Searching Far and Wide

by Adrian King1

Waking up in a forest in the middle of nowhere wasn't in Pierce's plans. Neither was dying nor was being dropped in another world for that matter, really. He appreciated the second chance though, and the free equipment too. Now, how was he going to make the most of his new situation… Well, that was the question, wasn't it? Cover Art by Amasw.

104. Route 6 II

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Kadabra

- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)

- Andromeda, Vaporeon

- Regulus, Meowth

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Ivysaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

- Cinder, Vulpix

Route 6 II

"Nice, isn't it?" Lily asked him, all smiles as she sat on the other side of a piece of cloth that they'd set on the ground for a picnic.

"You can say that again," he answered, a grin of his own on his face. He was sitting on a rock that had been next to where they set up, but that was mostly to open up a little space on the cloth. Cinder was feeling a little extra fussy that day, so they'd let her sit on it and have her own space. Star wanted to be part of the official picnic area, so she was there too. And then there was Regulus, who liked to be an absolute cat about things regularly, so… Yeah.

Pierce was fine with the rock anyway.

Even if he hadn't been, the sight was beautiful enough to make up for it anyway.

It was a bit nostalgic too, but in a good way. He'd never been a great fan of the pokemon franchise, but he'd watched the anime as a kid and even somewhat followed the series afterwards. Never really going out of his way to do so, but Pokemon was so huge you couldn't really not see something about it here and there.

What was important at that moment was that the scene in front of him reminded him of the one thing that he liked about Pokemon the most.

There was an open field, a clearing in the middle of the woods in Route 6, of which there were many. The place had plenty of flowers all around too and it made him think of those cliche movie scenes with picture perfect fields. He half expected Lily to suddenly be wearing a sundress, running into the field and twirling a bit. That didn't happen, but it'd have completed the picture, in his opinion.

There were also pokemon all around, which was the nostalgic part. He'd always been a fan of those little scenes the anime dropped here and there, of pokemon in their natural habitat. Pidgey flew around, oddish and bellsprout stumbled about, pulling themselves and their roots from the ground to move and Pierce thought he caught an Abra sleeping a little ways out of the clearing, in between the trees. There was a pineco or two hanging from the branches and the occasional hoot-hoot or noctowl cooed as the night came closer.

A slight buzzing distracted him from taking in more of the scene.

There was a pokemon flying close by with a few others of its kind. This one in particular had gotten a little closer than the rest though, and it seemed to be caught off guard by its own actions. Thus, when Pierce turned to look at it, the little thing hovered in place, looking at him and the rest of the group gathered around him.

"Hey there," Pierce greeted, making the rest of its group freeze… but that might have had something to do with how everyone – Orion, most importantly, since he was the most imposing and obvious of the lot – turned to look at them. "You guys having fun?" he asked, projecting calm as best he could.

That was something big with pokemon, he'd learned. Fake it till you make it could really turn things around. Sure, they usually knew how you were feeling and could be affected by it, but it went a long way if you didn't show it anyway. If you at least made an effort to be calm and friendly, they were more likely to be calm and friendly right back. It was all about keeping an open mind and not assuming pokemon were as dangerous as they obviously could be.

Kinda like if everyone always held a gun in their hands. Most people had the safety on and were nice. Not everyone was raving lunatic waiting for the chance to shoot at you and you had to act like it. Because if you assumed they were like that, pokemon were more likely to get agitated and become exactly what people were afraid of.

"Glad to hear," he replied when the closest of the pokemon gave a hesitant reply. They were combee, he noted, so he didn't think offering them food would be quite as effective as with other pokemon. They still could eat kibble and berries, but most of their diet came from the honey they made themselves. "Are the flowers around here good for honey?" he asked, because it was a basic thing that if you talked to someone about something they liked, they'd be more open too, right?

Immediately, most of the handful of Bug types seemed to perk up and change their apprehensive dispositions.

The closest gave an animated answer, excited and buzzing around. It was adorable and Pierce didn't even try to fight the smile on his face. How people could be so quick to be scared of these creatures baffled him. Sure, they held a lot of power, but most of them were such friendly little things that he honestly couldn't really do more than give that a passing thought just to keep a bit of a guard up.

"That's great," he replied, grinning. "You can come closer if you want some of these flowers. Promise nobody's going to bother you… Except maybe Regulus, but let me know if he does, yeah? He's a bit of a brat," he commented, drawing an indignant hiss from the meowth. "Don't tell me you weren't thinking about poking or patting them, because I'll know you're lying," Pierce told his pokemon with an unimpressed raised eyebrow that caused the Normal type to look away. "Everyone else should be fine, yeah? Just don't touch Narcissa or Talon or they might take that as an invitation for a battle… Unless you're interested in that," he continued explaining, adding the last part when one of the combee seemed to perk up at the mention of a fight.

It seemed like there was a battle maniac in the group.

Pierce was half afraid it'd try to stick with him, because he had a bit of a track record with battle maniac pokemon, after all.

[}-o-{]

"Pretty good," he commented, taking a sip from the tea he'd prepared for himself in a mockery of how he imagined someone might taste fine wine. He wasn't lying though, Pierce was pretty sure that was the best tea he'd ever prepared for himself. Not that his skill had anything to do with this change, of course, but still.

"One day, you won't be able to charm a pokemon, Pierce. I'm not sure if that'll be a good thing or not, but I hope it's funny," Lily told him with a slight, wry smile. Why was she saying that? Because the reason for his amazing drink was the combee honey he'd added to it, a little gift from the Bug types they'd spent some time with during their improvised picnic. "On a different note," she added then, looking uncharacteristically shy.

Which gave Pierce a very good idea of what was going to happen next.

She probably wanted to talk about-

"Do you think I could post my first video tomorrow or the day after?" she asked, shifting where she sat like a child that expected her parents to tell her they'd see about her request in the way that all parents did before pushing the matter aside or internally saying no… That was a bit of a very specific example, but it was what came to his mind.

He just stared at her with a raised eyebrow for a long moment before rolling his eyes.

"Go for it," he answered. "Seriously, after all the pushing I had to do for you to agree to this, did you really think I'd tell you no?" he shot back. Much to his exasperation, Lily continued being an idiot. "I get that you are nervous and all that, but don't make me sound like an idiot, would you? It's a little insulting."

"Sorry," she mumbled, drawing into herself. A second later, Pierce was acutely aware of the fact that most of her pokemon – sans Star, who was trying to comfort her trainer – were glaring at him. To that, he just rolled his eyes once more.

"Don't worry about it," he waved off. "And knock yourself out. My channel is your channel. Almost literally, all things considered."

"It's just… I was thinking that we have a few videos on queue, so I didn't want to butt in with my stuff," she mumbled, shifting some more. "I thought maybe you'd prefer to wait until a time where we had less content. We're pretty much making videos about every pokemon we come across, but that'll change once we have more content, right?"

"Maybe, but that's no reason to push your stuff to the side. What was the point of making the announcement if we were going to wait for however long it takes us to run out of backlog? Just go for it," he told her, a little exasperated. "Nothing wrong with pushing my videos for later anyway. Hell, it might even be good. I could learn something new that contradicts what I do in the videos. Unlikely, I know," he added towards the end when Lily looked at him skeptically. "But it's been known to happen, at least with some first impressions, right?"

"I guess," she replied, her voice low but regaining some of her usual confidence. "I guess I'm still anxious."

"You're still a teenager, anxiety is your thing," he commented.

"Not all of us are old like you, Pierce," Lily shot back and he mock-grimaced. That was more like it though. He much preferred his traveling companion acting like herself. "But thank you."

"Don't mention it," he told her, hoping that'd be the end of it. He tried not to be too harsh on her. He knew how irrational nerves could screw you over. God knew he dealt with his fair share of that when it came to Gym battles and such. Hell, maybe he was being a bit of a hypocrite about it, but then again, Lily wasn't what he'd call understanding during those moments either. So, turn about was fair play, as far as he was concerned.

"Hm, this really is good," Lily commented then, after taking a sip from her own tea. She'd kind of been waiting for the drink to cool off… or maybe she'd just been distracted. Probably even both. "You'll need to do your whisperer act with combee more often, Pierce."

"I'll do what I can," he said with a wry smile. "Or maybe we can just buy some?"

"Combee honey's not cheap," she pointed out, but she wasn't being too serious about it. Even she knew that his account was kind of… He wasn't short on cash, that was the gist of it. And if things continued the way they seemed like they would, then he'd be even less so in the future.

"Let me worry about that," he reassured, drawing a grin from her. The tea really was quite better with that than the usual sweeteners. He was definitely dropping some money on that once they got to Vermillion. "Speaking of something being good… How's it?" he asked then, turning towards Regulus, who was tasting some new recipes Pierce had come up with for him.

Apparently though, he was loving them… or maybe it was better to say that he had loved them, because the snacks Pierce had prepared were history already. 'Damn, that was fast or Lily and I were talking for longer than I expected,' he thought with a blink. Then he was poked by Narcissa.

"No need for that, lady," he told her, unimpressed. "I'll get on with the next batch of food, but if someone pokes me again, no snacks for them," he threatened and all the pokemon made a show of behaving themselves. They were all little shits, but they were smart little shits, he supposed.

He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not though, but oh well.

[}-o-{]

"I should have one or two things ready when you arrive at Vermillion, sir," Grace told him over the phone and Pierce nodded, even though she couldn't see him. It was more to himself than anything, really. He was kind of processing the information she'd delivered to him over the last few minutes. "Is there anything you need from me to help you with the advertisement work? Other than getting the contracts ready and the accounts in order?"

"I need information about what I'll be promoting. So, if you could tell me in advance if something looks more definitive. Even if it falls through, I want to have time to think how I'll include things into a video," he explained, thinking over things. Not like he hadn't considered things over the days and even before Grace was a thing, but he had to go over things all the same. "Besides time, I might need information, but I can probably look that up-"

"I can do that," the woman interrupted, not firmly nor harshly, but determined. "What information, precisely?"

"... Well, it'd be nice to know if the companies already have some kind of image or such to promote their stuff. I might be able to include their usual ad material or something to my own thing," he mused out loud, deciding he might as well let her do the job if she wanted to. "Then again, might not, but it sounds like a fun thing to try and work with if possible," he commented.

"I'll see what I can do, maybe analyze their other promotional material, slogans, selling points they use… Yes, I can do that," Grace replied absently and he could hear the sound of a keyboard over the call. "Also, I wanted to tell you that there might come more straightforward sponsorship offers for you as a trainer? It's something for further in the future, but I thought I'd let you know, sir."

"Really?" he asked, blinking with wide eyes. He knew what he did with pokemon was a big deal and such, but he was no Lily. She was the kind of trainer he expected to get sponsorships, not him. He wasn't that good, as far as he was concerned. He told Grace as much too, because he couldn't make sense of it.

"Even if you're correct in that assumption, which I have some doubts about, this isn't a normal case for your trainer career. Even if you're only a good trainer on your own right, your exploits turn you from that into an outstanding one anyway. People will want to be associated with you, just like they do with your videos," Grace explained and suddenly Pierce felt like he should be taking notes or something. Maybe she'd been a teacher in another life? "One such way is through sponsorships as a trainer, since you'll draw attention during important matches and tournaments. I checked and the videos of your Gym battles have significantly more views than the average. There's even a little spike in Ms. Dale's tournament battle in Pewter where she used Narcissa."

Pierce found himself a little dazed by that information dump. He'd certainly not been prepared for that, that was for sure. He hadn't even considered checking the view counts of those videos, especially the one about Lily and Narcissa. That was… he wasn't sure how he even felt about that. He supposed he should be flattered, but it was more… odd, than anything. He was still kind of getting used to being a public, popular figure.

"And… What does that mean for me?" he asked, taking a deep breath in as if that would somehow help his brain start working properly again. He was already plenty overwhelmed with the ads thing, but oh well… No rest allowed for him, he supposed. He'd just have to keep going forward.

"For now, not much. You might be asked to only drink or eat things from certain brands and not others when in public, that kind of thing. There might even be a uniform or outfit that you might need to either come up with and have companies put their brands on it, or they might suggest one of their own making. I'm sure you've seen where this might lead to later on," Grace explained to him and took a moment to process that. It didn't sound that bad, but that depended on how far those things were pushed. Being given a shirt to use during matches and such with a brand logo didn't sound bad, but if someone wanted him to go out in some ridiculous get-up, then they could just fuck off.

He wasn't that desperate for money… or at all, really.

"Ok, I'll probably have similarly inconvenient predilections in regards to that as I did the ads," he commented, because what sounded completely reasonable to him might sound picky or fussy for people in the business, he'd learned. He wasn't quite ready to sell his soul for cash, that was all. It wasn't even like he needed to, so it was others that really wanted him to do stuff and thus, they were the ones that should compromise with him.

"I'm sure, but I think I have a good measure of your character, sir. I'll still present you with ideas I don't think you'll like on occasion, just in case. Is that alright?" Grace asked hesitantly and he hummed and nodded to himself.

"Sounds alright to me. Wouldn't want to miss something just because I pushed all the decision making on you. Maybe once we know each other better, yeah?" he commented, somewhat joking and not at the same time. "Anything else we need to discuss or is that all?"

"That's all, sir. On a different note, however, you might want to call Daisy. She was talking about calling you, but you might want to surprise her?" she suggested and he was surprised by the non-professional topic. Maybe she was making an effort to make him more comfortable? He was a person like that, contrasting her straightforward professionalism. His own efforts to be professional with her might have urged her to be more easy-going with him.

"Thanks for the tip. Talk to you later, yeah?"

"Talk to you later, sir."

[}-o-{]

"Aaaad… we're live," Lily said, pressing the button and then moving to sit beside him on a fallen tree. The rest of their teams were behind them doing some light training to keep themselves occupied. As for them, well, they were recording a video together.

"Hey, everyone," he greeted with a smile and a wave while his traveling companion did her own greeting. "Lily and I decided that enough time had passed and we could do another QnA, you know? So, here we are, with another collection of questions for me to answer. And who knows, maybe we'll take questions for Lily next time… or maybe I'll let her have her own QnA episodes. We'll see, for now though…" he explained, turning to look at his co-host of the channel.

"For now, we have lots of questions and not a lot of time. What do we have here…?" Lily said as she turned away from the camera, making a show of taking a piece of paper she'd set aside and checking it. "From Mankey D. Conan, oh wow," she commented, pulling away a little. "That's a long "question", huh?" she added, making quotation marks with her fingers. "So… For those walking the generalist route, how much do you think typing plays a role in group synergy among a trainer's Pokémon and what do you do if both typing and personality seem to keep certain members of your team at odds? And has that ever happened with your team?"

"Ok, starting off strong, I guess," Pierce said, blinking and tilting his head. "I think people like to generalize too much when it comes to training routes. Not all generalists are the same, just like not all specialists are the same. Sure, all specialists have pokemon of the same typing or maybe two of them, but a Water specialist and a Dark specialist are completely different from one another. Generalists are, ironically enough, even more different from one to the other," he explained, speaking slowly and considering his words as best he could. "That said, there's the obvious answer of it being best to have typings that cover each other's weaknesses, but not everyone sticks to that. I don't, for example. I just gather whichever crazy pokemon wants to come with me," he added, turning his head to look at his team behind him.

He'd often wondered if he was building a good team, but he always came to the same conclusion, really. He wasn't building a team for peak competitive performance. He wasn't even really building a team. He was building a family. Everyone that joined him did so on their own accord and because they wanted to, not because he recruited them or anything. He rather liked that, actually.

"So, I think team building is a very… subjective thing. It depends on every person. If you're trying to build a team objectively… I don't think I can advise you with that. It's a little too cold an approach, in my opinion," he said as honestly as he could. He really didn't want to help create more Pauls in the world, after all. "Now, pokemon personalities clashing is something very interesting to ask, but it's not really related to typing alone. Every pokemon is a world, be it by species, typing, both or something else entirely. It hasn't happened to me a lot, but Narcissa and Talon, from Lily's team, do have some trouble at times."

"They love getting into fights. They are very passionate about being strong, both of them, so they get too competitive at times," Lily chimed in.

"The key, I'd say, is that you're their trainer. They should listen to you. If your role as their pseudo-leader fails, then you need to be a mediator. How can you help curve the problem on each side? How can you de-escalate the issue in some way that'll keep both of them calm?" he asked the camera, taking a deep breath in and then letting it out slowly. "Eventually, the issue should become less of a problem as the pokemon start getting along better. Failing all that, then… If you've tried everything you can and even consulted with experts and such… Then you might need to trade pokemon or release one of them. Nobody wants to be in the same room as someone else they hate for the rest of their lives. It's a very harsh thing to do though and it sucks for everyone involved, I'm sure, so please, make sure to try everything before doing that, alright? I can't say more than that without a specific issue to consider."

"... Starting off strong indeed," Lily said, her voice a little strained, but she soldiered through the uncomfortable moment and checked the list. "Wiggle that Tuff asks, what are your best tips to form a strong bond with your pokemon team besides bribing them with food?"

"You mean there are other ways?" he asked jokingly, drawing a giggle from Lily. "Now, in all seriousness, look for things they like to do and share that with them. Maybe they like to be pampered and groomed, there's some great grooming products that pokemon can love. I've found some and I'm sure you've seen me doing such stuff with them. Maybe you can find some kind of game that they like and play with them. Maybe you can train and have battles with them, even if you're not a fan of the sport. They might like it and having some light battles can be enough, if you don't like the idea of them getting hurt."

"BlazerBug asks, why are gyarados Flying type?" Lily asked and she seemed to find that question funny for some reason. He wasn't sure why, but it wasn't time to ask.

"Well, that's more of a question for a professor than someone like me, but I imagine they have a special predilection to the type, despite not actually flying. Types are energy types, not literal elements. Fire type energy isn't actually fire, even if it's very similar. I like to think about Flying type as Air type, when it gets confusing. Just because it has a connection to air doesn't mean it should fly. There's other examples of this, after all, like doduo and dodrio and many more."

"Actually not a bad answer. I urge people to check though, there's articles on the matter published by professors all over the world. They cover the issue much more in depth and go over some things that Pierce isn't aware of," Lily commented with a smile. The whole thing seemed rehearsed and all, which made Pierce think that she'd dealt with similar stuff at Pallet. "Now, HaganenoTenshi15 asks, is it true that gyarados can fly or is it just that they jump really high?"

"I haven't seen a gyarados fly, but I wouldn't discard it, despite what I just said," he replied with a shrug and an easy smile. "They can definitely jump really high, I can confirm that much. I wouldn't put it past some gyarados being skilled enough with their Flying type energy to be able to fly though. Pokemon can do a lot of things you wouldn't expect," Pierce explained as best he could.

"RandomPasserby asks," Lily continued, crossing her legs and tracing the questions with her nail. "Do you come from Cerulean? You seem to be very good friends with the Sensational Sisters."

"I've become very good friends with the Sisters ever since I helped at their Gym with the gyarados and other pokemon. They are great," he answered with a chuckle. "But I only met them then. I come from Viridian, actually," he said, since that's where his ID said he was from.

"WaterBlue asks," Lily said, an odd tone in her voice as she said the nickname and she was staring at the sheet. Not that Pierce blamed her. If that wasn't Blue – like Red had left a comment before, or FireRed rather –, then he'd be very surprised. "Is there a specific way you'd use to convince a pokemon of doing something they wouldn't normally do?"

"Woah, loaded question there," Pierce said, pulling back a bit and not even having to exaggerate his reaction. That sounded like a Paul question to him, but he supposed now he had to answer it. "I mean, if you want to do that to help them because they're doing something that's harmful to themselves and others, then see the answer to the bonding question from before. Those things will help you have more of a chance to convince a pokemon and steer them towards more healthy things. If you want to force a pokemon to be something they are not though, you're going to fail miserably or make your pokemon miserable, so… Yeah, careful with that. I know you asked for specificity, but I don't think there's some magic way to make any pokemon do something."

"Hm, I agree," Lily said, shaking her head at the paper as if it were her friend himself. "Now, next…"

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

And here, we see the Pierce in his natural habitat. The individual has developed in such a way that pokemon will naturally feel at ease with him and people will naturally throw their money at him at the slightest-

Ahem.

What?

Anyway, yeah. Pierce doing the Proxyman number in several ways, it seems. And he's gonna be making obscene amounts of money very soon if he keeps at it. Grace's gonna make sure of that, apparently. The power of capitalism, huh?

With all that said, I hope you all 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: What's the last video you watched? I think it was a movie reaction mashup. I've been kind of addicted to those lately.

See you.