Teams:
Pierce Lawson:
- Narcissa, Beedrill
- Orion, Onix
- Cygnus, Abra
- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)
- Andromeda, Vaporeon
Lillian Dale:
- Root, Bulbasaur
- Talon, Spearow
- Gem, Geodude
- Star, Cleffa
Cerulean City XXIII
Waking up was a very pleasant experience.
Mainly because Pierce was back to sleeping on an actual bed instead of on top of Bellatrix or on the floor next to the pool. Now that the recently evolved gyarados was part of his team, he could just put her in her pokeball for the night and call it a day at the Pokemon Center room he'd been using before. Granted, while she was his pokemon now and thus his responsibility, the Sisters had, the League's stead, insisted on Bellatrix being brought back to the Gym's pools with the other gyarados to continue recovering.
Pierce had easily agreed with that. Even if she was his pokemon, the shiny pokemon was still not quite stable. Better, but not completely fine by any means. She'd get there soon though and he couldn't wait. He imagined getting some training and swimming at the beach in Cerulean would be great for her.
Not yet, however.
'I don't wanna get up,' he whined in his own mind, rolling on the bed and contemplating if he could get away with not getting up until noon. It was so nice to be away from the Gym pool and on a nice, lovely bed. Alas, it was not to be, he realized as he felt the covers over him shifting. 'Go away, Cygnus.'
"No can do, Helper-Voice," his abra told him in his mind and he sighed. "Things to do, pokemon to help."
'You suck.'
"No, I don't," Cygnus replied, sounding entirely too smug.
"No, you don't," Pierce grumbled, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Fine,"he added then, forcing himself to a sitting position with a groan. "God, mornings suck."
"So you've said… repeatedly."
"That's because they do," he mumbled, getting up and stretching. Even a while later, after getting ready and leaving his room, Pierce still felt like going back to sleep. The pokemon sitting on his shoulders didn't really help. "Hey, girl," he greeted, releasing Narcissa on the seat beside him at the Center's dining hall. The beedrill clicked her mandibles back in response while he blew on the coffee cup he'd gotten to cool it down a little.
It was very early, but alas, it was how it was. He wanted to get things done, after all, and for that he needed time. Thus, he'd decided to get up extra early. He'd hit the battlegrounds so that he could fight with his team a little for his sake as much as theirs. It'd be nice to flex his trainer muscles, as it were, and his team of battle maniacs would surely have a great time too.
From there, he'd go to the Gym and do the job the Sisters wanted him to do while getting started on the idea he'd presented to them. After that, he'd leave for lunch, get a nice meal somewhere along the shoreside and then spend some time in the water. Maybe the magikarp school would still be around. He'd had Lily go and tell them what was up, again, but maybe they'd decided that it was enough and moved on. The beach was probably too crowded with people for them to stick around.
After that, it'd be back to the Gym and more or less spend the rest of the day there.
As far as day plans went, it sounded like a good one, Pierce thought. For the moment though, he had breakfast to get through, as Narcissa gently pointed out. Well, if one could call buzzing and poking at his food tray with her stinger gently, that is. She wasn't angrily clicking her mandibles, so he thought it counted, but maybe others would have a different opinion.
"Trainer-Supporter isn't going to be around soon," Cygnus commented, munching on a berry that Pierce had given him as thanks for helping him get up. Lily's picture flashed through his mind again at the title or nickname or whatever that was. He more or less could guess most of the time, but since some of those were shared between different people, he preferred for his abra to clarify just in case.
"Yeah, I agree with that," Pierce mumbled, finishing the last pieces of his breakfast. He had gotten up entirely too early for his traveling companion, it seemed. No surprises there. Besides, his friend had less responsibilities at the moment, so she could just relax and do normal trainer stuff without worrying about timetables and such. 'Imagine that,' he thought to himself wryly.
So, once he was done, he moved to the back of the Pokemon Center, the open area where he could get his team out. There was even a good portion of it with a pool for water pokemon that hadn't been there in Pewter. Cerulean especially, he supposed, which was hardly surprising considering the nature of the city and how common it was for people to have water types around there.
"Hey there, girl," he greeted as Andromeda appeared, placing a hand on her head between her ears and petting her. The eeveelution let out some kind of meow while he pulled Orion's pokeball to let out the onix. Bellatrix, for her part, would have to wait until they went to the Gym. That was why he wanted to get there early, else his gyarados would miss breakfast. "How does it feel to be out?" he asked after greeting Orion too, turning back to his newly acquired vaporeon.
The water type looked around, sitting on the dirt ground and seeming as imperious as she ever was. From what he was getting, she wasn't very impressed, but she did stand and move around a bit. Even if the place wasn't great, it was different and if he had felt great leaving the Gym, then she probably felt doubly so.
"Nice, isn't it?" he commented, getting an approving yip.
[}-o-{]
"Move, Strike," he commanded, grinning.
It was, as he expected, quite nice to be back on the battlefields, fighting alongside his team. He wasn't a huge fan of battles yet, but there was no denying that it was enjoyable, in a way. His pokemon loved them too, so that helped wash away whatever reluctance he had. It was more like boxing than it was a dog fight, or so he was starting to view it. Granted, there was a part of him that still saw it that way, but it was a part of him that was more and more uncertain as the time passed.
Back to the actual battle though, Narcissa followed his order to the letter, moving as fast as she could to get close to the opposing tauros. He'd seen some of those around before and this one wasn't quite as big as others he'd come across. It made Pierce think that it was a younger one, or at least a weaker one. That made sense though, since he was fighting at First Badge level at the moment.
Not that it stopped Narcissa from kicking all sorts of ass, he thought as he watched his beedrill dance around the unfortunate bull pokemon. His bug type unleashed all sorts of attacks with her stingers using Fury Attack again and again. Never did she stop flying from side to side, making sure that the tauros wouldn't be able to get a hit in. The normal type was going to have an awful time, Pierce knew.
"Move, Blast," he called before they overextended with the close combat. He knew that was Narcissa's preferred approach, but that didn't mean they could just go full on with it. If they did, she'd get hit and even if the battle was still in their favor, there was no need to let that happen. Some could call Pierce a perfectionist for thinking like that, but he thought it was common sense to try and win as thoroughly as possible.
Narcissa could grumble all that she wanted as she flew away and used Poison Sting. He'd take her being annoyed over her being hurt. Besides, she'd be happy with the win anyway, so that was that. At that point, she was just being picky and he wouldn't have spoiled pokemon… At least not in this instance.
"Tungsten Strike," he commanded when he thought the tauros was sufficiently weakened. The thing knew Icy Wind, surprisingly. Or maybe unsurprisingly, considering the guy was probably on his way to Pewter. However, the move hadn't done it much good when he'd barely managed to graze Narcissa once or twice.
Ultimately, Narcissa was just too slippery. Pierce had to wonder how long that'd last though, once her advantage as fully evolved was lost. On the other hand, she trained like a pokemon possessed, so maybe it'd take a while for that to happen. If it were up to Pierce, she never would lose her edge, but that was kind of unrealistic, he supposed.
His excited grin dimmed a little once he saw Narcissa land Tungsten Strike on their opponent. It wasn't because he was unhappy with that, but there was always that moment when battles were done. It was a moment in which the rush of the fight left him and he was left with either the bitter taste of defeat or the sweet taste of victory. The latter of which was the case at that very moment.
"Good job, girl," Pierce said when Narcissa flew around him and latched onto his back. "Also, very good for the last battle of the day, don't you think?" Predictably, his battle maniac of a beedrill simply clicked her mandibles in disagreement. "Yeah, it was," he added, acting as if he hadn't understood what she was saying. That earned him a tightening of her stingers, but she'd never be happy with a last fight of the day anyway.
So, getting his prize money from the surprisingly gracious loser, Pierce left the battlegrounds. Considering that Narcissa had basically hung from him throughout the entire stay there, even when he let Orion and Cygnus battle, it was time to switch shoulder passengers. She wasn't a fan of that either, but it was what it was. She wasn't the only member of his team and Cygnus deserved to get out and ride his shoulders if he wanted.
Soon, they'd have to share the spot of who accompanied him through the day with Andromeda too, Pierce thought to himself. The Sisters had told him, once he told the first one that he'd caught the two water types, that they'd work out the permit to allow his vaporeon to be out of her pokeball in public spaces. Very nice of them, truly, but they'd also admitted that it was much better for them to do him a favor like that than having to pay him money for the services. Not that they wouldn't, but nobody would ever say that paying less for something was bad.
After checking his bank account, Pierce found that he didn't mind being paid a little less.
As it was, he'd probably have a hard time finding things to use his money on. 'Than again, Orion would still take an axe to my wallet if he decides he wants to evolve,' Pierce thought to himself as he walked towards the Gym. That was a very particular case though. Evolutions like that were far from cheap.
He'd lucked out on Andromeda, really. For one, she was an eevee line pokemon, which were crazy expensive, really. For another, she'd already been evolved too, with one of the evolutions that required a Stone. Already evolved eevees might be cheaper than the unevolved one, but they were still very expensive. And he'd certainly saved quite a bit if he put an eevee and a Water Stone side to side.
"Not like you were thinking about that," Cygnus pointed out, which made him grin.
'It's the principle of the matter, buddy.'
[}-o-{]
"Hey, Bella. Did you-" he greeted with a smile once at the Gym pool with the gyarados he was supposed to look after off to the side doing… They seemed to be talking, but they'd started that when he came through the door. The poor staff member that had been looking after them had gotten quite the fright. Back to Pierce though, he didn't get to finish what he was saying because his own shiny gyarados had almost slammed her head on his chest. "-Miss me? I think that answered that quite well," he managed to say in the end, chuckling to himself and petting his sea serpent partner.
Bellatrix hummed contently against him, continuing to rub her head against his chest as if she were the biggest, most scaly and dangerous cat on the face of Earth.
"Come on, it wasn't that long, was it?" he asked, getting a light grumble in response. Sure, it'd been the whole night, but it wasn't even that late into the morning for her to be like that. Besides, while pokeballs weren't perfect stasis, they had this timeless feel to it, according to Cygnus. Maybe even that had been too much for his clingy gyarados. "Either way, we are here now and that's what's important. Now, let me release the rest of the team, yeah?" he asked, getting a slight nod as the gyarados pulled back.
Although, she didn't go very far, really, her warm breath blowing against his back as he turned. Soon, the rest of the team were out, with his old friends moving away from the pool. It sucked, that they couldn't quite spend time together as he'd have liked, but it was what it was. Once they were able to leave the Gym, they could do that.
"We'll be learning what the other Survivors have to teach," Cygnus reassured him, flashes of the gyarados that were helping them train moves appearing in his mind. He guessed that was good enough, but he'd still have liked to have his entire team around him for a bit. Alas, things weren't quite stable enough to do that for an extended period of time. "We wait, Helper-Voice… It's no problem."
'It's a problem for me,' Pierce shot back with a sad smile. 'But thanks for being understanding.'
"It's what I'm here for," Cygnus told him, waving him off with his hand. "Stop you from being an idiot."
'Gee, thanks,' he thought, shaking his head and chuckling. Andromeda's yip told him that he'd spent entirely too much time ignoring Bellatrix already… Or maybe she meant ignoring her? Either way, he needed to turn his attention to the pool. Not just for his most unstable pokemon – bad as that sounded to say or think –, but also for the rest of the gyarados he was supposed to be watching.
"Well, everyone," he said, clapping his hands. "How about we do something to stave off boredom?" Judging by the excited looks he got from the gathering of sea serpents, they wholeheartedly agreed. "Great to see you are excited, guys! Let's get this show on the road!"
From there, it was time to entertain the gyarados school… or group, or whatever a gathering of them was supposed to be called. That wasn't the important part anyway. No, the important part was to keep them doing things so that they wouldn't get anxious or bored or both. Nobody wanted that to happen.
First things first, they got started with a simple round of gyarados io, where they swam all over the pool while doing their best not to touch each other. It was a somewhat difficult exercise to keep the peace though, admittedly. They tended to get angry and start arguments with each other when they failed, even when it was no one's fault. Gyarados were just like that, Pierce supposed.
From there, they took a break after burning energy. Just because they had to keep from being bored, it didn't mean that they could be constantly doing things all the time. So, while taking it easy, some of the gyarados would play teacher with Pierce's team. The rest – and those, when they were free – simply lazed about, hearing stories he was often sure that he'd told already, eating snacks and occasionally getting a rub with the special brush. It had its own appeal and seeing the bunch of gyarados lying around was kind of amusing.
It also gave him some time to spend with his team, which he appreciated.
After that, it was time to get active again, once he noticed that the gyarados were getting antsy. So, with that in mind, he got up, stood at the edge of the pool, and started directing them with his arms. It was a fun time for everyone involved, and Pierce couldn't deny that there was a certain rush to seeing such forces of nature following his whims by simply waving his hand this or that way.
Eventually, they even went a step further, with him standing on top of Bellatrix in the middle of the pool. Not ones to be undone, the others wanted to be the ones to carry the "leader" of the whole thing. Pierce found it very amusing that he'd had to step in to settle an argument for who he got to stand on top of, more than once at that. Such were usually won by Bellatrix by virtue of being part of his team, but he did give the chance to the others every so often.
It was also amusing – and sort of worrying – that some of the gyarados looked like they wanted to ask if they could join his team just for that.
They could be competitive like that, he supposed, which surprised even him.
Eventually, even that had to come to an end, both because they'd been at it long enough and because he had to leave. It was lunch time, after all. So, after giving Bellatrix her own meal, since she wouldn't be able to be out back at the Pokemon Center, they left. The gyarados weren't very happy with him, but he got a promise from them to behave until he got back after a few hours.
[}-o-{]
"Do you think you can make it work?" Lily – his traveling companion – asked. A part of Pierce couldn't wait to leave Cerulean just so that he wouldn't get weird moments of confusion between the two. Which was just silly and made him feel stupid too, since they were nothing alike. It was just strange to think Lily and for his mind to jump to two different people.
Shaking his head, he focused back on the present.
"I sure hope so," he answered with a shrug as he pulled his drink up to put the straw between his lips. After taking a sip to give himself a moment to think, he continued. "If nothing else, it'll be fun… hopefully."
"You got that right," Lily agreed with a giggle. "I already got started with it," she added, giving him that amused expression she got when she was about to tease him. So, in the spirit of not being called an old man again when he was only a few years older than her, he changed subject.
"How was your morning?" he asked, getting a laugh out of the girl. At least he was firmly in the lead of who got to tease who the most between the two of them, he reminded himself. It was a great relief, but it made it so that he couldn't wait to get his revenge for that anyway.
Just because he wasn't used to pokemon world tech all that much…
"Had fun at the battlegrounds and then we got some training done, nothing to really say, I don't think," Lily replied in the end with a shrug. "Getting things done and preparing. How was yours?"
"Productive. Stretched our battle muscles," he started, nodding to his pokemon that were gathered together outside. He shouldn't have been able to let them out without being there himself, but the people at the Pokemon Center loved him, apparently. He had to wonder if it was because of what he had done to help the water types, because the Sisters had put in a good word or because of both. "And then everything else was business as usual, really. I'm enjoying being able to get out of the Gym though, I have to say. It was getting a bit much."
Which was funny, because he used to not get out much, but that was back when he didn't have much to get out for. He could just watch TV or do something on a computer to entertain himself. Now though, he couldn't imagine doing that. After all, that meant having to exclude two of his pokemon now, which kind of was a no-no. It was also much more fun to move around and see the fantastic world around him.
Which he couldn't do if he was trapped inside the Gym, even if the pokemon there were great.
"Well, here's hoping that your idea works," Lily said, leaning back with a smile. "Don't get me wrong, I'll wait for however long you need to be done, but I can't say I wouldn't prefer going sooner rather than later."
"I mean, I'm with you there," Pierce admitted with a nod. "Maybe we'll be lucky," he added, running his hands through his hair. "For their sake as much as ours." And with that said, the two of them continued lunch in relative silence until they were done.
From there, they moved towards the beach to spend a few hours before he had to go in for another shift at the Gym. Pierce would admit, once they got there, that he wasn't too excited except for the chance of meeting with the school of magikarp. He got more than his fill of swimming at the Gym pools, after all.
However, he'd been wrong about that, because there was quite the difference between the two things. He hadn't been wrong about the magikarp though. They were right there, finding him just a few minutes after he started swimming. They had Andromeda – who was swimming with him – giving him a look.
"What can I say, they are from one of my favorite lines. I love them," he said, keeping himself afloat and earning him a roll of the eeveelution's eyes before she swam away back to the beach. 'Rude,' he thought, even though he had a smile on his face. Maybe she'd wanted to swim with him alone? She could be a tsundere like that. He'd do something nice for her later, he decided easily. "I missed you, guys. Did you miss me?" Pierce asked then, turning his attention back to the magikarp.
Fish pokemon that promptly started rubbing and pushing against him affectionately. It was a wonder why anyone would describe them as dim or dull, really. Sure, their expressions were very flat, but anyone that spent a minute genuinely interacting with them would realize that they were just as full of life as any other pokemon.
"I'm really busy, guys," he said apologetically after spending long enough playing with them that his fingers were turning into raisins. "I love coming to play with you, but I'm helping pokemon and they need me to focus on them. I don't know if I'll be able to come back much, or at all."
He smiled sadly when one of the magikarp pressed against his chest where he sat on the shallow waters closer to the beach.
"I know, little one. I know," he replied with a sigh, rubbing his hand against the rough scales of the water type. "But I think it'd be better if you went back," he added. "People can be mean, and where there are a lot of people like here, more chances of that happening. I'd have had to leave eventually anyway," he explained, leaning down to press his forehead against the magikarp's. "We had fun, didn't we?" he asked, smiling before a splash from another of the fish pokemon to his side made him pull back and laugh. "Yeah, let's play some more before that."
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How's it going?
Pierce finally gets to be outside the Gym after a good while and a new routine starts forming. I know people are getting very impatient, but I promise we are on the last stretch of this arc. Shouldn't be more than 20 more chapters, promise.
… Why are you looking at me like that?
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
Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: Nidoking/Nidoqueen or Rhydon/Rhyperior? I like the latter just the smallest bit more, but the Nidos are very cool too.
See you.
