I never thought I would be so glad at seeing the surface once again.
We had bumped into Nova halfway into our journey to the surface who was also desperately trying to search for us. From what we were told, their group had run into Skye and the ex-Ranger had quickly relayed to them the latest development of the situation. In the end, they made the call for Skye, Zoe, and Reed to head back to the surface first along with the captured Plasmas and rescued civvies while Nova headed deeper in her attempt to search for us.
It took a while, but the journey upwards was a lot quicker than the journey downwards because apparently this particular fellow reincarnator has a photographic memory and she easily found the way out the moment she found herself in a room that she had once came across. The events that happened from thereon were uneventful and fortunately, relatively peaceful. Long story short, we got out safely. Nobody was seriously hurt, everyone's alive.
"Thank goodness you are back, I almost decided to go down to search for you guys myself," Elesa let out a sigh of relief when she spotted us making our exit from those ruins. I simply lifted my visor to take a nice cold drink that she had helpfully passed over, quenching my thirst and cooling off from the heat. Velda and Nova waved a goodbye at me, a gesture which I returned, as they walked off and presumably went to find Skye.
"Champion-level wild volcarona inside, extremely big and powerful, very perceptive and sensitive to light movement and sound. Long story short, we nearly died back there and we might need our Champion to tame this monster if it decides to come out and go crazy. Even my hydreigon can't do shit to it."
"This is much worse from what I've heard from Skye," Elesa grimaced. "Do you think it will be coming out of there anytime soon?"
"Hard to say, although personally I feel it is quite attached to where it built its nest," I answered. "In any case, Velda brought up a valid point. We need to know if the Plasmas were here due to an unlucky coincidence or if they had knowledge that there might be volcaronas or larvestas here. If it's the latter, then this might warrant some attention."
"We will get to that, I already have people interrogating them," Elesa promised before giving me another once over. "Are you really alright?"
"Tired, yes, but otherwise fine. My other two teammates?"
"Currently doing the interrogation. The girl's a little scary with her fists and I can see a little bit of you in her. You taught her something?"
"Might have been a bad influence in more ways than one," I admitted, my mind suddenly forming the image of Zoe trying to "make friends" with the Plasmas in the same way that I did with Lukas in the cookhouse that day. That will be a sight to behold.
"I will go check on my guys, then we leave things to whoever is going to take over and call it a day," I decided after finishing the entire bottle of cold drink Elesa had offered to me. She answered with a nod.
"I will give Alder a call. He will want to know about this and if anyone can be considered to be an expert about the volcarona species, it's him," Elesa spoke as she took out her phone. "Alright, see you later bestie."
We parted as I made my way towards where I was told Zoe and Reed were interrogating the Plasmas. I doubt Reed would make a good interrogator, so it was probably Zoe doing all of the interrogating.
I was proven right.
"J-Jayce? You are alive! I thought…"
"It takes more than an oversized bug to kill me," I patted Reed on the shoulder in a poor attempt to reassure him. The skinny boy looked like he might really just break down and cry tears of joy even through the obscurity of his helmet. In some ways, he's too kind-hearted for his own good. He's not suited for this job and I do hope that he will be able to leave EDGE to seek better prospects elsewhere when he is older.
"Zoe's inside there?" I pointed to a closed tent with muffled screams and sobs occasionally coming out from it.
"Uh huh. She's, um, busy making friends. Not as good as you did though, because they are barely spilling anything."
"It's fine, I can take over from here. Will be done in a few minutes," I cracked my knuckles, stretching my neck from side to side as I prepared myself to vent some of my frustrations on that motherfucker.
Now, where is that Plasma who kicked that damn pebble twice? He's going to be my newest best friend, with immediate effect.
"Volcarona? Huh."
"It really wasn't fun," I told my old man from where we were resting in the living room playing a game of chess.
"If even a Champion would need his entire team to safely subdue it, it makes me wonder how that volcarona had escaped notice for so long. They aren't exactly known for being subtle."
"I'm guessing it was hibernating or something to that effect," I told my father about my own speculations as I moved a piece. "Last I heard from Elesa, Alder's on the case and that volcarona has been classified as a national secret on a need-to-know basis. Hopefully he can do something about it because if not, Team Plasma will."
The news I forced out of the Plasmas we captured was worrying. They really were here to capture larvestas, even assembled a specialised team for that very purpose. The only thing that threw a wrench in their plans was their untimely discovery by the Rangers on duty nearby and that there will be a volcarona present. Their intel only suggested the presence of larvestas. Even if they didn't totally write off the possibility of running into a volcarona or two, they weren't expecting to run into a volcarona that powerful.
"Come to think about it, there might be a nest somewhere nearby. Maybe the volcarona was simply trying to protect its nest," I pondered out loud because the volcarona wasn't giving chase after Velda and I disappeared down the hole her nidoqueen had dug. Yes, there might be other reasons for it not choosing to pursue, maybe it was simply lazy, but we also cannot entirely discount the possibility that the volcarona was simply trying to protect its brethren that nobody had yet encountered.
"Nest or no nest, we will have to get them to relocate. That area is too unsafe if Team Plasma now has their eyes on them. There are too many uncertain factors that can make things go sideways quickly," my father replied as he moved his own piece.
"Where to though? Some nature reserve?"
"That is not for me to decide. This is more of Marshal's expertise, so it's likely that Alder will get Marshal to be in charge of this after subduing the volcarona."
"Okay," I conceded before deciding to just come clean as I moved another chess piece. "So, are you really going to just sit here and play chess with me all day, or are you going to just tell me whatever it is that you guys are planning?"
My father simply gave me an exasperated look as if telling me that he fully expected this to happen.
"What gave it away?"
"That everybody is suddenly here at home today? And in spite of that I haven't seen neither hide nor hair of them since a few hours ago? That you are obviously stalling for time and trying to prevent me from going anywhere else with a game of chess?"
My father leaned back on his seat, crossing his legs and arms.
"Fine, if you had guessed this far then there's no point hiding it from you any longer. Yes, we are planning something."
"What's the occasion? Christmas just ended two days ago and we already celebrated that."
"You really don't know?"
"Why would I know? I'm not a mind reader."
"Then it will be nice to keep you in the dark for a little longer, just for the fun of it," my father gave an evil grin and I knew I'm not getting anything more out of him.
Our game of chess continued and when it finally ended, my father gestured for me to follow him. Finally, I got to see what everyone had been up to.
He led me towards the dining room and funnily enough, the lights were all turned off, making me unable to see a single thing inside from where I am outside. The moment my father gestured for me to step into what obviously seemed to be a trap, the lights suddenly turned themselves on. Confettis and strips of coloured paper and a whole lot of other things suddenly popped at my face.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
I stood there, stunned, covered from head to toe in said strips of coloured paper and confetti. I pulled a handful of those away from my face, spotting the entire family in there with a huge birthday cake in the middle of the table. The entire room was nicely decorated and I saw boxes of wrapped presents too.
"My… birthday?" I cannot help but ask, still trying to wrap my head around the idea of me actually having a birthday because the entire concept just seemed so foreign to me. I had never celebrated a birthday, not even once. Why celebrate something which you had never known?
"It's your birthday today, son. Two days after Christmas, the best Christmas present your mother and I ever had," my father told me with his hand on my shoulder and lightly pushed me forward. "Now go and cut that cake. Everyone spent a long time trying to bake it."
I had no idea how to react, no idea where to place my hands and no idea where to stand. A flash of light had me close my eyes reflexively and I spotted that annoying model with a camera in hand, smiling at me with that sinister grin.
"No pictures."
"What's a birthday without any pictures?" She argued and was immediately backed up by everyone else.
"Jayce! Let's take a picture together!" Iris said excitedly as she tugged at my pants and I simply gave in, allowing my family to push me around to take pictures with this and that. One moment it was me and my father, then me and Iris, then it's a cousins' picture, then with my aunts and uncles… It just goes on and on.
"This is the knife," Iris handed over a large and incredibly sharp knife that she had no business holding at her age and she pointed at the cake. "Lexus and I spent the entire morning baking it. Look, I even drew dragons on it!"
"Looks nice. Thanks, champ," I replied after seeing the squiggly lines on the cake that I could barely make out to be dragons. I saw the banner hanging on the ceiling above that says "Happy 23rd birthday!" and I suddenly realised that I am actually 23 years old this year.
I'm twenty-three this year. How surreal.
"Pictures are already taken, so just cut it already," Lexus yawned, only to let out a grunt of pain when he was pinched really hard on the waist by his sister. I shook my head with a fond sigh at the sight and walked over to my position.
Come to think about it, this is my first time cutting a birthday cake.
The knife fell and the cake was cut. Excited cheers and applause filled the room as my family said their well wishes that they gave to me from the bottom of their own heart. For once, I didn't bother to hide the fact that a tear or two had slipped out as I subtly wiped it away with the back of my hand. If my family spotted it, they didn't say anything either.
We quickly settled down to enjoy the cake after the hype had died down a little.
"Now that I think about it, we didn't fix a birthday for you," I told Iris as she eagerly devoured her portion from where she was sitting beside me. She looked up at me, whipped cream messily adorning the sides of her mouth and cheeks.
"Just fix it on the day that you found me."
"I think we met in September," I frowned and tried to recall really hard just on which day we had met in that auction house. Shit, I had already thrown away the brochure with the information about that particular auction. Which day was it? Maybe Nosy would remember?
"Maybe nineteenth?"
"Why nineteenth?"
"My name starts with I and it is the ninth alphabet, your name starts with J and it is the tenth. Ten plus nine equals to nineteen!" Iris raised her fingers and did a quick simple sum before proudly showing me the answer she arrived at. I simply ruffled her hair. As long as she is happy with it then I'm fine with it too.
"Nineteenth then. Nineteenth of September will be your birthday."
"And I want a dragon for every birthday."
"Provided you are good enough to be able to command that many."
"I will! I will be the best BEST Dragon trainer ever! Wait, does that mean that if I'm a hundred years old I will have a hundred dragons? It will be like that movie with all the dragons there at the end! That's so cool! Dragons, chaaaaaaarge!"
"That's not cool, that's scary," Lexus pointed out matter-of-factly and was immediately hit on the back of the head by his mother for that discouraging remark.
"Jayce, Jayce! You owe me dragons! I'm like… five? Five years old, maybe?" Iris pondered over the conundrum that was her actual age before deciding to not think about it for too long and instead showing me five fingers. "Then you owe me five dragons!"
"You already have Haxy, and I'm planning to give you a lapras and a druddigon the moment you pass my test. That's three dragons."
"Then two more! Two more dragons!"
"Has anyone ever told you that you are one greedy little fella?"
"Two dragons, two! Two thumbs up for two dragons!" Iris declared as she gave me two thumbs up, her thumbs obnoxiously hovering right in front of my eyes.
"Seriously champ, whose birthday is it today?"
"Yours, but it doesn't mean I cannot ask for dragons. Your birthday is over, but mine is coming soon! SOON! Nine months later! It's very soon!"
"Can somebody help me out here?" I asked and looked around the room. Everyone was either snickering or outright laughing at the comedy act that Iris and I had put up and nobody was coming to my rescue.
"If we include her birthday that is coming soon, that makes it three dragons." Mikhail coolly added while taking another bite of the slice of the cake he is eating.
"Better start thinking about which dragon it will be," Amelia chipped in with repeated nods of her head. Great, none of them are of any help at all.
"I might know of a famous dragon breeder or two, but getting that information out of me will cost you a bomb," Leticia smiled deceptively sweetly and I decided that asking her for that piece of information is the last thing that I will do.
"Or you can just give her a hundred dragons at one go and be done with it," Elesa poured more oil into the figurative fire while eating her cake in a carefree manner.
"ONE HUNDRED DRAGONS! NOW!"
"No champ, a hundred dragons is not going to happen."
"But I'm living to be a hundred years old!"
"I'm not doubting that, but that's not the point-"
"Then ONE HUNDRED DRAGONS!"
I give up. I truly gave up.
Dark Specialists win by playing dirty and using every single trick they have to cheat and win. I know that better than anyone else, but I also understand that cheating can only bring one so far. Once a Dark Specialist starts to confront trainers above a certain skill level cheats won't always work as you intend it to be. Like how I had fought Giovanni and how I had fought that impossibly powerful volcarona, there will be times where absolute strength will simply steamroll over every single strategy or trick there is. Yes, strategy and tricks will still work, but the chances of them failing will get exponentially higher for battles of such calibre.
It's the same problem my father faced in his career. It's an inevitable hurdle that every Dark Specialist will face once they start to reach the limit of their potential. There has to be a balance of mind and body. Mind, meaning the mind games we love to subject our foes to, the cheats and tricks that we Dark Specialists are so used to utilising on our enemies. Body, meaning raw physical strength and firepower that our pokemon can unleash. The majority of dark types are naturally far stronger in mind than in body and that reflects on them as a whole. This is why they are considered as part of the Mind Arts Trio. Dark Specialists are those who can adopt a dark type's mindset and use it to command their team to great effect.
Dark Masters, however, are those who have mastered both the mind and body. However, as mentioned, dark types are naturally weak in body and trying to train and build them up to match pokemon of other typings in this department is such an uphill challenge that very few ever succeed. This is why there are so few Dark Masters throughout the world's history, because the difficulty in becoming a Dark Master is simply that extreme.
But extreme or not, I have to at least try grasping that level of power for my pokemon. That volcarona incident had highlighted the glaring weakness I have as a Dark Specialist and even as unlikely as it may be, if Team Plasma has just one single trainer with a pokemon on that volcarona's level, my plans to take them down will be severely affected.
The only way for me to try and break this figurative power ceiling right now is to hurry and try and strengthen the "body" part of my team. There's simply no other way around this.
I need my team to be capable of unleashing a lot more firepower. This is an endeavour where most fellow Dark Specialists have stopped and failed. In more than 500 years of the world's history since the PWL was founded only a very few handful were ever acknowledged as Dark Masters, and without any exception they are all monsters who have managed to hone their pokemon's "mind" and "body" to the extreme. It is very, very difficult, but not impossible, so even if I am just grasping at straws here I need to at least try and take steps in reaching that goal. Even progressing by just a small baby step at our current level would allow us to better deal with Team Plasma when the time comes.
My focus was on trying to train my pokemon to increase their firepower and output, something that every single trainer in this world would know how to do. Regardless of what kind of trainer you are, this part of pokemon training is unavoidable. However, some species of pokemon will have this easier than others simply because they are born to dish out firepower.
Unfortunately, most of the members of my team do not belong to this category. I selected and trained them for the sole purpose of espionage and assassination and we trained ourselves to be deadly and lethal with absolute precision, not bombastic like artillery bombshells that create widespread destruction. If I have to compare my team to being like a sharp dagger before, now I need us to upgrade and be able to even cut through bomb shells as though we are a lightsaber. In the event that Team Plasma really does have an Elite Four or Champion level trainer in their ranks, whatever counters or strategies I have devised won't work if we don't have the firepower to pull it off.
Regardless of the reason, it is now imperative that I try to figure out a way to have my team reach a greater level of strength than we now possess. It doesn't matter how small the improvement may be, we have to be better than yesterday every single day.
"You are scaring my gym trainers, bestie. The entire building had been shaking for hours."
I glanced back, spotting Elesa striding into the training room of the gym which I had borrowed from her and had been using for these past few days. This is her own personal training room, one built to be able to withstand the power thrown about by pokemon trained by Gym Leaders. Right here, I have both the privacy and a suitable place to go all out in my training without needing to bother myself with collateral damage.
"Oh, it's you."
"Who else would it be?" Elesa surveyed the wrecked training room and let out a low appreciative whistle. "Hard at work, I see."
"No other way to get stronger. I think I have reached my skill cap as a trainer," I admitted, a little frustrated at the lack of progress thus far. I knew that there really is a good reason why so few ever managed to become a Dark Master but I never understood the meaning of that statement as deeply as I'm feeling now. Dark types simply aren't born for power, power that is needed to rise to become the undisputed top. It's too difficult trying to be something that you are not born to be.
"Giving up doesn't sound like you."
"And you know me?"
"Better than most," Elesa yawned as I signalled my team to take a short break from the training. They had been hard at it for hours.
"I thought you said that you are always busy," I said as I took a seat at the side nearby and took a gulp of water from my bottle. Elesa put a finger to her chin in thought.
"That's true, but it's been a long time since I have to really push myself for real. Gotta keep myself in shape, prepare for our confrontation with Team Plasma and all that jazz. So I was thinking, since you need a training partner and I need to let my pokemon maintain their figures, why don't we have a little spar?"
"Are you for real?" I asked, not too sure if this would be a good idea because although I may not possess the firepower of a Gym Leader, my skills are definitely on their level. I'm honestly not too sure if this building will hold if the both of us were to really go all out.
"When a trainer's skill eventually reaches to our level it becomes increasingly hard to find a decent training partner. Even if you do find one, you soon quickly adapt to their battling style and sparring with them just creates diminishing returns. Since you don't know how I fight and I don't know how you fight, I'd say that at this moment we are the perfect sparring besties for each other. My only other option is to teleport to Mistralton and get Skyla to spar with me, but we are so familiar with each other's battling style by now that it wouldn't produce any useful results for any training sessions between us."
"That does make sense, but…" I looked around the wrecked room. "Will this place really hold?"
"It will. If it doesn't, I'm suing the construction company that built it."
"I don't think that's the point here."
"Stop being so wishy washy, do you want to battle or not? Yes or no?" Elesa complained loudly as she took her position at one end of the training ground and released her main team out for battle. I sighed, stood up, and took my position at the other end as my team prepared for a battle as well.
"Should I reward you with my badge if you beat me?" Elesa cheekily grinned and I rolled my eyes in answer.
"Whatever the hell do I need your badge for?"
"A keepsake? It's part of the formality? A proof of your strength? So that you can then boast to others that you are now a two badge trainer instead of a one badge?"
"I thought all Elite level challenges have to take place on the catwalk?"
"Oh, you reminded me. You are absolutely right, let's move ourselves-"
"Forget it. Forget I ever said that, let's just do it here."
Elesa's reply was an infuriating smug grin that I really want to wipe off her face.
"I'm warning you, bestie. I'm not the strongest but I can be really nasty. Prepare to be dazzled until you are numb."
"I will show you nasty."
"Ooooh, scary. At the count of three. Three, two, one-"
Our pokemon leapt into action as soon as the countdown was completed. As expected, Elesa's pokemon had immediately tried paralysing us with Thunder Waves. This was why the first command I gave was to instruct ninetales to set up a Safeguard to protect us from harm.
"Bestie, if you think a Safeguard can save you, think again."
Her words were like warning bells ringing loud and clear. I quickly instructed my team to pull back right after she said that and to our surprise, the Thunder Waves fired by her electric types were somehow able to penetrate the Safeguard.
"What the hell?"
"Why is that so surprising? Got to have a few tricks up my sleeves to be considered good enough to be a Gym Leader. Go, Shock Wave!"
"Strike it down! Dark Pulse!"
Light met darkness as the power unleashed by our pokemon clashed, making the entire building tremble along with it. I know that when the pokemon world is now real and fiction is now reality, I cannot assume that certain things from the games in my previous life will necessarily hold true here. In this world, if the difference of power is huge enough certain rules that are seemingly absolute can be broken. The defensive move, Protect, for example, is a near perfect and invincible shield that could not be broken under most circumstances. The only exception is when the attack that is trying to break the shield of Protect is so powerful that it overwhelms the defensive power of the shield entirely, causing Protect to break and fail. However, in reality, that is often impossible to achieve because Protect is just that perfect of a move and it is very rare to pit two pokemon of such disparity in strength in a battle. Breaking such "rules'' is not impossible, just rarely encountered due to the very specific prerequisites needed to achieve it.
That was probably what happened in the interaction between Elesa's Thunder Wave and my Safeguard. Thunder Wave is a weak and basic move that serves no other purpose than to inflict paralysis on its targets when struck, but her electric types were so good in the move that it could break through seemingly absolute protection like Safeguard even when the move was casted by a pokemon on ninetales' level. That is very impressive. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if she's currently the only living trainer who succeeded in this endeavour.
The end result was that my pokemon was forced to be constantly on the evasive or to keep finding ways to destroy those erratic arcs of electricity before they could be struck. If we were struck by those Thunder Waves even once, we are definitely done for. We were forced to be able to constantly return fire because destroying the numerous arcs of Thunder Waves before it reaches us is the only surefire way to keep us safe from its devastating effects. The number of Thunder Waves her electric types released each second were countless, and I could see why she was able to hold onto her seat of position for as long as she did because if even Safeguard had proved to be useless against her electric types, then how on earth are you supposed to deal with all those Thunder Waves short of becoming a Ground Specialist of her skill level? Being struck by just one of her Thunder Waves is not a laughing matter either because it won't just be a mere sting. Even my hydreigon will be having problems trying to move properly after getting hit by those. That's just how good her pokemon's expertise with Thunder Wave is.
Just about a minute into the battle and I realised that there was only one possible method to defeat her. Fighting defensively obviously won't work against her because there is nothing much we can use to defend against an entire storm of electricity constantly raining down on us. The only way left is to match her firepower with ours, to destroy each and every of her lightning arcs before they reach us and paralysed us. Adopting such a method has its risks because it tires my pokemon out faster than it tires hers and the moment our stamina is depleted we are all ripe for the picking.
However, that was just what we were training for. We are training our "body", to be able to keep dishing out the required firepower for the plans we had cooked up with our "mind" to work. Our "mind" is already sharp enough, we just have to train our "body" to be capable of keeping up with it and what is better than to keep forcing ourselves to keep going at full throttle for as long as we could?
She really is the best training partner I can ask for right now. While it may very well put us in a losing battle of attrition and playing right into your opponent's hands goes against everything a Dark Specialist should do, I might as well play the game by her rules and see where it takes us.
My instructions changed and my pokemon reacted to my new set of commands just as eagerly, aching for the chance to truly go all out and test the limits of their potential. Beams of dark energies regularly clashed with pulses of lightning and the entire battle simply became a straightforward exchange of blows as our pokemon positioned themselves at opposite ends and kept trying their best to outdo the other in terms of firepower and stamina. Whoever tires first will lose, whoever is running out of steam in their attacks will lose. If we want to win we have to be capable of keeping going at full strength far longer than our opponents.
And of course, I lost. I called the match in my defeat the moment Elesa's electric types managed to overwhelm us with a huge surge of Thunder Waves that nearly blinded my eyes and paralysed my entire team. There was no need to continue the match after that. Even hydreigon was spasming uncontrollably on the ground and I had never seen him being so badly affected by paralysis before.
"I win~"
"Yes yes, rub it in while you can," I indulged in her childish tendencies and recalled my pokemon back to their pokeballs, thanking them for a job well done. That annoying woman was still prancing about in childish glee with her pokemon.
If I want to be petty I would argue that if it wasn't for the fact that my pokemon was already worn out from all the training we had done earlier, there's no guarantee that she would win that battle but a battle is a battle. I had agreed to battle with my pokemon in that exhausted state and I lost, there's no excuse for that.
"Not bad, not bad, it's been a looooong time since I could get such a nice workout in my gym," Elesa stretched herself with her arms high up into the air that was playfully mimicked by her pokemon, that very action emphasising her excellent figure that the whole of Unova is crazy about. "Geddit? Workout and gym? Geddit?"
"The only thing I get is that your puns are atrocious."
"At least I'm not a boring brick like you," Elesa slapped me lightly on the arm and took out her phone, holding it up in various ways to get the perfect angle for another of her selfies. "Hmm, it's been a long time since I had a status update and I think my fans are starting to get a little concerned-"
"Take a picture of me and I will personally delete every single social media account you ever own," I warned when I spotted myself within the frame of her phone screen. She shot me a look that told me how much I had rained on her parade before angling her phone's camera away from me to capture her face and her pokemon's instead. Satisfied with her handiwork, she walked up to me and under my distrustful gaze, sling an arm around my shoulder and tried to take a selfie with me.
"I said-"
"Relax, I'm not going to post this, just sharing it with the family in the group chat. We don't have many pictures of you at all," Elesa assured me but I don't feel assured in the slightest. Still, there really was nothing I could do when all of my pokemon were paralysed for the next hour, leaving me defenceless to her whims as she dragged me around the training room to get the "best angle" and "best lighting".
"Smile~ Can you smile? SMILE~ Hey, have your face muscles atrophied or something? Do you know the meaning of smile? S, M, I, L, E Smile? Ever heard of it? Gosh, even a brick has more emotions than you!"
"Are we done?" I asked exasperatedly, wishing for nothing but to get out of this selfie hell. Oh great, I just remembered, she has also corrupted Iris with her love of selfies. I can only imagine the kind of things my little champ will drag me along to do with her when she grows up and she starts to concern herself over her appearance.
This annoying model is really a bad influence.
"No no no, not until I get you to smile," Elesa put her foot down firmly as her electric types outright snickered at me. I simply stood there with her arms crossed, letting her do whatever she wants to do because I know the fastest way to get out of this torture is to cooperate with her.
So, I said and did nothing when she got behind me, tried jumping onto my back such that her face is now resting on my shoulder, and then use one of her hands to pull at my cheek until my lips were curving upwards in an ugly smile while trying to take a selfie with me with her other hand.
There, at least we are now done.
"Hey, we are not done yet."
Or not
She pulled on my shirt before I could walk away and I didn't bother to hide my loud and exasperated sigh.
"What now?"
"Help me take a picture! Need to show the world that the dazzling supermodel Elesa is hard at work today. Hmm, let's try that corner over there."
"There," I returned her phone after I took a shot of her with it, only for my picture to be swiftly rejected.
"Fail. Try again."
I looked at the photo I took once more. I will admit that it is not the best, but it's okay.
"You are just screwing with me now, aren't you?"
"Screwing with you? Now look here, bestie, take a good look at your finished product. See this? See this picture? Lighting, bad. Angle, bad. Proportion, bad. Three strikes in a row, you are out."
"Go edit your photo with photo filters or something."
Elesa, however, was not planning on letting me go.
"My photos are edit-free. It's my trademark," she argued as she passed her phone back over to me. "I'm not letting you go today until I train you to be a decent photographer. Don't tell me that an undercover spy and Rocket Executive is incapable of taking a single decent photo. Not even one?"
She pulled me to a spot where she thought was the optimal position to take a photo of her in the corner of the training room that she wanted.
"Now stand here. Yes, here. Now bring up the phone… Yes, see this? The lighting is coming from this angle so you have to take advantage of it by tilting the camera in this… Yes, this way. Now you get it. Okay, now bend down until… Okay, this much should be fine. Just don't move until I get into position. Don't move."
"Just hurry," I gritted my teeth, feeling very uncomfortable with how she made me bend and twist my body down in an uncomfortable position that was straining all of my leg and abdominal muscles just to make sure I don't fall face first into the ground. In my entire spy career there was a very good reason why I never chose to work under the pretence of a photographer. I know I'm bad at photography, certain things don't need to be pointed out.
She finally got into her spot and struck a pose.
"I'm ready!"
I clicked on the button, making sure that my hands were steady so that the picture doesn't come out blurry. Fortunately, the final product managed to meet her demands. Unfortunately, she now wants my opinion on which photo looks better and is strong-arming me to help select the better looking photos for her.
"This and this, no good. How about this?"
"It all looks the same to me. It's just you and the wall."
"No taste at all," Elesa commented from where we were sitting side by side at the corner of the training room, forcing me to browse through the photos in her photo gallery one by one.
"I think you can use the selfie you took with your pokemon. Your pokemon are all smiles, so you might be able to use it to sway the public's opinions away from the Plasma's ideologies that pokemon are not meant for battles. As for your own individual picture… They really look all the same to me."
"Just pick one."
"Fine. This one," I randomly pointed to one picture she took with the wall of the training room as the backdrop. To me, this picture was just like a carbon copy of several other similar pictures and I really cannot tell the difference of this one from the others but she kept saying that all of them are different and that I have to pick one best picture then whatever, she's right and I'm wrong. I'm just going to pick the first one that caught my eye.
"Hmmm… Okay then, this one," Elesa agreed and snatched her phone back from my hands, immediately logging into her social media account to post the two pictures I had taken from her.
"What would be the caption for today? Hmm… Watt do you guys think I'm up to today? No, it doesn't have that oomph I need… I think I might have a bright idea? Eh, sounds lame. How about… I will get a charge out of you? Too short, no impact-"
"Your puns suck," I cannot help but emphasise it to her when she kept assaulting my ears with her horrible puns. It sucks, period.
"My puns suck? I'm sure you have a good one then, bestie. Dazzle me," Elesa challenged and shoved her phone back into my hands. I looked at her, eyebrows raised and she looked back in challenge, daring me to go through with my words and prove her wrong.
Fine then.
My fingers quickly typed through her phone's virtual keyboard, inputting a punny caption that she so desperately needs and hit the post button before she could say or do anything.
"Hey! Don't post it without my permission! I haven't even checked it yet!"
"Definitely better than whatever lame puns you are thinking of," I argued and showed her the punny caption that I typed for her as she read it out loud.
"Finally managed to get rid of the electrical charge I've been carrying today! I'm ex-static!... This… This is actually… not too bad… Hey! You can be my pun consultant from today onwards! I'm counting on you to get me more fans, bestie! You really are the best!"
"No, I'm not the best, you just suck," I pointed out as a matter of fact and watched as her phone started to be flooded with notifications just seconds after I had posted the post for her. Is this the influence of a world-renowned supermodel?
Annoyed by the influx of notifications, I simply tapped on the home button of her phone to minimise all the apps, only to stare in curiosity at the picture she used as her wallpaper.
"Oh that's us when we were much, much younger. See? Amelia was still so young, I think she was only just a few years old."
That picture I saw was a picture of younger versions of Elesa and my cousins taking a picture together at a beach, happy and innocent smiles adorning their faces. Some of them were easy to recognise, like Leticia and Lexus due to their eye colour. It took me a while to recognise the younger ones like Amelia because she was just so young when this photo was taken.
"And this…"
"Your younger brother, Asher."
I stared at the younger version of my brother in the photo. He does resemble a lot more of our father than I do. If he was still alive, what kind of relationship would we have? What would we have done together?
I wouldn't know.
"And that is you?"
I couldn't recognise Elesa immediately if it wasn't for her electric blue eyes. Her hair colour was nothing like what it is now. Right now, her hair is a shade of yellow, but in the picture it was a dark black like most members of my family.
"Yellow is not my natural hair colour, black is. I only dyed it yellow after I became a Gym Leader to match the electric motif. I mean, come on, take a look at the haircolour of all the Electric Specialist Gym Leaders in recent history. Lt. Surge, Clemont, Volkner, they are all born with natural yellow hair, like they were born to be an Electric Specialist and I'm really jealous of that. Even Wattson, he has white hair now because of old age but when he was younger his hair was also yellow. And then I thought, why am I the only one who doesn't have yellow hair? So I dyed my hair yellow too. Like this, all of us electric Gym Leaders have matching yellow hair. Perfect."
"What a lame reason."
"You have a problem with that?"
"No, but basically, you FOMO."
"FOMO?"
"Fear of missing out. I think that is a psychological problem that needs to get checked. There might be something wrong with you up there," I tapped the side of my head with a finger towards the end of my sentence for emphasis.
"If anyone needs to get checked it's you, you darn brick. I heavily suspect your facial muscles have atrophied and that is a really serious problem."
"This is a pointless conversation."
"No, it's not pointless. Think about it, if your facial muscles have atrophied, who knows where else you have atrophied."
"Are you picking a fight with me, woman?"
"Am I? Of course I am! When else will be a better time to pick a fight with you when all of your pokemon are paralysed?" Elesa cheekily wagged her eyebrows at me as she said that and I could feel the annoyance building up inside me. "But… think about it. If your muscles start to atrophy starting from the face and the atrophies start to spread downwards..."
"I may play dirty, but at least I'm not dirty-minded like you are."
"What are you talking about? I was referring to your legs! Tsk tsk, what are you thinking?"
"How I just met the human incarnation of a headache. Coincidentally, that human has yellow hair."
"How can you say that of me, bestie? I'm so hurt!" Elesa blinked her eyes exaggeratedly, her face looking as if she has been hurt by the worst humanity has to offer.
"What are you talking about? You are not the only one with yellow hair, but since you so readily volunteered to be a candidate then… Yeah, that's you. The human version of a headache."
"Are you picking a fight with me? Because I will remind you that you had just lost to me."
"You picked a fight when my pokemon was already exhausted. Of course you would win."
"A fight is a fight, bestie. Don't be a sore loser."
"You better remember these words you just said, because I'm returning them to you the next time we battle."
"Oooooh, a challenge! What am I going to do I'm so scared~" Elesa sing-songed before flipping a small shiny object with her thumb in my direction which I caught and took a closer look at.
"The Bolt Badge?"
"Now you are officially a two badge trainer. Yay."
"You cannot stack the count of the number of badges if they are from different regions."
"Don't sweat the details, a badge is a badge," Elesa dismissed my words with a casual wave. "Considering the fact that you didn't bother to find us the moment you reached Unova, the volcarona incident and who knows what else in the future… I figured since you have a tendency to go missing all the time, I took the liberty of installing a tracker in it too, so that someone can go save your sorry ass the next time you tried and do something stupid all on your own and tried pulling the vanishing act. Pin the badge on somewhere or something that will be with you at all times. Just don't lose it, bestie, or I will be really mad."
I immediately exited the training room.
"Where's the nearest bin? I'm going to chuck-"
"Jayce Dandolos! You-! Don't you dare throw my badge into the bin! GET BACK HERE!"
Name: Jayce Dandolos
Age: 23
Pokemon Team:
1. Ninetales, female
2. Exeggutor, male
3. Weavile, male
4. Honchkrow, female
5. Umbreon, male
6. Hydreigon, male
7. Drapion, female
8. Zoroark, male
9. Bisharp, male
10. Shiftry, male
11. Porygon-Z, (Nosy), genderless
12. Greninja, male
13. Spiritomb, male
14. Pikachu, (Grumpy), male
Name: Elesa Euclid
Age: 23
Pokemon Team:
1. Zebstrika (Dazzle)
2. Emolga (Mimi)
3. Emolga (Nana)
4. Ampharos
5. Galvantula
6. Eelektross
7. Stunfisk
8. Luxray
9. Dedenne
10. Alolan Raichu
11. Jolteon
Name: Iris
Age: 5
Pokemon Team:
1. Haxorus, (Haxy), male
