Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Abra

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Bulbasaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

Mt. Moon V

"Is that-?" Lily started, unable to finish the question. There was no need though, Pierce could put two and two together easily enough. It wasn't rocket science, after all.

"I think so?" he answered hesitantly. At that very moment, the pink creature down the corridor disappeared behind a corner in the tunnels. Reaching towards Lily, he grabbed her arm before she could run after the lil' pokemon.

"Pierce, we gotta follow them!"

"How about we say we did, and don't?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow. "You think you can find a pokemon in here if they are really hiding?" he continued, tilting his head. "Also, I don't fancy diving in this place and getting lost. I don't know about you."

"... Why do you have to make sense~?!" she whined then, her shoulders dropping as she complained to the heavens… Or the rock ceiling, either or. "Fine, what's your plan?"

"Wait?" he suggested with a shrug. "I mean, if it's scared, chasing it won't do us any good. If it's curious, it'll probably come back. If it's friendly, it might even come to us. Does that sound good?"

"So, just… waiting?" Lily asked, sounding like it pained her to even consider. "What if they don't come back?"

"Then that was just a fluke and we didn't stand a chance anyway, right?" he reasoned with a sad smile. "I know you really want one of those fairies, but you can't really force the issue, you know?"

"I do, I just… I really want one. They are so adorable, Pierce!" she whined again, as if he was somehow disagreeing with her even when he wasn't. In response, he just gave her a few pats on the back.

"It'll be fine," he reassured softly. "After all, what are the chances that we took a clefairy off guard in these tunnels with all the noise we are making with the walls?" he asked, pointing at Orion and Gem, who had stopped their redecorating of the caves. "I don't imagine we are particularly sneaky. I'm sure the clefairy came to check on us, at least, maybe they got curious or something."

"I guess that makes sense," Lily muttered, pouting all the while. Evidently, she was rather bummed that she'd gotten her hopes up only for them to be dashed. Sort of, at least. There was no telling if that'd be it or if they'd actually meet the clefairy again. "Why does it make sense?" she lamented, deflating where she stood.

"Can we continue repairing damage here?" Pierce asked, waving his hand to the walls that Orion and Gem had been working on. "I'm sure the clefairy will appreciate it, if it helps," he added then, which was him being honest. He imagined it'd certainly help their image with the fairy types, even if it was also what he wanted to do.

"No need to bribe me, Pierce. You are making me sound like a bad person," the girl grumbled. "Go ahead, Gem. This place certainly looks better like this," she said then, placing a hand on the more smoothed over stone surface before turning to look at the still damaged parts. Her eyes couldn't quite stop themselves from going further down the tunnel though.

With a wry smile, Pierce let out Cygnus.

"You feel like staying out for a bit, buddy? I promise we'll keep plenty of light for you, but we are kind of going slow for now. Got a new project going over here," Pierce explained, filling the abra in on what they were doing. After that though, he also gave him a rundown on the clefairy encounter.

'You think you can try and get us an in with them? We just want to meet them, make friends, you know?' Pierce asked his psychic team member. Because he did believe everything he'd told Lily, but he just wanted to… cover a few more bases, as it were. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, wasn't it?

Cygnus readily acknowledged the mental command and set out to work. 'Thanks, buddy,' Pierce made sure to tell him.

"Hey girl," he greeted then, as he let Narcissa out. "We are gonna be going slow for a bit, I thought we could-" he was interrupted as the beedrill zoomed around and latched onto his back. "-spend some time together," he finished with a soft smile. "Glad to see you like the idea."

Then he looked to the side.

"Stop sulking, Lily, it really doesn't suit you," he commented, rolling his eyes. "Really ruins the whole eye candy thing you've got going, you know?"

"Oh, God, that's gonna be a thing, isn't it? Like the stupid food thing?" the girl asked then, realizing that yes, her fate was sealed. There was no escape for her and no redemption either.

"Don't know what you are talking about," he commented, resolutely ignoring the snickering of their pokemon so that he could maintain his poker face. It was hard, but the end result was worth it. "Are you ok, Lily? You are talking nonsense. That clefairy really got to you, huh?"

"I. Hate. You," she muttered through her teeth.

"We love you too, right, guys?" he asked, receiving cheerful replies from everyone. Maybe it'd have sounded better if some of them didn't immediately start laughing, he supposed, but… Well, not everyone was a great actor. "See?... You don't seem to be feeling the love, Lily," he pointed out at the glare she was sending his way.

"If we don't find a clefairy soon, you are gonna deal with my annoyance, is that clear?" she threatened, to which he just smiled… He was a bit nervous on the inside though. Maybe he'd pushed his luck a little too much there.

With any luck, Lily would be as easy to calm down as wild pokemon. He'd gotten a chocolate bar just for instances like this, after all. He could only hope it'd be enough.

After all, there was a whole saying about women scorned, wasn't there?

[}-o-{]

Pierce looked on with an unimpressed expression as Lily aggressively bit on the chocolate bar he'd just given her. It'd been a few hours since their sighting of the clefairy in the tunnels… And the girl had made it no secret that she was annoyed they hadn't seen the pokemon since.

Pierce knew it wasn't actual anger or anything like that. The girl was disappointed and it was a very understandable feeling. After all, she'd been looking forward to meeting the fairies in Mt. Moon. She'd also thought it wasn't very likely, but to see one and then lose it?... It was frustrating, he imagined.

"You think we might see another?" she asked then, looking down at her hands while holding onto the sweet still. "I… It's been a while. You think I might have scared them or something?"

"And not me?" he shot back with a half-smile.

"You couldn't scare a pokemon if you tried, Pierce," she said then, giving him a flat look. He blinked when all the pokemon around nodded or otherwise showed their agreement. "Do you… I mean…" the girl then mumbled, drawing onto herself in a nervous and shy manner that really didn't suit her at all. "You know I'm not actually angry at you, right?"

"I mean, it'd be understandable," he reassured her with a smile. "I did stop you from going after that pokemon. Who knows? Maybe that was the right call."

"No, you were right," she told him, before letting out a long sigh and then running her fingers through her hair. "I just… I'm sorry for how I acted. You were right, it was the right call to not go after it. If we'd have gotten lost here because of me… Just, thanks for stopping me," she mumbled nervously.

"Don't mention it," he waved off easily before looking down at his meal that he was still halfway through. Apparently, Lily ate really quickly when she was upset. It was good to know. He just hoped he'd remember in the future, that information might save his hide, after all. "So, what is-?" he started then, before he was interrupted by Cygnus brushing a thought on his mind.

Pausing, Pierce blinked and then tilted his head. He saw, from the corner of his eye, Lily giving him a confused expression. Instead of answering though, he just brought another bite to his mouth. From there, he continued as if nothing had happened.

"What is in the plans for now?" he asked then, giving a pointed look to Lily. With any luck, she'd get the hint. He certainly hoped so, at least.

"I-Um, probably some light training and then going to sleep? The caves are kind of getting to me. It is nighttime, even if it's basically always like that for us," the girl replied, narrowing her eyes at him but not actually asking or saying anything.

"Yeah, that works for me. Cygnus should be able to get some physical training done. Orion's been doing enough going around repairing the damage in here. As for Narcissa… Well, she might want to get some more work underway with our new move," he said vaguely, enjoying the narrowed eyes his traveling companion directed his way.

"Well, we have our own stuff to work with too," Lily mumbled, taking another bite from her dessert. "And I'm not gonna tell you what we'll do either, meanie!" she told him then, sticking out her tongue and making him laugh.

"That works for me," he agreed easily. After all, he wasn't nearly as competitive as Lily seemed to be. He didn't really care for hiding what he was training his pokemon in, but since she was doing it, he imagined it'd might be neat to join in on the action, as it were. "In the meantime, give me a second," he added then, setting down his now empty plate and expanding one of each of his Boxes to pull out some pokemon kibble, some berries and a big bowl to put everything in.

When he noticed Lily looking at him, he just gave him a smirk before walking a little away, towards one of the tunnels that connected with the chamber they'd be staying in for the night. There, he set down the meal he'd "prepared" and just walked away without saying anything. Cygnus had done the talking for him in that regard anyway.

"So, tomorrow," he commented, as if nothing had happened while sitting down by the lamp they'd set down for the night. "Any ideas or are we following the path we were going for? There seems to be more damage that way, but we can just take care of the stuff that's on our way," he said, pulling out a berry and tossing it at Cygnus, who clumsily caught it with his hand.

"I think we can afford a little detour to repair more tunnels. I honestly feel really bad looking at the damage after you mentioned it," Lily replied, looking in the direction he'd pointed at before. "We are just exploring anyway, right?"

"Sure, I'm fine with that," Pierce agreed easily. "Not gonna complain, I can tell you that. I feel bad for the pokemon that live here, with the walls as they are. Must suck," he commented then, pushing out of his mind the whole thing from before. If it went anywhere, then fine. If it didn't, well, it was still fine, just not as much.

"Yeah, but we can help. And who knows, maybe we can convince some other trainers to help too," Lily pointed out, although even she didn't look very confident on the second part. They hadn't met many people inside the caves, after all. He didn't remember if they'd seen a single one after they had gone away from the main path, actually.

Evidently, the attack on the mountain had left trainers quite a bit wary of the tunnels. Not that Pierce could fault them for that, really. He himself was only as calm as he was because he knew it was unlikely that a second attack would be made. Even then, his metaknowledge had been proven to be dubious at best, so he tried to keep an ear out just in case as it was.

Regardless, it seemed that they had taken on a mission of sorts, repairing the caves.

[}-o-{]

"You think we could go to the underground river?" Pierce asked after their morning training was done. He'd done his own exercising too and now laid on the ground after cleaning himself up. The cool rock surface under him was a welcome thing after the burn that his muscles felt through the whole process of working out.

"Yeah, that works… Although the water will be very cold," Lily answered then, pulling on the jacket she wore over her usual clothes. "I don't know how you deal with it."

"I just like the cold," Pierce said, resisting the habit of pulling on his hoodie's sleeves up to his elbows. He always did that, but it was too cold for that. The last thing he wanted was to get sick. "I sweat like a pig at the slightest raise of temperature. The cold is a friend for me, honestly," he commented, pulling himself to a sitting position and groaning. "God, I wish it was cold all year long."

"Take that back!" Lily exclaimed, throwing a small rock at him that hit his arm. He barely felt it, but he still looked at it as it fell on the ground. Then his eyes rose to give his traveling companion an unimpressed look. "What?"

"Honestly…" he muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes. With a long suffering sigh, he stood up. His body felt heavy and his limbs seemed to have taken a vacation on him, but he managed to pull through so he could move. Fortunate that, since he had something to do, according to Cygnus.

Thus, he moved off to the side and picked up the bowl of food he'd left beforehand. It was empty now, but that was no surprise, really. He'd have been more surprised if it wasn't empty. If anything, he hadn't even expected the bowl to still be there, really.

Lucky that though, since he'd probably need it.

"No more meals away from here," he announced loudly. "I like the cold, but not that much."

"Ha!" Lily exclaimed, pointing at him and grinning widely as if she'd won an argument. He just blinked lazily at her.

"I like the cold, but I'm not a fan of hypothermia, believe it or not. I just prefer it over the hot weather. At least when it's cold I can just put on some more clothes or something. There's only so much clothes I can take off when it's hot, and even then it might not help," he explained, rolling his eyes.

"I mean, I guess you have a point there," Lily admitted hesitantly, as if she'd rather do anything other than agree to that. "The cold still sucks though."

To that, Pierce just rolled his eyes. Off to the side, their pokemon snickered at them, prompting both trainers to turn towards them. As one, most of the creatures shut up. All except Talon, the glutton for punishment. Then again, Lily usually punished her pokemon with extra training, so the flying type might be doing stuff on purpose.

On that note…

"You gotta make sure you don't overwork Talon, Lily," Pierce commented idly, casually… Even if he was leading to anything but a casual thing. "So, maybe you can give other types of training. More complex or intellectually oriented instead of physical."

"You know what, Pierce?" the girl asked, a grin spreading on her face that bode nothing good for the spearow. A spearow that was suddenly looking a lot less sure of himself. Slowly, Root and Gem inched away from the bird. "I think you might be right," she added then, with a smile that threatened to split her face.

Talon squawked pitifully.

All conversation was interrupted then though, when they heard a hesitant but soft voice call from behind Pierce. Everyone turned in that direction and froze, looking at the pink and sort of round pokemon standing there at one of the tunnels that lead away from the chamber. There was a long moment of silence before Pierce's eyes darted towards Lily and then back towards the clefairy.

"Hey there," he greeted softly, his voice almost a whisper. The fairy type jumped a little, but didn't otherwise move. "Were you the one that ate what I left over there last night?"

Hesitantly, slowly, the clefairy nodded, letting out a hum that sounded almost musical.

"You want more? I have plenty. You can tell me which berries you prefer and all," he offered with as kind a smile as he could muster. "I promise that nothing will happen to you here, ok?"

The clefairy took a step forward and then another. It moved gingerly, eyes darting all over the place, probably trying to keep track of both of them and their pokemon. That was fine though. Pierce was confident that nobody would do anything overly stupid. At least not something that he couldn't talk his way out of… Probably.

"I'm going to move to get the food, yeah? You can take a seat wherever you want, girl," he said, grateful once more for Cygnus. Not having to guess the gender of pokemon made things go much more smoothly, that was for sure. Going deliberately slow, Pierce went to open his Preserving Box and get some food out. "Which ones do you prefer, little one?" he asked as the clefairy drew closer, pulling out an assortment of berries.

The sight of them seemed to make the fairy type's reservations go out the window, because her eyes instantly lit up and her movements became a lot more hurried.

Then, a second musical voice was heard from down the tunnel.

[}-o-{]

[Lillian Dale]

"Well, that escalated quickly," she heard Pierce comment and she had to hold back a laugh at the sight of the man. There were cleffa and clefairy hanging all over him, on his head, on his shoulders, on his legs. He could only sit there while the baby and not so baby pokemon climbed on him as if he were a jungle gym.

"If it makes you feel any better, you look absolutely adorable like that," Lily commented, doing a very bad job at keeping her giggles at bay. It was only partially because of how humorous the sight of her traveling companion being made into a playground was though. Another part was because of how happy she was with how things had turned out.

After all, Lily had always wanted to see some clefairy herself. It was something every girl wanted, she supposed, probably some boys too. Sadly, she didn't think she'd get the chance, unless it was during a battle with someone that had one. They were just so rare. There barely were recordings of some of them in the wild, precious few studies on them too. Most of the information regarding them came from trainers that managed to catch one.

And yet, there she was, surrounded by clefairy and cleffa and even a clefable. It was like a dream. Better than a dream, actually. She'd know. She had a few dreams that were just like that, after all.

"I guess it does, a little bit," Pierce commented with a flat tone. "Not sure how I feel about being called adorable, but these little ones certainly are," he added then. The fairy types on him certainly seemed to appreciate it, judging by the way they hugged the man. At that, Pierce couldn't quite contain a smile. "Guess you got your wish, huh?"

"I did," Lily agreed easily. She didn't even feel the need to point out that her wish had been to actually get one for her team. She hadn't even been serious back then. She definitely wanted one of the fairy types in her team, but if meeting them was next to impossible in her head, what did that left for actually catching one? Yeah, she'd content herself with just interacting with them. She even had a cleffa on her lap!

Best day ever!

"But at what cost though," Pierce said ominously as he looked to the side. When she followed his gaze, Lily saw Talon and Narcissa surrounded by clefairy and cleffa, clearly very uncomfortable. It was more than a little amusing, to see the usually so stoic and slightly aggressive pokemon now surrounded by the adorable pink creatures and shuffling awkwardly. "At what cost indeed," Pierce repeated.

She tried to stop her laugh from coming out.

She lost that battle barely a second into it.

"So mean. Our pokemon are suffering, Lily, and you are laughing?" Pierce asked her flatly, but even he couldn't stop the grin that tugged at his lips. "For shame. Not even gonna try to help them, huh?"

"And you?"

"Alas, I've been restrained," he said, bringing up an arm and making the two cleffa that clung to it squeal cheerfully. "I can't escape the clutches of the terrible terrors. I've fallen, but you can still save yourselves, guys."

Lily continued giggling then.

"Having fun, Orion?" Pierce asked then, and both of them turned to look at the onix, who was at the moment slithering around with several clefairy riding on his back. The rock type was having a much easier time socializing than the beedrill and the spearow, that was for sure. As for Root, Gem and Cygnus… they were kind of rolling with the punches, as it were.

Well, the first two were, seemingly talking with the older, calmer clefairy and the clefable. As for Cygnus… He seemed to be taking a nap, which Lily thought was weird. Understandable, for sure, since she knew abra needed a lot of sleep, but it still was odd to see, especially in the situation they were in.

Then again, Cygnus' family seemed to be some sort of pokemon guardian group, so maybe he'd seen the clefairy before? Something to ask Pierce about later, she supposed. As it was, she'd let the psychic enjoy his nap. It wasn't like Cygnus was her pokemon or anything.

Besides, the fairies didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave, from what she was gathering. 'I can only hope,' she thought to herself. If they stayed with Pierce and her throughout their trip through Mt. Moon, she wasn't sure she'd want to leave… Well, she would, but she'd be reluctant about it.

"You are a really friendly bunch, huh?" Lily asked softly, rubbing her hand on top of the head of the cleffa that was sitting on her lap. The pokemon then let out a happy cheer extending her little arms to grab her fingers. "I'd never have guessed. I thought you'd be more shy, with how rare it is to come across you all."

"I mean, they gotta be careful who they approach, I imagine," Pierce commented and Lily held back a laugh again. Half the man's face was covered by a cleffa who was hanging from his head. "If they were this friendly with everyone, they'd likely get caught or attacked or something. They've decided we are good, so they are going all out with their friendliness… That's my guess, at least."

And, as usual, Pierce's guess was spot on, if the response the fairy types around gave was anything to go by. Lily had long since given up trying to understand how the man could so easily understand pokemon, if she were honest. As it was, the most she could try to do was learn a bit of his thought process. It was difficult, but she thought she was getting the hang of it little by little.

If it led to half as many encounters and friends as Pierce did, then it'd be energy and time well spent.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

The pink monsters are taking over, guys! Run, run while you still can!

Also, yeah, I decided to go for it and start adding the name list at the beginning. I should have done that from the beginning, really. Especially considering that I can't remember names to save my life… At least when it comes to people.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

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

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Random Question: How are you doing lately? I've been pretty good myself, can't really complain. I hope you are doing well.

See you.