Although this chapter is ridiculously short, I found that I'd written to a natural act break, so I decided to stop here, allowing me to focus on happenings in Striaton City next chapter. Whether this one's actually important is up for debate now, but whatever. Don't forget to review!
Disclaimer: Pokemon ain't mine, but all original characters are. Pretty self-explanatory, I think.
(First sign of madness, talking to yourself...)
Chapter 2-The Odd Couple
The next morning, Lily was stubbornly lying in bed, refusing to acknowledge the presence of the harsh sunlight stinging her eyeballs, despite having her eyes gummed shut. It was just rude, as far as she was concerned, for the sun to rise at this time in the morning anyway. People are trying to sleep, especially after watching late-night live coverage from the Hoen League into the early hours. Although admittedly she probably could have skipped the debate show about littering in the countryside. But nonetheless, it was still downright inhumane for the sun to be up at this hour. It was what, ten in the morning? Well she for one was going to take a stand against it. The sun had been the boss of people for millions of years. Well today, she was going to turn over, face the wall and put a pillow over her head. As she shuffled over, Oshawott stirred at the end of the bed. "Osh... Oshawott!" he cried happily, scrambling up the bed to Lily's head. "Oshawott!" he called. When he got no response, he began poking her. "Osh, osh!" he yelled, jumping up and down by her head.
"Ugh... alright, alright... I'm getting up... stupid otter..." Lily grumbled as she rolled out of bed and flopped to the floor. Rising and stretching, she surveyed the room she'd been sleeping in. The TV in the corner, an old and scratched wood-panelled model with a circular antennae sticking out, rested on top of a set of dresser draws resting against the wall next to the door. The floor was wood-panel, cheaper than carpet she guessed, and easier to clean too, and was littered with her things. She'd make an effort to clean up after she'd changed. Now... where were her jeans? She wasn't making the same mistake twice.
Half an hour later, showered, dressed and having transferred her clutter from bedroom to bag, Lily wandered downstairs into the main lobby to hand in her room key and set off. As the nurse took her key and hung it back on its hook, Lily noticed the adjacent key was also on the hook. The adjacent key was the one to Sam's room, so did that mean he'd already gone? "Uh, excuse me?" Lily asked, annoyance building at the thought of being ditched after making a deal. "Do you know if the person who handed in that key in is still here?" she asked, rather more forcefully than she intended. But they shook on it! Didn't that mean anything anymore?
"Oh..." the nurse said apprehensively. "He... he's out in the yard. There's a court out there for battles."
"Ah, right. Thanks." Lily replied, exhaling and walking as quickly as possible, without looking suspicious, away from the desk, out to where Sam was supposed to be. She soon spotted him out in the yard, today sporting a grey t-shirt under a red waistcoat and matching baseball cap, and below all that wearing air force blue jeans and white and grey sneakers.
"Alright, again!" Sam commanded. Snivy narrowed its eyes and stared at a pile of rocks in the centre of the court. A gale started to blow, pulling at leaves on the trees and ground, and sand from the ground, drawing it up into a whirling dust devil over the cairn that increased in intensity to the point it was tugging twigs from the surrounding trees as well as leaves. "Hold it, hold it..." Sam said. Snivy did not reply, but his eyes narrowed further, concentrating on building the intensity of the tornado. A bead of sweat formed and rolled down his forehead, and Lily stared, her hair whipping about her face. Finally, when it looked like Snivy was about to break, Sam cried "break!" Snivy broke concentration and stepped back as the tornado dissipated, depositing its contents in a heap... no, hang on, where had it gone? Lily stepped forward to get a better look at where the tornado had been, just as Sam realised she was there. "Oh, hey. You had me hoping you were just winding me up last night. I guess that's out of the question now..."
"Yeah..." Lily said, not really listening. She was staring at a neat bowl carved into the ground, which held all the leaves, branches, sand and rocks Snivy had swept up. "Did you do this?" she wondered, turning to Sam, who looked embarrassed. He smiled sheepishly.
"I suppose so." Sam said. "So?"
"So that's really cool! How did you get your Snivy so strong? It must have been in loads of fights..." Sam said nothing, but he was no longer smiling.
"I've had him for a long time. You might call him a perk of-" Sam stopped. He'd nearly let something slip. Luckily, Lily had panicked when she'd seen his expression.
"Oh, right, sorry. But... it sure looks like you're training him to fight right here. And not just training him to fight. I've never seen anyone use Leaf Tornado to drill a hole in the ground before. I'd say that a move that powerful is kind of overkill, to be honest." Lily replied pointedly.
"I train him to survive. With luck, he'll never need to fight. But if he does, then no-one will be able to harm him. He will always be safe. And the faster the fight ends, the faster the pain will end." Sam explained, calling Snivy back to him.
"Uh, okay, scary. That's... an interesting way to view things. But why travel with Pokémon anyway, if you won't fight with them?" Lily asked.
"Same reason everyone does, really. To adventure, see the world, make friends. Pokémon aren't just tools of war. To be the best, you have to understand that." Sam retorted, chiding her. Lily caught the insult and snapped back before she could stop herself,
"Ironic that the best own the best tools of war."
"Quite." Sam muttered. "Still, who better to wield them than those who understand that they should never be used?" he countered.
"I guess so..." Lily mused. That had never really occurred to her, actually. But then she remembered why she'd come after him to begin with. "So what do you wanna do today?" she asked.
"Well, you're claiming to be my guide. You tell me." Sam suggested, eyebrows raised.
"Uh, I actually said I'd keep an eye on you, not show you around." Lily said awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck. "And I really have no idea what there is to do here. I've never come so far on my own before... I guess I was kinda planning to head for Striaton City this morning..."
"Right. Well, just in case you're as unprepared as you seem, we should be able to get there by following route 2 northwards... and we should arrive this evening, if we get a move on." Sam said; consulting a device that had been clipped to his belt, a yellow shield with a blue-tinted plexiglass sphere set in its centre. He'd snapped open the device, revealing a screen which folded out of the top half, leaving the point of the shield intact.
"That's a Pokénav, isn't it? " Lily asked him. Sam paused and looked up from his consultation of the device.
"Yeah." He said uneasily.
"It's just that I've only ever seen people wearing those in Hoen... and they're pretty expensive. You must be pretty rich."
"Well, this was actually a leaving-home present." Sam told her, smiling nostalgically.
"So you're from Hoenn then?" Lily asked.
"Yes..." Sam replied cautiously.
"You must have seen some pretty cool Pokémon over there... did you get any gym badges?"
"A couple, yeah..." Sam replied airily.
"Cool." Lily gasped. Then her expression turned sly. "But I bet I get more!"
"Right, so we'd better get going." Sam chuckled, infected, however briefly, by Lily's enthusiasm, and grabbing his bag from where it leaned against the wall. "You ready?"
"Sure, let's go!" Lily cried, skipping ahead of him through the Pokémon centre back into the main square.
"Miss Stone, what do you have to say about your new title?"
"Go away."
"Miss Stone, Miss Stone, any comment on the location of-"
"Get lost."
"Any-"
"No! No! No! Leave me alone!" Miss Stone screamed, sending her hair swinging round in an arc under her bandana as she spun and grabbed the closest reporter by the throat. "Ask me one more question and I'll kill you." She growled. The reporter stared, eyes wide, until someone else grabbed the enraged champion and began to drag her away.
"Alright A, that'll do." Said Matt Surge, a large young man with messy brown hair, wearing his usual blue vest and camo-patterned baggy shorts, as he pulled her back and led her away from the crowd who were pressing in on all sides. "This isn't working..." he sighed. Grabbing a pokeball in his calloused hand, he clicked it once and a jet of red light hurled a huge Swampert into the midst of the crowd. "Keep them back." He told it. The Swampert nodded as it backed up behind them, keeping the crowd back as they went, until at last they reached a large, ornate looking door which they ducked through into a large marble hall. Behind them, Swampert stood at the door, arms folded, alongside two security guards who were stationed by the door at all times. Only champions were allowed into the hall of fame.
"Thanks." Miss Stone, A to her friends, said grudgingly to Matt as she leaned back against one of the columns that held up the ceiling. "Although I could easily have dealt with them myself."
"Yeah, but beating up reporters is not a fantastic example for all the young trainers out there. You're champ now, you've got responsibilities." Matt replied, grinning.
"Don't remind me." A snorted, sighing deeply as she rested her head on the stone, gazing skywards.
"How are you holding up? You looked pretty drained after that match, Alice." Matt said, concern woven into his features. Alice's gaze swivelled to rest on him as it became a glare.
"Don't bother calling me Alice, Matthew. I'm fine, really." Alice's reply was scathing, but Matt saw different in the dark bags under her eyes, that seemed to lend her many undeserved years.
"I'm just worried about you, that's all." Matt gazed round the room, over to the pedestal where the names of past champions were carved into the stone. From here he couldn't make out the names, but he knew the last one well enough to imagine that he could see it. Alice followed his gaze.
"I just did what I had to. I'm sure he'd rather I was champion rather than that flounce Wallace."
"Hey," Matt cried, feigning hurt. "Wallace was a master of water type Pokémon. You have to respect him for that."
"Well it didn't mean he had to pretend his clothes were made of water and become the dancing queen." Alice retorted. "Ooh, look at me, I'm dancing with my Pokémon! We've been practising our choreography so we can flounce to the tune of battle! Oh, ah, oh god, you're not dancing in time! Oh, the horror!" Alice swooned; hand to her forehead, then righted herself to see Matt chuckling.
"You're so cruel, you are. I don't get what he saw in you at all."
"Yeah..." Alice said, put out, sliding down the length of the column to end up sitting on the floor. She looked up at him and Matt saw for an instant how drained she really was. Then she restored her facade. "We should have done something..." she whispered.
"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. He wasn't talking to anyone."
"Exactly! We should have known that there was something up with him!"
"You've got to keep it together, Alice!" Matt told her, his voice bouncing off the walls. "That won't help anything."
"I... right. You're right. But we've got to find him. He can't have just vanished off the face of the earth." Alice got up and turned towards the door, where the throng of people seemed to have dispersed, although Swampert still stood guard, blocking her view. "I'm going to talk to Steven. Perhaps he'll have some ideas."
"Alright. What should I do?" Matt asked as they walked towards the exit.
"Eh, hold the fort, I suppose." Alice said. "Did you ever beat the Elite Four?"
"Um, for the express reason of preventing you from making me champion while you go off adventuring, no." Matt said, grinning when she rounded on him.
"What! How on earth did you figure out that I was going to do that?"
"Simple. I knew that one of you two would be the champion. And I knew you wouldn't stay. You can't sit still for long, and he's always exploring. So it'd quickly get ridiculous trying to keep the champion here. So eventually you'd want a substitute. And who better to do it than me?"
"Hmph, fine. I'll just have to vacate the position for a while. Just let me know if anyone turns up."
"Will do. After all, you'd be a pretty bad seat-warmer if you lost the title."
"Right." Alice pushed past the Swampert without another word. Matt watched as she passed through the door at the other end of the main arena and vanished from site. She looked like a normal teenage girl from here. Tan-coloured hair arranged in pigtails, pretty thin and wearing an orange t-shirt, emerald green ¾ length trousers and a matching bandana. It was an interesting contrast to the reputation, and the girl, he knew, who would happily tear you apart at the drop of a hat, and was famed as being generally terrifying. He could also notice that her characteristic swagger was gone now.
"Sam, you bastard." He muttered. "You better know where you're going with this..."
"And just as I promised, Striaton City by dusk!" Sam cheered, throwing his arms out in the direction of the city at the bottom of the hill. When there was no reply, he turned round. Lily was standing behind him, doubled over and panting furiously. She spat and straightened up again, livid and sweating like a Tepig, shining her forehead so that it reflected the dying sunlight.
"How the hell can you stand straight after that?" she cried, pointing back the way they had come. Sam looked back along the road, and further back where he could just make out the town of Accumula in the far distance, slightly taller shadows rising from the forest stretching for miles in every direction, under a sky turning dark as the sun pulled its rays westward into the horizon, the sky turning from golden yellow through crimson to a soft mauve hue. Sam was awed, but the serene twilight was filled Lily's cursing. So he decided he'd better focus on that. "...and how come you're not drenched?" she demanded. "It's hardly fair taking me through that when you're not even suffering as much as me..."
"First of all, a handkerchief always comes in handy." Sam told her, tugging a cloth out of his waistcoat's breast pocket, which was conspicuously damper than he was, and dabbing his brow. "And secondly, in Hoenn we have a tropical climate and long stretches of uninhabited wilderness between towns and other settlements. So we spend our lives walking for miles in the scorching heat and high humidity. So we don't sweat, and we're used to hiking long distances. Compared to Hoenn, this place is actually pretty chilly, so the walk just keeps me warm. That's also why I'm still wearing my waistcoat. Any more questions?"
"I hate you." Lily muttered. Sam sniggered.
"That's not a question. But here, I think this might help." He said, balling up a handkerchief and tossing it to her. Lily recoiled from it as it hit her shoulder, then she realised it was dry. "Always carry a spare." Sam told her, laughing, as she quickly wiped her brow.
"Right, I'll remember that." Lily said, stashing it in her back pocket.
"Alright then. Now let's get a move on before it gets dark." Sam began walking down the hill, pacing himself so that Lily could walk at a more comfortable speed. But he heard a rapid pattering of footsteps behind him, and stepped aside as Lily barrelled down the hill, whooping and waving her arms wildly. Sam stopped and stared as she careened down the road into town. Then he shrugged. "Whatever." He finally said, before walking after her.
Yep, so hope that was okay, even if it did end up being fluff (read: padding), although I like to think it developed the characters a little. It certainly helped me figure out their characters.