Searching Far and Wide - 140

Teams:

Pierce Lawson:

- Narcissa, Beedrill

- Orion, Onix

- Cygnus, Kadabra

- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)

- Andromeda, Vaporeon

- Regulus, Meowth

- Sirius, Yamper

Lillian Dale:

- Root, Ivysaur

- Talon, Spearow

- Gem, Geodude

- Star, Cleffa

- Cinder, Vulpix

Route 7 II

He’d missed Sabrina’s zen areas, Pierce realized.

Well, he’d realized during his previous visit, but the knowledge was further confirmed in his mind during the second visit too. Then again, maybe the fact that his mind was a mess had something to do with that. The Psychic Arts exercises were extra hard those days, because he couldn’t get as good a grip on his mind as he had before. Not because of lack of practice as of late – although that probably had something to do with it too –, but because of all the things he still had to process.

A second realization Pierce had was the fact that he’d probably be dealing with all the stuff in his mind for the foreseeable future. There were absolutely no reassurances of it ending anytime soon. The thoughts weren’t quieting down, evidently, so he’d have to deal with that.

Which is where the zen area at Sabrina’s, with all the plants around, came in clutch. It wasn’t like suddenly his skull didn’t feel full of noise anymore, but it became that little bit more manageable there, while doing his exercises. They might not be great for his Psychic Arts, but they were great for his state of mind, and that was more than enough in his books. Anything that helped was more than welcome.

“You’re keeping a hold of yourself, despite the turmoil,” Sabrina whispered in his mind then and he wondered how true that was. How was he “keeping a hold of himself” if she could notice “the turmoil”? Those felt like mutually exclusive concepts. “I can pick up your emotions and the noise, but I can’t read your thoughts,” she explained and he nodded absently, his eyes still closed as he tried to keep to his exercises. “At least, not without a deeper dive,” the Leader added and that made sense too.

Which reminded him of some of his reading on Psychic “etiquette”. Apparently, there were two instances in which Psychics could do more than read the most outer, most obvious and noticeable thoughts, which people usually had to all but actively broadcast, battles and close relationships. Battles had their own subsection where Psychics avoided reading too much into it other than trying to predict moves and such. Although battles and relationships shared the same point in that, the more important they were, the more allowances were made. If the battle was a life and death scenario, the Psychic would read as much as they could. If the relationship was very close, it was assumed that the Psychic had permission to read a lot more deeply into the other’s mind,usually with express permission.

All around, it was certainly a… concept to wrap his head around, but not at all the weirdest thing he’d had to deal with. It was interesting though, Pierce would admit that. And nobody seemed to have a problem with it, so he guessed it was another case of him having to adapt to a new culture and values. Much like he had to with pokemon battles, looking back.

“Your life has gotten much more interesting, Pierce,” Sabrina commented and he tried to focus on her voice, see if he could pick up anything from that. “... Experimenting, are you?” she voiced in his mind then and he noticed something different. The words weren’t any louder, but they were more… clear, although he was pretty sure that was the wrong word. Stronger might fit better, but he wasn’t sure if that made any sense.

The point was that the way she said that second part seemed to help his efforts, and he almost felt like he could feel where the words came from, like the tail of a comet quickly vanishing as the message was received. It gave Pierce something to latch onto, something that was different. Maybe he was on to something, or maybe Sabrina had done that on purpose in an attempt to help him out.

“Both, Pierce,” she replied and his control seemed to have slipped in favor of his attempt at sensing her words. He didn’t care though, because at that moment, there were no other thoughts in his mind. There was only the little experiment he’d come up with, which now had a second message to try. He felt like he was so close to doing something there, but- “Keep trying,” Sabrina told him, before starting to send him a string of meaningless thoughts for him to try to do his thing.

And that’s what he did, failing miserably beyond that initial little peek at something. Pierce wasn’t too bothered though, surprisingly enough. He’d grown used to the idea that he wouldn’t get very far in the Psychic Arts for a while already, if ever. Besides, most of the point, that day at least, was to just try and organize his mind, quieten it.

In that regard, he succeeded. Sure, he still had thoughts swirling in his mind like a maelstrom and he’d probably go back to being a mess shortly after leaving Saffron to continue his trek through Route 7, but for however long he was there, he got some peace. That was enough for him, he decided.

He was especially appreciative of Sabrina’s continued presence by his side, her guidance and the fact that she didn’t just ditch him after spending some time with him. He knew she had better things to do than babysit his training, but she stayed all the same. Evidently, she took the friendship thing very seriously and he could both respect and appreciate that.

“I do,” the Gym Leader said out loud instead of in his mind, which made him open his eyes and turn to look at where she sat, next to him on the bench in the middle of plants. “Friends, I don’t have many of those. I cherish this,” she told him and the flat, matter of fact tone made it hit all the better.

And suddenly Pierce felt a little bad.

“Maybe we can hang out or something, do something not Psychic Arts related,” he commented, because he was suddenly aware of the fact that they hadn’t, in fact, done much as friends, even though they called themselves that. He was going to rectify that.

“I’d like that,” Sabrina replied and he almost thought he saw her lip twitch into a smile, but it was so subtle that he was sure he imagined it.

[}-o-{]

“Those two are going to be trouble, aren’t they?” Pierce asked and he got a slow, agreeing sound from Andromeda that almost sounded like a “yeeeaaah” to his ears. “I should do something about that,” he added, getting much the same response from the vaporeon. “It’s fun to watch though,” he finished with and the Water type snorted.

The aforementioned two were, as it turned out, Regulus and Sirius. Maybe it was because they were a cat and a dog, respectively, or maybe it was them doing some honor to their namesakes, but it had taken them all of a day before they started getting on each others’ nerves. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that Sirius had gotten on Regulus’ nerves, really, but the meowth hadn’t made much of an effort. The yamper had approached the meowth at some point, likely wanting to play or just talk or something and the Normal type had been a bit… prickly, to say the least.

And now they were trading Tackles and Scratches, which looked to Pierce like their version of rough-housing. He’d have been a little worried at points, but it had all went away when he realized that Regulus could dash away if he so wanted. Sirius was not fast enough to catch him, not at all. He was also still learning to read the yamper, but he was pretty sure the little guy was having lots of fun, actually.

So, he left them to it. Wasn’t the weirdest, nor the least productive “training” he’d had his team do, after all. Might as well let them have their fun as the youngest of the bunch. Orion had even gotten some praise for being the “mature one” even though he was decidedly not. And Bellatrix had just been happy that Pierce could give her some attention while the other two children did their thing.

It was then that Pierce realized that most of his pokemon were children. Or, at the very least, they sure acted like they were. Andromeda was the most adult-ish of the bunch, followed by Cygnus and almost reaching the child section was Narcissa. She was a teen, he supposed, and Cygnus was like… an older teen while the vaporeon was a young adult at best.

‘It’s a sad, sad day when it’s me that’s the most mature one,’ he thought to himself, shaking his head.

“Well, I know it’s fun, but there’s training to be had, Andy,” he said, getting a Water Gun to the face for his troubles. “You’ll accept the nickname eventually, Andy,” he added, getting another Water Gun to the face. Good thing the weather was nice and hot, it meant the water was actually rather welcome. He just ran his hand over his face and then his fingers through his hair, enjoying the momentary cool. “Back to it, chop chop,” he said, snapping his fingers when he’d otherwise have clapped.

Everything felt like a reminder that he couldn’t use his arm, and it was getting more and more annoying by the second. He blamed the date to take his cast off being so close. He could almost taste it and his mind whispered to him that he could get it off immediately if he wanted, which he sorely did. He wouldn’t though, because that’d be risky and he couldn't afford to take risks. It wasn’t just him that’d have to deal with the mess if his arm broke again because he rushed.

“So,” he started then, taking a deep breath in and focusing on what he had to do, which was being a trainer. “I think we’ve covered plenty with your training so far,” he commented to Andromeda and the vaporeon was paying attention intently. She knew when to do that, after all, much as she liked to play things up a little at times. “I think we can go back to familiar territory and give your Water options a little more kick,” he told her and she was definitely interested in that. “What I’m thinking is Water Pulse for range. Can even work on that with Regulus and maybe the lazy cat will put more effort,” he explained and the snort he got as a response told him very clearly what Andromeda’s opinion of that was.

Which… fair, but it was worth a try.

“And then Aqua Tail for when you gotta fight up close and personal,” he continued. He was trying to see if the double-move approach could work with everyone in his team, because if it worked well with the less controlled members of his team, then no reason why it wouldn’t work with everyone else, right? It should work even better, in theory. “What do you say, girl?”

Andromeda considered that for a moment, tilting her head thoughtfully. Then she nodded slowly before yipping. It wasn’t the easy agreement he’d have liked, but that worked too. No reason to press things too much. He was trying to tailor training that they’d like though, so he made some mental notes that he’d turn into written ones whenever he got a second.

“Great, you can get started if you want. I’ll go make sure those two don’t kill each other,” he told the vaporeon, who snorted and rolled her eyes. She followed him too, which was reassuring. “Good luck with Regulus,” he mumbled, getting a long-suffering sigh from her.

That was also fair, honestly.

First though, he had to get her training partner to stop messing around.

[}-o-{]

“No, Pierce. The sanctuary hasn’t gone up in flames yet,” Misty reported with a grin that he didn’t appreciate. It must have shown on his unimpressed silence, because the girl rolled her eyes and continued speaking. “Things are going well. We have to set up a few more mock battles between the more… energetic pokemon, but things are going well. The gyarados are calm, the school in general is calm. They’d appreciate a visit from you, but that’s never not going to be the case, so…” She trailed off after that and he imagined her shrugging.

He nodded slowly, leaning back against a tree trunk and glancing towards his team. Then he blinked and decided that no, he didn’t need to know why Sirius was floating in the air. The good thing was that everyone had welcomed the yamper very warmly. The bad thing was that said welcome was shown in very… unexpected ways. And it was always when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Everything would be fine until he turned to look and they’d be doing something crazy with the Electric type. Pierce was really wondering if maybe he’d jinxed himself with the name or something, because… Things were getting a little ridiculous.

“How are things logistically speaking?” he said and it was the kind of question he never thought he’d ask. When had he ever used the word logistically or even just logistics without it being wrongly used? Although, admittedly, he wasn’t sure if he’d used it right, but if he did, then he blamed Grace. Speaking of though…

“Things are progressing as expected. I’ll be sending you a proper report-” She had to know he wasn’t reading the things. At most, he’d glance through them in case there was something very obvious, but chances were she’d just mention that to him. “-,but there’s nothing that stands out as of now. Projections don’t show any problems in the foreseeable future, but there’s always the fact that-”

“The numbers don’t add up unless there’s unaccounted-for gains,” he finished for her. They’d had that conversation a bunch of times already. The numbers for the sanctuary didn’t leave them in the clear as they were. His deals with the League and the farming association gave him plenty of leeway, and his deals for promotions in his channel helped a bit, but overall they needed more. So, things were kind of hinging on the petting zoo and, even more, on the shows planned for when he was fully healed.

That and the possibility of bonuses from the League in case they needed to call him, but Grace didn’t like that. Pierce himself wasn’t a fan of depending on that. Not only because it required pokemon needing help, but also because it wasn’t something that they could plan for. It wasn’t reliable even if there was a bit of a trend that Pierce was noticing. Grace also didn’t like the fact that, in all likelihood, any emergencies he was called for would likely end with him bringing more pokemon to the sanctuary.

Pierce couldn’t deny that, at all.

The woman was getting to know him too well.

“How are the numbers looking up to the expected dates for the petting zoo to open and me being able to start with shows?” he asked, not for the first time. He wasn’t good with numbers though, so he often needed reminders to keep his head somewhat functional on the matter.

“Good,” Grace answered simply before shifting through her stack of papers, something he heard over the line. “If nothing unexpected happens in between now and then, we should have enough savings to cover us while coming up with a different game plan if things don’t pan out,” she said and that was a weight off his shoulders.

“Let’s be pessimistic. What if something does happen?” he asked, because nothing ever went all according to plan. There was always something happening, wrenches and branches being thrown into the supposedly well oiled machine.

“Then it’d have to be drastic to influence the time we’d have in a concerning manner,” Grace explained and he nodded, a little relieved.

“Ok, good. I can work with that,” Pierce decided, trying and failing to calm his worries with that knowledge. It wasn’t even new knowledge, but he’d hoped that having it all repeated to him would ease something in him. Alas, it had not. “Your team of people coming along well enough, Grace? You haven’t said much about that.”

“I’m in the process of testing a few people, but I’m optimistic, sir,” the woman replied right away, and he heard the sound of her picking up a paper sheet. “Things have mostly calmed down, so there’s not as much pressure on my side of things as there was before.”

He was pretty sure there was an unspoken ‘please don’t ruin it with your shenanigans’ tacked on at the end there.

“Misty, how’s the staff with the pokemon so far?” he asked, taking in the picture that was being painted for him by his eyes and ears in the sanctuary. It wasn’t all that different from how things had gone before, but the fact that he wasn’t physically in the sanctuary felt… odd, off even. He wondered if that’d go away with time. “Do you need more people or anything at all?”

“There’s a few rough patches here and there, but for the most part things are working well. Not everyone can have your magic touch or my awesomeness,” the redhead answered and he chuckled. Although, the part about him… she had no idea how right she might be. That made it funnier, but there was also the fact that Pierce didn’t know how to deal with that yet, so he tried not to think about it. “We aren’t in need of anything, but I’ll keep an eye out and ask around.”

“Good, you do that,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair. “Well, I think that’s all? Because if so-”

“Actually,” Grace interrupted, cutting off his attempt to escape. “I wanted to talk with you about something, sir.” He could almost hear his hopes and dreams being crushed. The only silver lining in sight was- “And you too, Miss Waterflower.” -that he wasn’t alone in his suffering.

Misery loved company, after all.

[}-o-{]

Setting up camp with only one working arm was a pain in the ass.

Cooking food with only one working arm was also a pain in the ass.

But at least he had Cygnus, who could help a little here and there. The others tried to help too, but they didn’t have hands and there was only so much they could do with only their mouths. They tried though, oh did they try. The problem was that they tried too hard, at times, and sometimes they achieved the opposite of helping.

Not that Pierce had the heart to scold them in those instances.

They did most of that themselves, really. He was pretty sure Sirius had almost started bawling when Regulus and him had tried to help Pierce set up the tent by holding stuff for him and somehow the entire thing had turned into something that made tangled Christmas lights look tidy. It had been a little funny though, he’d admit, at least until he looked at the very sad pokemon duo, but those had been easily cheered up with a pokeblock each.

By the time the entire experience was over though, Pierce was thoroughly exhausted and ready to call it a day. It was early though, and he couldn’t really call it a day already. He just knew that’d screw over his sleep schedule and that was not something that he needed to add on top of everything else.

So, in the spirit of not making things harder for himself and also using his time a little more productively, he got out his books. He spent an hour going over his medicine books, just to refresh some of the knowledge that had gone a little stale after days of being busy with other things. After that, he dove into the aura books, because he’d put that off long enough, he felt. He was happy that he’d decided to leave the bigger time slot for that too, because it was going to be… interesting to get started on aura.

Pierce had already gotten a peek into that while in Rota, but the more he read, the more he knew it was going to be a headache.

It wasn’t that it was hard either, not really. Psychic Arts were hard, aura was… weird. It was all abstract notions, feelings and metaphors and analogies. There was nothing concrete about it in any of the texts he went over, no matter how deep he read into the books he had. Minutes turned into an hour and then two, and all Pierce learned was that he’d have to wing it if he wanted to get anywhere.

Not to say the books were useless, because they weren’t, but he clearly would have to figure things out himself for the most part. In terms of percentage, the books gave him about ten to twenty percent of what he’d need to wield aura, he guessed. The rest would have to come from him just stumbling around until one of the many abstract concepts in the texts clicked in his mind or he came up with a better one of his own.

“Something odd is nearby,” Cygnus commented and Pierce straightened his back. It wasn’t often that his kadabra would comment something like that. Not even when pokemon were nearby. He tended to just let things by unless they were approached. When he said something “odd”, he had to mean it. “Dark type,” he added then and there was a wariness that Pierce understood. Dark types unnerved him, always. He couldn’t feel them, but he could feel the void where they should be if he really focused and apparently that felt all sorts of wrong to the Psychic type.

“Close by?” he asked. It was difficult to pinpoint precise locations with Dark types, understandably, but Cygnus could normally make semi-accurate guesses for directions and distances. That’d be enough to know if they were about to get jumped by some murkrow or houndour or their evolutions. Those were the only Dark types that he knew could appear in Route 7 with any sort of “normalcy”. Rarer than other pokemon, but not unheard of at all.

If it was something else though, Pierce would be genuinely surprised.

“Close… Getting closer,” Cygnus said and he was standing now instead of sitting against a tree trunk. Andromeda and Regulus had sat up at attention too from where they’d been lying on the ground after their meal. Orion had perked up, looking around like the world’s biggest periscope. Bellatrix and Sirius hadn’t been informed, by the looks of it, but they’d picked up something was going on.

Narcissa, on a branch over Pierce, kept herself completely still.

“Hey there,” he greeted, projecting as much calm and friendliness as he could manage. Not only because that was his default mode when dealing with new pokemon, or pokemon in general, but also because… how else was he supposed to react? The pokemon that had, apparently, slowly approached them was entirely too cute and small and harmless-looking. “Do you want a snack?” he offered, picking up a spicy berry that he was sure the houndour would appreciate. Fire types always liked those.

It was a pup, he noticed almost immediately. It was way too small to be anything else, unless it – he – was a runt or some flavor of growth-stunted. He was also shy, approaching them with tentative steps and he was also probably starving, at least a little, because he couldn’t keep his eyes off the offered berry. When Pierce’s team relaxed the smallest bit, the houndour seemed to find some courage and walked the rest of the way, taking the fruit and devouring it in about two bites and a half.

“Another?” he offered, but he actually picked two more. The houndour ate one of those, but Pierce was taken aback when, as if afraid he’d take it back or something, he took the third in his mouth and dashed away, disappearing into the darkness between the woods where he’d come from. “Well… that was something,” he commented, head tilted.

Not the weirdest pokemon encounter he’d had though, admittedly.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Not anything great to comment about this chapter, but I quite like it. Nothing really all that plot-advancing, but I’m still… actually, I’m unreasonably happy with this chapter. Like, it’s not the greatest chapter ever, but I liked it and I don’t think I’d change anything on it…

Which is only making me nervous thinking there’s gonna be something super obvious that I missed or something.

I can’t have nice things.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Who’s your favorite Ash traveling companion in the Pokemon series? Mine is Dawn. I’m not sure why though. I mean, Brock was great, don’t get me wrong, he’s second place, actually. But most of the time he was just… there to have a more adult presence or explain stuff and that kind of character always has a bit of meh factor to them. Dawn was fun for the temporary companion list though, not annoying like May or Max could sometimes be, let alone Misty. The fact that Dawn’s section of the series was basically the last I actually watched of the anime probably helps too, I guess.

See you.