Archie - Pokémon: 7 Deaths: 1
Blue - Pokémon: 5 Deaths: 0
{Monua 28th, 8:54PM}
{Mt. Coronet}
"So what's Hearthome like, anyway?" Archie asked, looking at Star. "Have you ever been there before?"
"No, I've only ever been around Jubilife," Star sighed, resting her head on her trainer's lap and watching her teammates do some training. "I don't know a whole lot about the rest of Sinnoh. Maybe Blue knows? He's got this map-thing, right?"
"He does, but I think it only lets you scroll and zoom around the region," Archie said.
"Nah, I can tap on the town and bring up some basic information," Blue said, having overheard them as he walked back to them. "It was part of the listed features when we first picked it up in Sandgem."
The gym leader pulled the device out of his pocket and flipped it open, pulling up a map of Sinnoh. He tapped on the holographic display, zooming in on the city that was meant to be Hearthome until they had a full overview of the city's layout. Then Blue tapped on the display again and a new window titled 'HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS' popped up with information about the city.
"Basically a big city with a whole lot of sectors for all kinds of people," Blue decided to sum up. Archie would've tapped the display himself to dig for more information, but he didn't want to force Star to move her head from her seemingly comfortable pillow. "Looks like they do a whole bunch of parties and stuff in the city, too. Festivals and whatnot."
"Yeah, I can imagine," Archie groaned, finally spotting a big pink building on the northern end of the city that was almost definitely the contest hall. As much as he didn't like contests, he could at least somewhat appreciate the appearance of the hall in Lilycove. Hearthome's hall looked like they were throwing a year-round birthday party for a rich and snooty five year old girl. A thought suddenly crossed Archie's mind. "Hey, if they've got festivals and stuff going on regularly, do you think they have make-up stores?"
"Probably," Blue said with a shrug, snapping the device shut and making the map vanish again. "Planning on getting a new wig?"
"I got a wig before because it was quick and easy, but after losing my last one I don't wanna chance that kind of accident again," the Aqua Leader grumbled. "Gonna stick to hair dye."
"Any particular colors in mind?" Star asked.
"Maybe purple or something."
"Because that's so different from black," Blue said, rolling his eyes.
"Probably what I really need is a believable background," Archie sighed. "You know, something that goes beyond a wig and a fake name. I was lucky nobody asked me any personal questions or anything, but..."
"Just pretend you're some guy from Kanto that I dragged along with me as a sidekick," Blue snorted. "It's gonna need practice if you plan to convince any Kanto natives, but there aren't a whole lot that actually live outside of Kanto yet and it'll be enough to fool everyone else at least."
"And aside from that?" Star wondered.
"Dead families are pretty common, so he doesn't really need any relatives," Blue said, shrugging. "Guess you could dream up a brother or sister if you wanted."
"I could pretend Matt and Shelly are my siblings," Archie suggested quietly. "It's not too far off the mark." He looked up at Blue. "What's the best place to say we lived? Can I still claim to have studied water-types or is that too close to truth?"
"I'd think that the more you stick to things you know, the harder it is for people to find a hole in what you say," Star opined. "You do know a lot about water-types, and if anyone asks you about them, you'll be able to answer. Better than telling people you're a miner and you don't know the first thing about rocks, because a real miner would be able to call you out on it right away."
"In that case, if you want to stick to water-types, I'd suggest Cerulean," Blue said. "It's the city with the cleanest water, thanks to Misty, and it has been for several years. Best place to 'study' water-types, I think. Aside from the Sevii Islands, but I don't really know enough about them to back up your story properly when you need it."
"Misty sounds like someone I should know about," Archie sighed. "What can you tell me about her?"
"She's the local gym leader there, and her main partners are a Staryu and a Starmie. She's got a whole bunch of ocean-y Pokémon though, and not just freshwater ones, so you can always mention that you've had some hands-on experience with her water-types and not just books, if you need to. Actually, just don't even mention about books. There are a few schools around these days, but if you're saying you grew up in Kanto, you won't have been to school as far as you remember. You're a couple years older than her, so you probably remember when her and her old man first moved to Cerulean and started doing their water purifying experiments-pretty sure Surge said she lived in Vermillion when she was a kid, but I don't think she figured it out until after her dad died, and then she pretty much wound up in charge. These days she's officially, legally in charge, the Cerulean Leader. She's got a little girl called Lily, she's like two or something now."
He looked sidelong at Archie for a long moment before continuing, "her husband was a sailor. He died when his ship sank off the coast of Hoenn a couple months ago. By the way, unless you're gonna say that you lost a family member or something when all that shit went down, you might wanna try not flinching like that whenever somebody mentions Hoenn."
"I'll, um...just pretend I lost Matt and Shelly in that time," the Aqua Leader said weakly. His stomach twisted painfully at the thought of something actually happening to the pair, and how close they might really have come to death by being in Sootopolis. Bad enough that they were going to jail because of him…
"Other stuff you should know…" Blue said, scratching his head thoughtfully. "Probably just about everybody you know works over at the Power Plant these days. Although some of 'em work in the tunnels to Pewter City, now-that's pretty new, the miners are mostly from Pewter, but I'm pretty sure somebody's set up a shop midway through the tunnel. Wild Pokemon are mostly, ummm… Oddish, I think, some Meowth, some Ekans, probably Rattata and Pidgey because they live everywhere… people claim they've seen Mew a fair bit, but they've probably just mistaken an Abra for Mew as it teleports away."
Blue shifted his weight from one leg to another. "'Going up to the bridge' means having sex because basically everybody goes up to this old bridge north of the town to find an isolated spot to get freaky. Nothing up there but an old lab that got demolished a couple of years ago after a scientist got maimed by the shit in there. And you'll probably remember that Misty's pretty popular because before her, the place was pretty much run by this gang called the Nuggets, until about… eight years ago, when Misty and…" He trailed off for a moment, folding his arms. "...and some kid from out of town fought 'em off. They were just a bunch of thugs who kept harassing the place until a couple years later."
"What happened a couple of years later?" Archie asked.
Whatever shadow had crossed Blue's expression vanished as he grinned cockily. "I came along and kicked their asses," he said smugly. "And then Saylee turned up pretty much straight after and did it again for good measure. Pretty sure most of the Nuggets joined Rocket after that. But of course, you're completely loyal to Misty and besotted with her water-types," he added.
"So basically," Star started, "you're a guy from Cerulean who slobbers over some girl and her water-types and that Blue brought along here to Sinnoh because you both fought some shitnuggets together and are getting ready to do it again, and your siblings Matt and Shelly died on the way to Hoenn?"
"Names will need changing," Archie sighed. "Dunno what to yet, though."
"We can just ask a bunch of passing Pokémon for their names and use those," Blue said with a shrug. "Or ask our teams for ideas."
"I had a mate called Sebastian?" Star offered up.
"There you go, you are now called Sebastian," Blue said.
"I'm not sure how I feel about being named after one of Star's mates," Archie muttered. Star rubbed her cheek against his arm and purred. He sighed and scratched her head. "Well, a name's still a name." He paused. "I just remembered that Juan's butler is also called Sebastian."
The Luxray snorted.
The Aqua Leader watched as a Buizel bounced over their way, nervously scurrying to curl up near Archie.
"Basil? Is something wrong?" Archie asked, a little worried.
"No, I'm fine," the Buizel sighed dejectedly.
"You don't sound fine, sweetie," Star noted, giving him a quick lick to the cheek.
"I'm not a fighter and I'm not really into training," Basil muttered. "I did some because I was asked to, but I don't want to train anymore."
"Well, that's alright if you don't want to," Star said reassuringly. Basil nodded gratefully and slinked around Archie's legs so he could go to the Aqua Leader's other side, where Star was. The Buizel then proceeded to curl up against Star, the latter wrapping a paw around him.
"Y'know, I never thought to ask," Archie started, looking at Basil, "but why did you decide to come with us? So far, Prince and Mark joined because they wanted to be stronger, Star because she wanted her own pack, Warin and Rapier because they want to take down Galactic. But you hate fighting, and that's something that...well, that we do a lot of."
"Well...you were travelling trainers," Basil admitted timidly, blushing when Star started grooming him. "I figured that if you were travelling, you probably go to Pastoria at some point, right?"
"Pastoria's not exactly on the list of places to go, as far as I know," Blue said, pulling up the map again. He poked at the display a bit to zoom in on the area they were heading for. "First stop is Hearthome, as we were just discussing before. Maybe Archie can pick up a few things for his new 'Sebastian' persona. 'Arthur Douglas' was nice, but now the police are gonna be looking for him. After Hearthome, we wanna try and go to Veilstone and snoop around the big building there that supposedly belongs to Galactic." The gym leader swiped across the display, showing another town a little south from the one labeled 'Solaceon'. "Pastoria's a tiny bit of a detour, but it doesn't look too big. We can probably go through there instead of Solaceon."
"Really?" Basil beamed. "That means a lot to me! Thank you."
"Why are you headed for Pastoria, anyway?" Archie asked.
"There's a larger colony of Buizel and Floatzel there," Basil replied, looking a little sheepish. "I, um...I want to try and find Dad. Mom just kinda took us up to Floaroma and I never found out why. My brother Flynn says that Dad was the best Floatzel he's ever seen though, so I don't think Mom left him for his behavior or anything, and Flynn sounded like Dad's still alive so I'm not sure something bad happened to him either."
"Well, I'm sure you'll find him when we get to Pastoria, sweetie," Star said, gently nuzzling Basil's cheek.
"Thanks," the Buizel said, flushing a little. "I hope I find him too."
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Another short chapter for this week because last week I was busy and then I got sick and then this week I accidentally dropped into ATLA hell. Hoping that I can catch up on stuff this week, you can -probably- expect two chapters next week. And if not next week, then definitely the week after. I'll be very insistent on that one. For reasons.
ARCHIE
Shanks the Sharpedo, Prince the Prinplup, Star the Luxray, Warin the Beautifly, Basil the Buizel, Rapier the Budew
BLUE
Sam the Blastoise, Pete the Pidgeot, Adam the Alakazam, Gary the Arcanine, Girish the Gabite