Chapter Eleven
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
"A double battle, Jack," Ivy hissed nervously to Jack as their opponents readied themselves. "Of all the things we could have done, of all the trainers we could have battled… why a double battle? We could've taken a trainer each you know? That could've worked! Why on earth did you set up a double battle?"
"Killing two Pidgey with one Geodude?" Jack said with a shrug.
If pushed, Jack would have attributed his decision to take a double battle as purely selfish fascination on his part. The entire concept of a double battle privately fascinated him, and he admired the different skills and strategies the trainers had to develop and utilise to win. It was something he'd always loved watching, far more so than 'ordinary' battles and wanted to experience for himself. And of course, given the opportunity, he had eagerly dived in, feet-first. He didn't feel like explaining this to Ivy, however, who was still displaying a face of thunder at the whole idea.
She was still protesting Jacks' decision, but she was nothing more than an irritating buzz in his ear now. Even though she realised Jack was barely listening to her, she kept going in the vague hope he would reconsider. "Jack, we're not exactly experienced! We haven't even fought a proper one-on-one battle with someone other than each other! So don't you think we should start small? Or at the very least… not them?"
"They don't get much smaller than this, unfortunately," Jack was rolling Phoenix's Pokeball idly around in his palm. "They're inexperienced. On the same level as us. And there are two of them, same as there's two of us. It's equally balanced. We're just going to have to deal with it."
Ivy grumbled angrily to herself as the two fifteen year old trainers turned to look at them.
As much as she hated to admit it, she knew better than to try and argue her case any longer. Jack had made up his mind and he wasn't going to give in. He was just as stubborn as she was, after all. Aside from Jack's stubbornness to give in, Ivy knew there was another reason they couldn't exactly back out now. They had entered a mutual contract. Once battle had been accepted by both parties, it had to be fulfilled on penalty of a forfeit and the loss of half their money. And Ivy certainly did not want to lose half of her money. As she lamented all this and wondered how she had ever found herself in this situation in the first place, the first trainer, a short, plump red-head in ripped jeans and loose fitting shirt took a step forward. She was looking down a long, turned up nose at the two university students.
"We all use one Pokemon each, right?" the girl asked.
Jack nodded in the affirmative when Ivy glared at him accusingly, as if to say "you got us into this mess, you deal with it."
The other girl, this one taller, skinnier, and with raven black hair cropped into a short bob also stepped up. She looked noticeably more nervous, glancing at her friend a little warily before speaking. "Uh, shouldn't we get your names first?"
"Of course," Jack said smoothly. "I'm Jack. That's Ivy," he added, motioning towards Ivy.
"'That'?" Ivy repeated, insulted. "What the hell do you mean by 'that'?"
"Ivy, shut up and don't start!" Jack hissed lowly, through gritted teeth.
The two girls looked a bit perplexed as the heated exchange sparked between Jack and Ivy, but did a very good job of ignoring it until Jack eventually contained it and pacified Ivy. Once the situation was prevented from escalating, the girls finally gave their names, the black haired girl pleasantly introducing herself as Penny, the red-head bluntly stating her name as Alyson.
With pleasantries now out the way, the four trainers faced off against each other. There was nervousness inside each battler, whether they wanted to admit or not. Alyson, the red-headed trainer was the best at concealing it, releasing a Spearow with an air of confidence, whilst a trembling Penny sent out a rather dopey looking Metapod. Jack and Ivy exchanged looks before Jack sent out Phoenix. Ivy initially dithered, wondering which of her Kakuna and Pidgey would be best to send out for the battle. Both Pokemon had pros and cons, she reasoned. Kakuna had the advantage of having battled competitively before, but she wasn't quite sure what, if any, damage it could do against a Metapod, and she knew a Kakuna stood next to no chance against a Flying type like Spearow. But she was nervous about using her Pidgey, having only just caught it, not even getting to know it yet and having never used it in a battle before.
In the end, the knowledge that her Kakuna simply wouldn't be able to stand up against the Spearow or do much damage to a Metapod won her over and she too sent out her Pidgey. The Pidgey was unusually aggressive as it emerged, flapping its wings aiming a vicious peck at Phoenix as the inquisitive male Pidgey got too close to it.
"Wow," Jack remarked to Ivy after Phoenix flapped out of the way in terror. "Nasty little thing, isn't it?"
"She's not nasty!" Ivy quipped back.
"You know, she reminds me of someone. I won't say who." Jack said with a smile.
"Huh?" Ivy said, legitimately confused as to her friend's quip.
"Hey!" Alyson was shouting, her face twisted in annoyance and her arms tightly folded. "Do you guys want to battle or not?"
"Of course!" Jack said with a confident smile. "We're ready whenever you are,"
"Since when?" Ivy hissed in indignation, her eyes wide.
"Penny? You ready?" Alyson turned to Penny, and as the other girl nodded, a wide smile broke out over Alyson's face. "All right, Spearow! Peck! Go for the bigger Pidgey!"
"Metapod, Harden!" Penny squeaked.
Jack remained oddly calm, whistling to get Phoenix's attention before issuing a command. "Phoenix, Tackle the Spearow!"
The three Pokemon that had been given orders immediately sprang into action, but Ivy completely balked, totally unsure what to do. She wanted to shout a command, but the words caught in her throat and came out as a mere dry croak. Her reluctance didn't go unnoticed even as the Spearow and Phoenix collided in a puff of feathers and began scrapping with one another fiercely. Jack turned to her indignantly, looking furious at his friend's hesitation.
"Ivy, do something!" he cried over the sounds of Phoenix's high pitched shrieks and squawking. The little Pidgey was barely a match for the violent Spearow that was raking its claws and pointed beak across the belly of the plump little Pokemon. "Take out that Metapod at least!"
Ivy flapped and flustered for a few moments, but eventually seemed to gather herself. "Ah! Alright! Pidgey, use Gust on the Metapod!"
But Ivy's Pidgey completely ignored its trainer's command. It remained firmly on the ground, turned around slowly and looked at Ivy. Its eyes narrowed slightly and then it cheeped at her angrily. It was the sheer picture of defiance.
"What the hell?" Ivy blinked at her Pokemon's disobedience. "Pidgey, I said use Gust!"
The Pidgey spread its wings carelessly in a gesture that anyone would have said was a shrug.
Ivy just stood there in complete disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me…"
"Ivy!" Jack was yelling now as the Spearow and Phoenix scrapped viciously above their heads. "I could seriously use some help here!"
Ivy cursed. "All right, Pidgey! If you're not gonna use Gust, Tackle the Spearow!"
Ivy totally expected Pidgey to ignore her once again, but to her complete surprise, her Pokemon obeyed, shooting up towards the rival Spearow with almost frightening speed that she never would have attributed to a Pidgey. It bodily tackled the Spearow, sending it toppling back and allowing Phoenix to recover after the brutal attack it had sustained. Cooing softly after regaining itself, Phoenix looked up gratefully at the female Pidgey. Ivy's Pidgey however didn't seem to be amused by Phoenix's efforts or gratitude and instead delivered a swift peck to the male Pidgey's head!
Jack swore and turned to Ivy, completely shocked and demanding an explanation as to the Pidgey's behaviour. Ivy, who was just as stunned as Jack couldn't give him one. She compromised by turning towards her Pidgey and yelling at her instead. "Pidgey, what the hell? You don't attack your teammates! You attack your opponents!"
Pidgey shot Ivy a scathing look, before pointing with its wing at the Spearow, and then glaring at Phoenix. Ivy had no clue what her Pidgey was trying to tell her, but the little Pidgey certainly wasn't happy about something. Phoenix wasn't happy either, still looking stunned at the attack from its own team mate. Jack privately didn't blame the Pokemon. It wasn't a normal thing to be attacked by a member of your own team! At least to Ivy's credit, she was trying to rectify the situation… albeit a little uselessly.
Ivy chastised her Pidgey once again (her attempts basically fell on deaf ears) before ordering it to use a Tackle attack again. The Pidgey, angered at being scolded was both eager to please and desperate for something to take its annoyance out on and zoomed off immediately after the Spearow, which had only just recovered from the Pokemon's first attack. Ivy's Pidgey collided with the Spearow, knocking it back once again. On Jack's orders, a rather more hesitant Phoenix followed suit.
Jack and Ivy were so caught up in the battle raging between their Pidgeys and Alyson's Spearow, that nobody noticed Penny's Metapod continuously using Harden…
The Spearow was fast and far more agile than both Phoenix and Ivy's Pidgey and managed to evade Phoenix's rather clumsy efforts at Tackle attacks with relative ease, and even avoided Ivy's Pidgey's with what seemed like annoyingly little effort. Ivy's Pidgey began to slowly get angry and her attacks became wilder and wilder until they ended up veering off course and missing completely. However no matter how many times Ivy ordered her Pokemon to use Gust instead of Tackle, the Pidgey returned the same blank look and stubbornly refused to execute the attack.
"This is getting frustrating!" Ivy growled as the Spearow once again sailed out of the way of both Phoenix and her Pidgey. "How are we going to catch it?"
"I don't know…" Jack looked thoughtful as he consulted the battlefield. Again, Jack remained infuriatingly calm and collected in the face of pressure, as he normally did. It only served to infuriate an already tense Ivy more, who never was any good at dealing with stressful situations. "At least it can't attack us." He said a few moments later.
"Yeah, but what's gonna happen when they get tired?" Ivy hissed. "Phoenix and Pidgey will get tired and then what? That Spearow will knock them out within seconds!"
Jack looked at Ivy in surprise as if something had just occurred to him. "You know, for once, you actually make a valid point."
Ivy's eye twitched. "Actually? For once?" she repeated shrilly, now beyond insulted. "Well you know what you can do? You can take my point and ram it right up your—"
They were mercifully distracted when, with an ear-piercing screech, the Spearow suddenly charged Phoenix. The little Pokemon was knocked straight to the ground, and a horrifying crack sounded out as the Pokemon slammed into the earth.
Jack gasped in horror. "Phoenix!"
This time, even unflappable Jack was reduced into a state of sheer panic as his grounded Pokemon began weakly struggling, nursing what looked suspiciously like a broken wing. Even worse, the Spearow was flapping ominously above him, with a look of sheer eagerness reflected in its eyes. Jack had a nasty suspicion that the Spearow was just waiting for the ideal opportunity to divebomb the poor injured Pidgey. But all of a sudden, without even needing instruction from Ivy, her Pidgey suddenly collided with the Spearow, also knocking the Pokemon straight to the ground. The Spearow squawked in indignation as it hit the ground, but its angered shrieks were suddenly replaced with ones of wrenching pain as Ivy's Pidgey suddenly swooped downwards, delivering a final Tackle attack. The Spearow cawed weakly before completely passing out. A stunned silence encompassed everyone. No-one had anticipated that.
"Wow…" Jack said slowly, breaking the shocked silence, as Ivy's Pidgey dropped to the ground, looking very pleased with herself. "She's ruthless. She really is just like… what was it you called her?"
"A Mafia Boss Lady Pidgey."
"Yeah, that…"
Alyson recalled her Spearow looking enraged, glaring at Penny, as if willing her timid friend to take charge and win the battle for them. Following on from Alyson's admission of defeat, Jack also conceded defeat, recalling Phoenix. His wing was badly damaged. The poor Pokemon couldn't fly, let alone attack, and was evidently in a lot of pain. In fact, Jack was worried his Pidgey's injured wing was completely broken, and he felt a rare shock of panic and guilt as he thought of his Pokemon suffering and in crushing pain, and he unable to get it fixed right away.
With Alyson's Spearow and Jack's Phoenix now incapable of battling, it was between Ivy's Pidgey and Penny's Metapod. Whichever Pokemon fell first would lose for their respective team. Ivy knew this, and she knew the inordinate amount of pressure that was on herself and her Pidgey, but despite everything, an inexplicable burst of confidence struck her. Metapod was a Bug type! And a weak one at that! Pidgey was a Flying type! Even though her Pidgey refused to use Gust, a Flying type move, she still had the advantage! She could win! It was entirely possible that she could win!
She clenched her fists. "Pidgey! Tackle attack that Metapod!"
Ivy wholly anticipated the battle to be over with just that one attack. If Jack was forced to be truthful, he too would have admitted that he also thought Ivy had it in the bag. However, as the Pidgey sped towards the Metapod, the slightest inkling of a smile touched on Penny's face.
Right on target, Pidgey slammed straight into the Metapod. Ivy eagerly awaited the sight of the Metapod buckling under the head-on collision and being thrown backwards, but to her immense shock, it never came. The Metapod didn't even waver, didn't even move under the attack, let alone be knocked backwards for any distance! It remained solid, rooted to the spot like a pillar of stone. It was like the little Pidgey had flown straight into a window. The Pidgey slid down to the ground, completely unconscious.
Ivy stood there dumbfounded for a full minute before exploding. "What… the hell… just happened?"
"What just happened? I'll tell you what just happened!" Alyson was jumping up and down, fist-pumping madly. "We won, that's what happened!"
"But how?" Ivy was practically screaming now, while Jack just stood there dumbfounded. "It's a Metapod! How could it win? Against my Pidgey?"
"While you guys were too busy scrapping up in the air and not paying attention to me, I had Metapod to keep on using Harden," Penny said with a minute shrug. "Well, it's to be expected, right? I mean, who thinks of a Metapod as any kind of threat?"
Ivy let out an incomprehensible growl.
"So Metapod's defences literally went rock hard. When Pidgey tried to take it out with Tackle, it's like the Pokemon basically hit a wall. Literally. I call it the "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" strategy."
"You named your strategies?" Ivy wanted to scream and jump up and down, but of course, she didn't. She simply couldn't She was now completely incapable of speech. All she could do was gawp uselessly at a stunned Jack and gesticulate madly in the hope of communicating some sort of sense. Jack didn't seem to be faring much better in light of this conclusion.
"So… we lost…?" he eventually surmised.
"Most definitely." Alyson said proudly.
"I see." Jack said with a swift nod, before firmly stowing Phoenix's Pokeball back into his pocket. "Well, thank you for the battle. It really taught us a lot."
He then turned on his heel and began walking away. He wordlessly motioned for Ivy to follow, but she was still too stunned to speak, let alone move.
"Hey! Wait! Wait!" Alyson yelled angrily. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"I don't think so, no."
"You think wrong!" Alyson said, stamping her foot. "You owe us money!"
Jack stopped, mid-stride to pull out the pockets of his dark jeans. They were completely empty, save a tiny, scrunched up piece of paper that fluttered away idly in the wind. He then produced his wallet, opened it and showed the coin holder to be empty. The notes section was also completely empty. "Sorry," he said blandly, putting his wallet back into the pocket of his coat. "But as it turns out, I don't have any money to give you."
Alyson's face immediately soured. "You son of a bitch!" she snarled. "You shouldn't go around picking Pokemon battles if you don't have money to hand over when you lose!"
"Well I guess I've learned my lesson, then." Jack said with a mild shrug. "Come along, Ivy."
Ivy didn't dare argue with Jack. She took the moment to reach over, seize her unconscious Pidgey, mutter an embarrassed 'thanks for the match' to a dumbstruck Penny and make a run for it.
Behind her, Alyson's angered protests and explosive curses seemed to turn the air blue as the two university students made their escape.
"That was a lie."
"Hm?"
"That was a barefaced lie and you know it,"
Jack finally looked up from filing his nails to eye his friend sitting at the edge of the Pokemon Centre bed. She was sitting tensely, almost rigidly, and had a deep frown eroding her face. "What was?" he asked.
"That we didn't have money to give them."
"I didn't have money to give them."
"Yeah, but I did!" Ivy said, pulling her purse out, opening it and showing off a wad of notes tightly packed inside. Money she had received from her mother when she had left Pewter City. "And you said we didn't have money to give them…"
"No," Jack said, setting his nail file down. "I said I didn't have any money to give them. I never said we didn't have any money to give them. They never asked if we, meaning either you or I, had money to give them. They only asked if I did. Loopholes, Ivy."
"You still lied."
"I didn't lie." Jack said, shaking his head defiantly.
"How didn't you lie? You didn't tell them I had money I could give them! Ergo, you lied."
"'Lying means to tell something other than the truth. Not telling someone something is just avoiding the truth,'" Jack quoted.
Ivy stopped, before letting out a grunt. "Now who's being pedantic…?" she said huffily, but she still knew she had well and truly been beaten by her own logic. "It's still a little dishonest, you know…?" she muttered traitorously a few seconds later before leaning back and lying down on the bed.
"I know," Jack said, nodding. "But we need to keep that money. And we had better things to do than hang around pandering to them. Like get Phoenix's wing looked at."
"Mmm." Ivy said slowly. "I guess you're right. He's alright, isn't he?"
"Nurse Joy is looking after him." Jack explained, resuming filing his nails. "Says it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It's not broken, just badly sprained."
"I guess that's good news, then…" she murmured, rolling over onto her side and replaying the day's events in her head. She cringed mentally as she thought of it all, and let out a deep, moody sigh.
Jack raised his head again at the sound of her sighing. "What's the matter?"
"I can't believe we lost…" she said sadly. "If it wasn't for that stupid Metapod spamming Harden all the time we'd have won."
Jack was chuckling to himself at this point, and Ivy immediately rounded on him. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded.
"Spam," he said with a shrug.
"What?" Ivy asked tetchily.
"Spam. You know, Spam? Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam and Spam?"
Ivy returned a blank face.
Jack sighed at his friend's ignorance. "You know, sometimes I think my superior wit is wasted on you."
"Jack! Would you be quiet and listen to me for once?" Ivy chucked a pillow in Jack's direction, which once again veered completely off track and ended up on the floor.
"I apologise," Jack said primly. "What words of wisdom were you about to impart on us?"
Ivy frowned again. "You're skating on very thin ice right now." She said in a dangerously low voice.
Jack shrugged. "Hey, why skate on thin ice when you can dance on it."
"Jack!" Ivy fumed, beating her fists upon the mattress. "Will you quite talking in riddles and proverbs and just listen to me?"
"Fine…" Jack said wearily, uncrossing his legs and adopting a more relaxed position. "What were you saying?"
"I'm saying we totally would have won had it not been for that Metapod spamming Harden."
"No, Ivy." Jack said, shaking his head. "We'd have won if your Pidgey had actually listened to you and used Gust when you wanted it to."
Ivy sighed in a resigned sort of way, her anger suddenly evaporating to be replaced with a crushing disappointment. "Yeah, I know…From the way she was acting, it was like she had no idea what I was asking her to do. Almost like she doesn't even know the move. And that doesn't make any sense…"
"Yeah. Cos you said Sebastian said she did know the move, right?"
"According to his Pokedex, yes." Ivy said, rather impatiently. "But I don't think she really understands how to use it."
"Some Mafia Boss Lady Pidgey…" Jack said darkly.
Ivy glared at him, but couldn't think of an appropriate response so she simply lay back down on her bed and let out a sigh that ruffled the fronds of chocolate brown hair cascading over her pale forehead. She stared upwards at the ceiling for a good few moments, lost in thought. She only vaguely heard Jack call her name a few moments later and answered with an irate 'What?"
Jack didn't even flinch in the face of his friend's harsh tones. "Ever considered giving your Pokemon nicknames?"
Ivy frowned. "Why would I do that?"
"You really wanna call them 'Kakuna' and 'Pidgey' the rest of their lives? That's a bit uninspired, don't you think?"
Ivy fought the urge to stick her tongue out at Jack, but Jack's suggestion had sparked an idea in her and she found herself very carefully considering what he had just said. "Yeah, I'll admit, just calling them by their species name is a bit silly. I mean, they could get confused!"
"Yeah…" Jack agreed.
"So, maybe it would be a good idea to nickname them. But what…?" she mused. "What would be a good name for my Pidgey…?"
Jack could practically see the proverbial light bulb turn on over Ivy's head when a few moments later she snapped her fingers and grinned madly. "I've got it! Toni!"
Jack frowned. Before he even dared to ask, he took a moment to try and figure out Ivy's thought processes. However, try as he might, he could not make sense of it. Eventually, he gave in. "Toni?" he asked, his eyebrows knotting together.
"Yeah! Toni!" Ivy said enthusiastically, beaming with pride.
"Is that not a boy's name?" he asked, sceptically.
"Well, yeah… Tony with a 'y' is. Toni with an 'i' is more feminine."
"Okay, that I understand, but why on earth call a Pidgey 'Toni'? That's more of a human name, is it not?"
Ivy let out a haughty sigh. "Think about it! She's my Mafia Boss Lady Pidgey, right?"
"Right…"
"And what's one of the most common names in the Mafia?"
Jack grinned to himself. "Frankie?"
"What? No!"
"Vinny?"
"No!"
"Salvatore?"
"Oh yeah, like I'm really gonna call a Pidgey Salvatore, you idiot!" Ivy eventually lost her patience and aimed a punch to Jack's arm. "Tony! Like Fat Tony! The perfect name for a Mafia Boss. So, just change it about to make it more feminine, and the perfect name for my little Pidgey!"
Jack privately was cringing at Ivy's nickname choice, but the young woman seemed so happy and proud of herself for thinking it up that even he didn't quite have the heart to tell her otherwise. Instead, he compromised by clearing his throat and posing the question "What about Kakuna?"
"I really don't know…" Ivy said slowly. "That's a lot harder. I don't think I even know what gender Kakuna is…"
"Well, that's a big help, isn't it?" Jack said sarcastically.
"Oh, shut up." Ivy said, tossing another pillow at Jack. This one missed by even more of a spectacular margin than the first one had.
"Thank you, I wanted an extra pillow," Jack said, retrieving the two thrown pillows in one swoop and adding them to his own bed.
Ivy glared and snatched the pillows back. After a further few minutes in silence, Ivy consulted her watch. It was five in the evening now, almost time for dinner. Today had been a long day for her, she was exhausted and she was keen for it to end. So much had happened. She had barely slept the night before, ended up being found asleep in Viridian Forest in the early hours of the morning, battling Jack in a fit of anger, having Weedle evolve to Kakuna, being attacked by the Mafia Pidgey, capturing the Mafia Boss Lady Pidgey, almost getting in another battle with Jack and finally, suffering the humiliation of losing against two other girls. The sheer thought of everything that had happened made her want to pull a pillow over her head and just sleep the rest of the day away.
In fact, she decided to do just that and pulled a soft, fluffy pillow over her head to block out the light and noise of trainers coming from outside. She then threw her arms back behind her head and let out a deep sigh. Jack watched her, mildly amused, before continuing to file his nails.
"We need to train so much tomorrow…" she suddenly announced.
"Do we?"
"Yes!" Ivy said impatiently. "Jack, we lost. Spectacularly."
"I know, Ivy, I was there." He replied dryly.
"So you should know we need to train!"
"Of course." Jack said primly. "But there's no sense in panicking over it." He paused, looking at the girl's worried face. Feeling sorry for his friend, he added softly "Tomorrow we will train, I promise."
"Promise?" Ivy said thickly.
"Promise." Jack replied deftly, before leaning over and tapping the girl on the leg with his nail file. "You do worry too much."
"Hey, it's not your university career hanging in the balance, here."
"Perhaps not, but you should lighten up," Jack said, getting to his feet. "Life's too short to worry about every little thing. You should focus on the here and now; enjoy what's going on here. You should enjoy what you're getting to do." Silently, he added "I know I am," but he didn't quite dare to say it out loud. Instead he cleared his throat. "Right, I'm going down for dinner. Do you want to come?"
"Not hungry. You go ahead."
Jack's eyebrow twitched and he leaned against the wall, shaking his head. "You're just going to lie up here, stressing, panicking and feeling sorry for yourself, aren't you?" he said after a short pause.
"Yep."
Jack shook his head again and turned to leave. "Good luck with that. I'll be back later when you're done brooding." He suddenly stopped, hand on the doorknob. "And you better stay where you are. If I come back and find you anywhere apart from this room, the bathroom, in Sebastian or Michaela's room, or in the Pokemon Centre lobby, I swear to God, I will hurt you." He said this sternly, using his well-practiced 'disapproving teacher' voice that generally worked a treat with small children and 19 year old ditzy History students. This time was no exception.
"Don't worry, I won't go anywhere." She said thickly.
"Good," Jack said. "And I mean it. Don't be stressing yourself out. Tomorrow, you and I will go out and train. Assuming Phoenix's wing is better, of course. Then when we're both happy with our progress, we can go get you your Nidoran and move away from this city."
"Sounds good," Ivy replied, her reply still muffled by the pillow.
Jack took this as his cue to leave Ivy alone. Her responses had become strained, and Jack knew better than to try force conversation from her any longer. Even though he'd known her over two years now, he found it constantly amazing how someone as bright and bubbly as Ivy was the majority of the time could become so dark and depressed so quickly. Shaking his head while thinking this, he excused himself and left. Ivy didn't even care that Jack had left. She was too engrossed in her own thoughts, and felt numb to the world around her. For a while, she simply laid there, the pillow over her face. Eventually, she began overheating and in fear of suffocating, she threw it off again. With little else to do, she climbed under the bedcovers and began thinking.
"What am I gonna do?" she pondered. "I need to train, but my Pokemon aren't that strong yet… How can I train them when they're not strong enough to beat any opponents? I need my Pokemon to be strong to beat other Pokemon, but to get them to that stage, I have to train them! And how do you train them? You have to battle them!"
She rolled over in despair. "That Penny girl had an interesting way of putting it. What did she say? A rock and a hard place? Yep. That's exactly right. No doubt about it. I am most definitely caught between a rock and a hard place. Isn't life just grand…?"
And as if to add emphasis to the point, she picked up the last remaining pillow and flung it as hard as she could. It hit the wall this time, almost knocking a small, dun picture frame off in the process, before turning face down onto the bed. She lay there for a few moments, her mind ticking over furiously, before she eventually let out a resigned sigh, her tense body finally becoming limp. She fell asleep within a few minutes, but it was a twitchy and disturbed sleep, plagued by ominous foreshadows and whispers of failure, and worries that seeded themselves in the back of her mind, planting roots, and ingraining, only to manifest during sleep, waking her frequently and refusing to be dulled as the days passed slowly by.
"I need to get better at this. Otherwise… otherwise I'm screwed."
Author's Note
So, here we are with another update :)
I hope this one doesn't disappoint :) I do have fun writing this particular story.
Updates will hopefully be continuing to be released weekly or bi-weekly.
Thanks so much for the support, and I was so so happy to receive more reviews than normal last chapter :D
Thanks to MasterFreezeman, WildCroconaw, I have a dictionary here, The Neverending Meep, Japaneserockergirl, TristeWilds and MidsummerMoonlight99.
Oh this chapter should also clear up your query, I have a dictionary here, in that Jack's Pidgey is male.
Until next time :) Please review, guys, it makes me so happy :D
