Pewter City XVI

"I'm almost gonna miss the ponyta," Lily said, smiling widely as she patted one of the aforementioned pokemon on the back after picking out its hooves. "Almost, but this is a little more work than I really want to do, honestly. Besides, most of it is not really spending time with the pokemon, which is the good part."

"I mean, Arnold's company is good too," Pierce pointed out, groaning as he stood up and stretched his back. "All done here, buddy," he said then, palming the back of the rapidash he'd been working with. "And good luck with the lady," he added with a grin, getting a somewhat confident and somewhat nervous neigh from the pokemon.

He'd watched the rapidash try to… "court" another one ever since the first day he worked at Arnold's ranch. He wasn't sure that was the right word for it, but it was the first one he could think of, at least. Thus, he watched intently as the pokemon approached the aforementioned female and waited. He really wanted him to succeed, especially while he was still there to see it. All things considered… Well, he didn't know if he'd visit the place again anytime soon, after all.

"You think today will be the day?" Lily asked, standing next to him. To that, Pierce shrugged. "Very eloquent, my slightly uneducated friend."

"I know, right?" he said, rolling his eyes. "Now, let's go get these fire types their food, yeah? I swear, there's a ponyta that eats as much as Root and Talon-"

"It was one time, for fu-"

"So, I think we should go before they start eating each other, yeah?" he finished, ignoring her protests with a grin. "Then we can check on Arnold. Old guy might have fallen asleep on a chair somewhere."

"I'll have you know I'm very much awake, brat," the old guy in question said, making both Lily and Pierce turn to look at him. "And there's still plenty of work to do, I'll have you know. Now, get moving would you?"

"One of those days, huh?" Pierce mumbled to himself as they followed the man towards the pokemon feeders. Idly, as they continued working, however, he noticed that Arnold seemed somewhat distracted. That might have been the reason why he was so… irritable, or some variation of that.

"Brat," the old man called while they were replacing the bedding for the pokemon. "What did you say your name was?" he asked, drawing a blink from Pierce as the younger man traded a look with Lily.

"Pierce Lawson," he answered the question with an awkward smile. "Everything ok, old man? You've been paying me for all the days I worked here. A little weird that you don't remember my name, don't you think?"

"Shut up," Arnold told him, huffing. "I was just making sure. I… It doesn't matter."

"Ok…?" Pierce mumbled as his employer walked away, leaving him feeling very confused. 'What's up with that?' he thought to himself. Then he turned to look out of the window. Out there, in the open space of the ranch, Narcissa flew around, practicing some moves. However, he'd made it clear that she was to take things easy, since they would be doing more proper training after the job was done. Besides that, he glanced towards the herd of fire types. "Nice," he commented then, eyes widening a little as he grinned widely.

"He did it!" Lily celebrated as she came to stand next to him and looked on at the rapidash couple walking next to each other, very closely. He was no ponyta-line expert like Arnold, but Pierce was fairly sure that meant the hopeful fire type had finally succeeded. "This is amazing, you think there might be a little one around the next time we come here?"

"I imagine so?" Pierce replied uncertain. "Gonna stick around for that long, huh?"

"Of course, I'm sure we'll have lots of fun. And besides, I need my pokemon whisperer around to make sure none go crazy around me before I can at least show that I'm friendly," Lily answered, nodding in sage seriousness.

"So, you only want me for my mad skills, huh?" he commented, unimpressed. "And my food, I'm sure."

"One time," she muttered through her teeth before huffing and walking away to continue working. "What do you think is up with Arnold though? That was weird."

"I know, but I have no idea, honestly," he answered, running his fingers through his hair and taking a moment to relax as he watched the rapidash out in the field. "He might tell us, he might not," he added, sighing and starting to work again. "Maybe the years are getting to him."

"I heard that!" the old man in question shouted at them from outside.

Lily made a valiant effort to contain her giggles, but she ultimately failed.

"I hear that too!" Arnold called, even louder than before.

"Well, his mind might not be what it once was, but his ears sure are, huh?" Pierce commented, making Lily laugh even harder.

"Keep it up, brat. See if I pay you!" Arnold threatened and, while he was sure he wouldn't go through with that, Pierce did shut up and continue working. "Now, that's better," they heard the man huff.

"You are old though," Pierce pointed out then, after a long moment of silence. Somewhere to his side, Lily choked, before failing miserably at keeping her laughter under control. Then they heard something breaking outside, which only made him smile.

"Stupid brats," they heard the grumble coming from outside, probably thinking they couldn't hear him. In the meantime, both of them shared a look and amused expressions. "Good thing they are going away soon. Good riddance, I say."

"We love you too, Arnold!" Lily called from somewhere outside, making Pierce smile widely.

[}-o-{]

Pierce sat with his back to Orion's stony "skin", if it could be called that. A book rested in his hands, open and being perused to inform him of how to best go about helping heal bug, rock and flying types. Those were the pokemon he was more likely to meet and have to treat, he imagined, since those were found aplenty in Mt. Moon, even if they weren't very varied. After all, the place housed a lot of paras, geodude and zubat. There were some more pokemon sprinkled here and there, but those were the main ones, the usual ones, as it were.

'Hm,' he hummed to himself, narrowing his eyes as he finished a certain chapter. Frowning, he went to the book's index before raising an eyebrow at a certain part. 'Can't hurt, right?' he wondered as he looked for the page regarding fairy types. Granted, meeting something from the clefairy line in Mt. Moon was very unlikely, but… Well, Lily wanted to try her luck, right? He might as well look into it. Maybe there would be something that could help there.

As he reached the page though, he took a moment to look at Orion, whose head rested next to him. The onix was more or less fine by then, really, but Pierce felt more at ease with the serpent pokemon taking it easy for the moment. The fact that Mama Onix was fully on board with that idea helped a whole lot, because he hadn't expected Orion's pleading eyes to be so powerful. For such a creature, he could be surprisingly adorable, it seemed.

The rock type was currently staring very intently at Cygnus and Narcissa as the two trained. It wasn't that Pierce didn't want him to train, even if he really didn't. He'd looked up through several sources and checked with the nurses at the Pokemon Center. All of them had told him that no, Orion shouldn't be doing strenuous training just yet. Not only was the pokemon very young – which normally wouldn't be much of a problem, even if it'd limit stuff a little –, but the onix was also still recovering. That meant that he needed to take it easy for a while before tackling intensive training once more.

Which suited Pierce just fine, since he was fairly sure onix was basically a child. There wasn't much risk training very young pokemon, of course. The creatures were just that broken, he supposed. However, it was recommended to take it easy and not push too hard for progress, else you stunt the poor little one's growth. That part was a little more agreeable with Pierce, at least.

As for his other pokemon… Well, they were doing their own thing. Cygnus was young too, for sure, but he wasn't quite as young as Orion seemed to be. It was all kind of guesswork, but Pierce was confident he was somewhat right. He wasn't sure how reliable the abra's affirmation was in that case, but he'd take it.

For the moment though, the psychic type couldn't really train all that much anyway, considering that he had to sleep for most of the day. At least one of the six hours the abra stayed awake was used to train his body, more specifically his arms, for the punch moves that seemed to have really caught his attention. Besides that, most of Cygnus's time was spent either teleporting Pierce and Lily around, "talking" with Pierce in his head or just generally training his psychic powers.

And then there was Narcissa. The bug type was mostly back to working with Tailwind, since she'd been doing that before the whole tournament thing started. Now, she was tackling that training once more, occasionally taking some time to relax a bit and just train her already learned moves, which was a lot less frustrating for her, understandably. That suited Pierce just fine, he wanted her to master all those moves anyway. Once that was done, after all, they could try some combination moves and such that he'd thought up. Some simple, some a little more complex, but all of those had to wait until Narcissa could use the moves necessary as easy as breathing.

For the moment, they weren't quite there though.

Absently, Pierce looked at his pokemon training for a bit before turning to the side, where he saw Lily and her own two companions. They were a little further away, but not because of Mama Onix. Instead, the girl just seemed to really want to "separate" their training areas, as it were. At least, when she wasn't having Talon helping Narcissa with Tailwind, which she did every so often. Pierce was sure it was more to give the flying type a break than anything else, but he still appreciated it.

"Don't worry your rocky head, Orion," he said then, planting a hand on top of the onix's head. "You'll be training just like them soon enough. For now, you just gotta take it easy so you can grow up big and strong like your mother. If we rush things, we could ruin that," he explained softly, receiving a rumbling whine. "Yeah, it sucks, but it's how it is, buddy."

A shadow fell upon him then, making Pierce blink and look up. Just in time too, because Mama Onix chose that moment to rumble something to her son. Next to him, he was pretty sure Orion was pouting now.

"And thus, the mother has spoken," he declared, making the younger rock type glare at him while Mama Onix huffed a laugh from where she loomed over the two of them. "Seriously, there's no rush. I'm sure you'll be a powerhouse in no time. The thing from the other day's not how things usually go. If worse comes to worst, I'll put you in your pokeball and you'll be safe there, yeah? We have time, Orion."

To that, the young one huffed, turning away from him.

Pierce just sighed.

Mama Onix, for her part, sighed, leaning down to place her head next to her son's. Once there, she "whispered" some things to her that sounded reassuring to Pierce's ears. He wasn't sure what was going on there, but he didn't need to know specifics, really. All he knew was that the older onix was probably reassuring and trying to explain things to Orion in a better way than what Pierce had said before. He really hoped she'd have better luck, because he didn't want to have trouble with him due to the limitations on how much he could train for the moment.

As that happened, he looked once more towards his other two pokemon, who were still training very resolutely. 'Are all pokemon this enthusiastic about training or am I just having that kind of luck?' he wondered idly, receiving only amusement from his psychic type. Which wasn't very reassuring, all things considered, but Pierce guessed things could be worse.

[}-o-{]

"So, we have flashlights, batteries, a lantern, extra clothes for the cold, plenty of food, overall supplies, maps," Pierce listed, looking at a list they had made. "Are we forgetting something? We already had plenty of stuff, but… Hm, I'm not sure."

"I don't think we are missing anything," Lily replied, looking thoughtfully at her own list. "So, last stop, right?" she added then, looking up to see the last store they were visiting that day. They'd been going through several shops, spending the vouchers she'd won in the tournament and sometimes spending a little more to get everything they might need when they made their way to Mt. Moon.

Now though, they were entering the store that sold rocks, be it by themselves or in necklaces, rings and so on. It was an interesting place to go to, for sure, but Pierce wasn't very interested in the things. If he were a hopeful person, he'd think there might be a chance of finding a fossil in one of the random rocks, or maybe an evolutionary stone, or even a mega stone. However, in the world he was in, looking pretty realistic compared to the mess that was the anime and such… Well, he didn't think the chances of that happening were very high.

And yet, he'd still gone there in the end, despite saying and knowing that he wasn't interested in the stuff. As it was, he just followed behind Lily as the girl looked at the many items resting on the shelves. There were some things that were pretty neat looking, but overall… Well, nothing was really calling to Pierce and neither was any of it calling to Narcissa, it seemed. The beedrill hanging from his back, actually, seemed about as interested in being there as Pierce himself was… Or even less so, actually. When he looked over his shoulder at her, he was fairly sure she was falling asleep while clinging to him.

"What do you think?" Lily asked, making him blink before looking at the item in her hands. It looked to him like a paperweight made of greenish rock in the shape of a bulbasaur's… Well, bulb. "I was thinking of getting it for my parents. They can place it somewhere in the house, maybe hang the little medal they gave for the tournament from it?"

"Sounds like a good enough idea to me," Pierce answered, being entirely truthful. Sure, he might not be very interested, but he could appreciate that the thing looked neat in its simplicity. Besides, it was free anyway.

"Do you think I should send the stuff to them? I did win thanks to Narcissa, who is your pokemon," the girl commented and he just gave her a deadpan expression in response. "I'm serious. I know you don't care, but I'm not sure how proud I should be of a win that I managed only with someone else's pokemon."

"So, if it had been me in your position, would you say it's not a real win or something?" he asked, tilting his head. "If you'd given me Root and/or Talon to participate in the tournament, should I not be proud of that win then?" he added. Granted, the situation wasn't really all that good to extrapolate. He'd given her one pokemon where she used two. If she had given him two where he had only one then…

"I guess you are right," the girl mumbled, looking down at the little souvenir she was considering taking with her.

"It's your first tournament win, I think you deserve to be proud regardless," Pierce told her, giving her an encouraging smile when she looked up. "I'm sure you'll add more "worthy" trophies next to those in no time anyway," he added, making the quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

"You think so?" she asked, smiling shyly and seemingly having trouble looking at him. Pierce just rolled his eyes at her.

"This coming from the girl that's sure she'll be at the Conference?" he asked, making her chuckle.

"Right… Thank you, Pierce," she mumbled, looking down at the rock she was likely going to get with her voucher.

"Don't mention it, yeah?" he waved off with a grin. "So, that's the last thing, right?" he added then, as they started walking towards the counter. "You think we might be able to catch a few Gym battles? It'd be nice."

"Sure would, and I think so? People have been leaving really quick now that the tournament is over and Mt. Moon is open though. Pewter might be a lot calmer from now, I imagine," the girl commented before talking with the shop's owner and getting the souvenir for her family. "I do have to get this home though, with the medal. So, can we make a stop at the post?"

"Sure, no rush. If there's nothing going on at the Gym later we can do something else. Maybe more training or just studying," Pierce replied with a shrug. Behind him, he felt Narcissa squeeze a little tighter with her stingers. "Ah, right, I kind of… procrastinated my own exercises, so I guess I should do that whenever we have some time," he added nervously, drawing a giggle from Lily.

[}-o-{]

"I think I'll miss Pewter," Pierce commented, sitting on a rock as he looked forward, with Lily and her pokemon resting on their own stone seats to his side. Narcissa, for her part, was buzzing around, occasionally clinging to his back. "This place was a bit… eventful, but it had its good points too."

"I know what you mean," Lily agreed, looking with him towards where Orion was talking with his mother and where Cygnus was in the company of a family of abra-line pokemon. No sound came from the latter group, but that was to be expected. "But this just means we'll find somewhere else to make memories like the ones we made here," the girl said, sounding like she was quoting someone. "Who knows, maybe the next place will be even better."

"Who said that?" he asked with a half-smile that widened when he saw Lily grin, somewhat embarrassed.

"My mom," she answered with a slight shrug. "She said that was one of the good parts of being a trainer. One never knows when and where the next adventure will come, or how, for that matter. Part of it is waiting, looking forward to it. Being surprised by a breathtaking sight or a wonderful moment, that's what a trainer's true reward is, she said."

"She sounds great," Pierce commented.

"She's the reason I want to do well," Lily admitted, looking down and fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "I want to make her proud… and see the world she's always been telling me about. Make some stories of my own, see similar things to what I always heard."

"Well, I think you are already doing that, don't you?" he asked, drawing an agreeing hum from the girl as well as a smile. "Two towns over and you have plenty of tales to tell, right?"

"Yeah, you are right," Lily replied with a nod, before starting to look nervous. Raising an eyebrow at her, Pierce made her sigh. "I… I don't want to be insensitive or something but… I've never seen you make a call, Pierce."

"... That's because there's no one to call," he answered her, his mood dropping. It wasn't her fault though and he'd been pulling through in regards to that particular topic. He was good at ignoring problems, after all. He just soldiered on and focused on the good things. Then and there, with the reminder though, he couldn't help but look at Cygnus and Orion as they continued saying their goodbyes, remembering all the stories Lily would say about her family back in Pallet.

"I'm sorry," Lily mumbled and Pierce looked down then, when he felt something pressing against his leg. It seemed that Root had decided to come and cheer him up a little. Not to be outdone by someone else's pokemon, Narcissa hugged his neck tightly with her stingers.

"Don't worry about it," he told her with a sad smile. "It's what it is," he said with a weak shrug. "I guess I'm making a new family of my own now," he mused out loud, placing a hand on top of one of Narcissa's stingers and looking at his other two pokemon and smiling, this time meaning it more.

"We are glad to hear that, Helper-Speaker," a voice said in his mind then, making Pierce blink and turn towards the gathering of psychic pokemon. There, he saw the biggest alakazam looking straight at him. "Take care of my grandson, Helper-Speaker, our little one. The Young Guardian has a long path to tread and we already can't wait to see how far you can take him."

Before he could even answer in some way, he turned again when Mama Onix pulled up, raising her head up high and giving a good display to remind everyone about how absolutely massive she was in size. There, she loomed over Pierce, staring straight into his eyes with hers. He knew he should have been intimidated, but he knew this pokemon. He knew that she worried for Orion, but that she was reasonable.

"Take care of both of them, Helper-Speaker," the alakazam told him, making him smile. "We'll be waiting here for you to visit."

"I'll do my best," Pierce answered, standing up at the same time as Narcissa let go and made herself float in place to his right. "We'll go as far as we can manage."

"You mean that," the psychic type said. A moment later, Cygnus teleported to Pierce's left side, sitting on a rock by his feet. "And that's all we can ask for, truly. Safe travels, Helper-Speaker."

With that said, Mama Onix rumbled something still looking at him rather intently while Orion slithered his way towards Pierce. The younger rock type moved until he was curled up behind him, peeking over the trainer's shoulder back at his mother. Once there, the child rumbled a call to his mother, a goodbye. Or, more accurately, a see you later.

"At least I'll be the one to deal with the handful now, huh?" Pierce asked, drawing a huffed laugh from the rock type mother. And yet, he was pretty sure it was also a sob. "I can only tell you the same thing I told them. I'll do my best," he told her, and the onix stared deep into his eyes for a long moment before giving a shaky nod.

Turning, he looked at the two children, Cygnus and Orion. Both were doing their best to look like they were fine, but they were anything but. Pierce was very aware of that, both from the way the onix seemed to avoid looking at anyone and the way the abra seemed to stay far away from his mind.

"This is a see you later, guys," Pierce told his pokemon, drawing their eyes towards him. "We'll come back, and you'll have grown into pokemon they'll be proud of."

Everyone remained silent then, before both children turned to their families. He didn't understand poke-speech, but Pierce was sure he understood what they were saying regardless. They were telling their families much the same he'd just told them.

Next to him, Narcissa buzzed her approval, making Pierce smile.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

And we are now officially leaving Pewter, I promise… Why are you looking at me like that, guys?

Anyway, I know not a whole lot happened in this chapter and I'd apologize but… You guys should know me and my muse by now. You've only got yourself to blame. I regret nothing.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter regardless.

As always, if you can't wait until next week for next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Pa tre on:

P a treon . com (slash) AdrianKing

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any theories for how Mt. Moon's trip will go?

See you.