After an enjoyable though probably a bit early dinner, Hitori could no longer avoid the meeting she had to make with the Pokemon League in the stadium. Both to finally sign the contract and to get a few things she needed to pick up. At least she wasn't alone, she had Whismur giving her support from her Pokeball. After all the noise of the city is still too much for a Whismur.
More tangible was the emotional support of Kita who was by her side. Having declared "I don't have anywhere else to be, so I can come with you at least to the stadium. I've been there already so there's no chance of getting lost!". Hitori couldn't really argue with something like that, besides it did feel good to have someone who had no problem walking into populated places like the stadium next to her. If for no other reason than seeing her walk in could broke the mental barrier of a place like this being off limits to a random person like herself.
As the two reached the pathway leading into the stadium, which was quite busy with many people coming and going. Some bought last-minute tickets to the opening ceremony, others new trainers like Hitori and Kita who were hanging around until their appointed time, trainers who were unable to get recommendations and making a nuisance of themselves, and finally, trainers who were past their first year at the league showing off to anyone who'll look. It was something that made Hitori that much more grateful for Kita's presence as no doubt if alone she'd not be able to approach.
"Oh no," Hitori suddenly whispered. Just as Kita turned and looked at her confused, thinking Hitori had just forgotten some of her luggage, Hitori hid behind Kita. Looking out to what Hitori was hiding from, Kita saw Ball Guy and what was a new female mascot, probably named Ball Girl or Ball Woman standing off to the side of the walkway talking to each other.
"What? Hitori are you afraid of mascots? Don't worry if you just greet them and keep moving they'll ignore you pretty fast," Kita said providing some useful information that Hitori made sure to remember. Still, Hitori shook her head to indicate that Kita had it wrong.
"A-ah, that's not it… Um, the w-woman challenged me to a battle before. B-But I didn't have two Pokemon. I-if she sees me now with y-you here, s-she'll challenge me for sure," Hitori stuttered out her explanation.
"I see! Okay, just stay by my side and we'll walk past! Even if they see us I'll just say no! No rule says just because two trainers' eyes meet, they must battle!" Kita said with a nod.
It must have looked silly, but Kita didn't really mind if it helped a friend out, so she shuffled sideways to provide a larger base of cover for Hitori to stay behind her. It looked silly, the amount of luggage they had meant it was obvious someone was behind her, and Hitori's guitar case poked out from behind her anyway. People may have been giving them looks but it didn't bother Kita, not one bit! Honest!
It did seem to help Hitori as they made their way the rest of the walkway and almost into the entrance of the building without Ball Girl noticing her. As they were ascending the stairs to the main entrance, Kita saw Ball Girl slowly turn her head towards the two of them. Unblinking mascot eyes stared directly at her and for a moment Kita could understand why Hitori feared her, the mascot had a pressure about her. But despite the thoughts that ran through Kita's head at that moment, the mascot only held up her hand and gave a thumbs up to her, or maybe it was to Hitori.
The moment they were past the doors, both trainers let out a sigh of relief, stepping off to the side of a bench to take a seat from their impromptu stealth mission. Kita tried to hold back a chuckle as it was kind of fun in hindsight, even if Hitori and her had their picture taken by some of the crowd. "T-thank you K-Kita," Hitori said after taking a few more seconds to compose herself.
"No problem! Don't worry it's all a formality from here," Kita replied.
Hitori gave a small nod as she approached the counter. Thankfully all she had to do was show her recommendation and the person manning the counter was able to quickly type something out and she was taken to another private room that was a carbon copy of the one she was in before when first presenting her recommendation.
What came was some final explanations of her expectations during the gym challenge. They were all things already outlined to her in the contract, but she supposed not everyone read it over if they were going over the important parts again. "During the six months the challenge runs for, you are expected to make at least one gym challenge a month. Exceptions can be made provided you make multiple appearances in a month. On the flipside, there is no limit to how many times you can challenge a gym. However, as each gym battle must be scheduled ahead of time, repeated challenges may result in having a period of up to a month delay to allow other challenges time to battle the Gym Leader," the suited official had started his explanation.
The more it went on Hitori kind of zoned out, she had read the contract a few times over. Oh, she was still worried, after all, every gym battle was both recorded and played live. Anyone in Galar knew that. Just, it still felt far away, so she was leaving it to future Hitori to worry about, she had a whole extra month to think about how she was ever going to appear in front of so many people.
"Now in the past, we used to allow each new challenger to choose their number to print onto their gym outfits and trainer cards. Though with former Champion Leon's defeat, too many new challengers attempted to use his number. So now the challenger's numbers are assigned to them. Let's see, Hitori Gotoh you'll be number 104," He continued.
Hitori only nodded in return. It wasn't like she had any sort of number in mind. At least this way no one could attack her for picking their number. It was like having your group assigned to you in group projects! It was easier that way than picking your own. Where everyone else would split into their friend groups and she'd always be stuck trying to gather the courage to ask someone. Only to be left alone in the end, embarrassing herself as the teacher had to ask her if any groups had room for her.
"Each trainer will be given a debit card owned and maintained by the Pokemon League. While there is no limit to what you may spend the money added to it on, the Pokemon League only will deposit a small amount each week to the account. As you can see by this chart, for each badge you obtain the amount will increase," Hitori zoned back into his explanation as something caught her attention.
"A-ah, u-um," Hitori started.
"Oh sorry you have a question?" He asked.
"T-the c-contract um, l-listed it as a m-monthly amount," She asked.
"Ah, let me see," He answered before taking the small stack of paper and quickly flipping to the appropriate page. "This page was accidentally included from last year's version of the contract. Last year new challengers were indeed given their funding at the start of each month. However, because of this, certain trainers spend all of it within the first day of the month. A change was made to prevent such a thing from occurring, or at the very least prevent them from making their journey harder due to a lack of supplies. I can assure you that the amount is the same as last year," He explained.
That made enough sense to Hitori so she only briefly looked over the replacement page and nodded to his answer. From there he continued his explanation once more. She ended up zoning out again, but nothing else felt like new information to her, so in the end she successfully signed the contract in the ten different places it required.
"Thank you, now two more things and I'll let you go on your way. First is the matter of the opening ceremony. Before leaving head to the stadium's gift shop and hand the person at the counter this form and they'll provide you with your gym outfit for no cost. The first replacement at each stadium is also free, though more than that and it'll cost 15,000 Poke per outfit. Then please report back to the front desk tomorrow morning before ten for the Ceremony" He explained pushing a small filled-out form. It had Hitori's size and trainer number, and it was marked as pink as she wanted.
Though that came with its pool of anxiety, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. She was stepping up and doing official trainer meetings. She could do something like just handing in a form! Probably. It was prepared for her specifically, right? So, she wouldn't be kicked out because she asked for something out of stock. But what if she somehow was deemed unworthy and kicked out because of it, Hitori suddenly shook her head and banished the thoughts from her head. She couldn't let herself become so gloomy.
"Finally, accommodations have been made at the Budew Drop Inn for all new challengers. Your reservation information is here. It is only for two nights, so if you are staying in Motospoke for longer I would recommend making your own arrangements," He finished his explanation with a final sheet of paper.
Hitori nodded a final time she was finally done with this official business that felt tiring just to listen through. "Ah sorry, I forgot one last thing, before leaving please have your picture taken for your trainer card. It says here you haven't had one made yet," He added.
"Eh?" Hitori replied.
-
Hitori opened the door to her hotel room and quickly made her way inside. Taking only a moment to push her suitcase to the side and let Whismur out of her Pokeball before collapsing onto the bed. Getting her photo taken and the trainer card made took longer than it really should have. Not that she could blame anyone but herself and her, 'what was the opposite of photogenic' she wondered for a moment. At first, they wanted to try and get a picture of her with a smile, or confident grin. When that failed they tried for a more neutral passport-like photo.
Hitori's inability to look people in the eye made trying to look at the camera a Sisyphean task. Eventually, they got a picture where she didn't look like she was about to curl into a ball and cry while looking forward nonetheless. After that Kita wanted to spend more time with her, but at that point she was already feeling tired from dealing with so many people.
Whismur was happy to be out of her Pokeball at least and was exploring the room. A few minutes passed before Hitori sat up and pulled her phone out, she may not have had the energy to deal with people but it didn't mean she couldn't look at the comments on her videos. Those always made her feel better about herself. At least when they didn't inadvertently make her feel worse by talking about their friends and classmates and all that.
Her latest cover was well received, which made her smile grow wide and a goofy laugh erupted out from her. She was quite the guitarist, wasn't she? Fifty comments all saying the same thing couldn't be wrong, could it? It did make her realize something that she probably should have figured out earlier. How was she going to keep making videos while outgoing from town to town for the Gyms?
Sitting up on her bed and only now noticing that Whismur had gotten up on the bed, so of course before anything else, she made sure to pet Whismur's head. She did have her laptop, guitar, and she could record using her phone's camera, couldn't she? But she didn't have that blank segment of wall that she used as a backdrop. Would they notice the difference in acoustics? What if she had to record outside and people walked in on her? Or worse what if they paid attention to the backgrounds and figured out where she was? They could even figure out where she was going if she uploaded often enough and track her down and find out that everything she said in the descriptions and replying to the comments were all lies!
At the same time, she couldn't just not upload at all, she knew from what people said online about people going on breaks. If she doesn't upload her little bit of attention would go away, she'd be forgotten and tossed aside at the digital side of the road. Better to do what she usually did when things were started to get too much for her to think about. She got off the bed and scooted over to her luggage to pull out her guitar.
Before Hitori could play she took the headphones off her neck and placed them onto Whismur's ears. With that Hitori sat down on her bed and began to play, focusing on pushing past her comfort level. She was playing to improve right now, not just to clear her head or enjoy the music that came from it. While she played, she figured that she could just record in hotel rooms like the one she was in now, it'd solve her problems. Now she just needed to remember that a few hours from now once she was done.
Engrossed in her practice, Hitori had tuned out much of the room outside herself and the music sheets she had taken out, her phone showing herself so she could see her fingers as they played. Whismur had dug into Hitori's suitcase making herself comfortable in the packed clothes with a ripped open back of berry gummies. During this time, the lights in the room flickered, one of them even going out and darkening the room.
Wax slowly began to ooze in from the bottom of the door to the hallway. Unnoticed the wax crept forward towards the human occupant. As it neared, the wax climbed up the wall onto the bedside table. There it pooled, growing larger and larger until a bluish-purple flame flicked to life and a single yellow opened on the bundle of wax, now half as big as Whismur was. The living candle stared at Hitori, and a wide grin grew on its face.
An hour passed with Hitori continuing to practice, Whismur had fallen asleep within the cramped confines of the suitcase. She stopped her playing for a moment to stretch, as well as to sniff at her arm. 'ah I must have been sweating while getting into it' Hitori thought to herself. She was rocking pretty hard on the guitar for an hour straight. She glanced around, the room felt a bit warmer than before. Her eyes landed on a rather large candle that was lit on the bedside table.
'Was that always there?' Hitori asked herself. Though after a second she just dismissed it, she did just immediately went for the bed. "Whismur, bath time," She called out. Her partner jolted awake and pushed herself free of the suitcase. Together trainer and Pokemon made their way to the bathroom to wash up, Hitori stopped just at the door before going to a thermostat and turning it down a couple of degrees.
The candle plumped up, the orange flame turning back to its bluish hue and eyes opening up. The Pokemon frowned but didn't make a move otherwise. Small arms of wax came up to where a chin would be on its small body and a look of contemplation appeared on its face. Eventually, its small arms clapped together, and it nodded to itself.
With still some time until the shower was over, the candle Pokemon moved onto the bed where an ignored phone lay. There the Pokemon fiddled with the screen as He had seen other humans do before. There he managed to get to a channel and could play a video by one GuitarHero. The Pokemon then looked on with his full attention as it played out. Before Hitori could leave her shower, the Pokemon slinked back into his original position.
-
Refreshed after her shower, Hitori got more comfortable on the bed, with the temperature now down a bit more it was feeling a lot more comfortable. Now that she and Whismur were clean it was time again to get some dinner. While she was dreading having to do something like ordering or going out to eat. Hitori was relieved to see that the inn had a completely remote ordering service. With that load off her mind, she eagerly ordered food both for herself and Whismur.
Normally she'd go right back to playing now, whether to practice or to record something. But the simple fact that someone would be coming by soon meant there was no way she'd be playing until they had come and gone. So, it was back to her phone to browse around. This time not ego-searching her comments but looking up more information on Pokemon battling and raising Pokemon. That and holding her phone out as she looked for a good spot to record a cover.
As she swept her phone over her bedside table, she noticed that the odd candle that sat upon it was larger, with a bigger flame. It looked, impatient if it was at all possible for a candle. The flame seemed to flare bigger at random. Hitori began to glance between the phone's camera and the candle. A feeling of dread dragging up. While to her own eyes, it looked as though the candle was normal if a bit weird, on the feed of her phone the flame was blue and it had eyes that were staring at her.
Just then the picture app's face-tracking software picked the candle up and another app booted up. "Litwick, the Candle Pokemon. Ghost and Fire type. This Pokemon emits a light that absorbs the life energy of people and Pokemon. They pretend to guide lost travelers around, leeching life energy from those who follow it," The 'Pokemon Identification' App so helpfully explained.
Hitori read it and her worry only grew wider, 'how long have I been around it? It was there from the start wasn't it? T-that's hours right? A-am I going to die. I'm sorry Mom! I'm sorry Dad! I'm sorry Futari! I'm going to become a Ghost Pokemon's dinner!' Hitori thought to herself as she turned to look at the candle in reality.
Seeing as his disguise was seen through, Litwick revealed itself fully, impatience gleaming in his eyes. It made some gesture with his small arms that Hitori couldn't quite grasp and slowly backed up. When Hitori didn't respond how Litwick wanted, impatience gave way to annoyance and his flame began to emit a noxious smoke that gathered above it. Again, it made the gesture with his arms.
Hitori was close to just trying to run from it, or maybe try and give whatever she had in her luggage to the ghost type. 'Maybe the snacks in her suitcase that she got for Whismur would be enough tribute?' she thought. But that line of thinking was interrupted by her starting to realize the gesture. It kind of looked like the Litwick was trying to play a Gui-.
Whismur suddenly jumped forward, ears primed with ghost-type energy, and slammed them down into the unsuspecting Wild Pokemon. Her astonish knocked Litwick back with a surprised ghostly shout from the Wild Pokemon. As he landed on Hitori's bed, Hitori was quietly thankful that the bed didn't just catch fire from the ghostly flame on Litwick's head.
Litwick quickly got up, or to be more accurate, the wax shifted into an upright position. The noxious smoke gathered appearing much quicker before with a swing of his waxy body shot forward in a wave of smog. Whismur didn't retaliate back yet, instead giving a loud cry and turning to Hitori waiting for another order.
Hitori however was doing her best to not totally freak out as she wasn't ready to have a battle against a wild Pokemon in her hotel room of all places! Whismur's cries were suddenly interrupted as she began to let out choking coughs as Litwick's attack overtook her. "A-ah, I-icy w-wind," Hitori responded as the experience from the Skwovet attack came back.
Whismur couldn't take in the breath needed to unleash the attack at its fullest. Regardless a blue-tinted wind bellowed out of Whismur's mouth towards Litwick. The attack served duo purpose as the wind from it blew the smog away from Whismur allowing her to breathe once more, while also hurting Litwick however little it would affect a fire type.
Hitori had another moment to think about Litwick's actions from before, 'it really was looking like it was playing an air guitar. If it was there from the beginning, then it must have heard me playing. Then-' Hitori thought. Before she could finish her thought Litwick swung his head around, the flame breaking off into floating motes of fire that hung around his body, the blue hue shifting into the regular orange and reds of normal fire.
"W-wait!" Hitori called out her voice cracking from raising up for the first time in a few days. The flame didn't suddenly disappear but both Litwick and Whismur stopped to turn towards Hitori. "Y-You u-um, j-jjust w-wanted to h-hear me p-play r-right?" Hitori stuttered out. In part, it was because she was kind of realizing this Litwick was the first time someone other than Whismur or her family heard her play in person, which was somewhat overwhelming to her.
Litwick extinguished the floating flames and suddenly had a wide smile and nodded eagerly, ethereal, echo-y cries coming from him with an excited gleam in his eye. Whismur meanwhile shifted her eyes back to Litwick, carefully watching the ghost type just in case it tried to attack Hitori again.
Hitori grabbed her Guitar and began to play, her eyes going right down to the strings as having an audience felt like a lot more pressure than she was expecting. What if she was wrong, or her playing was suddenly not good enough for the Litwick? Still, her safety was on the line she imagined so she played and played. As she played Litwick's head swayed back and forth, the blue flame slowly drawing Hitori's eye up to look at the Pokemon.
It wasn't annoyed, impatient, or even bored. Litwick was watching with an awed expression, as though Hitori's playing was the best thing he had ever seen. There was something to playing to a living, real person that was different from just playing to herself or her camera. Well, person and living may not be the most accurate considering, but the idea was the same.
Hitori's eye shifted back towards Whismur as she realized that Whismur was also looking on with a large smile and pleased expression. 'B-but I'm being so loud, Whismur should be crying from the noise,' Hitori thought as she continued to play. She was always careful to keep Whismur away from the loud noise as those types of noise were what set off Whismur.
Soon her song came to an end, Litwick began to clap and cheer with his wispy voice while Whismur was giving whispered cheers. A blush grew on Hitori's face, this was what she wanted, wasn't it? Cheering fans, it may be the first of steps, but it was proof she could do it. She started playing another song, this time with ever so slightly more confidence.
She continued to play for a few more songs when suddenly a bell rang out, "Room Service," A polite voice said from the other side of the door. Hitori let out a shocked shriek as the surprise and realization that her loud playing no doubt could be heard outside the room. Mimicking Hitori's own surprise Whismur began to loudly cry shaking the room with its sheer volume. This then got Hitori to trip over herself and knock her guitar case down against the suitcase as she tried to deal with everything happening all at once.
Hitori did what she could to calm Whismur down, get the room service that arrived, and apologize profusely for the noise. At least as much as she could while stuttering over her every word. Litwick noticed something next to the now knocked-over suitcase. Turning away from everything that was going on, it moved to the floor and over to the suitcase. Having fallen out was a white Pokeball with a red trim at the seam.
Hitori let out a sigh as she slumped into her bed, already sweaty again despite just showering. At least there were a few dishes lined up on the small table the room had, Whismur was mollified with her food and was eating happily from her dinner. She barely heard Litwick leaping up onto the bed, as she looked over at the Pokemon she saw it was carrying the premier ball that she had stored away. Litwick looked at her, ball in hand and with a bright, begging light in his eyes held the ball out. Hitori pushed herself back suddenly right up against the headboard. She understood exactly what the Litwick was asking of her, he wanted to become her Pokemon. But could she handle that commitment? She already had a lot to handle with Whismur and the opening ceremony. Slowly she shook her head to say no to the Litwick.
Litwick had a moment where he looked dejected, but soon closed his eyes, standing there in silence for a few moments. Then as he opened them once more, he had the exact same expression as before and once again held the ball out. Hitori felt her heart thumping in her chest as for once her worries about being pushed came true, but she shook her head again.
Only to have the same thing play out, Litwick would get dejected then seem to just erase the memory out of his head and ask again. Again and again, until finally Hitori's trouble saying no finally caught up to her. Along with a nagging voice in her head telling her that she couldn't let a fan down, even a ghostly Pokemon one. Letting out a breath, Hitori accepted the premier ball out of Litwick's hand.
Litwick's eyes positively shone with an energy that was almost overwhelming to a girl like Hitori. Still, she turned the ball around in her hand and shakily held it out to tap against Litwick's head. The ball opened and enveloped Litwick in a bright light before absorbing him and shutting. Hitori let the ball out of her hand as it began to suddenly shake back and forth, the central button lighting up with a red light. On and off it blinked and shook for a few final seconds before it all came to a stop. A sound like a soft gong played out and it was done. She had caught Litwick.