like it was illegal.
His next words struck a nerve.
"You cheated!"
One second, the kid was throwing a tantrum in the middle of the clearing. The next second, he was pinned up against a tree by a very pissed-off looking teenager. Joey visibly gulped, and held his hands up in surrender. "I mean, uh, 'darn it!' Who said anything about cheating? Not me!"
Gold just pressed him harder against the tree, nearly lifting the kid off the ground by his stupid yellow t-shirt.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! You didn't cheat, okay? I won't ever say that again! Please don't beat me up!" Joey was practically crying now. It was hard to understand what he was saying, but Gold got the gist of it.
Gold suddenly realized what he was doing; he was pinning a little kid against a tree for saying something unpleasant. He immediately released his hold on the kid, who promptly slumped on the ground and covered his head, like he was about to be clobbered.
Well, if he hadn't felt like a douche before, he did now. Sighing, he crouched down to the kid's level and waited until Joey looked up. Gold made a loose fist, put it to his chest, and traced a small circle. 'Sorry.'
Joey stared at him, obviously confused. "Um . . . can you talk?" he asked after a moment.
He shook his head, and the kid looked strangely amazed. Gold rose from his crouching position while Joey just sat there, mouth hanging open. Gold smiled slightly before holding out his hand to help him up. Joey grabbed his hand, and, misinterpreting Gold's intentions, shook it. Gold rolled his eyes, and before Joey could let go, hauled him to his feet. And then Joey started talking again. Surprise, surprise.
"Sorry about calling you a cheater," he said. "I didn't know you couldn't talk. But I'm cool with that! Why, though? Do you have a sore throat or something? You should take some medicine for it. Or drink some water."
Gold, feeling that he'd probably been rude enough for the day, resisted the urge to facepalm. Instead, he simply pointed to his ear and shook his head.
"Your ear hurts?"
What.
After a minute of Joey trying and failing to figure it out, Gold just typed his explanation on his Pokégear.
There was a pause, during which everyone just stared. Joey stared at the screen, Gold stared at Joey, and Cyndaquil stared at a nearby rock.
"But . . . how do know what I'm saying?" Joey's mouth dropped, and his eyes looked ready to pop out. "Can you read my mind?"
Cyndaquil regarded the youngster with undisguised disbelief. Is he serious?
I guess. Gold didn't bother to make the kid guess anymore. He just used the Pokégear again.
After reading the message, Joey looked positively amazed. "Cool!" He looked like he was about to embark on another talk-session, but Gold hurriedly typed something else down.
you should take your rattata to the pokemon center
"Oh yeah. . . . Um, well, see ya!" Then he dashed off.
Gold let his head fall back until he was looking at the sky, and let out a long breath. And that's why I should never have kids. Anyway, let's get going.
Cyndaquil happily complied, eager to get moving again . . . and burn more foliage.
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"Here's the key back, Nurse Joy," said Chris, handing the card over. "Thanks for the room."
Joy smiled as she took it. "You're very welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Um. . . ."
There was something, wasn't there? Chris had the distinct feeling that there was, but she just couldn't remember. Something about . . . something. Yeah.
Nurse Joy waited patiently while Chris sorted through her thoughts. "Um . . . there was definitely something I . . . oh yeah!" She dug around in her bag for a second, then pulled out the hat that she had found yesterday. "I was wondering if you know who this belongs to?" she inquired, holding the cap out for inspection.
Joy examined it for a second. "Oh, yes! There was a trainer who checked in here yesterday. He was wearing that same hat, I think. He left this morning."
Chris frowned. "Do you happen to know where he was headed?" She wasn't about to waste time tracking him down if she had no idea where to look, but if he was going to Violet City as she was planning to, maybe they'd cross paths.
Joy tapped her chin, her eyes looking upward in thought. "I think he mentioned something about going to Violet City."
"Well, good. So am I."
After getting some more information about him—what he looked like, his name, etc.—Chris thanked the Nurse before heading out to Route 30, Chikorita falling in step with her. As far as identifying the boy, she didn't have a whole lot to go by. Black hair, pale complexion, about her height. And his name was Gold.
She noticed that Chikorita seemed rather excited at the prospect of finding the mystery trainer. Why, she didn't know. She supposed she could ask.
"Hey, Chikorita? Do you . . . happen to know the person I want to find?"
Chikorita nodded and made a sound of conformation.
Chris felt her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. "Seriously? Are you sure?"
"Chikor!" he replied, and nodded again. He smiled brightly.
Interesting. "Have you known him for a while?" she asked, and Chikorita nodded. "Did you ever like hanging out with him?" Nod.
"Well, he sounds like a nice guy," she said, and her pokémon chirped in agreement.
Miles ahead of her, a small flock of pidgey took off in startled haste.
Damn it, Cyndaquil! If you're going to do target practice, aim for something that isn't alive!
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A/N So, how was this chapter? Did you enjoy the scene with Joey? Did you enjoy the chapter as a whole? And before you ask; yes, Crystal will be a recurring character, and yes, Gold's first Gym battle will be in the next chapter (unless I do a flashback chapter before that).
Review? Pwease?