AdrianKing
patreon
Searching Far and Wide - 84
🕑 Added 2024-09-04 17:55:06 +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 I
He had known that Saffron was the biggest city in Kanto after Celadon, but it was still quite the surprise to see it in all its… size. There were skyscrapers, for one, which was something that he hadn’t seen in either Pewter nor Cerulean. It wasn’t quite like the big cities that he’d seen in his own world though. It was more like a medium sized place, just going more upwards than such cities seemed to in his old world.
Interesting that.
Lily seemed to find the place fascinating though, but he imagined that made sense. Coming from a small place like Pallet, this was probably huge in her books. Thus, he seemed to be walking beside a child, more or less, with how she skipped beside him and tried to look at everything. He amused himself thinking that she was acting like a ten-year-old kid, which was the “canon” age for trainers, even if the world he’d ended up in was not like that. She’d even stop and window shop every two steps or point towards places as they walked.
It was kind of adorable, but he didn’t tell her that.
“She would appreciate that,” Cygnus commented in his mind, but Pierce wasn’t fooled. He could pick up on the almost hidden mischievousness of his Psychic type. “You are getting better at reading through the link,” the abra pointed out, both impressed and annoyed.
‘Or maybe you just suck,’ Pierce replied, getting a scandalized reaction from Cygnus. ‘Speaking of, this is the place for me to try and get a better idea of things,’ he added, more to himself than to his Psychic type.
Saffron was the Kanto capital for Psychics, after all, both pokemon and humans. He didn’t think he could go full on with that like some people did, but maybe he could pick up a thing or two. Having Cygnus would probably help, he guessed, but maybe he was being too ambitious. He’d have to see.
“There’s so much to look at, so many stores…” Lily said from beside him and Pierce rolled his eyes.
“If you want to shop, might as well wait until we go to Celadon, don’t you think?” Pierce pointed out, making her hum thoughtfully and tap her chin. “I mean, if it’s not something you need sooner rather than later,” he added with a shrug.
“Fair enough,” she agreed slowly. Clearly, she wanted to get some shopping done. He almost rolled his eyes at her, but refrained. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, placing a hand over her chest as if offended.
It seemed he hadn’t quite managed to hide his thoughts.
“I guess we can look,” he said instead of answering. Not like he was short on money, he supposed. So long as he didn’t go overboard… Well, even then, really. His work for the League had paid really well and his trainer commissions weren’t anything to scoff at. He guessed he was just used to a more frugal lifestyle and old habits died hard.
“It’s nice to have a friend that’s loaded,” Lily commented happily and Pierce gave her an unimpressed look. “What?” she asked, feigning ignorance and plastering her best innocent expression. He was far from fooled, however.
“I’m not your sugar daddy, Lily. Sorry to say,” he replied, making her sputter while he rolled his eyes. “If you wanna go on a shopping spree, you better be ready to pay for your stuff.”
“You are so mean, Pierce. Come on~!”
“Nope.”
“You are mean,” she grumbled, pouting. However, she recovered almost instantly. “Oh well, at least it’ll be fun to look around. Bigger places have a lot more stuff, or so I’ve been told,” Lily commented, clearly looking forward to seeing what Saffron had to offer. Being honest, he kind of was too. Maybe there’d be stuff he could spoil his team with, or things he could spoil himself with. Hopefully both.
“Hm, maybe we can look for stuff to make traveling more comfortable,” he mused after giving it some thought. Being out in the wild was nice and all, but it lacked a lot of comforts. Maybe they could get rid of that issue with better camping equipment. The storage boxes meant that they could carry a whole lot without problem, so they just needed the money to spend in order to solve a lot of things.
“That sounds great,” Lily readily agreed, not much of a fan of roughing it out in the woods herself. “What do you think we could get?”
“Eh… I don’t really know. I’ll just check what the stores have. You have any ideas?” he asked absently, more to keep the conversation going and filling the silence than anything else.
“So glad you asked, because I saw this video last night where they had-” Lily started, becoming a chatterbox as she commented on any and all gadgets she had come across while doing nothing on the internet. Shorts were a death trap, Pierce thought to himself a few minutes later, because Lily had seen entirely too many of those, by the sounds of it.
Then again, he contributed to that, he supposed. Not to Lily’s wasted time, but to other people’s. He did upload plenty of shorts, after all. It wasn’t his fault that their teams and wild pokemon were so interesting and adorable, though. The world needed to see it.
“Well, if we are lucky, they’ll have some of those here,” he mused idly. “Or maybe we can order some? We will be staying here for a while,” he added thoughtfully. There was no rush to leave Saffron City, after all. So, they could stay there, check shops, train comfortably and so on. So long as they didn’t stay there for as long as they did Cerulean, it’d be fine.
“Fair enough,” Lily replied, happily going over the things she thought would be better to get and so on. He just hummed and nodded at the right times while she went on and on, only occasionally chiming in something. The arrangement seemed to work for both of them, so it stuck.
[}-o-{]
“I’m glad I could help,” Pierce replied, smiling widely. How else could he react when someone told him that his videos had helped them with their pokemon troubles? He was, indeed, very happy to hear that.
It had been a bit surprising, but also not, when they walked through the Pokemon Center doors and someone called his name. A few minutes later, he was dealing with several trainers that had approached him to comment on his videos. Some told him about the ones they liked, or parts they’d enjoyed. Others asked some questions. The rest just seemed to want to make conversation.
It was a bit awkward, but in a nice way. He just wasn’t used to dealing with that kind of attention, he supposed. With some luck, he would get better at dealing with that over time. After all, it seemed like things were getting “worse” in that regard instead of better.
‘Maybe I should have thought it through better before starting to upload videos,’ he thought wryly.
Eventually, he managed to finish all the conversations and everyone went back to what they were doing before his appearance. He did have to subtly let some people down. If he met all the pokemon and teams he was offered, he’d be there forever, after all.
With a discreet sigh, he moved to one of the tables in the dining area and sat down, with Lily taking the seat across from him. He really needed to rest for a bit after that welcoming. As for his traveling companion herself, she seemed to be dealing with the whole thing much better than he was, but then again, she didn’t have quite as much attention…
Yet.
If he had anything to say on the matter, she would, in the future.
“Well, that was… something,” he mumbled, slumping on his chair. “I thought things would calm down after some time.”
“Oh you sweet summer child,” Lily replied condescendingly, patting his hand as if comforting a child. He just gave her an annoyed look. “Well, let this be a lesson. It’ll only grow from this. No way you won’t be huge,” she told him, which sounded like praise, but to him it was more of a threat.
“I’m not looking forward to that,” he mumbled. However, what was done was done. He just had to remind himself that, if he was famous – or semi-famous, whatever –, then that meant he could more easily call for attention and support next time pokemon needed help. That was a silver lining in the whole thing, he supposed.
“You know there are people that wish they had the fame you have, right?” Lily asked.
“So? The important thing is that I don’t want it. It’s… awkward to know there’s so many people that just… think so highly of me,” he answered, not sure he was explaining himself well enough. Alas, that was the best way he could put it. “You know the phrase, never meet your heroes? It’s kind of present in my mind right now. I don’t want to disappoint them, but I kind of know I’m not the guy they think I am.”
“Pierce, we gotta do something about this perception you have of yourself,” Lily told him, rolling her eyes. “Pretty sure you are more than they think you are,” she added. He very much doubted that, but he didn’t voice that thought. It wasn’t really worth it to get into that conversation.
He held back a grimace when he noticed that people were still whispering about him from afar.
“Anyway, are we doing anything in particular today?” he asked, leaning back on his seat. He wanted to get things moving once more so that he could leave that whole… ordeal behind. The sooner he could forget, the sooner he’d stop internally cringing.
“Well, I’ll… call home, as usual,” Lily said hesitantly, her words coming out slowly. Evidently, she knew it was a bit of a sore topic for him. Strangely… Pierce didn’t feel as bad as the other times she’d said similar things.
“Hm, I guess I can call the Sisters. If they are free, that is,” he mused absently, a slight smile forming on his face. It was nice to have someone to video call at the Center, he decided. After so many times of watching his friend do that by herself, he could finally go there for a call of his own. It wasn’t Lily telling him to come talk with her family or anything.
He was calling people himself.
He didn’t know if his thoughts were reflected on his face too much or if she was just thinking along the same lines, but Lily beamed at him.
“I’m happy for you, Pierce,” she told him sincerely, making him smile even wider. “Keep your dirty talk away from me though, please and thank you,” she added, making his expression turn flat and unimpressed. “What?”
“Don’t be jealous, Lily.”
“I’m not-!”
“You’ll get some too, one day. I’ll help you out with this Blue g-”
“Ew!”
“-uy, I promise,” he finished, ignoring all her interruptions and holding back a smirk. That’s what she got for being an idiot. “Anyway… Thanks,” he added after a moment of enduring her glare, his smile returning.
“Don’t mention it,” she mumbled, huffing and looking away. “Any plans for after that?”
“Hm, I’ll look at my commissions, but probably won’t take any today. I’m tired and I wanna relax,” he told her with a shrug. “I might look for a training ground to rent and spend some time with everyone doing nothing,” he added, leaning back and gazing up thoughtfully. “Spending a day with the team without training would be nice.”
“I get you,” Lily agreed, glancing to the side and apparently pondering on the merits of going to get something to snack on and drink. The kitchen was closed, but there were two perfectly good vending machines in a corner of the room. “Doing nothing together with everyone sounds fun. Especially with Cinder in the team now. Want to go half and half with the training ground?”
“Sure, we just gotta find one big enough and with a water feature,” he replied with a shrug.
[}-o-{]
As it turned out, there was a nice training ground they could rent for the afternoon, close by and… relatively cheap. Considering the place looked great, paying a little extra was no issue and since they were splitting the bill, it was even better. Not like they’d use it for training. It would get a little cramped if that were the case.
They were just going to spend some time doing nothing with their teams though, so it was fine.
So, the plans to call home – or the Sisters, in his case – were postponed until afterwards. The place was only free for a few hours, after all, so they’d gotten it quickly. The Pokemon Center computers would be there when they were done. The training ground wouldn’t… at least not that one and neither of them felt like going far for another.
Maybe once Cygnus got acquainted with the city, it’d be another thing entirely. Then they’d be able to teleport around and such. It wasn’t the case then though, so they’d have to walk around for a bit. Normally not something that they cared for, considering they had to walk the distance between cities and such for their journey. However, after just getting to civilization, neither of them felt like trekking through the place.
They wanted to give themselves some time to relax.
“Yep, once I think you are all ready, we’re going for the Gym,” he told his team, and all of them looked pretty hyped for the challenge. Well, all of them except Andromeda. She was too cool to be excited about anything… or so her thought process went, he was pretty sure. Even if she didn’t show it though, he knew she was looking forward to it.
He still didn’t get how most pokemon seemed to enjoy battling so much, but he imagined humans had a bunch of things that pokemon found just as odd. It’d just be something he’d have to get used to. It helped if he imagined it like his old world, except that instead of people it was pokemon and instead of football it was battles.
Didn’t help much, admittedly, but it was better than nothing.
“You are thinking too much, Helper-Voice,” Cygnus told him and he rolled his eyes. Although, Pierce supposed he was, at least in his eyes.
‘When are you gonna explain that to me, by the way?’ Pierce asked curiously, deciding to change subjects.
“When I evolve. I think that’d be a good time,” his abra replied and Pierce nodded. Sure, he didn’t want to wait, but his team member’s evolution didn’t seem to be too far. All the signs pointed to either evolving during their stay at Saffron or shortly afterwards.
“Glad you are all looking forward to that,” Pierce said out loud, his hand patting Andromeda’s head absently. “For now though, we are taking the day off. Tomorrow we continue with the training, alright?” he explained to them, getting a bunch of positive answers to his question. “So, we can do whatever you want, guys. You wanna play? Or have some snacks? Or just do nothing for a bit? I can take out the wipes and the brushes too.”
Surprisingly, his team didn’t seem interested neither in playing nor treats. Everyone was feeling lazy, it seemed, even Orion and Bellatrix, who didn’t really get to do much while traveling. Maybe even being in the pokeballs was a bit tiresome while on the move? Pierce wasn’t sure, but the fact was that nobody seemed too eager to do much of anything.
So, he decided to join them. Part of the reason he was there at all was because he wanted to take it easy himself. So, wasting time laying about with his team sounded perfect to him. That was how Pierce found himself sitting with his back to Orion’s curled body, Cygnus sitting beside him and Andromeda with her head on his lap. Narcissa and Bellatrix were the most active of them, with the former flying slowly – or slow for Narcissa – around and occasionally stopping on top of Orion and the latter floating about in the water feature of the training ground.
Over all, everyone seemed to be having a good time doing absolutely nothing productive.
‘Procrastinating is great,’ Pierce thought with a smile. He didn’t know how long he just sat there, but he didn’t really care. The atmosphere was very peaceful and he was rather enjoying it.
From time to time, he would look to the side to see Lily and her team being much more active than them. Not by much thought. They weren’t doing all that much either, but her pokemon were playing around calmly, mostly entertaining Star. Lily, for her part, seemed to be going around spoiling her team members, brushing Cinder’s fur, rubbing Gem’s stone skin, giving Talon treats and so on.
Everyone was having a good time, which was neat after traveling. Not that they didn’t have fun out there, but there was something very relaxing about the fact that they had many comforts close by. At least for Lily and Pierce, it was great to know that there was a nice shower and a comfortable bed waiting for them at the Pokemon Center. His best guess was that some of their feelings on the matter bled to their teams, making them feel more at ease too.
“Thinking too much again,” Cygnus told him and Pierce rolled his eyes. “Stop doing that and just relax, Helper-Voice.”
That was fair enough, he supposed, but his abra could afford to be less annoying about it. Either way, he decided to follow the “advice”. He could go back to being serious and productive and efficient the next day… sort of. They’d worked pretty hard through Route 5. A day of doing nothing could be good for them.
The next day though, there was no doubt in Pierce’s mind that his team would go all out on their training.
Saffron would be tough, but his team was pretty tough too.
He was kind of looking forward to it, surprisingly.
[}-o-{]
“So, yeah, that’s how things are over here,” he commented, leaning back on the desk chair he was sitting on. Idly, he looked through the commissions he’d gotten while he traveled through Route 5. He hadn’t done much more than checking if they were urgent or if they were on the way before, so he was actually reading them now on his tablet.
There were some jobs that stood out to him and he made sure to separate them from the rest. He’d probably pick from those the next day when he went to do some work. Not that he needed the money, but he liked going on those jobs. It was pretty nice to be able to help people and pokemon and get paid on top of that.
“Good to see I can still keep your attention,” the person on the other side of the screen told him sarcastically and he rolled his eyes.
“Please, spare me,” he replied, turning to look at Daisy. “We’ve been here for a while already and I have to go through this list at some point. There’s entirely too many things here that don’t actually need my specific attention in any way… or attention at all in some cases,” he grumbled, because really. The list of commissions was way too long.
“Suffering from success, huh?” she asked, clearly very amused by his issue. “Whatever shall you do with all this work that probably pays a lot. A truly unfortunate situation you are in, Pierce.”
“Ha, ha,” he fake laughed with a flat expression. She wasn’t wrong though. The jobs paid pretty well.
“People know you. That’s just how it goes. Those who can afford to, they’ll ask for you, just to say they did,” Daisy explained to him, smile still in place. “Or they’ll do it because they want the best, even if you are way overqualified. You could say you are a top brand now, sort of.”
“No pressure,” he mumbled, looking at his list warily.
“Please. You couldn’t fail a job that involves interacting with pokemon if you tried,” Daisy said with a scoff, waving off his worries. “At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you had a chat with a legendary. Which, by the way, I wanna be the first to know when it happens.”
“When?”
“So, yeah. Don’t worry too much,” Daisy reassured him, completely ignoring his question. “Leaving that aside, any idea when you are gonna drop by?”
“Eager, are we?” he asked, eyebrow raised. All he got in response was a roll of the blonde’s eyes. “What?”
“You are lucky you are cute.”
“And good,” he added jokingly.
“... I’m looking forward to your visit though, that’s true,” she admitted, almost managing to say it casually. He didn’t miss that she didn’t say anything to his statement, but that wasn’t important then and there. There was the slightest bit of shyness there though, which only made her look more endearing. How else was he supposed to answer to that other than…
“I’m looking forward to it too,” he replied, a smile on his face. “I remember you saying you might come here though,” he pointed out, making her grimace and groan. Well, it seemed like things hadn’t gone too well on that front.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna work out,” she grumbled, deflating and displaying annoyance and despondency for anyone that cared to look at her. “The League doesn’t… Actually, I don’t think I can tell you this in a video call at the Center, Pierce. Sorry.”
“No worries,” he said, blinking. Looking around, there was only Lily, focused on her own call, and a guy pretty far in another computer. Still, they were out in the open and such, so it was better to keep things quiet. He was curious now though… “I might need to get a pair of headphones to use here,” he commented idly. Because the computers available at the Center had the minimum things to function.
He wondered if they had built in speakers instead of headphones because they kept getting stolen… That sounded like the kind of thing that’d happen in his old world though. Sure, evil teams existed and all, but the Pokemon world seemed much more friendly… Eh, it didn’t really matter, he supposed.
“That’d probably help, yeah,” Daisy agreed, a little amused.
“So, you complained a bit before. You wanna complain some more?” he offered, turning back to his tablet for a bit. ‘Hm, that job looks interesting.’
“Do you have to say it like that?” he heard the blonde whine through the speakers. “I don’t complain that much!” she protested.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Daisy,” he replied absently, moving the job to his list of maybes. “It’s fine if you wanna do it though. It’s always better to get all that stuff out,” he commented, turning his attention to the screen again. He’d know. His mother had terrible moods often, but if he just sat down and listened to her for a bit, she’d feel better. Some people were just like that, he supposed.
Daisy had nothing on his mother too, so that helped.
“Still,” the blonde mumbled, looking away with a rather adorable pout. “It still sounds bad when you say it like that,” she added.
“I know,” he replied with a smile.
“You’re mean,” she accused, and he just grinned wider at her. “Anyway,” she grumbled, evidently giving up on that conversation. Not that he imagined she had a lot of ways to try and win it, but it was always nice to get a victory. “Anything interesting there?” she asked, and he imagined she was looking at his tablet.
“A few jobs here and there. Nothing that I’d single out especially though, not yet,” he commented, looking over the list in case he’d missed anything. Then he blinked. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I think… I got a sponsorship offer?”
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How’s it going?
A chill first day in Saffron, all things considered. Not much else to say, but even then, I’ve found myself enjoying it, for whatever reason. I’m just a boring kind of guy, I guess.
With some luck, you guys didn’t find it boring though.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: What kind of sponsorship do you think Pierce was offered?
See you.
Comments
NinjaJackel 400
Probably some one from the ranger association or the league in general offering to sponsor him to keep a better eye on his movements and interactions with pokemon. Or maybe the rockets through an intermediary trying to get access to him for his ability to get pokemon to me more manageable, maybe in conjunction with the mewtwo project
Buck Futter
Professor Oak, or a restaurant that sells magikarp sushi...
