Chapter 10: The Aquatic World

"No."

"Please? You said anything…"

Two days. Two full days and this was the best she could come up with.

"You do realize you could learn how to do that back home, right?" Bryce said, an eyebrow raised.

"Maybe if I was a Bellossom." Violet huffed, arms crossed against her chest. "Lucario aren't supposed to be interested in any sort of art that isn't combat."

Rather than discuss the idea of what 'art' meant in the Pokemon world, the human decided on attempting to push that interest onto someone else. "Couldn't you just ask about learning how to dance to the scientists when you get home? Surely they could get you in touch with someone." It was the least they could do for someone willing to travel to another world for them. "Besides, I'm no dancer."

"Aww, afraid of embarrassing yourself?"

Partially, but more importantly, "no, but I am afraid that I'm going to fall because my balance is terrible." And when someone tall with long arms falls, they're definitely going to take someone down with them.

"Then I'll catch you." Violet replied simply.

Bryce didn't doubt that she could support his weight. Even if she had a smaller frame than he did, she could probably lift him with ease if she needed to.

"Couldn't just think of me teaching you something that I knew how to do, huh? At least I'd be capable of teaching you to swim." He mused, remembering that he'd done several laps in the backyard pool yesterday.

Normally Violet jumped at the chance to be outside. It made sense: most Pokemon that didn't belong to a trainer wouldn't be used to staying inside. Even then, a little sun would do anyone good. But yesterday was the first time Bryce was out there without her tagging along.

"I'll pass on swimming, thanks." She replied, her right arm crossing to hold her left, just around the elbow.

Hmm. He'd seen that tell before...yesterday night, in fact. Just as Bryce had finished working on Violet's eventual room for the day, he got to work on making dinner for the two of them. That dinner had been the first one completely devoid of any meat and Violet had been hesitant to try it.

"There's not much to be scared of in a pool, you know. You can easily see the bottom and there's not going to be any other Pokemon or something that'll jump out at you."

"I'm not scared."

The human smirked, reclining back in his chair a bit. "Sounds like something that someone who's scared would say. I know rock and ground-types don't usually like water, is that true for steel types too?" Steel was heavy after all.

A moment of silence went by.

"...how do you do that?" Violet said, giving a small sigh as her gaze went to the floor.

Bryce could have responded, told her that cynical people were pretty good at observing others and drawing conclusions, but he didn't want her to feel bad. The conversation about swimming was mostly just to distract her from having him teach her how to dance.

"You've got a few tells. Or maybe your aura reading ability is starting to rub off on me." He paused. "But if you do want to learn, I'll be right there with you. You decided to be an ambassador to your universe and risk some really dangerous fates. If you can do that, what can't you do, V?"

Finally, she looked up at him...and even though Bryce wasn't one to look others in the eye, in the moment their gazes made contact, he could see a swirl of emotions running through her. Fear, insecurity in her thoughts, hopefulness.

During the last two days, Bryce had finally started to get used to having to spend most of his time in close proximity to someone else. Sure, school had as many desks crammed together in a room as possible, but they'd be focusing on their phones, the teacher, looking out the window...pretty much anything that wasn't him. But with Violet, it was existing together, not just near each other for an hour at a time. He stood, taking one of her paws in his hand.

"I'm with you, alright?" He said softly, giving her palm a soft squeeze. "Pretty sure if we couldn't stand each other, we'd know by now."

Her body shook softly. A split second went by where Bryce thought he'd have to deal with a crying Pokemon, but it quickly dissipated as she looked at him, rolling her eyes as she continued to giggle. Her smile grew, as if it were attempting to make the human join in.

He settled on pulling her into a hug instead.

As Violet gave a soft squeak of surprise, he thought over the idea once more. Dancing sounded like a way to make him look like an idiot, but there was only one person who was going to potentially see that idiocy would be right there with him. If it were anyone else, no way. Since it was Violet...he could try. The more they were around each other, the more he'd come to the conclusion that he liked having her close.

"So…?"

He could feel her smiling, even as she playfully nuzzled his neck.

"Mm?" He replied.

"If you've got enough courage to drag an unconscious alien home and take care of it for a week, what can't you do?"

Curses, he shouldn't have told her about that book. Using someone's own weapon against them?

"Don't call yourself an 'it', V." He pulled back from the hug, giving her a boop on the nose. "Fine. You're lucky you're cute."

Oops.

"C-Cute? I'm not cute!" She huffed, crossing her arms and blushing.

Well, when in doubt...fake it until you make it.

"Pretty, then?" He offered.

Her blush remained, but she said nothing. Not exactly like he was a fair judge; he had no idea of what Pokemon considered 'pretty'. Physical features aside, Violet did have a pretty heart, anyone could see that. He mulled it over. Maybe 'pretty' wasn't the right word. A commanding heart, one that had a power to push others to be better through herself. If no Pokemon had seen it before, either they weren't capable of seeing anything, or maybe she hadn't been given the chance to shine like this.

"S-Stop, you're making me blush…!" She huffed, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Wow, she was bright red.

"Well you don't have to read my thoughts." He countered, sticking out his tongue.

"I know...but sometimes, if a thought is strong enough…" She trailed off.

"...it just sort of projects itself to you regardless if you're looking for it. I see." He finished.

Her nodding was enough confirmation for him. Well, that might come in handy if someone ever got close to discovering her. All he'd have to do is try and project the thought of Violet hiding. Hopefully that would be something they'd never need.

Violet took a deep breath. "Okay...okay, if you're willing to teach me how to swim, I'll try."

Bryce blinked. "We can do dancing first, if you want. It was your decision, after all."

"I'm sure." Violet responded, though she hardly sounded sure. "If you're really worried about looking silly, I can embarrass myself first."

As if he could talk about not being embarrassed after calling a Pokemon cute right to their face. "Alright, I'll get changed. Only for a bit though, alright? I don't want to exhaust you mentally after just one afternoon."

She appeared to consider telling Bryce that she was totally fine. Lucario practiced mental clarity on a daily basis, after all. Instead, Violet merely nodded. Bryce opened one of the top drawers of his dresser, pulling out some swim trunks as he wordlessly headed into the bathroom to change. As he pulled on the black and blue board shorts, he idly mulled over the steps of teaching someone to swim. He'd known how to do it since he was only a few years old, and it was one of the few things that came naturally to him.

Moments later, Bryce emerged from the bathroom, grabbing a few towels from the nearby hall closet. He then returned to his room, where Violet was idly listening to music. She sat up as he entered, her head tilted a bit to the side. Suddenly he realized that Violet hadn't seen him shirtless, and probably not any human without a shirt in her own world, either.

"Not much to look at, I'm afraid." He joked. Sure, it wasn't as if he ate only junk food, but all he did was walk at night a few times a week. The result was a flat chest and little more. Regardless, he could see her wanting to ask something. "Go ahead, you're here to study us after all."

Violet continued to debate asking, but eventually the question slipped loose. "Human males have nipples?" She was so embarrassed after asking, Violet couldn't even look at him.

"Yep." He answered back simply, not the least bit perturbed. "Totally useless too. If I remember correctly, all embryos start as female before they eventually grow into a male or female baby. I think it's just one of those things that develop before that, so both genders have them."

"Oh." She said, a bit higher pitched than usual. "And that's not...embarrassing?"

He shrugged. "Not really. It's not as if I had any say in the matter. Anyway, I'm ready if you are."

Violet nodded, taking the single earpiece she was wearing in her ear and setting it on the bed with the rest of the music player. Bryce gave a quick scratch behind Shadow's ear as he lazed about on the computer chair, and the two headed out of the room, down the corridor that led to the backyard. As expected, their routine of checking for any prying eyes came up empty. Now that summer was truly in swing, several of the neighborhood residents weren't even in town. It was nice knowing their odds of being spotted were lower, but Bryce wasn't about to let his guard down.

As they neared the pool, he could feel the nervousness coming off of Violet. "You'll be fine." He reassured her, "I'm pretty sure your bosses wouldn't be happy if I intentionally let their ambassador drown." He joked.

She gave a weak laugh back. Okay, maybe not the wisest idea to kid around about that notion.

"The water's only a few feet deep in the shallow end, okay? You'll easily be able to stand."

Violet's reaction seemed to be better. She gave a soft sigh, calming her nerves as best she could. Bryce set the towels a few feet away, forgoing the normal dive into the deep end and instead simply taking the steps down into the cool, clear water. Turning to face her, he carefully held out a hand.

"We'll just start with standing in the water, alright? Part of swimming is being comfortable with being in water that's deeper than what you'd bathe in."

It took a few moments, but Violet slowly reached for his hand, giving it a soft squeeze as she stepped down onto the first section of underwater concrete. He said nothing, letting her take as much time as she possibly needed. Since she was only a bit shorter than he was, it was easy to use how deep he was as a gauge to know how far each step would take her. Each step further, her eyes would shrink just a bit, as if she expected the steps to be a mirage that would have her fall straight through. The moment her paws hit solid ground, that fear would disappear, reemerging again and cycling until she was standing right next to Bryce. Violet finally took her eyes off the water and looked back at him, still holding onto his hand.

"Still okay?" He asked, softly.

"Mhm…" She replied, letting go of a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"Good. We'll stay like this for a bit, let you get used to it." He paused. "What's the deepest you've been in water, by the way?"

Bryce figured talking to her would, if nothing else, take her mind off of her fear. He wasn't entirely off base, either.

"Probably about half this deep. There's a waterfall near my home that comes out from the side of a cliff and then runs off into a river."

"Something deep enough for a bath, at least." He mused, seeing her nod. "Have any practice getting your face completely underwater?"

To someone who enjoyed swimming and had for years, Bryce figured that would seem more scary than simply standing in deep water...well, deep for someone who didn't swim. Much to his surprise though, she nodded.

"A lot of us just splash water on their face, but it doesn't really work as well as dipping my head in to get clean." She gave a sheepish grin.

"Makes sense to me." He agreed. "So you're used to that. That's good. You don't really need to have much of your head underwater when swimming, or any, if that's more comfortable. Humans are mostly made up of water and the air in our lungs help us float, plus our body fat being less dense than water."

No wonder his teachers didn't worry much about him. If he could remember that much of a science lesson, it just went to show his grades were plenty fine. With school, as long as you were getting good grades and not doing something drastically stupid or unsafe, they'd move you along to the next grade without a fuss.

"How about Pokemon? If you know, that is." He paused. "I'd guess it'd be more about what Pokemon you are."

"I guess so...I'm not totally sure, actually. They'd always planned to send us to worlds that exhibited enough types of land and terrain that most Pokemon could survive, so I wasn't too worried about swimming."

Bryce nodded, mulling the thought over. Hopefully that light that dropped her off was also set to not drop her into a lake or any other surfaces that would be considered 'unsafe'. An ambassadorial sacrifice to a volcano sounded deeply unpleasant.

"Okay...what's next?" Her voice was a touch shaky, but confident enough to at least talk through what the following step would be.

"Just one other thing for right now. I'm gonna take you over to the deep end, and we'll hold onto the side of the pool. Nothing else, no letting go, just getting used to having your feet not touch the bottom."

Violet gave a slow nod, the two still holding hands as they walked over to the side of the pool, each using their free hand to hold onto the side. Bryce was hardly worried about a Lucario, of all Pokemon, not having enough arm strength to hold their body weight up, but it couldn't hurt to make her feel a bit more comfortable. "If it gets difficult to hold yourself up, just gently kick your legs back and forth at about the pace you'd walk. I'll be right next to you the entire time, too."

Idly he also considered mentioning she may want to hold on with both paws, but decided against it. They both walked along the inside of the perimeter, water slowly rising until they reached the proper dropoff. Bryce gently kicked off the last of the ground he could reach with his feet just enough to get himself floating as he held onto the side of the pool. Violet did the same, her grip tightening on his hand just a bit as the initial push off the ground ended...and thankfully, she started to float a bit as well.

They stayed at that exact location, in case Violet needed to be able to touch the bottom of the pool again. It would be just a small step to the side. It did make Bryce wonder though, body composition aside...maybe it was only if a steel-type was pure steel-type that it would have problems with water? Or just Pokemon that were type weak to water?

"T-This isn't so bad…" Violet mused, looking over at her instructor with a small smile.

"Yeah, not too bad." He repeated, thankful that she was finding this easier than either of them expected.

The pair rested there for a few moments, Violet's grip on Bryce's hand and the side of the pool relaxing as she got more and more used to the first step of swimming. She seemed to be thinking about how the rest of the process would go, when the time came to swim around properly, which left Bryce to his own thoughts for a few minutes.

Right now, the idea buzzing around in his head was what, exactly, had the plan been if their research had been wrong about earth having enough land, or if Violet had landed in water. She'd been unconscious when first arriving here. Sure, if it had been the exact same location, he probably would have looked into the water, then jumped in to save her. Maybe.

No, he would have. He didn't leave her to end up on the five o'clock news or dissected on a lab table, and he wouldn't have left her to die in that situation, either. Maybe Bryce was starting to realize how much he appreciated Violet around.

"Ready to hop out for a bit?" He asked.

"Sure." She responded in kind, the two of them working their way back to the shallow end.

It might be a strange experience, but if he had to give up all the years of boredom and indifference to give up time with her? Bryce wouldn't change how it turned out, because this experience was hardly boring. If anything, it was fun...and a welcome change.

They had been back in shallow water for a few moments now. Violet turned to him with a small blush and a wide grin. Bryce was about to ask what was up, then remembered.

"Oh. Right."

So much for being careful. Violet quickly pulled him into a tight hug, craning her head to smile up at him.

"I wouldn't change it, either." She said, warmly.

For someone who prided themselves on coming back with a joke or witty remark, Bryce found himself unable to answer. He just returned the eye contact for a few moments-which felt like a lifetime for him-before looking away for a moment.

It was barely noticeable, but he gave a small smile all the same.

Author's Notes: Well, that took more than a hot minute, didn't it? Well, that's the joys of illness. I think it was a spider bite, but my arm was numb and tingling for three days. Then I caught a cold and cough. Still have the cough and that was 3 weeks ago. Good thing I wasn't working too many shifts, right? ...whatdya mean, 'over 70 hours a week is too much'? Well we didn't have anyone else free right? ...wait, whatdya mean our schedule gave himself six days off and also a three day weekend this week? (That's not surprising at all actually, don't let people schedule their own hours unless it's only their own hours that don't affect everyone else.)

The good news is that someone gave me an actually good life hack for once that I've been using to add little notes and reminders about the story, like things I want to add in the future. If you use discord, make yourself a server and treat each channel like a tab and title it whatever you need (writing ideas, shopping list, gaming stuff, etc) and then just type notes to yourself. Then you can edit or delete them whenever and don't have to use paper and a pen/pencil. As long as you've got it on a laptop or your phone, it's always around. Very handy.

It actually helped me figure out what I want to do with one of the main characters appearing later in the story. For the life of me, I had no idea what to do with him, but now I've got their arc set up in that notebook of sorts, hooray!

I hope you've all been doing well, as well, now that summer has certainly made its way upon us. I figured it'd be fitting to have a chapter about a big summer thing, particularly where it gets very hot. There's some good allusions in this chapter that, once again, I didn't really think of until writing this chapter. Maybe I'll do a TVTropes page or something in that style to point all of those out at some point.

It's actually quite common for many people to not know how to swim. For one, if you don't live near a coast, you typically don't ever have to even remotely worry about being in a position where you'll have to know. I personally love it, even if there's not a lot of places around my current location where I can do so. Alas. But if Violet's here for experiences, some of those experiences will likely involve conquering fears. And really, aren't we all working on life experiences that sometimes require the same thing of us?

Comments are always appreciated, and remember to be a lifelong learner. Books, people, experiences, everything out there has something that it can teach you. -Delta