AdrianKing
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Searching Far and Wide - 85
🕑 Added 2024-09-11 17:53:54 +0000 UTCTeams:
Pierce Lawson:
- Narcissa, Beedrill
- Orion, Onix
- Cygnus, Abra
- Bellatrix, Gyarados (Shiny)
- Andromeda, Vaporeon
Lillian Dale:
- Root, Bulbasaur
- Talon, Spearow
- Gem, Geodude
- Star, Cleffa
- Cinder, Vulpix
Saffron City II
With their relaxing first day over, it was time for them to get to it.
After a regretfully early breakfast, Pierce and Lily had gone their separate ways.
His traveling companion had gone straight for the battlegrounds, which was hardly surprising. She was more of a battler than anything else and she was good so she focused on that. Between her sponsorship and her skill, she could easily make it as a trainer without ever needing to take trainer jobs. She mostly did so if she felt like it or if she wanted to stick around with him, really.
Speaking of sponsorships though, he’d been rather surprised by the mail he’d gotten regarding one for himself.
However, after going over it, some of that surprise had worn off. After all, it looked like the standard thing a youtuber would get back in his world. Just some company asking to have an ad shoehorned in during his videos. Who hadn’t come across one of those? And even small channels got them, so it wasn’t at all shocking that he’d gotten one.
He wasn’t one to brag, especially about that, but his channel was doing fairly well.
Pierce was a little wary of it though, so he’d decided to take his time to answer that mail. There was no rush, after all. Besides, Daisy had told him she’d look into the company to make sure there wasn’t anything obviously sketchy going on, since she wasn’t all that familiar with it. It was a pokemon food brand, so he guessed it wouldn’t be difficult for a Gym Leader to look into it and get a fairly good idea.
On top of checking if they were trustworthy though, Pierce wanted to decide if it was worth it at all. After all, he knew that people weren’t fans of ads in videos. He himself had always skipped them and found them rather annoying. Or, at least, most of the time. So, he needed to see if he wanted to go through with it despite that and if he might be allowed some creative liberties with the promotional work.
Another thing he wanted to make sure of, later on, was if he could give his honest opinion about the products and the brand. He didn’t want to lie to his audience to sell things he didn’t think were all that good or might even be bad. Thus, he’d need to check with the company on what they’d think of that. He imagined it’d be a bit of a problem for them. If it was though, then it likely wouldn’t be something he wanted to do anyway. So no loss there.
However, Pierce didn’t much care about the whole thing, really. Once more, he wasn’t in need of money, so there was no pressure to get to it. Some extra income would be great – nobody ever complained about earning too much, after all –, but there was also no need to push for it.
So, the whole thing was more of an interesting thing than anything resembling a concern.
That was why he had no problems going about his day even with that rather surprising bit of news dropped on him. It ended up being just something to think about as he walked through Saffron City on his way to the job he’d picked to spend his afternoon doing. The place was massive, so it’d take him a while to get there anyway. Might as well spend that time doing something.
“Do you think we’ll explore the entire place before leaving?” Cygnus asked him from where he sat on his shoulders.
‘Probably not, but we should get to see every important place,’ he projected to his abra. The question was, after all, about if he would get to be everywhere. His Psychic wanted to be able to teleport everywhere, after all, even if they had to stick to teleport spots. Just in case, in his words, which Pierce didn’t necessarily disagree with.
Again though, Saffron City was massive.
Chances were that they wouldn’t go everywhere even if he did his best to spread out his pathing with jobs and such. However, there was no need to have an easy teleport everywhere. If they had somewhat of a broad spread, then walking the rest of the distance from a close by spot would be enough. Besides, they were likely to have a bunch of options for any place that might be urgent at any point.
He had already taken note of such places – Pokemon Centers, specific stores and so on – so that he’d visit them at least once with Cygnus out.
‘You sure you want to stick around the whole time though?’ he asked his pokemon in his mind. ‘You can rest if you want. We are likely to have to record a video for the job,’ he added. ‘That’ll mean less sleeping for you.’
“You know I don’t need to sleep as much anymore,” Cygnus answered, rolling his eyes. “I’ll leave you to walk the way back though.”
‘That works, I guess,’ Pierce replied with a wry smile. ‘Might as well spend some time walking around with Narcissa.’
“Remember to call me if you find a place we might want to teleport to,” his abra told him, to which he nodded. There was no real point to arguing. His Psychic type was hardly an idiot. And he also knew that Pierce would be extra stern and extra extra annoying if he pushed beyond what he should. He would never let the little guy hear the end of it if he did that and Cygnus knew it. “You can stop with the threatening thoughts,” his abra grumbled in his mind and he grinned.
‘Just leaving things clear,’ Pierce said calmly. ‘That way you can’t complain or it’ll just make things worse for yourself,’ he added, getting a mental eye roll from Cygnus.
“You can be very annoying, you know that?”
‘Same, buddy. Same,’ he replied, shooting a mental shiteating smile through their bond.
Cygnus’ mental groan was music to his ears… or mind?
Whatever.
[}-o-{]
Well, his first job at Saffron was going to be tricky, but he knew that coming in.
Apparently, there was a small murder of murkrow messing with a farmer. That was going to cause trouble for him for a number of reasons. For one, dark types were notoriously tricky, something he’d come to learn working with some of them at the Cerulean Gym, like Crawdaunt or Sharpedo. Murkrow in particular were troublesome because they were more mischievous than belligerent. That meant that they were fond of messing with people, so getting them to not do that was harder than making an angry pokemon calm down, at least in his opinion.
There were a number of reasons why he’d decided to take such a job though. First of all, he’d asked about it and the job had been up for a while. Few had taken it and none had succeeded. So, he felt bad just ignoring it. Second of all, he’d always been a fan of dark types, even if some people might find that strange. Third of all… the guy was a friend of the Clarks, apparently, so that was that, really.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” the rancher asked him, to which Pierce smiled and waved him off.
“I’ll be fine. My team can take care of a few wild murkrow, don’t worry,” he reassured calmly. The murder was supposed to be very small, considering how big some others were. Three to five of them was almost nothing, since there were records of groups reaching the triple digits. They were also not listed to be very strong and his team should be good enough to put up a fight. Narcissa, Orion and Andromeda should suffice. Cygnus might struggle and Bellatrix would be out of water, but they could come out in a pinch too.
“Shut up,” his abra told him, but he ignored him.
Pierce was fairly confident.
Unless…
“Unless there’s something I’m not aware of?” he asked, doing his best not to sound accusatory. People lying about the jobs they posted wasn’t unheard of, after all. Sometimes people wanted trainers to take their jobs badly enough that they could… take some creative liberties along the way.
“No, but you said you had two badges, right? And I don’t know what pokemon you have beside that abra,” the man replied, apparently not taking too much offense at the implied accusation, which was nice. Pierce conceded his point too, with a nod.
“Fair enough. My team should be fine against this murder, if the info is good. I’ll be fine,” he told the man, running his hand through his hair. “I want to meet them alone, if it’s all the same to you. After I’ve interacted with them some, I’ll come back to tell you whatever I find out, ok?”
“Sounds good enough for me, if you are sure,” he replied with a shrug. “John and Martha recommended you, so the least I can do is trust you.”
“More like trust them, right?” Pierce said, grinning and chuckling. “But that’s fair. I’ll be off then, if that’s all.”
It was, so off he went.
Not long after he started walking through the fields in the direction of the small section of woods that the ranch had, Pierce let out Narcissa so she’d accompany him. Also so she’d guard him. He might like pokemon and think they weren’t as dangerous as people thought, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew they could be dangerous, so it was always better to err on the side of caution when it came to unknown things… When it was possible, of course.
Sometimes things were a little more complicated, but his judgment hadn’t steered him wrong so far.
Thus, he went to look through the place the murkrow would be… wherever that might be. Neither him nor the rancher were too sure about it, so he’d just have to roam around and see if he stumbled upon them. Not the best approach to a search, but that was how it was. He did have a fairly shiny rock as a necklace and murkrow were notorious for liking those, even going as far as trying to steal them from people.
So, he had Cygnus and Narcissa keep their distance somewhat so as to be even more of a bait than normal. Other than that, he just walked around, noticing the lack of other flying types. That was hardly surprising, really. Not only was the area a ranch for other pokemon and likely fairly well protected because of that, but the murkrow would have driven off any pokemon that the ones at the ranch hadn’t.
“If I were a murkrow, where would I be?” he asked himself, more as a joke than anything. The dark type birds had plenty of peculiarities, but where they lived wasn’t one of them. They were like any other normal bird in that regard. Tree branches were the safest bet. However, they were mostly nocturnal, which was bound to make things a little more troublesome.
Most murders left a few of their members awake during the day to keep watch though, so he was counting on that. Considering how small the murder was though, it’d be complicated to find them either way. He imagined there was only the one murkrow awake at that moment and probably not very active.
‘Guess that’d be another reason not to take this job,’ Pierce thought to himself, glancing up between the tree branches, trying to find any sign of the murder. ‘Oh well, at least the place looks nice,’ he mused, feeling like he was walking on the road wilds once more. ‘That’s another plus, I guess.’
All the beautiful nature of the woods without any of the drawbacks, considering he was a teleport away from the comforts of civilization. ‘I’m definitely not complaining,’ he mused idly, smiling as he took in the smell of the forest. ‘It’s almost t-’
The sound of batted wings reached his ears, quickly followed by Narcissa’s buzzing. Pierce turned in the direction of the first one, but by the time he did he got a face full of black feathers. A second later, he felt a sharp, stinging pain on his collarbone.
He barely managed to reach out to grab his now torn necklace.
Then Narcissa arrived, smacking onto the bird and making it let go of his piece of jewelry, if it could be called that.
“Electroweb,” Pierce said immediately after noticing that the murkrow was shining with the energy of some kind of move. He narrowed his eyes, realizing that the peaceful way wouldn’t be possible. At least not right off the bat, by the looks of things.
Glancing towards Cygnus, who had the camera trained on him, Pierce wondered if that’d affect his internet reputation or viewership. Alas, even he couldn’t just be friends with everyone, not when he literally wasn’t allowed to do anything. Murkrow wasn’t really giving him a chance, so he’d have to take more drastic measures.
“Keep it up,” he told his beedrill after the first Electric type attack landed. They couldn’t allow the bird pokemon to do anything. Otherwise, it’d call for the murder and they’d been lucky enough so far. Then again, they weren’t being particularly silent, so maybe that was a lost cause already. Better to be safe than sorry though.
Narcissa landed another hit without trouble while the bird twitched from the move effect.
A series of caws made him sigh. ‘Well, there goes that,’ Pierce thought with a wry smile. Then again, not dealing with the whole murder had been wishful thinking. During the day, there was no way the look out would be far from them. ‘Ok then,’ he thought, turning to face the incoming Dark types as he let out his pokemon. Orion and Andromeda appeared in a flash, each on one side of him.
“Orion, press down that murkrow, would you?” he asked calmly and his onix moved without hesitation. Thus, the first bird pokemon had the rock serpent’s tail dropped on top of it. In an instant, Narcissa switched without being told to facing the incoming group while Andromeda calmly licked the back of her paw. She wasn’t fooling Pierce though. He had noticed the tension on her body. “We aren’t here to fight, so let’s all calm down, ok?” Pierce said, making his voice as firm as possible, standing tall and looking straight at the closest murkrow’s red eyes.
The Dark types, who had stopped mid air, batting their wings to keep themselves up, glared at him, but didn’t move.
“Great. Really glad you can be reasonable,” Pierce said, smiling his most friendly smile. Alas, he knew the murkrow were waiting for a chance to sweep in. He just needed to avoid giving them the chance. He had the opening he needed now. So, he needed to use it. “I’m really sorry,” he continued, turning towards the bird on the floor under Orion. “You tried to steal from me though and this necklace is really important to me,” he explained.
It wasn’t even a lie. He didn’t know what was up with the red rock yet, if it even was or did anything. However, it had been a gift from the clefairy in Mt. Moon, so he’d treasure it regardless. That wasn’t the time to think about that though. He had a job to get through.
“Now, I’ll approach you and help heal you, alright? You took a few hits and I imagine they hurt. Narcissa’s strong,” he commented and that seemed to make the murkrow pause before it cawed angrily at him. Which was fair. His beedrill making a happy noise at the compliment probably didn’t help. ‘Not the time, Narcissa,’ Pierce thought to himself.
Either way, he walked slowly towards the bird pokemon, pulling out one of the potions he kept in his backpack outside of the Storage Boxes, just in case. Never knew when he might need one and not have the time to look for it in those. The pokemon wasn’t being very receptive of his movements, but the murder, now perched in nearby trees and still glaring at him, didn’t charge at him.
Pierce took that as a win.
It was understandable though.
“I know you are scared, but there’s no reason to be, alright?” he said, voice calm and soft. He kept a modicum of steel in it though, else the pokemon thought it could just attack him. That wouldn’t end up well for anyone. The murder would get smacked around, his team would get some scratches and Pierce would be very annoyed and maybe a little hurt too.
He’d rather avoid all that hassle.
So, he didn’t tell Orion to move. Instead, he started spraying the visible areas. Thankfully, Electroweb didn’t do all that much and the murkrow hadn’t been hit too much nor full power. Pierce had instructed Narcissa and his other pokemon to use weaker attacks during the job unless things got out of hand. It was all more to show that they weren’t push overs and have things under control than anything.
Also, if Narcissa hadn’t held back, he likely wouldn’t have been able to get away with treating the pokemon without his First Aid license, least of all in a public video that’d get a lot of attention.
“You believe me now?” he asked, once the murkrow had calmed down a little. “Now, I’m going to tell Orion to lift his tail. Please, let me finish healing you, ok? After that you can go back to your group. I’m just here to talk. I promise, alright?” he added, looking straight at the pokemon’s red eyes. After a moment and getting no response, he breathed out through his nose, keeping his calm. “Orion,” he said simply before patting the onix’s tail and making it lift.
Pierce almost let out a relieved sigh when the murkrow didn’t fly off or attack him. Both would have been bad, although the latter would have been worse, understandably. He didn’t waste any time spraying some more potion on it though.
“Thank you for not attacking,” he told the pokemon with a smile. It was still glaring at him, but he was fine with that. “Can I check you just in case? There should be no issues, but I’d rather make sure,” he explained, reaching for the pokemon with his hands, but being careful to do so slowly.
His answer was a curt caw, but the murkrow didn’t fly away, so he took that as permission.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile, slowly and carefully starting to check for any injuries the bird might have suffered. Who knew? It- She – ‘definitely a she,’ he thought looking at the bird’s crest – might have gotten hurt from something other than the short clash with Narcissa. Wild pokemon got injured all the time and she might have had some serious wounds or something.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be the case.
“You look fine,” he told her, keeping his smile in place. He wanted to appear as friendly and harmless as possible, while also not looking like a pushover. He rather doubted the mischievous Dark types wouldn’t make him pay for it if he slipped, especially on that last part. “You could use some more food though,” he commented, lying through his teeth. The murkrow looked fine. However, if he’d learned anything through his travels, it was that food could get your foot in the door with many pokemon. “I have some berries on me if you want. Same for you, guys!” he offered, calling the last part while turning to look at the trees.
Sure enough, he had their attention.
Plenty of people got a little confused in his videos, which was why he tried to explain further at times. It wasn’t that he could make pokemon friendly – or tame as some people greatly misunderstood things – with just food and kind words. It was much more complicated than that, but those things certainly helped. He needed to do plenty of other things though, like at that moment, not showing weakness but not being too antagonistic. There were many such little details to look out for.
It just so happened that offering food and being friendly could help cover for plenty of mistakes.
Still not all of them though.
“Great,” he said, grinning wider and standing up to pull his Preserving Box and start taking out berries. Already, he was planning to offer pokeblocks once the charm of the berries passed. That way, even if the birds were full, they could just take them to snack on later. Pokeblocks lasted plenty more than the regular fruits, after all.
‘Now, how to approach this?’ he mused idly as he started offering the pokemon around him berries, his team included, of course. He’d been thinking about it since he picked the job, but he didn’t have a very clear idea. It wasn’t that the pokemon had a problem for him to solve so they’d leave the ranch alone and he didn’t think he could curb it away from the ranch. ‘Hmmm, doubts, doubts.’
It was kind of funny, that of all the pokemon he’d had to deal with, it wasn’t something like gyarados or crawdaunt or primape that had him stumped. It was murkrow, of all things, and all because they were little shits and not hopeless hotheads. Now, if only it weren’t so frustrating…
‘So, I want them to stop messing with the ranch looking for shiny things,’ he thought to himself, slowly going over the situation once more to try and find a spot where he could do something. ‘They like doing that and there’s nowhere else I can send them without just driving them to someone else’s place. Having the owner of the place entertain them would likely just be a hassle for everyone involved. They hardly ever return the things they take, so we can’t just give them what they want all the time.’
What a conundrum indeed.
Pierce would admit that he was having a good time thinking it over, really. Solving all issues right away could be boring, after all. A challenge was nice once in a while. The problem was that this particular challenge came at the cost of the owner of the ranch having a bad time with the murkrow if he didn’t manage to fix it.
‘Now, is there anything I’m missing?’ he wondered, going over the information he had and the ideas he’d come up with and discarded. As he did, he kept his attention on his team and the murder of murkrow, feeding them and generally having a good time. Having a good time with them was easy. The complicated part was getting them to stop doing something that they wanted to do, something that their species were known for.
‘Unless… I don’t?’ he mused, but that had its own problems. So far, all the ideas he’d come up with that didn’t involve stopping them were troublesome or complicated. Getting them to use the place as a playground would be troublesome because it’d still bother the owner, even if less so. That was, regretfully, the best he’d come up with so far at that point.
His Plan B, as it were.
‘I don’t wanna go for that though, feels like the cheap way out, not really fixing anything or… Hmmm…Would that work?’ Pierce wondered, trailing off midway through his musings as an idea came to mind. It sounded a little complicated, but then again, he’d made gyarados put up a show at Cerulean. If that could happen, then he could probably pull this off. It was worth trying, at the very least and that was good enough for him.
“Say,” he commented, drawing several pairs of red eyes. “I’m a little curious. Do you just want the shiny things just because or do you like searching for them?” he asked and that definitely had their full attention.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How’s it going?
Well, first job in Saffron and some info on that sponsorship. Pierce gotta build his way up in regards to that… Or does he? Who knows what’s up with that? Not me, guys, I can tell you that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: I’m very sleepy right now, how about you? Are you fully awake? Full of energy? Are you on the negatives but holding on?
See you.
Comments
Ranma_Leopard
As always this is just really awesome and I can't wait for more
