5. Of Grunts and Reshuffling
Dawn and Paul are en route to Littleroot Town, courtesy of Mr. Briney and little Peeko.
It's been a few hours since their contest battle. After they had lunch at the Pokémon Center, Paul announced that if Dawn wanted to get her starter Pokémon from Littleroot Town now would be the best time to travel there, since the boat ride would take a while on Briney's slower boat.
They could have reached Littleroot Town sooner with the famous Captain Stern's S.S. Tidal, but Paul was rather insistent on taking Mr. Briney's boat. (It's bad enough that Paul has to brace himself to interact with his father soon, so he'd be damned if he stepped foot near Captain Stern, his father's cousin.)
Whatever the case may be, they are finally on their way to Littleroot Town, where Dawn is going to receive a Hoenn starter.
"What starter should I choose?" Dawn wonders aloud, as she looks to Piplup, who simply shrugs in response.
"If you want to know the Hoenn starters, lass," Mr. Briney's voice chimes in from the steering deck above, "you've come to the right man! The three Hoenn starters are Torchic, a fire-type, Mudkip, a water-type, and Treecko, a grass-type."
As Dawn reaches into her pocket for her Pokédex to look up their entries, Paul adds, "Torchic's final evolution is Blaziken, a fire-fighting Pokémon, Mudkip's is Marshtomp, who is ground and water, and for Treecko it is Sceptile, who stays only a grass-type."
Dawn groans, as she drags the palm of her hand down her cheeks in frustration. "I don't know! They all sound great."
He shakes his head at her. "What Pokémon did you bring to Hoenn?"
Dawn sighs before she stuffs her Pokédex back into her pocket, and pulls out all of her Pokéballs and throws them up into the air. "Come out, everyone!" She then quickly reaches into her other pocket to grab her new Eevee's Pokéball and toss that into the mix as well.
Disbelief crosses Paul's face as his eyes takes in the sight of the six – no, seven, counting Piplup, who has just jumped off from his position atop her head – Pokémon. "You brought all of them from Sinnoh? How are you going to catch more Pokémon here when you can't hold more than six Pokéballs on your belt? And Eevee is your seventh Pokémon. You know that you're breaking the law, right?" She would get into trouble with the Pokémon Association if Paul were to report her.
"I don't know!" she moans again, burying her face into her hands, as Pachirisu jumps onto her shoulder. "I wasn't thinking! I wanted all of them to come with me and see Hoenn."
He scoffs, arms folded over his chest. "Clearly, you weren't thinking. I'd suggest you ask Professor Birch to send some of your current Pokémon over to Professor Rowan or your family to hold on to. I thought you would have learned from Ash – he does this, too. You know from the Lily of the Valley conference that you can have them sent over, like Ash and I did, since most Pokémon centers have a transporter."
Dawn is appalled at the idea and opens her mouth to refute, but she sees Paul raises an eyebrow at her and slumps her shoulders. "I'll have to send at least two back home, since Professor Birch is giving me a starter," she admits in defeat, frowning, as she gently pats Pachirisu.
"So, which ones, then?"
She turns to face him. "Um, will you . . . let out your Pokémon out of their Pokéballs as well?" she asks timidly, an underlying sadness in her words that surprises Paul.
He shouldn't have expected any less from her, though. She's friends with Ash, after all. Though Paul has learned to respect his Pokémon and be grateful that they support and work hard for his ambitions, he isn't as emotionally attached to his Pokémon as much as Dawn seems to be. There's no need to brood over the separation; he knows that if he gives a Pokémon to Reggie, it won't be long before he needs it again.
Nonetheless, he shrugs. "Sure." Dawn appears to be very upset, and the last thing he needs is for her to cry in front of him and Briney – Paul doesn't know the first thing about how to act when a girl cries. He doesn't have much experience around girls anyway. His mother passed away after giving birth to him, and Maylene doesn't count, since she really doesn't really act like a typical girl and avoids all things girly, anyway (though, he doesn't understand why his brother dotes on her so much).
Paul reaches for his Pokéballs, silently hoping that some of their heavy weights don't disturb the way the boat calmly floats atop the water, namely Torterra – but if Mamoswine came out of its Pokéball without landing too heavily onto the boat, then surely, neither will Torterra. It's not like the boat is very small anyway. It's a rather large-sized, Peeko-shaped boat.
So, out come Torterra, Froslass, Eevee, Honchkrow, and Hariyama. To Paul's displeasure, Honchkrow immediately flies up to Togekiss, who has been serenely taking in the ocean breeze and mist from above them. His newly acquired Eevee runs to Dawn's Eevee, who is with Piplup, but since the two baby Pokémon are siblings, Paul takes the least amount of offense to that. Quilava moves to greet Hariyama and Froslass, and Paul makes a mental note that he has to send those two Pokémon to Reggie soon and to also ask Dawn to feed them some poffins before he does – they seem to be having a positive effect on his Pokémon.
Meanwhile, Dawn stares at all of the Pokémon playing together, feeling a wave of sadness crash over her at the thought of separating them from each other. She particularly watches Torterra, and how he is resting in his place next to Mamoswine, as her Buneary begins to alternate between bouncing on top of him and the twin tusk Pokémon. Her sadness fades slightly as she holds back a laugh at the sight of Torterra taking it in calmly, while Mamoswine appears to be getting slightly annoyed – but her Pokémon is thankfully mature enough to take it in stride and bear it for Buneary's sake. Dawn is also surprised that all of their Pokémon are able to fit on the boat.
"Chi pa!"
"Uh . . ."
Dawn is broken out of her thoughts at the sounds from Pachirisu and Paul. She did not realize that Pachirisu has jumped out of her arms and onto Paul's shoulder.
"Can you get her off of me, please?" Paul requests calmly.
"Oh, um, sure." Dawn extends her arms towards Pachirisu. "Pachirisu, come back to me, please."
But Pachirisu shakes her head and burrows herself further into Paul. "Pa, chi," she replies back haughtily.
Dawn is surprised that Pachirisu has taken such a liking to Paul, but is annoyed that she isn't listening to her. "Oh, come on, don't be like that! Come here!"
Paul groans. "I'll just do it."
"Wait, Paul, she's still very young," she warns him, as he tries to pry her off himself, "so be gen – "
"Chi, pachiri!"
It's too late. Pachirisu, in surprise, lets out a discharge on Paul and Dawn. Dawn, of course, shrieks as she feels a buzz of electricity run through her body, while a wide-eyed Paul grunts, silently bearing the charge. Then, Pachirisu scampers around the boat, panicking to herself, as the other Pokémon try to call out for her to calm down.
Before they can move to stop her, though, a frazzled Dawn, who is now kneeling on the floor from the impact of the attack, calls out, "Pachirisu!" She quickly reaches into her bag for a poffin and waves it at her. "Come and get a poffin!"
Pachirisu stops immediately at the announcement and, with excited eyes, returns to her trainer. She settles onto Dawn's lap and happily takes the poffin from her, surprising Paul. What kind of magic is in those damn things? Paul wonders internally.
"Is everything alright?!" they hear Mr. Briney holler from above.
"No need to worry! We're fine!" Dawn shouts back. She sighs in relief, rubs Pachirisu's fur softly to calm her down, and then turns to Paul sheepishly. "Sorry about that. She's very sensitive and becomes hyperactive when she's startled."
Paul, who has been rubbing his face with a hand from the discharge, looks at Dawn, ready to reproach her for being unable to better control her Pokémon, but stops and stares.
"Um." She feels a blush rise to her face, feeling unnerved. "What's wrong?"
Paul simply points to the spiky, wild disarray that is her head.
Dawn's eyes widen, realizing what has happened, and shrieks. Her immediate reaction is for her hands to fly to her hair. "Oh, no! My hair!" she cries, causing Pachirisu to jump out of her lap. "Not again!" She whips her handy mirror and hairbrush out of her backpack and, with frantic hands, quickly tries to fix it.
Pachirisu pauses for a moment to give Dawn a quick look, shrugs, and then resumes eating, while Paul just shakes his head, incredulous. What a mess.
"I wouldn't have pegged you as someone who would be willing to raise a Mamoswine," Paul comments a few minutes later, as he engages in an undeclared staring contest with Dawn's guarded Mamoswine – he seems to be protective of Dawn and her other Pokémon, hence his wariness around Paul.
Dawn doesn't know if she's supposed to take offense at his words, but smiles affectionately at Mamoswine as she answers him. "He was just a little Swinub when we met." She absentmindedly tucks a piece of her recently groomed hair behind her ear as she reminisces. "He would always eat all of my poffins, leaving none for anybody else. He was always so cheerful and would always be jumping around. He wasn't ready for battling when we first met, so I kept him on the sidelines to watch how my other Pokémon performed in contests. It was still hard to train him after he evolved into Piloswine, though. He only evolved into Mamoswine only two days after while fighting off Team Rocket, but I had no part in it. He would never listen to my commands, attacking on his own will, now that he had gained all of this power, and even tried to attack me at one point."
"Yet, you didn't release him," Paul states simply, as he sees Mamoswine finally avert his eyes from him in shame.
Dawn turns to him, a wistful smile on her face. "How could I? He is my Pokémon, and as his trainer, I am responsible for him and also love him dearly. I couldn't have just given up on him like that. I was determined to train Mamoswine and have him listen to my commands." She outstretches a hand to pet Mamoswine's fur. "After he hurt itself one day fighting an Aggron, I tried to take care him like how Brock taught me. The Aggron was still trying to attack him, though, so I did everything I could to protect him – I think he realized it, too, because, though he didn't listen to me at first, he came around and was able to defeat Aggron and protect me."
She looks back at Mamoswine and grins. "He has a little bit of a rebellious streak in him, and sometimes pretends he's not interested in training with us, but I know that's not the case." She smirks at her Pokémon. "Isn't that right, Mamoswine?"
"Mamo," he responds, lowering his head and nuzzling it against Dawn's palm, causing her to giggle.
Unfortunately, though, the moment is interrupted by the sound of a large crash. Dawn feels the boat sways unevenly from the result of an impact (that is faint and takes her a minute to realize she has felt one) from the left side of the boat.
"Argh, not Team Aqua, again!" Mr. Briney suddenly exclaims.
Dawn immediately drops her hand from Mamoswine and turns to look at Paul hesitantly. "Team . . . Aqua?" She had heard of them on the news before, but they had been crushed, along with Team Magma, over a year ago.
Paul's eyebrows are furrowed in confusion as well, but he doesn't answer her. Instead he goes to the ladder and climbs up to the deck from where Mr. Briney has called out.
Dawn, in the meanwhile, jogs up to the edge of the boat, feeling a little dizzy from the swaying of the boat. She stands up on her toes to see that indeed, a small speedboat approaches them, a newer version of the Team Aqua logo on the front of it. There are a small group of people, all dressed in blue outfits, with Grimer and Poochyena aboard. It takes another moment, though, for her to realize that a small school of Carvanha surrounds that one side of the boat. The attack must have come from them, but it was rather weak.
"What happened?" Dawn hears Paul ask from above her, before Mr. Briney tells them that they're probably trying to capture his ship again. They apparently tried to do this once before, along with kidnapping Peeko.
"Well, we aren't going to let them get away with this!" Dawn yells. She looks up to Mr. Briney and Paul. "Steer the boat away from them!"
"You want us to just run away?" Paul shouts back at her, incredulous. "They can easily catch up to us!"
"No, I just need a clear shot to attack them!" she informs him, feeling satisfied as his face morphs into an expression of understanding. "Hurry, Mr. Briney!"
"You got it, lass!"
Dawn hears a voice cry out, "They're getting away!" She looks behind her to see that the speedboat is getting closer, but with Mr. Briney steering away from them, she has a clear window to attack. "Neo Team Aqua will have that boat and rule the seas."
Dawn sweat-drops upon hearing the grunt's outburst. "How do think they are going to rule the seas with a small, Peeko-shaped boat?"
"Now, go, Carvanha!"
"Stand back, everyone," she warns her and Paul's Pokémon. "Pachirisu, use Discharge at the Carvanha." Now, she gestures down to the school of Pokémon preparing to attack the boat again with Take Down. Pachirisu sprints up to leap onto Dawn's shoulder and up into the air and let out a discharge, effectively attacking the weak-leveled Carvanha. Having taken significant damage, they swim away from the durable, Peeko-shaped boat, and back to the speedboat.
She turns to Mamoswine and points at the boat. "Use Ancient Power!"
"Torterra," Paul orders, from right beside Dawn, which causes her to jolt in surprise, "use Leaf Storm!" She didn't even realize that he came back down to her.
As their attacks head for the boat, a grunt cries out in desperation and fear, "Grimer, Sludge, and Poochyena, Hidden Power!"
But it's too late. Torterra and Mamoswine's attacks have hit the boat, completely obliterating it – Leaf Storm pierces through the speedboat, and Ancient Power takes care of its remaining shreds. The "Neo" Team Aqua grunts fall into the water with shrieks and cries, sinking for a moment before they and their Pokémon resurface. They grab onto to the Carvanha, spluttering obscenities as Mr. Briney steers the boat away.
"All right! We did it!" Dawn cheers, a fist pumped into the air. "Way to go, guys!"
Dawn's Pokémon cheer, while Paul's Pokémon look relieved.
"Why were those grunts after us in the first place?"
"This happened before, too. A Team Aqua thug kidnapped my darling Peeko once, but a pretty lass with a Torchic and three lads helped me get her back. One of the lads had his Pikachu attack the Triangle rock where the grunt was headed, so I was able to grab her and set sail to Dewford."
Dawn's head snaps to Paul, who immediately looks back at her with stunned eyes.
"Mr. Briney," she asks the sailor above her, "the boy with the Pikachu . . . his name wasn't Ash, was it?"
Briney's eyes sparkle in recognition. "Aye, yes, indeed, lass! Ash was his name!"
"And May has a Blaziken, so the girl with the Torchic had to have been her while she was travelling with Ash," Dawn murmurs to herself contemplatively.
"Hmph. Isn't he very popular around here?" Paul's mouth twists in distaste.
Dawn simply giggles. "I wonder if Ash saves every region he travels to from an evil team! First Team Aqua, and then Team Galactic with us . . . and we can't forget Team Rocket, though, that's on a daily basis." Mew, the more she thinks about it, the more she misses Ash and Brock.
"Wait!" Paul interjects. "You're the ones that saved Sinnoh from Team Galactic?"
She chuckles sheepishly. "Uh, yes?" She gives him an abridged version of the whole ordeal, though chooses to skim over the fact that the boss of Team Galactic, Cyrus, was hiding under their nose the entire time, disguised as a scholar. While she talks, her eyes fall onto her Mamoswine, watching him and Torterra calmly sit together.
When Dawn looks up, she sees that Peeko is on Paul's shoulder again. Sweetly giggling at the adorable sight – which catches Paul's attention – she reaches into her backpack for her container of poffins. She takes one and tosses it to her mauve-haired companion, who catches it with ease. He tilts his head slightly so he can feed it Peeko.
"Pip, pip, lup!" her annoyed, starter Pokémon on her own shoulder complains, flippers on his hips.
"Chipa, chi, pa!" Pachirisu also pleads for poffins, her eyes watering softly as she pouts.
Dawn laughs at her Pokémon. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you guys." She then faces Paul. "I'm going to give everyone a little snack, if you don't mind."
Paul doesn't look away from Peeko, but nods. "Only a few for my Pokémon."
.
They're standing side-by-side, watching the sunset setting over Littleroot Town, which appears in the distance, when Paul asks, "Did you finally decide?"
Dawn nods, suddenly hyperaware of the weight of her Pokéballs on her belt, all of her Pokémon, including a tired Piplup, in them. "I'm taking Piplup, Mamoswine, Eevee, and Togekiss."
Maybe Paul hears the sadness in her voice, too. "You can always switch around," he reassures.
"I know. I'm just going to miss them, you know?"
Paul is silent, and for a moment, Dawn thinks that the conversation is over, but he surprises her with a response. "You'll wish they are there with you, but it gets easier."
Though it's not the comforting answer Dawn wanted, she smiles at him anyway.
