Chapter Five
An Unlikely Duo

Paul didn't know what had brought him back to the butter yellow door of the Little Star Breeders. Something deep within him had compelled him to come back. Perhaps it was some deluded sense of responsibility, some sad remnant of a Christian upbringing that obliged him to return. Perhaps it was the byproduct of a day plagued with raging thoughts that would not be quelled no matter what he did. Or, just perhaps, it was the text that had reached his phone that afternoon: "Hey bro, guess who just got himself a bitchin' Pineco?"

It took Annabelle a good ten minutes to answer the door. When she did, it was obvious company was the last thing on her mind. Dressed in a pair of fluffy Delibird pyjamas, her face red and crusted with old tears, and her hair unkempt, she let out a groan of despair seeing the 'guest' on her doorstep.

"What do you want? Come to see what you've ruined?"

"What I've… ruined?"

"Yes. That... idiot from the Cianwood Breeders reported me to the Breeders Association. I've been banned from breeding for three months!"

"Oh…"

"Yeah. So I can't breed, can't get an income, can't do anything. It's not like I was exactly living the life of luxury before now, but I'll be lucky if I don't starve within the month!"

"Can't you… y'know, do anything about it?"

"Well gee, you know, that didn't occur to me!" she spat.

"You don't need to be so rude."

"Look who's talking."

Paul grimaced. He was beginning to regret whatever possessed him to turn up. Shifting from foot-to-foot, he search for something worthwhile to say. "I guess… Well… I'm sorry, I guess?" It came out more of a question than a statement and he cursed to himself when he saw Annabelle's eyes narrow slightly.

"Fat lot of good an apology does. It won't change anything."

"I know… But I am sorry. Is there really nothing you can do?"

Annabelle sighed and shifted her weight against the doorframe. "I guess I could appeal to the Breeder's Association and see if they could reverse the decision."

"That sounds promising. You should do that."

Annabelle scoffed. "You realise it's not that easy?"

He shrugged.

"We'd have to go all the way to Cianwood to make the appeal in person. And I'd have to bring evidence that the claim against me was unfounded. Which in this case would be very difficult as I was sanctioned over bad customer service. I'd have to prove that I was provoked into behaving the way I did by the customer - which is you."

A twist of dread gripped the bottom of Paul's stomach. "I don't like where this is going."

"Yeah, you guessed it. You'd be the one having to tell them that you'd… I don't know, goaded me into snapping. In front of the Breeders Association. And I don't suppose you'd be keen to do that, would you?"

Paul didn't want to answer. Instead he stammered and stuttered, trying to come up with a reasonable sounding excuse until Annabelle hung her head. "Yeah, I didn't think so…"

He wanted to apologise again but found the words stuck in his throat.

Annabelle glanced inside and then up at the darkening sky. "Look, why don't you come in for a bit? It's late and it's cold."

Paul hoped the surprise didn't betray his face. Just yesterday she had been screaming and swearing at him and saying she never wanted to see him again, and now she was inviting him back into her home?

"Uh…" he took a step backwards, hoping she'd get the hint. "I don't know…"

"Come on. You owe me that much."

Damn that Christian sense of duty. Paul cursed both it and himself as Annabelle led him inside to her cluttered living room. The place was even messier than normal, littered with plates of half eaten food scraps. Annabelle swept them up and balanced them expertly, before disappearing into the kitchen.

Glancing around and trying to formulate some sort of excuse to leave, Paul took a seat against a plump yellow cushion that clashed horribly with the patchwork blue sofa. After the cushion yelped and screeched in indignation, he realised it was actually Annabelle's dopey Shroomish. Dusty growled at him - were plants supposed to growl? - and Paul retreated to the safety of the sunken armchair in the corner.

The minutes ticked by, agonisingly slowly. The silence was disturbed only by the occasional clattering of dishes coming from the kitchen. Paul dreaded to think what sort of chaos Annabelle was unleashing. The Shroomish bundled up on the sofa glared at Paul on occasion and Paul glared back.

She eventually returned with big mugs of hot chocolate. She plucked Dusty from the sofa and sat him on her lap. He made a strange, contented purring noise and went back to sleep, albeit still frowning. An awkward silence descended as both of them sipped from their mugs.

"I… I haven't had hot chocolate since I was a little boy." Paul said lamely, once the silence grew too much.

"It's all I had in." Annabelle looked strangely embarrassed. "No tea, no coffee. And you can't drink cold drinks this late. It just doesn't feel right.

Paul took another mouthful. Annabelle's offering was deliciously sweet, warming him from the stomach right through to the rest of his body. He detected the subtle, yet unmistakable, taste of cinnamon. It had a richness to it far superior to the powdered stuff his mother had occasionally made for him. He felt the warmth slowly spread through his fingers. Annabelle's living room was unusually cold; yet she sat there in bare feet and thin pyjamas like the frigid conditions meant nothing to her.

He caught her eye by accident. She swallowed, leaving a ring of foam around her mouth that Paul didn't want to point out. "I suppose we're at something of an impasse, aren't we?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she paused, taking another sip. "If I want any chance at, y'know, surviving, I need to get to Cianwood, and appeal the decision. And you have a baby Riolu to pick up all the way over in Blackthorn but you've no Pokemon to get you there."

"Don't remind me."

"You can't catch a Pokemon without having one, right? And you'd never make it to the next town on your own. I, on the other hand, have two Pokemon with me and I'm not too shabby at battling them. And I'm still in the position to give you your starting Pokemon."

"What?"

"The Ledyba I bred still doesn't have an owner. Not officially, anyway."

"Are you saying you're going to give me that Ledyba?"

Annabelle drew herself up to her full height and fixed Paul with a stern look. "I spent all night thinking about this on the off-chance you would come back. It's not a decision I made easily, and to be honest, I'm still not even sure I'm making the right choice."

"So you want to give me that Ledyba?"

"Under some strict conditions!" Annabelle stared him down. "One!" she held up an index finger. "I will be following you and making absolute sure you're taking proper care of him for as long as I deem necessary. And two," another finger went up. "You will accompany me to Cianwood and stand up for me at the Breeders' Association to make sure I get my license back.."

Paul had to fight back a laugh. "Dude, I'm not sure a Ledyba is even worth all that."

Annabelle chuckled; a confident, seemingly triumphant snort. "Well, with all due respect, do you have any other choice?"

Paul felt the smile slip from his face. She was right. Save some sort of miracle, there was no way he could realistically get a Pokemon without help. Not even appealing to the few people he knew that were serious enough about Pokemon training would work. It had crossed his mind to try sweet-talking one of them into catching him a Pokemon, but he had been so vocal about his opinion on the "waste of time" training was that he doubted anyone would be willing to entertain him now. That, and Pokeballs weren't cheap. And the puny offerings around Cherrygrove were just as hopeless as anything Annabelle could give him.

The admission felt like poison on his lips "No… I guess I don't."

A hint of a smile pulled at Annabelle's lips but it lasted only seconds before she became brisk and official. "The way I see it, it can take about a month to get to Cianwood if we're going on foot. From there, another week, week and a half, to get to Blackthorn. Gives you plenty of time to clear my name and hopefully teach you something as well." she clenched her fists when Paul hesitated. "Come on! We can do this!"

She looked strangely determined, her little face screwed up in concentration. It was an interesting contrast to her wild hair and childish Delibird pyjamas.

"I suppose?"

"So, that means you're in?"

"...do I have a choice?"

"Nope!" she countered, an easy, beaming grin bursting onto her face. "So, we should leave as soon as possible! Why don't we say… eight o'clock tomorrow?"

"...in the morning?"

"Yes, in the morning!" she giggled. "We've got quite a way to travel to the first town, plus I've got to get the Ledyba all adjusted for you. Just remember to bring your trainer license and ID tomorrow, okay?"

"Whoa, whoa…" he waved his hands at her. "Dude, my trainer license hasn't turned up yet. Unfortunately. It might not get here for a couple more days at least. And I still have to sort out what's going on with my job, and then I've gotta pack…"

It was only as he was saying this that he realised the amount of preparation a venture like this was going to take. In the games, everything was so simple. You turned up, got a Pokemon, dumped all your stuff in a bottomless bag and disappeared off into the sunset without so much as a second thought for any ties to your previous life. Paul thought of telling the managers at his work he was going to be leaving for a while and shuddered.

"Not so simple in real life, is it?"

Paul couldn't tell if Annabelle was mocking him or simply teasing. He grit his teeth. "I guess not."

"Well, I can't legally sign the Ledyba over to you unless you have your trainer's license with you. So leaving will have to wait until it arrives."

Paul slid forward on the armchair as if he was getting ready to leave. Yet Annabelle continued on blithely.

"Of course it'll be interesting to experience life on the road again. It's been a long time since I travelled, you know? Sometimes you can find travelling breeders too. I don't know exactly how they're governed but I think they have different rules on what they can catch and carry. Of course breeding on the road has its own problems…"

"Uh-huh." Paul couldn't even feign an interest in her ramblings. "Look, maybe I should just go."

"Oh." Annabelle stopped mid-sentence and a slight tinge reddened her cheeks. "Yeah, I guess that would make sense. It is getting really late."

She walked him to the door despite his insistence he could show himself out. As she shut and locked the door behind him, he let out a sigh that misted in the cold evening air. He had stayed too long.

The stars were emerging in the night sky, metallic and distant. Paul's footsteps were heavy along the empty roads. As he neared home, his phone buzzed with another text from Dest.

"So how's progress on your end, man?"

He turned his phone off and trudged up to his bedroom. He felt a vague need to eat but didn't know what food would fill the empty hole in his belly, or even if food would accomplish this. He plucked a mug from the greasy stack of dishes in the sink and filled it with water. He drained it in three mouthfuls, dragged the loose drips from his mouth with the back of his hand and threw the mug back.

For once, he had no inclination to game. Even the look of his Nintendo DS sitting innocently atop his pillow made his stomach hot with nausea. He lay atop his bed, fully clothed. Shutting his eyes against the light, he let his mind wander and tried not to think of life beyond the next morning.

Author's Note

Hi guys. This is a relatively short chapter, unfortunately, but my transition chapters often are.

Anyway, updates might be a wee bit slower than normal now as I'm writing every chapter from now completely from scratch. The last couple of chapters I updated were partway done, even if it was just a couple of paragraphs, so that's kinda how I was able to get these out so fast.

On the plus side, starting on Sunday I have a week off work so I should be able to dedicate plenty of time for this during that.

Also, I'm in the need for some inspiration so if anyone knows any really good Pokemon fanfictions that are out there, please don't hesitate to get in touch by PM or review to let me know. (I'm doing a little fanfic recommendation section on my profile too)

Anyway, enough of my chatter. See you on the next one.