Jake's Journey Chapter 8, a pokémon fanfic

Here's chapter eight. All the questions from last chapter are still being asked, except for the part about separating paragraphs. Also, I've been referring to distances in the Imperial system because I feel most of my readers will be most comfortable with that, but my natural tendency is to use the metric system. Does it matter to anyone what I use? I'm more than happy to use the Imperial system if it is better for my readers, so let me know.

Jake woke at 6:30 to the smell of bacon wafting into his tent. He smiled, still half asleep. Crawling out of his tent, he found he wasn't the only person who had been woken by the delicious smell. He, Iain, Chris and Louise staggered sleepily to the campfire over which Courtney and Sam were cooking. Jake's eyes lit up further when he saw Courtney throw some sausages on. Unfortunately, nobody had wanted to risk taking eggs. They were just too messy if they broke, which was almost a certainty on a journey like this. Still, it was shaping up to be a very satisfying meal.

"Guess what, Jake?" said Sam excitedly. "These guys brought sausages!"

Jake looked at Sam as if he was stupid.

"I'm not blind, Sam. And I can smell, too," he said irritably. Jake was never in much of a good mood in the morning, no matter how delicious breakfast smelled.

"Yeah," replied Sam, used to Jake's grumpiness. "Nice to have something apart from plain bacon for once."

On this Jake had to agree. Bacon was probably his favourite food, and he had insisted they bring mountains of it, but that made for a very dull breakfast every morning. He was pleased that the bacon hadn't been totally forsaken, though.

"Guess what else I've got, fellas," said Courtney, turning to rummage through her pack. Iain and Chris began to whoop and cheer as Courtney pulled out a plastic bottle of beige powder.

"Ta da!" she said as she pulled it out. "Pancakes!"

Jake almost fainted with happiness. Courtney got a bottle of water and added it to the mixture, shaking it, as the others took their seats on the logs surrounding the fire. Soon, Jake and Sam were devouring their food, relishing the variety they hadn't experienced for several days. The other travellers had even brought maple syrup, which Jake used very liberally. Jake and Sam's pokemon had some as well. Usually they just ate pokemon snacks with a little bacon on the side, so they were equally pleased with the good food.

Jake found the best way to get all the flavours in at once was to wrap a sausage in a couple of strips of bacon, place it on the pancake, smother it with syrup and then wrap the pancake up around it. It was then a case of shoving as much of the bulky package into his mouth as possible. Silvio, Chestnut and Lemon all had fun fighting over the many crumbs that fell from Jake's mouth as he pigged out. Louise was disgusted, but Chris and Iain egged Jake on, getting him to try to outdo himself with every helping. Courtney scolded the two men for setting a bad example. Sam was laughing at Jake's face as he tried to stuff more and more food into a mouth that was only so big.

It wasn't long before Jake was feeling extremely sick. The night before, they had discovered that Courtney and the others were also heading towards Azalea, having been hiking in the mountains to the north. They had decided to join together until they got to Azalea. Which was why Courtney was annoyed that Jake needed some extra time to digest his food. Sam felt like punishing Jake for eating so much, and agreed with Courtney, but Louise was sympathetic, while Chris and Iain felt partly responsible.

"Not partly, totally," insisted Courtney, before reluctantly agreeing to start an hour later, at 8:30. The two playful men had fun taunting Jake, and poking him in the stomach with sticks. This, of course, made Jake feel even worse. Eventually, he felt ready to head off. They packed up, and smothered the campfire with dirt, before making their way towards Azalea town.

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After about two hour's walk, the group found themselves once again travelling along a road. It was this road that would take them to the edge of the forest and on to Azalea. Somehow, the idea of being on the final stretch gave a boost to their weary legs muscles. It wasn't long until the actual edge of the forest was shown on the Pokenav. They pressed on, moving ever closer to the boundary between green and grey which marked the edge on the screen. The scale on the screen was small, however, and after three hours they were only two-thirds of the way there. They stopped for lunch. Jake was feeling hungry again, to the others' dismay. He was much more careful about how much he ate this time, though, and made a determined effort to avoid Chris and Iain's eyes.

After filling up on sandwiches and snacks, and having a good, long rest under the shade of some trees, they continued. After another hour or so, they finally came to the intersection that marked the end of the forest. The edge was not nearly as abrupt here as it was on the Goldenrod side. There were still many trees on the other side of the road. According to the GPS, however, these trees were on private property, and not under any protection.

They crossed the intersection, continuing along the same road. They noticed several properties on either side of the road now. Some appeared to be farms, with large sections of the woods cleared for grazing pokemon such as Miltanks or Ponytas, and others were smaller, similar to Jake's home. They passed places like this for another two hours. Just as the sun was threatening to dip below the horizon, they found themselves outside the Azalea town Pokemon Centre.

After booking some rooms in the Centre, they decided to go out for dinner. Chris, Iain, Courtney and Louise were continuing on to check out Union Cave to the East the next day, having all earned the Azalea Gym badge, and were eager to get in a good meal before they left. Jake and Sam didn't complain, especially when the older four offered to pay.

The restaurant they ate at was reputably the best in Azalea, and for good reason. The food was delicious, and it wasn't too pricy, either. Despite the other group's protests, Jake and Sam both contributed their bit to the bill.

They retired to the Pokemon Centre right after dinner. None of them felt like exploring the town after the long hike they had just completed. Chris, Iain, Courtney and Louise had all been there before anyway, and Jake and Sam would have plenty of time in the next week or so that they planned to stay.

Jake and Sam released their pokemon once they got to the Pokemon Centre, and fed them some scraps from their dinner that they had saved, as well as some pokemon food. Usually the pokemon would eat with Jake and Sam at the restaurant, but the restaurant had a strict policy against releasing pokemon indoors. They watched TV for about half an hour, before drifting off to sleep.

They awoke the next morning at about 6:30, having woken up at that time for the past ten days. Jake, Sam and the others all went for a big breakfast before they parted ways. They went to a small café nearby, although in this small town just about everything classified as nearby. Jake was the only person who hadn't been here before, and he was surprised at just how small it was, considering it had its own Gym. He guessed it must have been no more than two miles across at its widest, and the buildings were scattered. It was a sharp contrast to the busy touristy Olivine, or the large, crowded Goldenrod.

At 7:30, it was time for the others to go. They said their goodbyes, and headed east towards Union Cave.

Jake and Sam had not yet decided how long they would stay, but agreed it shouldn't be more than two weeks. Sam felt that if he was to challenge the Gym Leader, Bugsy, he would need some time to train up, but felt that if he wasn't ready after a couple of weeks, he probably wouldn't be for quite a while.

Jake also decided to get some intensive training done. Apart from the brief period after teaching his pokemon their TMs, he hadn't spent a great deal of time on regulated and specialised training. The training he had done with his pokemon was really just on wild pokemon they came across at random. Jake felt that starting with three rare and powerful pokemon gave him a bit of an edge, and was eager to get his first badge quickly. The record was nine months, and this was measured from when the trainer met the pokemon, not when they registered as a trainer. This was not a big thing, and Jake wouldn't feel at all put out if he didn't beat it, but it was still sitting in the back of his mind.

Both boys went out in search of a good place to train. They found a place just outside of the town. It was a big area where a forest had been cut down. All that was left was stumps sticking out of the ground. They weren't sure whether it was private property or not, but they figured it was worth the chance.

Jake decided to work on speed and agility in all of his pokemon. Sam moved off to another area of the field, so that they wouldn't get in each other's way. Jake released his three Eevees, before thinking about the best way to train them. He decided to get them to race through the maze of stumps. The stumps prevented them from sprinting in a straight line, and would help train their dodging and turning ability at speed.

Jake got Chestnut, Lemon and Silvio to line up about three hundred feet away from him, and more or less evenly spaced. He then started the race. He was surprised by the result. He was expecting Lemon to win, given she was the fastest, with Silvio in at second, and Chestnut last. He couldn't have been more wrong. Chestnut was the first to reach him. It seemed his lack of speed allowed him to have more control in his running, and he easily dodged all of the stumps. Lemon was second. She darted in and out between the obstacles quickly, but occasionally she didn't quite make the turn, and would find herself heading straight for a stump. She would then have to slow down. Once she even tried to jump on of the stumps, and ended up smashing into the top, and falling back down. Jake just had to laugh at Silvio. After sprinting initially, he found, after banging into one too many stumps, that the easiest way to the end was to blast a straight passage with Shadow Ball. It took a couple of tries, but eventually the road was clear. He actually made it to Jake first, but Jake had to disqualify him, because Silvio's method defeated the whole purpose of the exercise.

He then got his pokemon sprinting through a course he had plotted in the field of stumps. He wasn't sure if what he was doing was of any use at all, but it looked like it would help. He changed the course up a few times in the next few hours, and gave his pokemon regular breaks. Towards lunchtime, he decided to race his pokemon again, making it clear to Silvio that he couldn't use Shadow Ball. Once again, Chestnut came first, Lemon second and Silvio last, though this time there was a marked improvement in all of them. Lemon only hit one stump, and was only a second or two behind Chestnut. Silvio also did well. The disadvantage his shorter legs gave him was balanced out by his small size, which allowed him to squeeze through tighter gaps. The only reason he came last again was the fact that he was sprinting all the way, which made it harder to dodge the stumps. Still, Jake was happy with all of his pokemon's work. They walked over to see how Sam was doing, and they decided to stop for lunch.

The rest of the day passed much the same as the first half. Jake decided to have some fun with his Eevees, and got them playing a little game. It was basically tag, but the pokemon had to stay on top of the stumps. If any of the pokemon fell or was caught, they would then be "it". After a while Sam's Growlithe and Poochyena joined in. Scyther and Diglett could obviously not participate, but had fun watching from the sidelines with Jake and Sam. Jake had no idea if this would help his pokemon's battle technique, but he figured that after a hard day of training drills, they deserved some fun.

Jake and Sam decided to call it a day just as the sun began to dip under the horizon. Walking back to town, Jake returned his pokemon. They were all exhausted. Jake felt strangely satisfied. He'd talked a little with Sam about fitness in one's pokemon, and found Sam placed extreme importance on fitness training, at least when not preparing for a big battle or competition. When preparing for one of those, as he was now, he put more emphasis on strategy and skill training.

They had dinner at the Centre, before heading back up to their room. They were all tired after the training, and it wasn't long before they were all fast asleep.

The next two weeks went by slowly. Jake had decided that the training he was giving his Eevees was very tiring, so he only worked with them every second day, and only for half days. Sam, on the other hand, was training nearly everyday, and most of the time was putting in a full day's effort, in preparation for his Gym battle.

Sam was also taking the opportunity to train Poochyena. He included the little dog in all of the training he was doing. After about a week, Sam decided to test how far Poochyena had come by battling Jake again. The result was a complete turnaround from the last time they had battled, in Ilex Forest. Jake used Chestnut, feeling confident that the training they had done would give him an edge. Unfortunately for Jake, Poochyena had been doing more training, and more attack specific training at that. Chestnut was knocked out after just two very damaging bites and a tackle from Sam's Poochyena. While Chestnut did get some hits in, it really was a thrashing.

Jake took this loss particularly badly for some reason. They had agreed not to battle each other for money, so that was no problem. Jake was quiet for the rest of the day. He healed Chestnut and then retreated to his room to watch TV until lunch, when he grabbed some Pokemon Centre food. He then returned to the room.

Sam was a little perplexed by Jake's behaviour. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd lost, and Sam had hardly rubbed it into his face or anything. Sam simply spent the rest of the day training. He was concentrating more on his upcoming Gym battle than anything else. He had told himself than in five days, he would go for it.