CHAPTER 13

“Please make sure to warn us adequately next time, Mr. Williams,” Nurse Joy said in a stern tone as she gave him back his Pokeballs. “That Budew wasn’t just aggressive, it was a danger to our staff and all the Pokemon around it.”

Denzel could only hang his head in shame and apologized profusely. His Budew had attacked everything around it as soon as the nurses let her out of her ball, and had to be shot with a tranquilizer twice before going down. It was the only way they could heal her.

“I’m so sorry,” Denzel continued. “I thought my warning was enough…”

The nurse sighed. “Well, make sure to let the nurse know if you go to another center and it’s still behaving this way. Have a great day.”

As we left the Pokemon Center, I kept trying to find the words to cheer Denzel up. I figured something out, but he raised his hand and stopped me.

“I need to be alone today,” He muttered. “Don’t look at me like that, I’ll be fine. I just need to figure this whole Budew thing out. If I can’t… well, I might need to release her. Let’s meet back here tonight and get something to eat,” He said as he touched her ball.

I nodded. “Alright, but be careful.”

He left and made his way back toward Oreburgh gate. I considered following him, but I felt that he would be disappointed if I did. 

“Well, it’s just me now,” I told myself.

The first thing I did was call my dad to let him know I was in Oreburgh and that I had signed up at Roark’s gym. It took a few minutes for him to understand that the gym trainer I was supposed to battle in five days was not actually a gym leader and that it wouldn’t be televised. The gym trainer system was rather new, and according to Denzel, it had been implemented by Roark to create another barrier before reaching him. This was because the number of trainers that signed up for the League Circuit increased each year. And if you couldn’t beat a gym trainer, there was no way you were beating the gym. Then, since I had called one parent, I decided to make good on my promise and check up on mom. The fact that I could tell she was almost crying of happiness made me feel terrible I hadn’t gotten in contact sooner, but I couldn’t change the past, so all I could do was look forward. 

If Denzel was going to brood, I decided it was time to work on my team. I made my way to the city’s northeast, past the museum, and toward a small portion of route 207 that was isolated in Oreburgh. This area was a small, self-contained wild zone that had been created by the city to help trainers get ready for the gym without having to train in the cave— something I was very grateful for. Wild Pokemon here were supposed to be weak and passive, and any threats were always quickly dealt with by the Rangers. The area as a whole was about two miles squared.

Luckily for me, most trainers ignored this area, preferring to battle in Oreburgh’s battling facilities as a training method instead of this. To some extent, they were correct that they would get stronger faster using trainer battles, but today, I wanted to do something different.

I released Togepi and Frillish, now fully healthy from their trip to the Pokemon Center. Togepi hugged my leg and chirped happily, while Frillish spun around in the air, which was certainly the happiest I’d seen him. I smiled at both of them and clapped my hands.

“Welcome back, guys! Our first big fight at the gym is in five days, so let’s have a little team meeting,” I told them. “Now, before we even talk strategy, I want to get something out of the way. Let’s make you friends!”

The truth was, even though Togepi and Frillish seemed to get along, they didn’t interact with each other very much. Sure, they talked a few times, but I wanted us to be a team, and to be a team, they had to be as close with each other as they were with me.

“Prrrri!” Togepi agreed.

Frillish stopped spinning and stared at me with a confused look in his eyes.

“This won’t help us in the short term, but in the long term? If I can have a team that fully trusts each other in every situation, it’ll help us a lot, especially in the wild, so I’m doing this whether you like it or not,” I explained.

Frillish started drifting away.

“Hey! Don’t just drift away from me, mister! I promised you poffins, and I haven’t forgotten. It’ll be your reward for cooperating today.”

He stopped and then reluctantly joined us again, but not before shooting a jet of water at my face. I let out a small scream of surprise and sighed as the little prankster laughed silently, bobbing his head up and down.

“I’ll act like that didn’t happen…” I said, wiping my face with my shirt. “Anyway, another reason why we’re doing this is because I’m still hurt, and I don’t feel like I’d be able to focus on battling properly with this pain at the back of my mind,” I explained. “Hopefully it’ll be better for our battle.”

I told the two to face each other, and I placed myself at a distance in between them so that we’d form a ‘triangle.’ 

“Alright! First of all, I want you two to say something you like about each other. Oh— let me go first. I love how Togepi always tries to cheer me up no matter how down I’m feeling. She’s always trying her best to keep the mood up.”

“Togeprrri!”

“And I love how even though Frillish acts like he doesn’t care about anything, he seems to be a little softie inside.”

For a second, Frillish didn’t react, and I was scared he was going to take my comment the wrong way, but he propelled himself upward excitedly as his eyes shone bright red. I smiled.

“Doesn’t that feel good? When someone compliments you? Togepi, you go first.”

My two teammates went back and forth, and soon enough they were speaking together on their own. It felt a little lonely not being able to tell what was being said, but I was still extremely happy, because it seemed they had finally befriended each other. They went a few hours hanging out, and Frillish helped Togepi play around by doing tricks like spinning upside down, or making a Night Shade do the same. It didn’t take much to make her have fun.

Our little friend-making session was interrupted when a trainer challenged me to a battle— something I had to force myself to refuse. I left the route, returning back to the city with Togepi in my arms and Frillish floating by my side. After a twenty minute walk, I found what I was looking for. I entered the Poffin house and took a deep breath.

“Smells good doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Prrri!”

“Lish!”

I went to the counter and eyed the dozens of different Poffins through the glass.

“Which one do you want, Frillish? You really liked the sweet ones in Jubilife, didn’t you?” I asked.

He bobbed his head and smiled.

“Wow, uh, we gotta work on that smile buddy. Okay, two sweet poffins… one made out of Mago berries, and one made out of Pecha,” I told the clerk, who promptly started stuffing them in bags. “And for Togepi, one made out of Oran, please,” I continued, already knowing what her favorite one was.

I handed the clerk a few dozen Pokedollars through my trainer card and exited the building with my poffins. I carefully split Togepi’s into five pieces and fed them to her. As for Frillish…

“Say aaah,” I teased, placing the poffin right next to his mouth.

Frillish turned away.

“C’mon… do it for me… please…” I asked with Lillilpup eyes. He rolled his eyes at me and ate out of my hand. “Yes! Thank you! Now let’s do the other one—”

He hurriedly and clumsily snatched the bag away from me and stole the poffin.

“No fair!” I pouted, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

This was possibly the happiest I’d been in a long while. My Pokemon were getting along with each other and with me, and soon I was pretty sure I’d be able to call Frillish family. Traveling was fun most of the time, and although I had gotten hurt, I didn’t regret signing up for the Circuit at all. I was glad I did, and that I was going to experience new things for the next year, and possibly multiple years. Nothing was going to ruin this—

My mind flashed back to Lake Verity. The Golbat’s giant maw that led to an oppressive, unending darkness. Forever falling into its mouth. The smell would be atrocious. I would be digested alive and melted by its poison. The pain would be unimaginable. Unbearable—

“Toge?” Togepi asked.

As if I had been jolted awake from a dream, I snapped out of my vision. Togepi had little chunks of blue Poffin around her mouth. I smiled.

“I’m alright. Thank you, princess,” I said, petting her head.

I felt a cold, slimy tentacle touch my neck. I turned my head, and my eyes widened as I saw Frillish with a worried face caressing me.

“I made you worry, didn’t I? Sorry,” I said in a comforting tone. Suddenly, I realized that he was touching me. “Wait, you’re not using Absorb! You’re fine with touching now?” I asked.

The blue Pokemon nodded and barely had time to register what was going on before I pulled him into a hug.

A few hours later, Denzel called me to let me know that he was back at the Center. I joined him quickly, but no matter how hard I asked, he wouldn’t tell me how his attempts to calm Budew down went. I just assumed they had failed because of his aversion to the topic, but I obliged him and stopped bringing it up. He checked in Eevee, who had seemingly been wounded, and then we decided to chill out in our room until it was time for dinner. We spent that time studying up on Roark’s tactics.

“So far, I’ve only seen him use Geodude, Rhyhorn, Aron, and Nosepass depending on the battle, but that just means he’s holding back,” Denzel said as he watched a Geodude’s Rock Throw annihilate some poor kid’s Spinda. “No Onix, no Cranidos or Boldore yet this year.”

“I mean, maybe he’s just going easy on us because we’re too many,” I contemplated. “It wouldn’t be a good look if he just used Onix over and over and crushed everybody.”

“That, or maybe everyone this year is so bad that he hasn’t even had to use some of his alright Pokemon yet,” Denzel said.

“Well, if he doesn’t use at least one of those against me, I’d feel bad,” I said, before reconsidering. “Actually, I can go without fighting an Onix.”

Denzel laughed as he switched to another one of today’s gym battles. “This is going to be difficult. There haven’t even been that many wins yet.”

“The Circuit just started. It hasn’t even been a month yet,” I said, waving my hand. “It’ll be fine.”

In reality, I couldn’t help but be terrified. Who wouldn’t be, for their first gym battle, with tens of thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of people looking at you. But I thought that acting confident would in turn give Denzel his own confidence back. First the battle against Chase, now this Budew issue… I was worried about him. 

“I can’t afford just to squeak by. I need to make an impression on Roark— not only for my potential career, but for him to listen to me when I try telling him about what happened at Lake Verity.”

I nodded solemnly. “I’ll try my best too.”

“I know you will. We both will,” He said. After a small pause, he kept going. “I wanted to ask you something, by the way. In two days, the arguably most anticipated matches of this entire Circuit so far are going to happen. Chase Karlson and Cecilia Obel are both fighting Roark, and their battles are back to back,” Denzel said.

My eyes widened. I had never seen Chase battle, but I knew he had left his mark on Denzel, who now considered him a rival or a goal of some sort. Then there was Cecilia, whose Pokemon had never been seen yet. 

“Want to go see?” He asked.

“Hell yes,” I answered.

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TEAM:

Togepi - Pound, Sweet Kiss, Rollout, Growl, Headbutt

Frillish - Bubblebeam, Night Shade, Absorb, Water Sport