An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Seven: New Pokémon
Lydia watched Jesse as he pushed his way through the grass to her, looking disappointed. "Nothing but a bunch of Caterpie and Bellsprout around here," he complained.
"You're not the least bit concerned that we're completely lost?" she asked him. Jesse raised an eyebrow.
"We are not lost."
"Listen, if you don't know where you are at, then you are lost," Lydia said, stressing on each word. She rolled her eyes. "Why is it that men never stop for directions?" Getting to her feet, she swung her bag onto her shoulder, heading over to find a clearing in the wooded area.
"Where are you going?" Jesse asked, grabbing his own bag and following her. "You're not seriously going to try and figure out where we're at, are you? It's gonna be dark soon."
"I know that, genius, which is why I'm going to try and make up camp for us," Lydia retorted. "Go look at the Caterpie some more, okay?" Jesse rolled his eyes and stalked away.
Letting out a sigh, Lydia started gathering up logs and making a fire as darkness started to fall on the horizon. By the time that darkness had fallen, Lydia had gotten camp already set up.
"Jess?" Lydia called, looking around for him. "Jesse, where are you?" Worry started to heighten in her; what if he had gotten lost on his way back here and something had happened to him? It was pretty dark and what if he couldn't see anything and tripped over something. He could be unconscious or worse . . . "JESSE!"
Before she could even try and go look for him, Lydia heard something approach the fire. Turning around, she saw a small blue creature drinking from the stream that she'd set up next to. "What's that?" she muttered, reaching for her Pokédex.
"Poliwag, the tadpole Pokémon. This Pokémon seems better equipped for water than land. Unable to balance itself without arms, it uses powerful water attacks on opponents."
"Cool," Lydia said, returning the Pokédex to her pocket. "Looks like we're gonna take our first step on our journey. Eevee, go!"
Almost immediately, Eevee sprung into action and sprung towards the water Pokémon, tackling it. Poliwag, startled, fell backwards against the water. When it recovered, it unleashed a bubble attack.
"Dodge it and use quick attack!" Lydia called. Eevee obeyed and hit Poliwag head on. "Pokéball, go!"
She threw the Pokéball towards the unconscious Poliwag, sucking him into it. The ball dropped onto the ground and a light emerged from it as it shook madly. Holding her breath, Lydia waited as the light faded, signalling that the Pokémon had been successfully captured.
"YES!" Lydia swung Eevee around, who squealed happily, and hurried over to pick up her new Pokémon. "We did it! We've got a new friend. And speaking of friends . . ." She looked around for Jesse and saw him coming back.
"There you are!" Lydia exclaimed, standing up and placing her hands on her hips. "I was getting worried; where have you been?" Then she noticed that he had an extra Pokéball attached to his belt and looked at him. "What did you catch?"
Jesse threw the Pokéball and a Gastly appeared in front of her, circling around the trainer. "I've always wanted a ghost, plus he might be able to beat up those birds real good."
"How do you know he's not a she?" Lydia wanted to know as she pet Gastly on the head. "Hi, there."
"Experience," Jesses said lightly as he noticed her Pokéball. "How did you do?"
"Poliwag, come on out!" Lydia threw the Pokéball and with a burst of light, Poliwag appeared in the campground, looking around at the group. "Come on and meet everybody." She looked towards Jesse as the Pokémon started to get acquainted. "So is that a boy Poliwag or a girl?"
"She's a her," Jesse replied. "The tail on the females are a bit longer than the males, see?" He indicated Poliwag's tail, which was slightly longer than she had seen on the Pokédex.
Lydia made a face. "Okay, so you are good." She smiled slightly as she made her way over to the fire. "Think you can go get some stuff for me to make a decent meal with?"
"No problem. I saw some berries on my way back here. Won't take me ten minutes." Jesse stood up. "Anybody want to come get some berries with me!" Ivysaur and Gastly, though reluctant to leave Eevee and Poliwag behind, left with their trainer.
Turning towards her own Pokémon, Lydia asked, "So how do you guys feel about beating up some birds when we get to Violet City?" Poliwag immediately looked happy and Eevee jumped into his trainer's lap. This, however, seemed to made Poliwag slightly unhappy as she turned away.
"Come over here, you," Lydia ordered. Poliwag turned towards her and walked over. "There's plenty of room for both of you," she said with a smile, allowing Poliwag to join Eevee on her lap. "Plenty of room for both of you and many more friends."
--
"Lydia . . ." a woman's voice called through the darkness. "Lydia, where are you? Where are you, my darling?" Her voice echoed slightly as Lydia looked around, searching through the mists.
"Mom?" she asked, desperation in her voice. She tried to search, tried to find the owner of the voice that was her mother's, but she was nowhere to be seen. "Mom!"
"You must use your powers, Lydia . . . find out the truth . . . and why things happened the way that they did . . ." her mother's voice was all around her and yet nowhere near. They were parted by the mists, her dead mother unable to been seen by her still living daughter.
"What truth?"
"Only when it is essential for you to know will you know what truth that is. When you are ready, you will find out."
"Ready for what?" Lydia was desperate for answers, not understanding what was going on. Was this reality or a dream? Vision or truth? Fact or fiction? Or just a figment of her imagination?
"When you can answer that question for yourself, you will be ready," her mother replied. "Go back to living, my child. There are people waiting for you there . . ." As Lydia tried to find her again, the mists slowly wrapped around her even more closely, taking the young Pokémon trainer back to the land of the living.
"Mom?" Lydia woke up by her own call, breathing heavily as she stared up at the sky. The sun was already trickling through the trees onto the trainer and her friends.
Glancing over at Jesse, she saw he was fast asleep in his sleeping bag. He looked so peaceful while he was asleep, she thought, like a little child. As though he felt someone watching him, Jesse's eyelids fluttered open and he blinked at Lydia.
"Are you crazy?" he grumbled. "Don't you know better than to hang over people first thing in the morning. It could cause severe wake-up problems." He made a face at her, pushing himself up off of the ground with a groan. "What are you doing up so early anyway?"
"Dude, it's eight o'clock."
"Exactly my point, it's still night," he complained, rubbing his eyes against the sunlight.
"Except the sun is shining, declaring that it is day," Lydia responded as Eevee started to wake up. Petting him gently, Lydia looked over at Jesse. "Look, I would actually like to attempt to get to Violet today, so can please just get going already. We've already lost a decent amount of daylight already."
"Lydia—"
"Jesse," she mimicked him. "Get up. Now. Or I'll see if I'll have Poliwag hit you with a water gun."
"Does she even know water gun?" Jesse wanted to know. Still, he gave up arguing with her as he pushed his blankets off of him. Eevee was highly amused by their bantering as Lydia wrapped up her blankets, folding them and putting them into her bag.
"She knows bubble," Lydia retorted, giving him an icy look. "Come on, let's get a move on, otherwise we're not going to stop for lunch." That got his attention as he scrambled up, moving as quickly as he could as Lydia cut up the remaining berries from the night before, making sure there was an equal amount for all of them.
After a quick breakfast, the group started heading west towards Violet City. Maybe it was because they were working with dark the night before, but Lydia thought that it was a whole lot easier to find it than it had been yesterday.
"It can't be too much further, there's Dark Cave there," Jesse said, glancing towards the cave entrance to the complete pitch black cave. He looked over at Lydia. "Want to check it out?"
"Except for the fact that we have no flashlights or anything to help us find our way in a pitch black cave," Lydia replied. "I'm not too keen on losing my way in that thing. Let's save it for when we're properly equipped for searching through, okay?"
Jesse rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Lydia, where is your sense of adventure?" he said dramatically.
"Excuse me," Lydia said indignantly. "I have a sense of adventure, Jesse . . . whatever your middle name is Turner, but I'm not crazy enough to think that I'm not going to get lost in the middle of a dark cave." She folded arms across her chest.
He smirked. "No way am I going to give you that kind of information," Jesse informed her. "You'd just use it for your own advantage." Lydia stuck her tongue out at him, which he returned before turning away to sulk for a couple of minutes.
"How long are you going to keep up this pretend anger?" Lydia inquired after a couple of minutes.
"Oh, until we reach Violet," Jesse answered.
"Great, 'cause we're there," Lydia said, grinning. She pointed up ahead. They could both easily see the sign that said "Violet City, the City of Nostalgic Scents." It had taken them a good week, but they had finally managed to make it to Violet.
"So how long are we gonna stick around this town?" Jesse asked as they made their way to the Pokémon Centre.
"Long enough to take down some birds," Lydia said with a grin. She picked Eevee up and blinked when she saw Nurse Joy at the counter. "What the heck . . ." she muttered.
Picking up on her confusion, Jesse smiled at the nurse as she looked up at them. "Hi. Just a quick check-up for both of ours, please."
"Sure, no problem," Nurse Joy said as she took the four Pokémon. "It won't take long. Go ahead and head for the kitchen if you want. They've already started serving dinner."
"Thank goodness, I'm starved," Jesse sighed as he headed towards the kitchen, Lydia right behind him.