Lexi rubbed her eyes and looked around the room. The bed next to her was empty and she suspected Aiden was away on a last minute training session. After getting dressed, Lexi grabbed the few things she had placed on her bedside table and put them back into her bag. Aiden had decided they would go away today, whether he would win or not.
She took the cover off the bed, per hotel request, and sat down as she looked around the room once more. This could be the last time she would ever see it, the small paintings, the orange stone walls, the annoying grey electric cord that travelled across the ceiling to the center light, clashing with the natural colors. She didn't understand why she already felt so attached to a room she had only spent a few days in. Maybe it had something to do with the many days she had spent out in the woods. This was a lot better, felt easier and more secure.
Lexi walked through the white halls and up the sloped path till she stood outside, where she let out Serafine. Just seeing her pokémon made her feel better and she affectionately stroked the ponyta's neck. ''Hey girl, how are you feeling? Do you want to help me find Aiden, and maybe get a quick breakfast while we're at it?'' Serafine nickered softly and lifted her head.
Together they walked to the battlefield were they had trained the day before, but Aiden wasn't there. Instead Lexi saw two boys fighting their fully evolved pokémon. The attacks looked impressive but were also very loud, so Lexi quickly turned back.
Serafine grabbed a mouth full of grass every now and then while Lexi nibbled on her breakfast bar, still scanning her surroundings. Suddenly Lexi recognized Aiden's head amongst a group of people. She tapped his arm to get his attention, ''Hey, there you are, I was looking for you. Are you ready for your big fight?''
''Yeah, I was about to go to the Gym when I met these guys,'' Aiden turned around and waved to two boys with striped shirts on, ''I got to go, see you guys later.'' The boys smiled and waved as well, and Aiden walked toward the Gym.
''Their names are Dex and Owen, they're on a journey as well.'' Aiden explained as he pointed behind him, ''they have beaten James already and were willing to give me some pointers.''
Aiden waited for Lexi to return Serafine before knocking on the Gym door. James clapped his hands together when he saw them. ''Hey! You're back! I was hoping I'd see you again. Want to give it another try? Great! Let's go!''
Lexi followed behind them as they walked through the tunnel. When they reached the split off to the stands, she wanted to give Aiden some encouraging words, but he seemed lost in thought and didn't look towards her. Lexi went to the bottom of the stands this time, hoping she would be able to see more of the fight this way.
As she looked at the field she noticed it all felt weirdly familiar, almost like she had been through this all before. Of course in some way she had, up until this point everything had gone exactly the same as when they came here three days ago. Their journey through the tunnels, Lexi going to the stands alone, she had even put the bag with her egg on a white seat next to her just like before.
Aiden and James stood on their respective sides and James moved his hand to his head, ready to take off his glasses. ''The rules will be the same as last time, you remember them don't you?'' Aiden nodded, ''Good, then I wish you the best of luck.'' The lights dimmed and the fight began. Aiden let out Pidgey and James sent out his murkrow.
Pidgey stuck to the plan and started throwing sand in every direction. Every time Murkrow came close with its glowing beak, it got doused with sand. Still, it didn't take long till Pidgey had been knocked out. Aiden quickly returned the small pokémon to her ball and picked another. Lexi had some trouble recognizing it at first but the familiar clipping noises informed her it was Krabby.
''Wing Attack'' James voice echoed, and the murkrow shot across the room, slamming into Krabby. But Krabby got up without trouble and started covering himself in a cloak of bubbles.
James send Murkrow to attack a second time and again Krabby was knocked off his feet, bubbles flying everywhere. This time however he had more trouble getting up. ''Krabby, do Vice Grip.''
Krabby did some unsure steps as it tried to find his opponent, but even if he would have been able to see his foe, he wouldn't be able to reach it from the ground. Aiden seemed to have that realisation as well, ''Try Bubblebeam.'' Krabby fired rows of bubbles through the room but none of them hit their target.
''Murkrow, let's finish it with Pursuit.'' The murkrow's beak turned purple again and Lexi wondered what Aiden was going to do. It would be an almost impossible battle with only Hoothoot against both Murkrow and whatever pokémon James hadn't send out yet. Lexi could see it fly closer and closer to the ground, ready to strike. But to everyone's surprise the attack missed. Murkrow shot right past its target and almost hit the wall behind Aiden.
Lexi felt so relieved that she got the sudden urge to cheer ''Don't give up! The sand attack's, they still have effect Aiden. Murkrow is not able to see him clearly!''
''See, clearly?'' Aiden repeated slowly, ''of course that's it. Krabby, keep your pincher ready, I got an idea.''
James grinned ''I'm interest to see it, but till then we will continue as normal, Murkrow please try again, Pursuit.'' Murkrow flew up again, beak glowing purple, and rapidly glided towards Krabby.
''Krabby do Mudshot, aim right above the purple glow!'' A small orange sphere appeared in Krabby's pincher, and with a quick movement Krabby fired it right into the murkrows eyes. The purple glow disappeared as the pokémon fell to the ground. Krabby scurried to his opponent as fast as he could and grabbed it tightly with his pincher. The murkrow tried its best to counter, but its awkward position made hitting its target almost impossible. The murkrow moved around, dragging Krabby with him, but was unable to get loose. ''Bubblebeam!'' Aiden shouted ecstatically and Krabby finished the fight.
''Okay then, let's see how you do against the pokémon who bested you before.'' Murkrow returned to his pokéball and on the field appeared some familiar looking yellow rings. ''This is it, your final opponent. Beat her and you will get the badge. Umbreon, Pursuit.'' The rings faded, but close to the ground a slight purple glow could be seen. She sped towards Krabby like a scary mist and knocked the poor crab pokémon off his feet.
''Mudshot, just like before'' Aiden sounded confident and Krabby powered up his pincher. With another quick movement the orange sphere shot right to above the purple glow. But as the purple was no longer coming from a beak, but rather Umbreon's paws, the attack shot right under Umbeon's belly and she was able to attack him with little difficulty.
''Ki ku!'' Krabby exclaimed annoyed, and tried to grab Umbreon as she ran away.
''You need to aim higher Krabby, try again.'' Krabby prepared himself for another Mudshot.
''Umbreon, do Tackle'' James ordered, ruining Aiden's plans. Umbreon jumped to Krabby, but by a stroke of luck, Krabby was able to dodge. Just as Umbreon landed Krabby grabbed her tightly with his left pincher and drenched her with a stream of bubbles. Umbreon let out a muffled cry and pulled herself loose.
The moves had clearly taken their toll on Krabby and his panting was hearable from the stands. ''One more time, Vice Grip, give it all you've got!''
Krabby braced himself and awaited his opponent, who was already on her way back, paws aglow. His pincher just missed her ear as she hit him on the head with her paws. Umbreon circled back to finish the job and Krabby held out his pincher once more. This time Krabby was able to grab the umbreon by the throat, but he got knocked out by the pursuit right after.
Aiden sent out Hoothoot for the last round. Umbreon had taken a lot of damage, but it was stronger than Hoothoot, so Aiden had to be careful. 'Hoothoot, use Hypnosis till it's asleep.''
Hoothoot stared at the umbreon with red glowing eyes, but the pokémon kept running and jumped up, kicking Hoothoot with her purple paws. The owl pokémon fell to the ground but quickly pushed himself up and continued staring at Umbreon, who was already on her way back. His attack failed a second time, and again he was pushed to the ground by umbreons paws. Hoothoot eyes were still glowing, but he had started swaying from side to side, nearing exhaustion. Umbreon sped away from him but fell down. ''Go, quickly! Use Peck till its knockout. It can't have much energy left.''
Hoothoot flew up but was slower than usual, so Aiden started cheering him on. After 3 pecks umbreon started to wake up, and Hoothoot tried to get away. But Aiden knew that it was all or nothing. ''Peck! Now!'' Aiden shrieked from the tension, but Hoothoot listened and pecked the umbreon one more time, causing it to sink back to the ground.
The lights turned back on and Sofie held up her left flag. ''Umbreon is unable to battle, Hoothoot wins. This means the victory goes to Aiden.''
''Good job, I knew you could do it.'' James walked to Aiden and cleared his throat, ''I hereby present you the Piebald badge, wear it with pride.'' Aiden eagerly took it from his hand and showed it to Lexi, 'Now I have one too!''
(_)
After dropping the pokémon off at the Pokémon Center, they went to the nearest shop to buy some pokésnacks as a celebration. Lexi wasn't sure what her pokémon would like the most so she bought the bestselling ones, and Aiden followed her lead. They let out their pokémon in the park and enjoyed their own chocolate bars as Lexi looked at her map. Hoothoot and Pidgey loudly ate their balls of seed, while Krabby played around with his snack first before devouring it in one bite.
''This is nice,'' Lexi said looking at Serafine who was slowly nibbling her treat. Pero hadn't touched his yet and had spent the last few minutes staring at it. ''I wonder what the next town is going to look like. Will Rana even have a park?''
''Maybe not, but I'm sure we'll find another place to let them out. But before we're going to the next town I want to go to the sea. I want to find out what that orange stuff on the beach was.''
At noon both trainers were packed and ready to continue their journey. The walk to the beach was quite far, but the terrain was relatively flat, so they were able to get there within a few hours. When they got to the beach Aiden looked disappointed. The beach looked deserted, the only sign of life were two tire tracks that decorated the uneven sand. Aiden walked closer to the grey looking water. ''I can't see anything, do you think we need to go further?''
Lexi looked around. ''Could be, I do see some silhouettes moving in the distance.''
They continued near the water, were the sand was denser. The salty wind threw their hair around, forcing Lexi to make a ponytail to stop her hair from obscuring her vision. ''Look, there's a jeep.'' Lexi pointed. ''Some people just stepped out of it.''
''Maybe they will know what the orange stuff on the beach is, let's go ask them!'' Aiden jogged towards them, slipping on the wet sand every few steps. This earned him an amused look from one of the women of the group. ''Why the hurry? Do you need some help getting somewhere?'' the woman offered. The other two people looked up as well, a man from around 30 and a younger woman with red hair.
''No, I just wanted to ask you something. I saw some orange stuff on the beach a few days ago and I wanted to know what it was, so we've been walking for a while now but we still haven't found anything. Do any of you know what the orange stuff is?''
The two other people joined them curiously. Everyone wore the same orange t-shirt with a yellow ring on it, except for the woman Aiden talked to, who had a blue jacket on.
The woman laughed and said ''I think I know what you mean, those are buizel. We can show you if you like.'' She looked at the other two people, who gave an affirming nod. ''We were just about to go check on them, just hop in the back.'' Lexi followed Aiden into the back of the jeep, where they were joined soon after by the two women. They sat under a washed-out yellow roof, with sand covered metal boxes and gear all around them. Lexi tried to get more comfortable, but the non-skid floor made it difficult to move around.
''Okay Johan, start her up'' the woman without a jacket yelled from the back of the jeep. The tires seemed to slip momentarily, but within seconds the jeep was moving through the sand in a steady pace, throwing up sand and shells which Lexi could hear cladder against the sides.
''Well, my name is Elena,'' the woman in the blue jacket started, ''and that there's Cyndy. That man driving the jeep is Johan, my boyfriend.'' Johan, hearing his name, held up his hand as greeting. ''We are responsible for all the buizel that live in this area. We check on them, care for them if they're hurt and keep their numbers to a healthy amount. Right now there are between 50.000 and 100.000 buizel on this beach.''
''That seems like a lot of work for three people'' Aiden said surprised.
''Well, we have some help every now and then, but yes it keeps us busy. Not that I mind, I love my work. I used to be a police agent, only went to the beach to relax. But then I met Johan, who was typical surfer boy, he needed some help with a buizel that had gotten stuck in something. The organization kinda started like that, just me and him coming here on the weekends to check on the buizel, and clean the beach. Cyndy joined us a few years later, she's a pretty good kayaker and helps us with finding and catching buizel that need help.''
''Why do you need to catch them?'' Lexi asked, 'Won't they just come to you?''
''Maybe every now and then, but remember that these are wild buizel, they don't come in contact with humans often. And whenever they come into contact with us it isn't necessarily fun either, healing or untangling them can feel uncomfortable.''
Everyone in the back of the truck got lightly thrown to the left as Johan swerved to dodge a big hole somebody had dug out, and Elena quickly pushed some things back in place. Lexi, who had her arm tightly wrapped around her backpack, watched Aiden shake some sand out of his hair.
''Luckily there are barely any floatzel in the group, those typically swim across the water to Sinnoh, cause when one of them needs help it can be quite a fight.''
The truck started to slow down and Elena looked through the windshield, ''We are here. Come on, time to get busy'' Elena lightly shoved Cyndy, who had spent the entire time looking out the window. Cyndy stayed in the truck gathering some equipment while Lexi followed Aiden and Elena out. When she turned to the beach she was amazed by the view. The beach seemed covered by a blanket of orange, which reached so far that Lexi couldn't see the end of it. It was difficult to guess how many it were, as most were so close together that she could barely identify the individual pokémon. Elena saw her face and grinned. ''That's a lot eh?'' Lexi nodded without looking away. Next to her Aiden had grabbed a camera out of his backpack and started taking pictures. ''Rory will not believe this!''
Cyndy came out of the vehicle and handed some things to her colleagues. ''What are we going to do with them?'' she motioned to Lexi and Aiden. Johan frowned as he thought but then smiled and walked to them. ''We going to check on the buizel now, and will catch any that need help. If you want you can come with us and look, but it is very important that you stay out of our way and don't distract us while we are busy, okay? That's the deal.'' Lexi and Aiden looked at each other and both nodded eagerly. ''Okay,'' Johan motioned to the buizel, 'let's go.''
They walked for a while, Cyndy at the end of the line holding all the equipment, inspecting the group of buizel. Some buizel stood up and looked at them, but most stayed down, though the energy had changed. Every buizel seemed alert and ready to bolt, and a few slowly started to make their way to the water.
''There,'' Elena stopped walking and carefully pointed to somewhere inside the colony of buizel. Lexi squinted and quickly scanned the group. Next to a small rock stood a buizel with some rope around its feet. ''Okay, everybody ready?'' Elena zipped her jacket open and took out a pokéball. '' Incy, String shot.'' A big ariados appeared in the sand and for a short moment nobody moved, then a roar of high picked cries echoed through the air as the enormous group of buizel thundered towards the ocean.
The ariados skilfully moved between the sea of orange bodies and ran toward its target at a blistering pace. It was knocked sideways for a moment by a fleeing buizel, but then continued on, white jaws separating. As soon as it was close enough Incy shot its silk like string towards the buizel, tying it up before it could reach the water. Johan ran across the now almost deserted beach and pushed the buizel, who was trying to stand up, back into the sand. He cut the rope with a small knife, ignoring the buizels angry hisses and pushing away its tail as it tried to hit him. When he was done, Cyndy handed him a spray bottle and Lexi watched as Johan sprayed its contents on the strings which immediately dissolved. The buizel barked loudly and then ran after its friends into the water.
''Looks like it's part of a fishing net, could give some nasty cuts if it's on long enough'' Johan explained to Aiden and Lexi, while putting it in a garbage bag Cyndy was carrying.
''Can I ask something?'' Lexi questioned.
''Of course,''
''Why don't you use pokéballs to catch them? Isn't that easier?''
''Well, not really. First of all we're not allowed to, government rules and all. We are only able to use pokéballs once a year, when we go through the group and catch buizel that are too weak, disturb the balance in the group or need to be relocated for other reasons.'' Elena stopped for a moment to help Cyndy with the bag, ''But the other reason we don't use pokéballs is because they wouldn't help get the rubbish off. It would just get sucked into it together with the buizel, just like when you put decoration on your pokémon and it goes with it into the pokéball.
''What happens with the buizel that you catch once a year?''
''Depends, they might just get relocated to another water area, or even a different region, but those that are willing and cooperative usually end up with the fire department. There they are trained to help fight fires and perform rescue operation with their human partners.''
''Wow, really? We had a fire in our town a few months back and the firemen there had two buizels as well, you think those are both from here?'' Aiden said, almost jumping up and down.
''I'm sure of it. They probably both grew up here and were caught while we were thinning the colony. Oh there is Johan, everybody ready?'' Elena said as Johan stopped the truck next to them.
Aiden already had one foot in the truck when Lexi suddenly screamed something. ''Wait, that buizel didn't move, I think it's really hurt!'' Everybody turned around and looked at a small buizel laying a few feet away, Lexi looked at it with a worried expression but Johan casually closed the car door. ''Nah,'' Johan responded as he walked to the buizel and held up his finger, ''this is just a young one, probably recently hatched, those are very deep sleepers. Look,'' he reached down with his finger and lightly poked the buizel, which sleepily looked up before running away in a hurry. Lexi blushed slightly and quickly went into the truck.
(_)
Lexi and Aiden followed the group the rest of the day. Every time they had searched through one section of the colony, they would get called back to the truck and Johan would drive for a minute before stopping at the next section. After failing to catch one buizel and helping three others, Johan and his colleagues took a short break. Johan, who had sat down on one of the wheels, took a big bite of his sandwich and looked at the sea. ''Tide's coming in.'' he informed the others.
''Well,'' Elena wiped the sand off her hands and looked at Lexi and Aiden, ''it's time for us to get back, it's nearly half past six. You guys want to go with us?''
''No thank you, we're on our way to Rana.'' Aiden explained.
''There is a path up the hill there, between those trees and up to that old tower, which is probably quicker than following the beach.''
''Thanks, we'll check it out.''
''Well, it was fun to have you two with us, we have a beach clean-up event in a few months if you're interested. Consider yourselves invited. And here,'' Elena grabbed something out if the truck and handed it to them, ''as a souvenir.''
Lexi, who hadn't said anything since the baby buizel incident, held up her hand and looked at the small metal pipe. It had a small engraving of their logo. ''It's a straw for life, eco-friendly and very durable.''
Johan honked and the women quickly waved and walked to the truck. Lexi put her backpack on, which felt less heavy now that she had been able to leave it in the truck for a few hours, and watched the sun sink closer to the water. 'It's pretty late, we better set up our tents between those trees, then we can start our climb to the tower tomorrow.''
''Sounds like a plan.'' Aiden sat down near the trees and opened his backpack, 'But first...dinner!''