The New Normal – 11-2 – Interlude – Whitney
Even though Whitney would have liked to spend more time with her parents and brother, she knew that they had their own things to do and wouldn't have time to play around with her.
A few years ago, she would have been sad about that. But now she had her own responsibilities and duties that she had to attend to, so now she could understand why they had to do the things they did. She herself had to return to the Saffron Gym to continue her duties as a Gym Trainer – asking for a holiday on such short notice was already taking advantage of their generosity.
So even though she had to return to Indigo alone, Whitney was filled with happy thoughts. Her parents were over the moon about their latest expansion into Mauville, and her brother had won a big victory that he completely deserved.
It was nice to see her family doing so well.
Therefore, after a day's journey on ship, she made her return to the Saffron Gym and resumed her duties there. Sabrina was quick to approach her upon her arrival.
"Welcome back." Her best friend smiled, "How was it?"
"You should've come!" She grinned, "Watching the match in person was so much better than when we watched everything on our phones! It's sad you weren't there!"
"Mother needed me here." Sabrina replied, "She had things to teach me."
Whitney nodded. She knew that Sabrina, like Janine, had already begun learning how to become an effective Gym Leader like her parents. The extra lessons did limit the time they were able to hang out together, but they always made time to train together.
Speaking of training together, "So how was my Girafarig? Did you guys get along?" Whitney had left her Girafarig with Sabrina while she headed to Hoenn so that it could train together more with Sabrina's Girafarig. Ever since she started working at the Saffron Gym, Whitney had been trying to develop its Psychic skills – especially after seeing the real potential of Psychic types while working as a Gym Trainer in a Psychic Gym.
"Of course we did." Sabrina replied, "And your Girafarig is making fast progress, if a little slower than my own. But yours seems to have far more stamina than mine. Either way, I think they're close in terms of strength. They both have grown a lot since we first caught them."
Whitney smiled, "That's good. Do you have time now? I want to see how they're progressing." Sabrina nodded, and the two of them walked over to the training fields where their Girafarig were already there practicing.
The two Pokémon had their eyes shut as a faint pink aura surrounded their whole body. But what they were really trying to accomplish was that they were trying to channel Psychic power with their tails.
This was something that Sabrina had pointed out to her some time ago. During one of their training sessions, Sabrina had identified that she could sense a faint hum of Psychic power radiating out from their tails. That wasn't too unusual, since it had been common knowledge that Girafarig's tail had a mind of its own and could act independently of the rest of the body.
But this led both Sabrina and Whitney to speculate that it might be possible for its head to fire off its own attacks as well.
They theorised that if they could train up the tail to also be able to attack, then that would suddenly add a whole new way for their Girafarig to fight back. It would allow them to fire attacks WHILE retreating, and could land follow-up attacks that their enemies wouldn't expect. In summary, they believed that it would make both their Girafarig a lot more powerful if and when they mastered this.
It was because of this that they both decided to dedicate a majority of their training time to have their Girafarig practice channelling Psychic power with their tails. It was a slow process – it clearly wasn't easy for them to do this, but since neither of their Girafarig noted any discomfort (in fact, the opposite was true), they both felt that this was definitely the way forward to forging a powerful Pokémon.
And now, after several long weeks of determined focus and lots of practice, she could see that they were both close to mastering this. It helped that by working together, they were able to learn from each other's mistakes and accelerate the process even further. Like Sabrina said earlier, they seemed to be close to mastering this.
"Giraf!" Then suddenly, Sabrina's Girafarig cried out as its tail began glowing a bright pink, humming with Psychic power.
Whitney was about to shout out her congratulations before the impossible happened – a blinding white light exploded out from Sabrina's Girafarig.
She shielded her eyes from the bright rays of light that suddenly flooded the training fields, but inwardly she was filled with shock. What was happening here?! Since when did a Girafarig have an evolution!?
Moments later, as the dazzling white light faded away, the training fields were silent as they all stared in awe at the newly evolved Pokémon that had appeared in front of them. It was more than double the height of her own Girafarig, and it literally towered over everyone there.
"Farig! Farigiraf!" Sabrina's newly evolved Farigiraf called out in excitement and pride. Outside of its height, even Whitney could feel the thrum of Psychic power that radiated out of it.
Whitney lost the ability to speak for a moment as she just stared at Farigarif with shocked silence, still unable to fully process the fact that they had just discovered a new evolution.
THEY DISCOVERED A NEW EVOLUTION!?
It was only the calming pat on the shoulders from Sabrina that had allowed her to regather her thoughts. She turned to Sabrina and found her looking as calm as ever, yet the slightly hurried movements betrayed her hidden surprise at what they had just discovered.
"We need to do some testing." Her friend said, her voice not sounding nearly as calm as she usually did, "I will tell mother, you stay here and help observe its new power level of this 'Farigarif'. I suspect we will be very pleased with what we find."
Whitney was about to nod her head when she saw Farigiraf suddenly lower its long neck towards her own Girafarig. They both had their eyes closed as a small link of Psychic power flowed from Sabrina's Pokémon into hers.
She watched slowly as the small orb of Psychic energy moved through her Girafarig, guided by the minds of both Pokémon, and slowly entered into its tail. Moments later, her own Girafarig's tail was shining with Psychic power.
And then the world exploded with light once more.
While Whitney was forced to shield her eyes once again, mentally she had shut down. She had no idea what was happening anymore. All she knew was that they had just accomplished two back-to-back evolutions that hadn't been discovered before.
She was so glad that Sabrina would be dealing with this with her. She wouldn't have a clue about how to handle this.
A.N. It finally happened! I know the Girafarig evolution was hinted at for some time, but here it is! Sometimes, a series of coincidences, luck, and insightful observations and can lead to the most surprising of results. I thought that Sabrina and Whitney were definitely the pair that would discover Farigiraf, considering how much they train together and their shared skills. And now with a Farigiraf on their team, Whitney and Sabrina just got a lot stronger!
And to anyone who wants to support me, please check out my p atreon at CartecTNN where you can read 8 advanced chapters! Thanks to those who have supported me already!