The next morning saw me eating breakfast in the cafeteria. I was eating a bowl of cereal that had a few pieces of dried berries floating in it. I had also grabbed a sandwich, planning on saving it for lunch. Despite the food in front of me, though, I was finding it difficult to eat. The thought of having to face the Riolu again today was making me extremely nervous.
"Dahlia!" I heard a voice shout, right before a familiar gangling form crashed into me from behind, squeezing my middle. Pain flared, and I let out a pained hiss.
"Careful, Zach!" I warned. He let go of me light he'd been electrocuted, apologizing profusely. There was a clear look of concern on his face as he took a seat across from me.
"Are you okay?" he queried, his eyes huge as he took in all the scrapes and bruises that covered my arms. I smiled in reassurance.
"I'm a little banged up, but there's nothing serious. What about you?" I asked, giving him a once over. I didn't see any signs of damage, but that didn't mean there wasn't any. He waved me off impatiently.
"I'm fine. What happened to you? You were gone for days! Everybody thought you were dead!" His voice rose a little as he spoke, and I sighed. Clearly I wasn't going to hear anything about his Trial until I'd told him all about mine.
"When I was planning for the Trials, I decided to try to get to the ruins of the old Flocessy Ranch because a pokemon I wanted to try to catch was known for living there before the Cataclysm. The ranch is more than a day away from the city, though, so I wasn't able to come for the night." I was about to ask about his Trial again, but he cut me off.
"And the pokemon?" he asked. "Did you catch it?"
"Yep. He put up quite the fight, but I was able to catch him." Zach gave me an expectant look, and I huffed a laugh. "Its a Riolu." Anticipating the blank look in his eyes, I pulled up the entry in my pokedex to show him. "I wanted to catch one because their evolution, Lucario, is really strong, and they're very loyal if you can gain their trust." A sly look appeared on Zach's face.
"Bet it didn't hurt that they're so cute," he grinned delightedly. I dropped my forehead into my palm, shaking my head with a smile.
"Brat," I muttered, but I didn't deny it.
"Now what about you?" I insisted. "How did your Trial go?" Content with the information he'd wrung from me about my adventure, he finally obliged me with an answer.
"I finished on the first day. Thanks to the help you gave me, I was able to keep away from any really dangerous pokemon, and a few hours after I went out, I found this little pond and caught a Magikarp." He smiled somewhat sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "I named him Riptide, but I've mostly just been calling him Tide." I smiled warmly.
"That's great Zach. Have you been able to do any training with him yet?" I asked him, curious.
"Yeah, I'm actually going to try to take the D rank test today. In about an hour. Tide was pretty tame from the start, and he listens to me really well now."
"Well, good luck," I said, resting my chin on my hand. There was a moment of contented silence before I thought of something else I wanted to ask. "Do you know how everyone else's Trials are going?"
He nodded, his eyes growing solemn. "Damon finished in the evening on the second day; he already passed the D rank test. And Linda finished on the third day. But Sandra never came back after the second day, and that other guy, Joseph, didn't come back last night." He gave me a halfhearted smile.
"Everybody says they're probably dead, but they said that about you, too, and you made it back," Zach finished. I squeezed his hand where it rested on the table, remembering how scared and distracted Sandra had seemed in the week leading up to the Trials. And trying not to remember the first and last conversation I'd had with Joey right before we parted ways.
"We can only hope," I murmured, not in particularly hopeful tone of voice.
"Hey," I said, leaning forward and changing the subject, "since you've already been training Tide, do you think you could show me where the training fields are?" He immediately perked up, gloomy thoughts banished from his mind at the prospect of being helpful.
Thirty minutes later I was standing by myself in an empty training ground. I grabbed Riolu's pokeball and examined it with no small amount of dread. However, I knew that the pokemon might be able to actually see my emotions, and all of my reading had told me that it was never a good idea to show fear to a pokemon.
I tightened my grip on my staff, took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down a few moments, trying not to psyche myself out. Then I pressed the release button. A beam of red light streamed out, coalescing into the form of the Riolu. The pokemon growled at me, its red eyes glinting angrily as they darted between the pokeball and me. I felt a slight pang of fear before I ruthlessly squashed it. The Riolu's eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head, starting circle around me. I turned to follow his movement, knowing better than to show him my back.
"Hi, Riolu," I started carefully. The small pokemon tensed warily, coming to a stop. "My name is Dahlia, and I'm a pokemon trainer. I captured you a few days ago." Riolu glared angrily and dashed toward me all of a sudden. I jerkily blocked him with my staff, tightening my grip on his pokeball, and he stopped immediately, inspecting me with keen eyes.
"Are you hungry?" I ask him. "I have some berries if you want any," I said, fishing around in my pockets for the berries I'd stashed for this occasion. Riolu's nose twitched, and he took a step forward at the sight of the berries, before he caught himself.
"It's okay," I said. "Here." I placed a berry on the ground in front of me, keeping careful watch of his movements, before backing away a few steps. He crept towards the berry, keeping a wary eye on me, much the same as I was on him. Then he speedily snatched up the fruit and ate it in two greedy bites. I muffled a quiet giggle with my sleeve, feeling a little hysterical. He startled when he heard it, jerking his head up and yipping at me.
"Sorry," I told him, regaining control over myself. "Would you like another?" I held the next one up. When his eyes locked onto it, I carefully placed it on the ground between us, and didn't step away this time, though I maintained a firm grip on my metal staff. He was very cautious as he moved to grab the second berry, but clearly too hungry to ignore the food. When he finished it, he stayed in his place, and he was now close enough that if he tried to attack, I wouldn't be quick enough to stop him. He was probably aware of the fact as well, but he didn't attack, looking indecisive. I wasn't really sure what to do next. I eventually decided to just go for it.
"Are you willing to work with me?" I asked him now that he'd calmed down. "As my partner? You'll have to obey my commands, and when you fight, it will be to protect people. I will train with you, and try to help you grow strong enough that you'll evolve Lucario someday."
The Riolu looked at me as if he was weighing my soul, and I made sure to meet his gaze. Then he made a somewhat grudging noise of assent and nodded his head. I smiled and let out a sigh of happy relief.
"I have some more berries. Do you want any?" The Riolu nodded, and I retrieved the rest of what I had stashed in my pockets. I sat down cross-legged and held one out for Riolu to grab, and repeated the process each time he finished a berry. By the time he was finally full, there were only a couple left.
"Do you just want me to call you Riolu, or do you want a name?" I decided to ask him. He cocked his head to the side, considering. "I could give you a few options and you can decide after if you want." He nodded thoughtfully. "Rio, or Luca. Blue," he gave me a look of disgust at that. "Bruiser," I mentioned, rubbing my side, "Aura, Spike-" The little blue pokemon snorted disdainfully and held his paw up. "Did you like one of them?" I asked, though judging by his reactions to some of my suggestions, I rather thought not. So I was slightly surprised when he nodded. "Was it Rio?" He shook his head. "Luca?" I queried, and this time he nodded. "Luca it is then. I guess we do have a goal to work towards, don't we?" I said, noting that he'd chosen the shortened version of 'Lucario' that I'd thrown out.
I carefully reached over and began to scratch him lightly behind the ears. He automatically flinched away at first, but then he held completely still. Once he relaxed, he leaned into my hand and made a light rumbling sound in his chest that almost sounded like a purr.
"Are you ready to do a little training now?" Luca nodded and stepped away before taking up a fighting stance and throwing a few mock punches at the air. I let out a startled laugh. It was surprising how much I was growing to like him already, considering the state our relationship had been in only a few hours ago.
"Let's get to it then," I said, pointing to a wooden post about fifteen feet away from where we stood. "You see that post? I want you to use Quick Attack on it." Luca nodded in affirmation and disappeared in a blur of speed, hitting it with a resounding 'thunk' before leaping away. I had him repeat it a few more times, then I nodded. "For now that's the only move you know that you can practice without another pokemon to train with. I'll try to start teaching you a new move tomorrow. For now, we're both going to run around the perimeter of the training field. I want you to try using Quick Attack to boost your speed as you go. Got it?" Luca nodded, and we both took of running.
When we reached the edge of the field, Luca began boosting his speed, quickly outpacing me. I continued to run at a speed only slightly faster than a jog, trying to pace myself so that I wouldn't tire out too quickly. Whenever I did get tired, I slowed to a walk until I caught my breath enough to start running again. Luca was able to keep a running pace the whole time, only stopping his use of Quick Attack once for a few minutes, before continuing. We had kept it up for two hours before I called us to a stop.
"Great job, Luca," I praised him as he bounced over to me. His eyes brightened and he perked his ears at me as he stood panting. I was panting even harder of course. I then sat us down to eat, giving Luca the last few berries and a small portion of my sandwich.
"I'm going to return you to your pokeball for now," I told him once we finished eating, lifting his pokeball, "but I'll let you out soon. I promise. How do you feel about meeting my friend, Zach and his Magikarp, Tide?" He looked a little uneasy, but gave me a nod nonetheless. I scratched his ears again for a moment before returning him to his pokeball. He seemed to like that.
Hours later, after spending some down time at the Center, I headed out to the training field I'd promised to meet Zach at, which was located about a half a mile away. The various training grounds were spread throughout the entirety of District 13, and at one of the fields that I passed on the way, I stopped to watch for a moment. I saw the figure of a trainer with a team of eight pokemon training around him. I could make out a big, snake-like creature, and what I thought was a Scolipede, but the others were too small for me to make out from a distance.
Zach's chosen training ground contained a large, clear pond, obviously meant for training water pokemon. As I drew closer, I could make out Zach's shaggy brown hair as he crouched next to the pond with a hand in the water.
"Zach," I called, stopping a few feet away, and he spun around in surprise, losing his balance and landing on his butt in the mud. He looked up at me with an embarrassed grin as he stood up, trying to wipe the mud off his pants, but only succeeded in smearing it.
"Hey, Dahlia!" he exclaimed in delight, his voice cracking a little as he raised his voice. "You made it!" A splashing sound came from the direction of the pond, demanding attention. "Oh! This is Tide," he introduced, giving his pants up for lost as he knelt down in the mud, petting the scales of the orange Magikarp that was bobbing up and down in the water. "Tide, this is Dahlia." Tide splashed the water with his fins in response.
"Hello, Tide," I say with a small smile and a wave at the pokemon. "Is alright to touch him?" I asked Zach, crouching down beside him. When Zach nodded, I placed my hand opposite his on Tide's side and stroked the cool, somewhat slimy scales. The Magikarp gurgled happily in response.
"So how did it go with your Riolu?" Zach asked casually, pretending absolute focus on Tide. The corner of my mouth twitched up in amusement without my permission.
"I think it went really well. I named him Luca. He's very smart." I smiled at the Magikarp's cheerful antics. "How did your test go?" Zach positively beamed.
"I passed! It actually wasn't too hard," he stated, looking surprised about it.
"Congratulations." I gently ruffled his hair, and he seemed torn between leaning in for head scratches and pulling away in indignation.
"Can I please meet Luca now?" He shook off my hand, his puppy eyes glistening entreatingly. "Pleeease?"
In response, I stood up and backed away a few feet, pulling Luca's pokeball out. Zach appeared to be nearly vibrating in excitement. When I released Luca directly in front of me, the blue pokemon looked around curiously for a second before walking over to me and setting a paw on my leg. He aimed a questioning look in Zach's direction, who was still kneeling in the mud.
"This is Zach," I tell Luca. Zach shuffled over until he was right next to us. Luca spares him a short, soul-deep gaze before nodding a greeting. I was glad when Zach didn't try to pet him. The small Riolu seemed to be a fairly reserved pokemon so far, and I didn't want to push too much contact on him until we had more time for trust to grow between us.
"So," I started, briefly stroking Luca's head before sitting down on the grass. Luca took a seat next to me, and Zach settled himself more comfortably. "How has training with Tide been going for you?" Zach sighed in response to the question.
"Tide is great, but I don't really know how to train him yet," Zach admits, looking back at Tide, who was happily splashing around in the pond. "He listens to everything I say, but the only moves he knows are splash and tackle."
"Luca and I did a little training today after we got to know each other. I had him show me his quick attack a few times, and then I ran laps with him around the training ground. I had him use his quick attack constantly to boost his speed as we went." I explained to him, thinking hard. "I'm sure you could do something similar with Tide. You could have him practice using splash over and over again and tell him to try to jump higher and higher as he goes. Or could also have him swim laps around the pond as fast as he can, and you can run around with him if you want to do it with him. I don't think attacks are the only things you have to work on when you're training a pokemon. When a human wants to get stronger, we exercise. It's probably the same for pokemon. Though if you want to see whether or not you can expand Tide's move pool, you can try looking it up on one of the databases in the library. They have lists of moves each pokemon can learn naturally or be taught with enough training." Zach nodded thoughtfully, looking intently at Tide.
We chatted for a little longer about pokemon and possible training tactics before heading back to the pokemon center. Zach went straight up to his room to go to bed, planning to get an early start on his training in the morning. I settled down on one of the love seats in the lounge to read a book I'd borrowed from the library. It gave a good description of how to teach pokemon moves they don't learn naturally. I was quite startled when the weight of another person plopped down on the couch beside me. It turned out to be James, the trainer that had showed me and Joseph to the north gate.
"I heard you made it back alive, miracle girl," he said cheerily, reaching up to tug on a lock of my straight, shoulder-length black hair. "Stopping hearts and defying expectations all in one." I push his wrist away with a slight frown.
"Yes," I answered grudgingly, annoyed by his antics. I decided to try diverting him like Joey had last time he was bothering me. "Can I ask you a question?" He gave me a sunny smile.
"Ask away."
"Clyde told me that my second pokemon has to remain in stasis until I pass the D rank test. What can you tell me about it?" He looked at me consideringly. It was a question I did want an answer to, given that I'd somehow neglected to ask Zach.
"One day in as an official trainer and she's already got a second pokemon," he said, shaking his head. I raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. "Alright. Basically, you just have to schedule a meeting with the Gym Leader and show him that your starter will follow your commands. And in case you were wondering, to be eligible to take the C rank test, you need to have two trained pokemon. They both have to show that they are obedient to you, and they have to have learned two moves since you captured them. I won't tell you what the actual test is, but those are the qualifiers."
"Thank you," I said, wondering if Luca would be okay to take the test yet. For a reason that was unfathomable to me, the older boy's grin widened.
"You're smiling!" he points out gleefully. I wasn't sure if I had been smiling, but if I had been, it was certainly gone now. I did feel like I was blushing though. Fortunately for me, my face didn't show color very easily, so it wouldn't be noticeable. To my great relief, before James had the chance to say anything else, he was distracted by the approach of two familiar figures. Linda, who appeared to be pulling a begrudging Damon along behind her.
"Hi, Dahlia!" Linda chirped, pushing Damon down onto the adjacent couch before sitting down next to him. "I know we haven't really spoken much since. . . well, you know, but I figured we rookies should stick together. So, how have you been?" She smiles at me expectantly. I blink slowly.
"I've been well. How have you been?" I return politely.
"Oh, I've been fine. It's been. . . quite sad, with what happened with Joseph and S-sandy," she stumbled over her friend's name, "but there's really nothing to do but to accept it and move on with our lives," she soldiers on, looking down sadly before straightening up with renewed cheer. "Anyway, on to happier topics. What pokemon where you able to catch on your Trial? I caught an Audino, and I named her Cindy. Her training has been going quite well I think. Damon here," she nudged him playfully, and his scowl deepened in response, "caught a Larvitar. What did you name him again?"
"I didn't." Damon grunted, rolling his eyes. Linda gave a huff of exasperation before turning to me with expectant eyes. I took me several moments to realize that she was waiting for me to speak.
"I caught a Riolu. His name is Luca."
"Wow, I didn't know you caught a Riolu, Dahlia," James chimed in, leaning forward in interest. This drew Linda's attention to him.
"Oh, how rude of us. Who is this, Dahlia?" Linda asks.
"James Gracen, age sixteen and B class trainer, at your service," James supplied with a charming smile, and a pretty pink blush suffused Linda's cheeks. Somehow, it didn't clash with her vibrantly red hair. After a moment, Damon cleared his throat pointedly, snapping her out of her daze.
"Anyway," Linda said, looking a little flustered, "do you know where Zach is?" She turned her attention to me again.
"He went to bed already. He was planning on getting an early start on training tomorrow." Linda nodded thoughtfully.
"We'll just have to catch up with him sometime tomorrow." She turned an uncharacteristically shy glance to James. "As a B class trainer, you must have much more experience with pokemon than we do. What kinds of pokemon do you have?" Even Damon looked interested at this question.
"As a B rank trainer, I have six pokemon slots on my team, and I've filled five of them so far. I have a Serperior, a Scolipede, a Mienshao, an Emolga, and I just caught a Spheal on a recent mission." From there, Linda proceeded to bombard James several questions, ranging from whether he'd named his pokemon (which he hadn't) to which pokemon he thought were the cutest in the surrounding area. Damon appeared to zone out, and I slipped away unnoticed.
I walked over to the main desk to arrange a meeting with Clyde as soon as possible, since I had decided that Luca was ready to pass the D rank test. I alsowanted to get my Growlithe out of stasis as soon as possible. There were a convenient amount of openings for the very next day. Apparently more experienced trainers tended to keep the Gym Leader's time free for the rookies on the first few weeks after the Reaping. I had just finished speaking with the receptionist when a pair of warm, calloused hands dropped on my shoulders, causing me to jump. I turned around and had to crane my neck up to look at James, who I suddenly realized was much taller than me. His face was more serious than I'd seen it since he dropped me and Joseph off at the North gate.
"I really am glad that you made it back," he told me. I gave him a hesitant nod, trying for a smile. From the way he chuckled, I assumed it came out weird. He squeezed my shoulder and backed away to give me room to pass by. After doing so, I headed up to my room, trying not to dwell on what a confusing person he was. Upon entering my room, I released Luca, who stretched happily before looking to me for direction.
"This is our room," I explained to him. "It's where we'll be sleeping every night. I'll keep you out as much as you want while we're here, so long as you don't break anything or make a mess." With that said, I moved to change into my sleeping clothes. I was just about to put my sleep shirt on, when I was stopped by a light touch on my side. Luca was lightly touching one of his paws to one of the large, mottled bruises on my side, looking vaguely guilty. At that point, the bruises were almost black, with just a hint of yellowing at the edges. They'd caused me quite a bit of grief when I was running that day.
"It's okay," I told him. "They could have been healed by now, but since they're not life threatening, the nurses left them to heal naturally." I squeezed his paw lightly before continuing to get dressed for bed. When I crawled into the bed, Luca hesitantly curled up beside me. It was surprisingly easy to drift off to sleep after that, and before I knew it, I was out like a light.