TRAINER ID
Name: Daniel Ingram
Badges: 3
Account: 38,654 credits
Location: Dewford Town
DANIEL'S TEAM
Trapinch - Female
OWEN'S TEAM
Shroomish (Misha) - Female
Vigoroth (Omar) - Male
Given the ongoing trend of how things seemed to swing wildly in opposite directions in short bursts, I had almost expected something bad to happen following the lockdown restrictions beginning to lift and the beach party. After all, it seemed like there was some force at play that refused to allow anything more than brief periods of true happiness and luck shining upon me before they would be completely shattered by the cold, hard reality of trying to exist in a world filled with unpredictability and chaos.
But my recent streak of misfortune was obviously still in the process of being karmically repaid, and not only because we got to hold our morning workout on the newly accessible beach. It allowed me to properly witness my first Dewford sunrise, which was just as picturesque, breathtaking, and beautiful as I'd hoped, and it made for a great start to what I dearly hoped would be another great day.
I'd been cautiously optimistic that would be the case, yet I had my reservations that things would actually pan out that way given my recent track record. I was proven wrong though while having a post-workout breakfast, when two chimes rang out simultaneously that would solidify not only the fact that it was going to be another great day, but that tomorrow was bound to be even better.
It wasn't my phone, but my Pokédex, and clearly Owen had gotten something similar because we both pulled them out of our pockets at the same time. I read the notification and felt my jaw drop, then re-read it just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating before looking up at Owen to see that he bore a similar gobsmacked expression to the one I was surely wearing.
It had taken a little more than a week, but the time had finally arrived. Tomorrow morning, anytime after 9 A.M., I was to report to a Pokécenter to retrieve my quarantined Pokémon. That's all it said – it appeared to be a generic canned notification, since it was the exact same one that Owen received.
"Dude, you too?!" Owen asked excitedly with a beaming smile, and I could only nod with a huge grin as he clasped my shoulder and shook me, my mind racing as his parents watched with a mixture of confusion and curiosity, finally getting Owen to explain what was happening after a few attempts.
The message was vague, almost annoyingly so, because it didn't say much more than that. It didn't inform me which Pokémon, how many, if they'd been cured, or any of the information that I was dying to know.
But I couldn't be mad at the lack of relevant information. Even if it ended up only being one of my team members, it would mean that the others were soon to follow.
That didn't stop us from scarfing down our breakfast and sprinting to the Pokécenter to ask Nurse Joy if she had any more information. Since Bronson was the only possible Pokémon that Owen would be getting back, he came along more for moral support and his own curiosity than anything else.
It ended up being fairly busy – although Dewford didn't have a large Pokérus presence, it wasn't non-existent either, and with how often Dewford's residents seemed to make trips to the mainland under normal circumstances, we clearly weren't the only ones who had gotten a similar message.
I say 'similar' because it became immediately obvious that most of the people in line weren't there to ask questions like I was, they were actually getting their Pokémon back. I could only assume that Owen and I were part of some 'second wave' happening tomorrow, either because they didn't want a massive wave of trainers rushing the Pokécenter all at once, or because our teams had only been infected the day prior to the lockdown. They had contracted the virus so recently that we'd never even seen the onset of the negative symptoms, and considering the virus had been in circulation many days before the lockdown was instituted, it wasn't surprising that others would be released before ours.
I also noted the familiar sight of a Chansey bustling behind the counter, operating the transporter and bringing over trays containing the Pokéballs, even if they typically only consisted of one since so few were actual 'trainers'. I hadn't seen a Chansey since the lockdown began, both in Lavaridge and Dewford, so seeing that they were returning to work was strangely comforting, and solidified that things were indeed finally beginning to return to normal.
"What do you mean Batty is still infected?" I overheard a younger boy nearly shout in alarm as he received a Pokéball of what I could only assume was a Zubat based on the horrible name, looking like he was on the verge of thrusting it back into Nurse Joy's hands.
"Rudy, please calm down. There's no reason to be alarmed – the symptoms have passed and the virus is asymptomatic, so there's no risk of her spreading it or acting irrationally. She's back to normal and is in perfect health, she's just… bigger. She evolved."
Correction; it was no longer a Zubat, but a Golbat, serving as yet another example of Pokémon that were named without much thought being given to how well it might hold up after they evolved.
The boy's eyes widened, and this time he didn't resist his impulse to thrust the Pokéball back at Nurse Joy, who refused to take it and gave him a glare that sent shivers down my spine.
This didn't go unnoticed by the boy, and he undoubtedly lost some of his steam, but his expression was still one of extreme hesitance. He gently placed the ball back on the tray that sat on the counter with shaky hands and took a step back, unable to meet Nurse Joy's gaze.
"I-I don't think I c-can… " he stammered, a lot quieter than before. "What if s-she's mad at me, or forgot me… Zubat are small and cute, b-but Golbat are big and s-scary…"
Nurse Joy's expression softened, but only slightly. "Young man, she's the same Batty you've always known, and she's surely had a rough week being separated from you. Remember how excited you were when you brought her to me on your birthday last year? When you bring her in for checkups, I can easily tell that you two adore each other dearly. She's simply growing up, just like you are, that's all. How would you like it if she no longer loved you just because you'll get taller and start growing facial hair? She needs you, now more than ever. Don't you want to be there for her and welcome her home?"
The boy bit his lip, and there were a few tense moments where I thought I was witnessing a Pokémon being abandoned in real-time. But I was thankfully proven wrong when he hesitantly reached out and took the Pokéball, uncertainty still written across his face as he looked up at Nurse Joy with pleading eyes.
"S-she won't be m-mad? Or a-attack me, or–"
"Just treat her like you normally would, and she'll be over the moon to see you again. I have complete confidence that everything will be fine, but if you run into any unexpected troubles, I'll be right here to help. "
Nurse Joy visibly relaxed and sighed in relief as the boy thanked her before leaving with his companion's Pokéball clutched tightly, and I would quickly learn that it was far from the only person she'd have to reason with. As Owen and I stood in line, which thankfully wasn't that long but was still hands-down the busiest I'd ever seen the Dewford Pokécenter, I couldn't help but note just how wary most people seemed about getting their Pokémon back. Not all had evolved, in fact I would say the majority of them hadn't, but it enough to be undeniable proof that Pokémon who contracted the virus experienced accelerated growth.
As Nurse Joy explained to someone who was disappointed that their Pokémon hadn't evolved, it was far from a guaranteed thing and mostly served as the extra push for Pokémon who were already fairly close to evolving. I'll admit that it had me questioning if Apollo would have evolved had he not been infected, yet I felt fairly confident that he must have been close regardless given how strong he'd become. Undoubtedly, the main factor had to be the intensity of the situation he'd evolved in more than anything, since it was a well-known phenomenon that Pokémon tended to evolve in high-stress situations. It wouldn't surprise me if this same thing was at play when it came to Pokérus, since the confusion and aggression they experienced surely simulated them in a similar way.
More importantly, it caused me to realize that it was entirely possible that Orion might have evolved, and that thought had me truly nervous. I'd been so worried that I was going to miss Duran's evolution that I hadn't even considered that Orion might, but after seeing someone who had simply come for more information me get informed that the Pokémon they would be picking up tomorrow had evolved, I couldn't help but fear the worst. Not only would I have missed a very important moment in Orion's life, but it would mean that he'd been robbed of the choice of what he would evolve into. As far as I knew he still hadn't decided, since when it had last been discussed it seemed so far away, but he had done a lot fair bit of training, battling, and growing since then, so when you factored in Pokérus it wasn't impossible that he could evolve.
While I didn't exactly have a preference for which of the eeveelutions Orion became, the ones that could conceivably happen in the confines of quarantine would either make him a dark, psychic, or fairy type. I already had all of those types accounted for on my team, and was trying to avoid doubling up on types if I could help it. I'd be disappointed if he had an unplanned evolution, but mostly from being heartbroken at missing his evolution. If I accidentally doubled up on a type, I'd make it work one way or another without any hesitation, since at the end of the day all that truly mattered to me was that I had a team I could trust and call family.
I felt like I had that with the team I had, except for Trapinch. She still had a little way to go, but after our bonding at the beach party I felt like it was a very real possibility that she'd get there as well, even if I wasn't sure she shared the sentiment.
Thankfully, my fears with Orion proved to be unfounded once I finally made my way to the front of the line and was able to get more details from Nurse Joy. Orion hadn't evolved, much to my relief, but that ended up being more of a sidenote than anything when she informed me which of my Pokémon I'd be getting back.
To my utter surprise, all three of my teammates would be ready for retrieval. It struck me as extremely curious, since I highly doubted that the virus ran its course identically across different species. I couldn't help but wonder if they'd been holding onto Pokémon a little longer than necessary, severely over-estimated when they'd said that the symptoms could last anywhere between a week or two, or if they simply waited until a trainer's entire team was ready for pickup so it wasn't done incrementally, although I sort of doubted it was the latter.
I didn't bother asking about it – I was too ecstatic at the good news to care, and Nurse Joy was surely in for a hectic day, so I didn't want to add to it by asking needless questions.
Since Owen was already at the front desk, and considering some of the conversations we'd overheard, he decided to take the opportunity to ask Nurse Joy about Bronson, and sure enough, he'd evolved.
I didn't find it too surprising given he was Owen's starter and did a lot of battling, but Owen was utterly stunned. Initially he took it on the chin, remaining stoic as he thanked Nurse Joy for the information and we left the crowded Pokécenter. I had no idea what to say and decided to give Owen time to process the news as we made our way back to his house, silently observing as he went through a series of emotions, positive and negative alike.
In typical Owen fashion, he ultimately decided to look at the bright side and quickly rebounded back to his normally cheerful self, breaking the silence by joking about how he was going to be spending a lot of time and money on Pokéblocks between Bronson and Omar both evolving.
After seeing how big Brawly's Hariyama had been and having witnessed Omar's newfound appetite firsthand, I didn't doubt it for a second.
It made me exceedingly grateful that if push came to shove, my team could mostly feed themselves. Trapinch, and to a slightly lesser extent Orion and maybe even Duran, could prey on wild Pokémon. Orion and Duran could both scavenge, although Duran's appetite had surely grown since evolving so I doubted it would be enough to constitute a proper meal. But if I theoretically went completely broke and could no longer afford to buy food, I felt reasonably certain that nobody would starve and we'd still be able to manage.
As for Apollo… Well, historically he didn't need to eat anything, so long as he was sufficiently exposed to positive emotions, but that was likely no longer the case. When I'd been cooped up in the hospital and done some research on my team's potential evolutions, I'd learned that after a Ralts evolved it was usually a good idea to start feeding them daily, even if just a little, as energy requirements grew as Pokémon evolved. Especially considering all the training and battling he did, and the fact that he sometimes had to spend much of the day in his Pokéball depending on what was going on, the chances were high that he would find it difficult to fully sustain himself by feeding off positive emotions alone.
But in a situation where we were so poor I couldn't buy food, he'd manage, especially if we cut back on burning his energy through the use of his stronger psychic moves.
I missed him – it felt like he'd been gone forever, and although the week had flown by in some ways thanks to keeping busy and maintaining a constant schedule, in other ways it felt like an eternity.
One more day and. By this time tomorrow, I'd finally be reunited with my team.
Despite the excitement of it being the last day I'd be separated from my team, and the fact that lockdown had finally lifted, we largely kept to the same general schedule.
For one thing, Dewford felt much more lively. There were a lot more people and a few Pokémon roaming the streets, talking to each other, and just generally enjoying another beautiful tropical day, but with renewed fervor. Even more notably, we were finally able to start exploring what Dewford had to offer outside of town, which as it turns out was mostly where you found Dewford's best attractions.
Even if restrictions were beginning to loosen a lot, they weren't completely gone either. Owen was decidedly sour that all we could do was look at the rolling waves when showing me his favorite secluded cove, but if I'm being honest I didn't share his enthusiasm in wanting to go surfing. He was adamant that I needed to experience it and would love it, but for whatever reason I just didn't find the idea to be appealing. It wasn't from a fear of water or the ocean like Owen had assumed – I could swim just fine and didn't have thalassophobia or any other such fears that would prevent me from doing the activity. It just didn't sound overly appealing to me, similar to how I didn't have any desire to ever go skiing or snowboarding.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of things in life that I wanted to try and experience, but activities like that just never really grabbed my interest for one reason or another. I didn't feel the urge to seek thrills that many people seemed to, and knew that learning would involve a lot of falling and failing until it became muscle memory, and I simply had no interest in investing the time and effort it would take to actually enjoy sports like that.
Though the secluded cove he showed me was undeniably cozy and picturesque, I got the sense that most of its appeal was that it was typically a quiet place for locals to surf where tourists wouldn't be. Not that there were currently many of those in Dewford given the state of the region and lockdown restrictions just now beginning to loosen, but I could easily see how it might get annoying for the locals who surf regularly to have to give way to people like me who would be constantly falling down and getting in the way.
Next he took me to a couple of lagoons, which I found to be quite a bit cooler, but they didn't hold a candle to Dewford Falls. It was a series of short, cascading waterfalls surrounded by overgrowth, and while Owen was the first to admit that there were much larger waterfalls that could be found in Hoenn, particularly along Route 119, I still found them plenty impressive and interesting since I'd never seen anything like that before.
Unfortunately, neither of us felt particularly comfortable venturing into the waterfall or the pools they fed into. We were pretty sure we could have if we wanted, considering the pools of water weren't technically part of the ocean, even if they did eventually feed into it. It wasn't impossible that infected Pokémon from the ocean could climb the falls and could be lurking in the ponds, and water aside there were quite a few flying-types that were using it as a watering hole. The only Pokémon we had that was even remotely suited for defending us in the water if needed was Omar, and Owen was understandably hesitant to release him in fear of him picking an unnecessary fight and drawing the ire of the local Pokémon, of which there were quite a few.
Even setting aside the potential of encountering an infected Pokémon, we simply didn't have adequate means of standing our ground in case wild Pokémon took issue with an intrusion. Though none of the Pokémon at the falls appeared particularly dangerous, it seemed to be a popular destination and there was an abundance of them, so we kept our distance and admired from afar. We were likely being a little overly cautious, but neither of us were keen on risking any of our Pokémon getting infected when we were so close to returning to some semblance of normalcy. Just because the lockdown was beginning to lift didn't mean that we could afford to get complacent – the chances were low thanks to the seclusion Dewford had from the mainland, but we were taking a risk just by traveling outside of town, so it was best not to push our luck.
Remembering that we'd received a new update to our Pokédexes, we decided to try it out, but after covertly scanning a few of the Pokémon we began to wonder if we had even received the update, because nothing appeared to be different. It wouldn't have been surprising if none of the handful of Pokémon we scanned wouldn't be infected, particularly since they were behaving perfectly normally, but we didn't see any indicator or addition to confirm they weren't infected like we'd expected.
After becoming convinced that we must be missing something, we used our phones to do a little sleuthing online. The answer to our confusion was found in the League announcement, at least on the fully detailed page on their website that we hadn't bothered clicking into in our excitement. It stated that thanks to a cooperative effort in conjunction with Devon Corp, firmware version 12.2.0 had been pushed out to Pokédexes worldwide. By running the scans of quarantined Pokémon through a machine learning algorithm and comparing them against data they'd aggregated over decades of Pokédex usage, they were able to identify most species of Pokémon infected with the virus at roughly 97% accuracy.
Despite that, it wasn't infallible. A caveat noted was that for rarer species where they had minimal or no data to compare against, trends and assumptions had to be made and accuracy wasn't quite as high. This meant that false positives and negatives were both possible, but highly unlikely when it came to daily use and all but the rarest of species. It noted that the only surefire way of testing for Pokérus was using the standard screening, but that accuracy would continue to improve as they collected more data and continued to push out updates.
This made two things abundantly clear to me. The first and most obvious was that the primary reason serving quarantine in League custody was mandatory was because it provided the opportunity to collect data on Pokérus en masse, which ultimately led to the region lockdown ending sooner than it otherwise would have. Had Rangers not had the instant screening, and if they hadn't been able to essentially crowdsource the tracking and monitoring of the virus' spread, it was all but certain that lockdown would have lasted much longer. It made me slightly less annoyed and angry that my team had been forcibly taken from me since it was for a good cause, but I still felt like if they needed to collect scanning data they could have simply done that when performing the mandatory testing. Clearly they didn't trust trainers to keep their infected Pokémon separated from others for the week or two required for the infectious period to end, or maybe they just didn't want to risk trainers getting hurt even.
Although I'd heard multiple times that infected Pokémon didn't tend to attack their own trainers, after seeing the look in Duran's eyes during our visit I didn't doubt it was possible.
The second thing this information told me was that scanning a Pokémon wasn't as private as I'd assumed. I knew that in the early days of the Pokédex, when it wasn't as widely available and was mostly a research and luxury item only given to lab-sponsored trainers, the data it collected would frequently be downloaded to be processed and reviewed to help improve the next version of Pokédex that would be made. They couldn't send out a ping to contact rangers, receive alerts, pull up local regulations, receive wireless updates, or even identify a Pokémon's ability and gender as they could these days.
But technology had come a long way. I'd already known that modern Pokédexes had some sort of satellite internet connection, but for some reason it had never occurred to me that every scan I performed might end up on a server somewhere. I guess I just assumed that they already had plenty of data, and only cared if it was an extremely rare species they didn't have much information on.
I realized that if one of the Pokémon Owen and I had scanned had been infected with the virus, that data would have almost surely make its way to Owen's father – perhaps in the form of a weekly report from the League of where patrols and testing needed to be increased, or maybe even as an alert that they could act on more immediately.
Though extremely effective, I also found it mildly unsettling.
These revelations made me wonder if the League had ended lockdown simply because it would allow them to have a region full of trainers all helping to do what the overburdened Rangers were attempting to do, or if Pokérus was truly as contained as they tried to make it seem. They conveniently left out any statistics on how many Pokémon had been quarantined in total, not only from those of trainers but also during the region-wide sweep they'd been performing for the last week. The only statistic they had was that of 'reported infection sightings', which unsurprisingly had taken a complete nosedive since lockdown went into effect.
I found that laughable, considering they'd closed all the routes and essentially instructed people to stay home. But I supposed that including that statistic would help put the public at ease, even if it didn't take much thought to realize it was somewhat misleading.
All of this new information prefaced the actual thing we'd been searching for, which was where this new Pokédex update would indicate whether a scanned Pokémon had Pokérus or not. One would think that given the fact the virus had just shut down an entire region for just over a week, it would be abundantly obvious when you scanned a Pokémon if it was safe or not.
But apparently not. The only mention was that 'a warning tag' would be prominently displayed – not what the tag was, where it would appear, or what it looked like. I found it completely baffling, and even went so far as to check my Pokédex firmware version to confirm that I had that update, which I definitely did. It took me searching online to find pictures that a few trainers had already uploaded to social media of their encounters with infected Pokémon to find that it was a glowing purple 'PKRS' label overlaid in the top-right corner of the photo displayed after scanning a Pokémon.
True, it was nearly impossible to miss it when shown, but I couldn't help but think that there was a better way it could have been implemented – something like a green or red dot would have been a better solution, since you'd expect people might want to immediately know that the Pokémon they were looking at was safe. I could only assume there was a reason they chose to do it that way, but I couldn't make sense of it.
That mystery solved, we headed back towards town for some training, which we both easily agreed should be held outside now that we were finally able to. We ended up using the patch of beach behind Owen's house, which made Owen nostalgic as it was apparently where he used to do his training before journeying. Thankfully, between Owen's house being on the outskirts of town and there being plenty of better places for people to enjoy their newfound freedom in the sun, it was almost completely unoccupied save for the occasional couple taking a stroll along the shore. A few of those who would stumble upon us turned back upon seeing the hyperactive Vigoroth, which I can't blame them for, but for the most part they were able to give us a wide berth and continue along the shore unbothered thanks to the size of the beach and us holding our sessions fairly inland.
Apart from Trapinch clearly preferring our training session behind held on the sand, there was another major advantage to us suddenly being able to train outside – it provided the opportunity to put the TM that Flannery had given me to use. Though the underground recreation room of the Pokécenter was littered with overhead spotlights providing artificial natural lighting, it didn't have a skylight or dome providing direct access to sunlight as you would find in a gym, so I had been putting off teaching her the move until we could finally hold training outside again.
Granted, Sunny Day wasn't exactly a move that I anticipated being particularly useful for Trapinch, but apart from Protect I hadn't had the opportunity to teach her anything new. She was much more mobile than when I had first met her, both above and below ground, but still had an alarmingly small movepool that would be useful in battles. We'd made some notable progress with the distance both Sand Attack and Mud Slap could be used at, and she had become a lot more comfortable with using Fury Cutter and Bulldoze, at least the general motion of the moves. I could tell that she still much preferred Bite or Crunch, but she wouldn't always be facing an opponent she could get her jaws around and I was a little nervous about her accidentally overdoing it, so I'd been leaning much more into Fury Cutter.
After all, I didn't want to have a repeat of the unfortunate encounter Duran had with a certain Taillow early on in our travels. Despite my best attempts to forget that it ever happened, I still found myself occasionally thinking about that girl with the raincoat and Cottonee, and it was something that ate at me whenever it came to mind.
That, and the story of how I'd come to procure the Dawn Stone hidden at the bottom of one of my backpack's side pockets. I knew that in both cases I'd only done what I felt I had to, but I still felt a fair bit of shame in retrospect. I had a hunch that I'd feel differently if Samantha and I hadn't ended up becoming such good friends, and wondered how many trainers might have a dark secret not too dissimilar. Few probably got away with accidentally killing a trainer's Pokémon that wandered off, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fair number whose Pokémon accidentally preyed upon a protected species or something. Even Owen now had a similar story, with Omar nearly having mauled me after he evolved.
Getting Trapinch to use Sunny Day was tricky. While it was true that TMs taught a Pokémon the general blueprint of how a move worked, it wasn't as if they could suddenly pull off the move flawlessly. It didn't help that she wasn't exactly enthusiastic to learn the move, since she couldn't see how it would benefit her in battle.
Not that I exactly did either – I felt like Flannery had given me a little too much credit with the confidence she'd had that I'd be able to find a good use for it. Apart from someday boosting the fire-type moves I planned on teaching her if she stuck around and evolved, the only other uses I could really think of were making it difficult for the opponent to see due to the bright light, possibly weakening an ice or water-type opponent's moves, and maybe helping to reduce some field disadvantages – like melting snow or drying a wet and muddy battlefield. It made me curious if an opponent like Duran would dry up and run out of water much faster if Sunny Day were being used, but if Trapinch somehow found herself against a water-type I doubted she'd last long enough for us to find out.
But Sunny Day was something new and achievable. I'd done some research on what moves Trapinch could learn naturally, and a lot of them felt out of reach, or at least I had no idea how I would train them. Seeing Astonish listed both surprised and intrigued me, since I was now confident that it was what the Mawile had used against Apollo that caused him to flinch and almost got him killed, but it was a ghost-type move and I had no earthly idea how I would even begin to instruct Trapinch on learning it. It would be extremely handy given her limited mobility, either flinching an incoming attack for a safer counter-attack or giving her that extra second needed to close the distance on an opponent, yet I had zero experience with ghost-type moves and it seemed too far a leap from her current move repertoire.
I was also extremely interested in Sandstorm, Sand Tomb, Earthquake and Earth Power, but that seemed to require a level of mastery of ground-type energy she was nowhere near achieving. While I'd been in the hospital doing some research, I'd learned that although all Pokémon had some innate mastery over their given types, there was a big difference between being able to directly manipulate your own type-energy versus channeling enough to control your surroundings. For example, Duran could currently manipulate water he was directly in contact with, such as his own water reserves to perform moves like Water Gun or Aqua Jet, but that was different from being able to do something like Surf or Rain Dance, where he would be exerting his own control over type-energy to control the environment around him.
And that is one of the big reasons that Sunny Day was proving so difficult for Trapinch to learn. Not only was it an attempt to exert control over a typing that she had no familiarity with, but it was doing so at a level that allowed her to control her surroundings. Sunny Day was a little interesting in that it didn't actually make the sun 'brighter' – it's not as though a Pokémon had the power to control something as massive and powerful as the sun, especially given the distance of it, and if that were the case the entire world would be affected by a single Pokémon using the move.
Rather, it worked by affecting the surrounding area – removing humidity and increasing light refraction to amplify the intensity of the sunlight in a given area. Some Pokémon were strong enough that the area which they could affect was a large enough radius to even clear clouds, but for Trapinch that was unlikely to be achievable anytime in the near future.
Though it wasn't as easy to train or potentially useful as everything we'd been working on for the past week, it still felt right to teach her despite the challenges. I felt that it would be a good introduction to more advanced levels of type manipulation, and wanted to teach her at least one thing other than Protect that she wouldn't have been able to learn on her own. It was also completely different from anything else we normally trained, and I wanted to mix it up.
It was a slow and painful learning process though, and I felt somewhat useless not being able to give her much in the way of advice on how to pull it off. The best I could manage was to tell her to keep at it, try again, and to focus on changing the air around her to make the sun brighter. Being on a tropical beach mid-day, it was hot in general, so it was difficult to tell if she was actually making any meaningful impact on the sun's intensity. I was fairly certain that I felt hotter than I had at the beginning of our session, but I'd long since shed my hoodie and I was so focused on the heat that I wouldn't have been surprised if I was imagining it.
At least, that was the case until I heard footsteps approaching me, and turned to find that Owen was jogging over. He'd been holding his team's training a short distance down the beach, but now Misha and Omar were taking a break further up the hill where they could rest in the shade a patch of palm trees provided. Omar was hyperactively clawing his way up one while Misha leaned up against another, not-so-subtly glaring daggers at me. As far as I knew, Misha didn't outright hate me anymore but was probably still holding something of a grudge, and although Omar still got a little more worked-up than usual when he would lay eyes on me, he thankfully no longer tried to charge at the sight of me, which he was currently too preoccupied to do.
I'd thought me and Misha were on better terms, yet the look she was giving gave me the impression that was not the case. However, I soon learned that she wasn't actually holding a grudge, but had an entirely new reason to be peeved.
"I'm glad you're putting that TM you got from Flannery to good use, but do you think you could chill for a bit or go further down the beach? It's great for practicing Omar's Fire Punch, but you're kinda making it unbearable for Misha, and Omar is sweating bullets because of his fur."
I frowned but nodded, turning to Trapinch. "Hear that? It's been working, I guess we've just been at it so long we didn't notice. Let's take a break for now and try again some other time. Since we can finally enjoy the beach now, how about you Dig around for a bit? I'll bet you've missed digging through sand, right?"
Trapinch didn't seem to be overly pleased, either because she didn't think she'd actually done anything or because she didn't want to take a break already when she'd hardly exerted herself at all by just trying to use Sunny Day during our session, but she took up my offer to enjoy the sand and began to burrow.
"Don't go too far, and don't attack or eat anything!" I said loudly as her hind end disappeared into the sand, hoping I hadn't just made a mistake by letting her roam free on the beach before turning back to Owen.
"Sorry, didn't think it was actually working. But why would it make Misha uncomfortable – she's a grass-type?" I asked confusedly.
Owen gestured for me to follow him over to the shade where Misha sat, clearly not keen on chatting while the amplified sun was beating down on us. I followed him and sat nearby as he took over Misha's spot and held her in his lap, all while she continued giving me a look that was even more notably grumpy than the one Shroomish always bore, which was really saying something.
"So yeah, Misha is a grass type, but that doesn't necessarily mean she likes excessively bright sunlight. First of all, I'll point out that plenty of plants will wilt if exposed to too much sunlight, but in Misha's case it isn't even that. Think, Danny – where did I meet Misha?"
"...Petalburg Woods, I think?"
"And what does Petalburg Woods not get much of?
"Sunlight, I guess. Because of the canopy," I reasoned, seeing his point.
"She's a walking mushroom, dude – they like places that are dark and damp. Not that she can't handle a bit of sun, but she's most comfortable in the shade."
I hummed, unable to help but find it rather odd that a grass-type would shy away from sunlight. As far as I knew, mushrooms didn't undergo photosynthesis, but I still would have imagined that a grass-type like Misha would…
"Hey, can't Shroomish learn Growth? I'm pretty sure that it directly relies on sunlight – does Misha not know it?" I asked, remembering the move that had been on the tip of my tongue.
Owen grew a thoughtful expression, pulling out his phone only to confirm that Shroomish were indeed capable of learning Growth. His mind now made up, I watched in amusement as he took Misha with him back into the sunlight and began trying to instruct her on Growth, only to feel my heart leap out of my chest when I soon realized that Omar was right beside me, rifling through Owen's backpack.
"Uh, Owen? I think Omar is hungry again…" I called out hesitantly, thankful that Omar seemed too preoccupied with the task at hand to pay me much mind. There was no way he hadn't seen me when coming over, because I could have reached my arm out and almost touched him with how close he was, so I took that as a sign that perhaps Owen had somehow talked him into letting go what I would have thought would be a lasting grudge from punching his trainer.
"He's fine, just make sure he doesn't eat too many," Owen called out, and I had to resist the urge to laugh at the idea of me stopping Omar from doing anything. Maybe it was just because of the circumstances of how he'd evolved, but I found myself truly nervous around the Pokémon. It was true that Owen seemed to have a pretty good handle over Omar, but I still saw him as unpredictable, and after hearing what Owen's dad had to say about the species I was particularly wary of accidentally setting Omar off and causing him to rampage.
I watched hesitantly as Omar found a burlap sack and shoveled a few Pokéblocks into his mouth that I had to imagine had all been made just for him, considering they were all the same. I was a little surprised that Owen wasn't storing them in his space-tech berry pouch, but supposed that it might not be big enough to keep up with Omar's newfound appetite. It probably would also be a bad idea to let Omar handle such a valuable item, so I could only assume that he had it elsewhere and had taught Omar that his food was in the more disposable sack that better suited Omar's more careless handling.
I had no idea what 'too many' Pokéblocks would be, but I was pretty sure Omar had surpassed that in an instant. Pokéblocks were extremely condensed and could hold the equivalent of multiple berries, depending on how tightly you pressed them, and Omar had just eaten a good handful of them. But he didn't linger, and before I knew it he was back to running around and climbing trees, so I decided that it was about as good of an outcome as I could have hoped for and declined to comment.
I leaned back against a nearby tree and soaked in the gentle ocean breeze and the sweet relief the shade provided as I watched Owen working with Misha, deciding to give Trapinch some time to enjoy herself in the sand. I still couldn't see her, but I figured that if she didn't show up soon enough I could call out for her and hope for the best. I'll admit that I was slightly worried about if she'd come back, but she'd been training hard for the past week or so we'd been in Dewford. She more than deserved some recreation time now that the lockdown restrictions were finally lifting and she had some sand to frolic around in that would surely remind her of home.
Not to mention, I was in far too good of a mood to allow myself to stress out over it. I was so close to being reunited with my team I could almost taste it, and couldn't help but smile knowing that by the same time tomorrow, I'd have my team back.
I'd been wrong – it was a good day, and there wasn't a single doubt in my mind that tomorrow would be even better.
A/N: Sorry, but I'm kind of over taking the time to meticulously redo the formatting of each chapter because FFN can't get their shit together. I'll try to come back and fix it someday if it ever starts working again but for now you'll just have to make do.
Shoutout to The Muffin Rat King, Trix, and Faefox for beta-reading this chapter, and to everyone who has been commenting recently. I really enjoy reading your thoughts even if I don't respond to them individually very often, and appreciate every one of you more than you know.
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