Roy and Antonia both got to the pokémon center near Mt. Moon in one piece, albeit with their clothes and things soaked through by the rain. The nurse on-duty had clucked and cooed over them and directed the two trainers to some of the available rooms where they could change before eating a nice hot meal. Both had been grateful, but Roy was more vocal than Antonia, who had not spoken more than ten words to him since their taking leave of Greg and his paras. Roy did not know what to do about that, and instead after he had changed he decided to get to know his new pokémon.
The nidoran which he had caught before the downpour had begun, when released from its poké ball, looked as frightened as it had before its capture, and its eyes wildly scanned the simple room provided by the pokémon center to traveling trainers. They lit upon the bed, desk, and chair and then the rest of the room in a jittery survey.
Roy and Charmander watched the smaller pokémon for a few moments and then Roy took a step towards it. In an instant, the nidoran's examination stopped and it froze like a statue. "Hey, it's okay," Roy told his new pokémon. "You're all right. I'm Roy, your trainer. I'm gonna take care of you, get you fed and keep you warm, all right?" With his thumb, Roy gestured at his other pokémon. "That guy over there is Charmander. Say 'hi', Charmander." The orange-scaled pokémon snorted contemptuously and sent a few trails of smoke out of his nostrils.
The nidoran looked skeptical of Roy and did not even dare to look at Charmander, but it did not look as fearful as before and it did not bolt when Roy offered his hand out for it to examine. After a pause, it took a few cautionary sniffs. Roy seemed satisfied with that and he stood up and opened the door to the rest of the pokémon center. As soon as there was a crack through which the hallway was visible, the nidoran bolted towards the opening. Roy slammed it shut and the rushing pokémon crashed headlong into the door. Roy fumbled for nidoran's poké ball laying on the desk and recalled nidoran in a flash of red light. He shook his head and looked at his unimpressed charmander. "We'll try again later. Let's go eat."
There was no sign of Antonia at the pokémon center's cafeteria, and when Roy asked the volunteer serving the food if she had seen Antonia, she answered in the negative. As a result, he was feeling melancholy as he sat down at one of cafeteria's tables with his bowl of soup and bread and neither he nor Charmander spoke much while they ate.
The silence was broken when a teenaged girl approached the two of them. She had shoulder-length black hair and a contagious smile. "Hi there," she said brightly and took up a seat next to Roy. "Traveling trainer, huh?"
"Uh, yeah," answered Roy.
"That's great! My name's Sarah! If you're looking to get over the mountain, then I'm your gal!" Roy accepted her boisterous handshake and almost found himself smiling at the energy she was displaying.
When he had wrested his hand back, Roy introduced himself. "I'm Roy, and this is my charmander. We've got another pokémon, but it's, uh, still not trained yet."
Sarah nodded sympathetically. "Freshly caught, huh? I remember what that's like. I only went on my own pokémon journey a few years ago."
"Really? What was it like?" Roy proceeded to press the older pokémon trainer for information, asking about the pokémon she had used, the people she had met, and the places she had seen. Sarah was only too happy to share her knowledge and she also listened with rapt attention while he described his own journey.
"So, where's this Tony guy you're telling me about?" she asked once Roy had finally reached a break in his storytelling.
After swatting away Charmander's claw reaching for what was left of his bread, Roy said, "Not Tony, Toni, Antonia, I just call her that. She's been acting kind of strangely for most of the day, ever since she lost a pokémon battle against a trainer we met. I was hoping to see her eating here, but-" Roy just gestured vaguely around the pokémon center's cafeteria.
With a click of her tongue, Sarah said, "Well, she probably just needs some time to cool off and think things over. It isn't easy losing a pokémon battle."
"Well, I'm pretty good at it," laughed Roy. "First, Toni, Antonia, I mean, and then Brock. Even when I did win against my brother, it didn't really feel like winning, you know?"
Again, Sarah nodded and then she moved to stand up. "Tell you what, Roy, I'll talk with the staff and see that some food gets sent to Antonia's room so that she at least gets something to eat. Then after we set out tomorrow morning with the other people going to Cerulean, I'll try and talk with her, see what advice I can pass on from someone who's been there before."
Roy returned the older girl's winning smile and thanked her. Then, as she turned, he thought to ask, "How many people are you taking over the mountain tomorrow?"
"Not too many!" answered Sarah cheerfully and then she left Roy and his pokémon to finish their meals in relative quiet.
The next morning, Roy found out that he and Antonia were going to be just two out of the dozen charges which Sarah was going to guide for the next few days.
"Barring bad weather," she explained in the lobby of the pokémon center once they were all gathered, "it should only take us three days to get through to Cerulean. But that's only if you all follow my lead and my directions. These mountain passes can be tricky, especially after last night's rain, and if you get lost there's no guarantee that you'd be found for a long, long time." Her dire warning was delivered with pep and a smile, but Roy still saw a few other people in their group blanch at the thought. Not Antonia though. When Roy checked on her from out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl looking straight ahead without seeing anything through her normally wide eyes and her glasses. It made Roy nervous, and he wanted to lighten her mood with a joke or a look or something, but when he elbowed her to get her attention, Antonia just looked up at him dully and the idea died an ignoble death.
There was plenty to distract Roy from Antonia's strange mood. Sarah had plenty of supplies and jobs to assign to the group. The adult carried some of the heavier equipment, the tents and other necessities for their campsites, but Roy and Antonia did not escape her friendly gaze and the two trainers found themselves laden with a hearty portion of the food which the hikers would need on their trek over the mountain. Once she was satisfied with how everything was distributed, Sarah clapped her hands and proclaimed them ready to set out.
Outside of the pokémon center, Roy was surprised to see the sun already so high in its climb to the apex of the sky. Sarah seemed to read his mind and she explained to the group over her shoulder, "We're going to take it a little easier today. The first campground is a shorter hike than we'll be doing tomorrow and the day after. That will help get us adjusted to the exercise and the terrain. Don't worry, we'll make outdoorsmen and -women of you all in no time!"
Roy wanted to try and talk to Antonia, but she ignored him and everything else except for putting one foot in front of the other. He soon had to pause his efforts at trying to get her to open up because as they climbed higher up the foothills of Mt. Moon, Roy's own focus turned to making sure that he was keeping up with the other hikers. Staying back to keep Antonia company had helped him pace himself on the rocky ascent, and Roy was grateful that he hadn't expended too much of his energy right away as was his wont.
As they climbed higher and higher, Sarah would have the group pause periodically for water and to point out some of the history and natural features of the area where they were stopped. Some of her observations and stories veered into the morbid, but it was clear that she was made for this job. Even after hours of climbing the mountain and pointing out how blue the sky was no fewer than a dozen times, she was showing no signs of fatigue.
"How did you end up doing this, Sarah?" one of the older people in the group asked their guide after one of those breaks. He was half of an older couple who were traveling around the region and, in their own words, had wanted to recapture the romance of their own pokémon journey many, many years ago.
"It's as good of a summer job as any," replied Sarah brightly. "I'm from Cerulean myself, so I figured I could make some money while school's out, feed my travel bug, and still be close to home. A pretty good deal, huh?"
After some more hiking, they stopped at a clearing with some smooth polished rocks perfect for sitting for lunch and the group tore into the first of the meals that had been brought from the pokémon center. Roy and Antonia found themselves working with Sarah to distribute the food from the packs which they had been carrying all morning, and Sarah spoke with both of them in friendly generalities. Antonia did not engage her questions, but Sarah still flashed Roy a thumb's up and a carefree grin behind the other girl's back. He thought that more would pass between the two other pokémon trainers, but nothing did before their too-short break ended and Sarah was pushing everyone to get back on their feet and heading along the path.
Starting again felt harder than the beginning of the hike, not only for Roy but for the other hikers as well. The food felt heavy in their bellies and muscles protested at the resumption of the climb up Mt. Moon. The only two people immune to the challenge seemed to be Sarah and Antonia. Even though the round-faced girl was visibly sweating under the midday sun, Antonia gamely pushed on, keeping a steady pace with Sarah even while the others in the group hung back more and more.
There was a price to pay for how Antonia was pushing herself, however. While she climbed up a steeper stretch of path after Sarah's example, Antonia tried to put her weight on a patch of ground outside of the path, and slipped on it since it was still muddy from the previous day's rain. The fixed expression Antonia had worn all day vanished and fear twisted her features as she cried out and waved her arms to try and stop herself from falling backwards down the incline. Roy and the others in the group gasped, but they had fallen too far behind to be able to get there in time to keep Antonia from hitting the ground below. That did not stop Roy from trying, and he ran towards the falling girl by drawing on some pool of energy that he hadn't known that he still possessed.
As he ran, Roy felt his heart beating against his chest and his vision blurred until he saw a flash of red light. That made him pause, and when he looked for Antonia, he found her suspended over the ground, cradled expertly by two blue-green cords. "Bulbasaur?" Antonia asked while Roy was asking the same question in his mind.
But it was not Antonia's pokémon who had saved her. Instead, at the top of the climb, Sarah stood with one of her own red and white poké balls held in her grip and a bulbasaur at her feet. It was larger than Antonia's pokémon, and besides the different markings it possessed, Sarah's pokémon also looked older and more confident. It set Antonia back on her feet without any sign of strain and accepted Sarah's thanks with a curt nod. By then the rest of the group had caught up with Roy and the abashed Antonia, but all eyes were on Sarah and her pokémon.
The steely look in their guide's eyes vanished so quickly that it almost seemed to have been a trick of the light, and Sarah was back to her cheerful self when she addressed the people below her, "Everything's okay now, everybody, but I hope you all remember not to bite off more than you can chew! My bulbasaur and I aren't going to leave anyone behind, so don't worry! And if you're worried about any stretches or climbs being too difficult for you, you just let me know, okay?"
The scare, and Sarah's handling of it, left the hiking group in a quiet mood for a period. While Sarah's bulbasaur helped the older hikers up the treacherous path where Antonia had fallen, Roy assisted his friend. He took it as a good sign that she was letting him help her, although Antonia didn't say anything to him. When they passed Sarah where she was surveying the hikers' progress, Antonia did offer a small "Thank you" to the older girl.
"You're very welcome, Antonia!" Sarah replied and then she had to move to help one of the other travelers who was having trouble.
Once they were all past that landmark, a sense of accomplishment permeated the air and the rest of the day's hike did not seem so daunting a task. When the campsite that Sarah was driving them towards came into view a cheer went up from the group, even though there was still plenty of work ahead of them with preparing the site. Teams worked at setting up tents and preparing a fire for cooking the evening meal. Roy and Antonia helped with the tents, although after Antonia had accidentally whacked Roy's hand with the mallet he took over more and more of the set-up.
While they were finishing up their work, Sarah came over and gave her approval, "Nice going, guys! You've been camping before, huh?"
"I have," said Roy at once, "lots of times."
Next, Sarah moved to Antonia and put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Good work, Antonia, this looks great."
"Thank you," said Antonia quietly. Then, she looked up and added, "And thank you again for earlier, I- I'm sorry that I was being so careless."
"It's okay, that's what I'm here to help with." She didn't say anything more for a while, but when Antonia did not fill the silence, Sarah spoke again, "Why don't you let your pokémon out of their poké balls and they can eat with us? I'm sure they'd like some fresh air after being cooped up all day, and the other hikers will get a kick out of seeing them."
With that, Sarah left them to supervise some of the other members of the group. Roy took out his poké balls and was about to release his pokémon, but he stopped when he saw Antonia looking at her bulbasaur's poké ball with an unreadable expression on her face. "Hey, Toni," Roy asked, "are you all right, after everything, I mean?"
"I think so," was her answer and then, before Roy could press any further, she released her pokémon. Bulbasaur and then her kakuna emerged blinking in the warm air of the summer evening. Kakuna immediately toppled over onto its side and needed to be rescued by Antonia, which she did with only the briefest of hesitation. Bulbasaur watched Antonia, but he kept a respectful distance from his trainer and did not say anything, only watching her and then following her when she headed to the center of the campsite and the other people gathered there.
Roy watched them go and let out a sigh as he called Charmander out from his poké ball. The trainer shrugged and then, to his pokémon, asked, "Are you hungry, Charmander?" The answer was a nod and a snort in the affirmative. "Great, let's go. Oh, wait." From his pocket, Roy produced nidoran's poké ball. "We better let our new teammate join us too." With a press of the button, Roy's other pokémon took form on the ground besides the tent. Once the initial shock wore off, the nidoran quickly made for the underbrush on the edge of the campsite.
Once Roy and Charmander had recovered the fleeing pokémon and it was squirming yet secure in Roy's arms, they joined the rest of the group. Sarah was roasting some food for the hikers over the fire they had made and was talking with Antonia next to her. The two girls' bulbasaur were examining each other and side-by-side Roy was struck again by the difference in size between the two pokémon. Antonia's bulbasaur, who had always seemed so confident and powerful to Roy, was nervous around its larger cousin, but he also possessed an undeniable curiosity.
When she saw Roy, Sarah motioned for him to join her and Antonia on the bench carved from a log where they were sitting. "Come on, Roy," she said, "let's get some food in you."
He sat on Sarah's side opposite from Antonia. At first he took as many looks at his friend as he dared, and was happy to see some more color in her cheeks and some more brightness in her brown eyes. Soon, he let himself relax and talk with Sarah and some of the other hikers who were asking him about his pokémon and sharing their own experiences with him. Even his nidoran began to simmer down a little bit and let Roy feed it some food from his hand, although it also bit him when he didn't feed it quickly enough for its liking.
When he went to bed, Roy felt good and he realized to his surprise that he hadn't really thought about Jesse the whole day, especially their encounter in Pewter City. He thought instead about Sarah and about Antonia doing a little better and so he fell asleep with a smile on his face.
The next morning, Sarah got all of their group up bright and early by hammering two cooking pans together and shouting with far too much volume and pep for the early hour. When people, Roy included, tried to catch some extra sleep, they soon found their tents crashing down around them as the group's guide drove everyone to clear up the campsite as quickly as possible so that they could get moving. "Today's hike is going to be just a little more challenging," she explained happily, "and I want to make sure that we have some extra time in case there are any difficulties." Without meaning to, Roy thought of Antonia's fall the day before and grimaced. Still, he and the others set off after Sarah as soon as they were dressed. Breakfast was eaten on the road, distributed up and down the line of hikers from the lightened loads Roy and Antonia were carrying.
Most of the morning's hike was undertaken in silence either from sleepiness or annoyance from being so sleepy. Sarah seemed immune to the nigh-mutinous air among her group and continued to comment on the rock formations or the spindly trees that they saw. Roy and Antonia had both decided to have their pokémon walk along with them, with mixed results. Bulbasaur was up for the challenge and worked hard to keep up with Sarah's pokémon, while Roy's nidoran and Antonia's kakuna had to be carried by their trainers. Once released, Charmander took one look around at his surroundings, pointedly yawned, and then depressed the button on the center of his poké ball with his claw to transport himself back inside of the capsule.
Sarah's bright mood darkened briefly when she stopped the group to pick up something metallic which caught the sun from where it lay by the trail. After dusting it off, she showed it to Roy and Antonia and grumbled, "Hard to believe people would throw things away in such a beautiful place."
"What is it?" asked Roy.
Antonia answered right away, like she had when they were back at their school in Pallet Town. "It's a technical machine, isn't it? I got one from Brock the gym leader, see?" Indeed, the small cube that Antonia retrieved from her bag looked very similar to the one Sarah was holding, although Antonia's was cleaner and was marked on the side with a black number instead of the blue digits on the one in Sarah's hands.
"So it is!" said Sarah. "Hey, when we stop for lunch, let me show you guys how to use these, all right?"
Once the group had halted for its midday meal and food had been passed out again, Sarah met up with Roy and Antonia again. "The first thing you have to know," she explained, "is what kind of TM you're looking at. Here." Taking the small box from Antonia, Sarah turned it over until the numbers written on one side. "Aha, so this one is number thirty-four, meaning it will teach a pokémon the 'bide' technique. Do you want to try it out on your bulbasaur?"
Antonia nodded and Roy was pleased to see that she was actually excited about this lesson and putting it into practice. When she reached for Bulbasaur to guide him into position, however, her hand hesitated and she maintained the contact only as long as was necessary. Roy noticed, he was sure that Bulbasaur noticed, and even Sarah frowned briefly at the sight, but she moved on with her tutorial. She handed the technical machine back to Antonia and told her, "Hold it over your pokémon, right over the bulb should be good. Now, when you're ready you twist the TM and pull it apart, like it's a party favor." As Antonia followed the older trainer's instructions, the cube came apart and a sprinkling of powder fell from between the two halves and onto Bulbasaur. The powder was absorbed into the pokémon's speckled skin without any sign of discomfort, and Roy and Antonia both weren't sure that the process had worked until Sarah clapped Antonia on the shoulder and said, "Good work, Antonia, that should help spice up your battling some."
The encouragement was appreciated, but the mention of battling left Antonia looking somber again. Roy worked quickly to fill the silence and asked, "What about the other TM? The one that you found earlier?"
Sarah brought the dingy cube out to show him. "This one's still usable, I guess, but if I'm remembering correctly, it's not much of prize. This one's number twelve, see? That means it teaches a pokémon how to fire water guns, just about the most basic thing a water pokémon can do." She laughed. "I'm not happy that whoever threw it out did so outside, but I can't really blame them for not wanting it."
"Well, we don't have any water pokémon," said Antonia, but Roy interjected, "Can a different pokémon use it? Not a water-type, I mean?"
"I suppose so, but not your kakuna," she said to Antonia, "or your charmander." Sarah stopped and a smile lit up her face. "But your nidoran, on the other hand, it could use it just fine, I think."
It was harder to get the second pokémon to hold still while Roy fumbled with the technical machine, but with a few words of encouragement and Antonia's bulbasaur ready to ensnare it with his vines, the nidoran performed well enough. Roy repeated the same process of twisting and cracking open the device and this time the powder which scattered over the surprised nidoran was a shade of blue. When the last of it had been absorbed into the spiky pink pokémon's skin, Roy said, "Now, let's try it out! Nidoran, show me a water gun!"
The small pokémon looked up at Roy and then inhaled sharply before letting out a burst of water into its trainer's face. The unexpected attack sent Antonia laughing and soon the others had joined her clear, unashamed mirth.
When they made camp that night, the whole group's muscles ached but the feeling was accompanied by a sense of accomplishment of having tackled the hardest part of the path over Mt. Moon. They were heartened by the sentiment, if not necessarily the words, of their guide when Sarah had told them all at one point, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's all downhill from here!" Roy and Antonia let their pokémon out to help with setting up camp and to join the hikers for dinner which was a livelier affair after all of the bonding undergone during the past two days.
While Roy was showing off his charmander and nidoran to some appreciative onlookers, Sarah took Antonia aside. "Oh, hello, Sarah," the younger girl started to say when she was cut off.
"What's going on between you and your bulbasaur?" asked Sarah bluntly. "You've been giving the poor thing the cold shoulder every chance you get. Is it because you two lost a battle? Because I think that I've gotten to know you well enough to know that you're a better trainer, and a better person, than that."
The sudden verbal onslaught left Antonia speechless, but Sarah was willing to wait for her to recover enough to respond. "I'm-" Different words passed through Antonia's mind, but she chose to simply say, "I'm not sure." Antonia looked down at her hands and started twisting the hem of her shirt in them. "It feels as though he's failed me, and I've failed him too. It felt like everything was going well, we got our first gym badge for the league and my other pokémon evolved, but then I lost and I don't know what will happen next."
When Antonia looked up, Sarah's expression had softened and she said, "None of us ever know, Antonia. You can make all of the plans in the world and then a misstep or a spot of bad weather will take it all away from you. Win or lose, the best that you can hope for is to roll with the punches and do the best that you can." She gestured past the tent behind which they were holding their conference, to the rest of their group. "Your pokémon are trying their best too, Antonia, don't ever let yourself forget that, huh?"
They rejoined the others around the fire after that, and Antonia worked hard to pay more attention to Bulbasaur. It was not easy, and she felt a weight settle on her when he looked at her, but she didn't let herself draw back and instead assured herself that things would get better. They just needed time.