AdrianKing
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Searching Far and Wide - 65
🕑 Added 2024-04-24 17:52:49 +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
Cerulean City XXVI
“So, what did you have in mind for today? Another episode?” Lily asked, sticking her spoon in her morning cereal. Pierce, for his part, simply brought his cup to his lips while trying to wake up his brain. It seemed that his traveling companion was suddenly not going through the same issues as he was, for once at least.
“You are entirely too awake for this unholy hour,” he mumbled, resolutely ignoring the mental snort that Cygnus sent his way… and the unimpressed look that Andromeda was likely sending his way from where she was eating by the table. “Give me a bit to wake up, yeah?” he groaned before reaching for a piece of toast and taking a bite out of it.
“Come on, I’m excited!”
“Really?” he asked flatly. “I couldn’t tell.”
For some reason, that only got an annoyed huff out of the girl. At least his pokemon seemed to find that amusing though, so there was a silver lining to be found. Then there was little Star, who was occupying a corner of the table and seemed unsure of how to react. Ultimately, she walked up to her trainer and adorably patted her arm comfortingly. It had the instant effect of making Lily coo at her and taking his traveling companion’s attention away from Pierce.
He’d have to make a nice poffin for the cleffa, he supposed.
“I guess we could record another one,” he mumbled a few minutes later, halfway through breakfast. Pausing to yawn, he thought that over. It didn’t sit too well with him, but maybe that was the right call. They had attention on them, so it was probably for the better if they could keep that ball rolling. “Maybe Gyarados?”
“Not to be contradicting, but maybe we should calm down with the videos?” Lily commented, making him give her a flat look. “I mean,” she continued then, obviously wanting to better explain herself. Not that she needed to. He knew what she was trying to say, but he wanted to tease her a little for being so chipper early in the morning. “We made two videos in as many days. Maybe taking some time would be for the better?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Pierce mumbled with a shrug, taking a sip from his drink and leaning back on his chair. “At the end of the day, I want people to know that we are there and having more content will help, I’m sure,” he mused out loud, half talking to Lily and half talking to himself. “We can slow down once we’ve achieved what we wanted, at least to a more manageable level. Not like we’ll have that much time when out traveling, especially if we want to actually make some distance and also have variety of pokemon.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Lily replied, her expression turning thoughtful.
“Don’t think too hard. You’ll hurt yourself,” he commented, getting a napkin to the face for his troubles and some snickering from the surrounding pokemon. “Rude.”
“Your face is rude.”
His only response was to stare at the girl across from him.
“Anyway, do you agree? You are part of this channel thingy just like I am,” he asked, resting his cheek on his palm and holding back another yawn. “I think it’d work this way, but if you disagree there’s that to take into account too. We can check with Violet too, I guess,” he commented, going for another sip only to realize that his cup was empty now.
‘Now I’m sad,’ he thought despondent and he got the very distinctive feeling of Cygnus rolling his eyes at him without actually doing so. It was a weird mental image/sense, but far from the weirdest he’d experience in that respect, or in general, really. Ultimately, he just set the cup back on the table with a sigh.
“Either way, we could prepare the video a bit more if we wanna wait and such. Not like we can do anything other than gyarados when I’m stuck at the Gym for most of the day and I’m there taking care of gyarados and magikarp,” he continued, trying to rub the stubborn sleep off his eyes. “Maybe later when things are more calm and such, we can try to go on jobs and see if someone lets us record something. Shouldn’t be too hard so long as we don’t show or mention places or people, right?”
“Hm, I think you are right about that, at least,” Lily replied, still looking thoughtful. “And yeah, we can talk with the Sisters to organize ourselves better. Gotta check with the girlfriends, right?”
“Woah, I didn’t know you liked wom-” Pierce was interrupted by yet another napkin. “Rude, again.”
“Your face is-”
“Are you Pierce?” a new voice asked, making both of them blink and turn to the side to see a girl with glasses shifting on her feet beside their table, if a little away. “I mean, are you… er, Pierce, the Pokemon Proxy?” she clarified, making his eyes widen. Somewhat in disbelief, he turned to look at Lily, only to see her sporting a shiteating grin. “If I’m wrong, then I’m-”
“You are not wrong,” he interrupted, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to make himself look more presentable and less like a cheap movie zombie. “I am Pierce Lawson,” he confirmed, putting on his best smile and extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Uh, nice to meet you too,” the girl replied with a shy smile and embarrassed blush. “I was sitting over there with my friends-” she commented, waving her hand to signal the aforementioned group of girls, who burst into giggles when they looked their way. “-and… Well, I thought I recognized. From the videos, I mean.”
“I figured, what with the Pokemon Proxy part,” he replied, chuckling when she grimaced and blushed. “No need to be embarrassed, I’ve done worse things in conversations myself,” he reassured her, cringing internally as he remembered some of those moments. Those were the kind of moments that kept one up at night in sheer embarrassment. “So, did you just want to confirm it was me or did you need anything?” he asked kindly.
“Well, you said you wanted to show how to better understand pokemon and… like, help solve problems between pokemon and humans or with other pokemon?” she asked, and he was kind of taken aback that she more or less knew that part by heart from his introductory video. It wasn’t the exact same wording, he was pretty sure, but he also wasn’t hundred percent so, which was the impressive part.
“I did,” he acknowledged with a nod. “Do you know someone that needs help?”
“I have a krabby that’s been giving me trouble… That’s-That’s really my own problem though. Sorry, I’m sure you have things to do,” she said, growing more agitated at the end as she seemed to realize what she was saying.
“I can help,” Pierce told her, giving her pause. “I don’t mind at all.”
“Really?” she asked, suddenly looking very hopeful.
“Sure thing. I have an hour or so free to do whatever. We can do this now if you want or some other time. I’m usually free during mornings and around lunch,” he answered, trying to be as inviting as possible. She looked like a shy girl and also like she was more than a little nervous, so he wanted to help her out a little.
“If you really don’t mind,” the girl mumbled, looking away.
“Do you mind if we record things?” Lily asked and Pierce turned to see his traveling companion with her eyes all but shining as she looked at the poor, unfortunate girl.
[}-o-{]
“And thus-!”
“Please, shut up,” Pierce begged, dragging a hand over his face. “Please,” he repeated, sending unkind thoughts to Cygnus, who was riding on his shoulders at the moment. The Psychic type deserved them all and more, if anyone asked him. After all, the little shit was having about as much fun as Lily was.
“-Pierce, the Heartbreaker strikes again!” the aforementioned traveling companion finished, breaking into giggles. “Will there be any young lady in Cerulean that won’t fall victim to your wiles, you absolute womanizer?”
“True enough, you don’t count as a lady, or young for that matter,” he replied flatly.
“Excuse you?” she hissed, to which he returned an unrepentant half-smile. “I’m a lady, Pierce, and you’d do well to remember that. After all, as a lady, I can make you even more of a hit with other ladies.”
“Please don’t,” he groaned, kind of regretting not having stayed at the Pokemon Center. Admittedly, helping that one girl with her krabby had been kind of fun and Lily had gotten some footage for a possible side-series for their channel. She’d shared the idea of uploading cases in which he helped others in more specific fashion compared to the “Pokemon Trivia” series they were going to be doing with wild pokemon and “wild” pokemon, like the gyarados and magikarp at the Gym.
However, he hadn’t quite enjoyed the attention of the girl herself. Although, to be fair, she was more of a shy little thing, which made it all easier to deal with by just playing oblivious. Her friends though? Those were a lot harder and more awkward to be around. Fortunately for him, he hadn’t needed to interact with them all that much, but it’d still been entirely too much.
One of them had even given him her number and asked for his in turn “in case she needed help”, but he’d have to have been a neutron star level of dense harem protagonist to have missed what was going on there. Unfortunately for her and probably fortunately for him, he could get away with saying that she could just find him at the Pokemon Center if she needed anything, since he’d be around for the foreseeable future. He might have also had to lie a little saying that he didn’t have his pokegear with him and that it was kind of new, so he didn’t know the number by heart just yet.
A bunch of half truths, really, but it was definitely a lie that he didn’t have the device with him.
Pierce might have to ease up on teasing Lily, since she’d kind of helped him get away with that, actually. She might be a pain in the ass whenever a girl or woman gave him any attention, but at least she was a private pain in the ass. ‘That sounds wrong,’ he thought to himself. The point was that his friend kept her teasing away from most people’s ears.
Good thing too, because Pierce really didn’t feel like dealing with romance or anything remotely related to that as of that moment. He was barely keeping it together as it was, what with all that he’d lost and getting used to having a new life. Getting involved that way with anyone sounded like adding more shit to his baggage, which was already heavy enough. If he could get away with it, he’d avoid anything of the sort for quite a while.
“A lonely existence isn’t something we wish for you, Helper-Voice,” Cygnus told him, making him roll his eyes.
‘I know, and it’s not something I want either,’ he replied in his mind, rubbing his eyes wearily. ‘Just… for now, while I get my shit together.’
“If you say so.”
“Everything ok?” Lily asked, looking a little concerned after the long silence from Pierce’s part. She probably had said something that he hadn’t quite caught because he’d been too in his head, he supposed. “You know I’m just teasing, right?”
“I do,” he reassured with a slight smile. “I’m the last person that you should feel bad about teasing, by the way,” he added, moving to push his shoulder against hers. “So, what’s with that look?”
“I know,” she replied with a half-meant smirk before she dropped it. “But I think this is a little more serious than embarrassing memories,” she added. “Everything ok, Pierce?”
“I’m just… not interested in romance, I guess,” he explained, not really seeing the harm in doing so. Lily was basically living with him, for the most part. They spent a whole lot of time together, especially when they were on the road. Trying to hide stuff or lie was bound to be more annoying than not. Besides, he was pretty sure they’d already talked some on the matter. “You’ve probably noticed that I’m… dealing with some things.”
“I might have,” Lily replied, trying to make it sound like she was amused but only managing to sound awkward and worried.
“I just… don’t want to add more stuff to that. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with that right now. As it is, I don’t know how well I’m keeping it together,” he said with a shrug. “Sorry if that ruins your teasing material.”
“I’m sure I can find something else,” she mumbled, and it was her turn to push her shoulder against his. “I’m here if you wanna talk about something, yeah?”
“I know,” he answered with a nod. He did know that, it was just that… It was kind of difficult to talk about it with her. With anyone, really. “I might even take you up on that,” he added with a smile before he felt like grimacing. “I kind of killed the mood there, right?”
“Just a little bit,” Lily replied, making it obvious that she didn’t mind.
“How about I get us something to drink to make up for that?”
“I wouldn’t say no to that, good sir.”
“Of course you won’t,” he said with a chuckle. “There’s a reason why your pokemon-”
“One time,” she hissed, poking him on the side with her finger. “Let’s go to a cafe. I’ll get you a bunch of numbers and maybe even some fans, I’m sure.” When he grimaced, Lily’s expression turned into something very smug. “Ah, you thought you were safe?”
“You are a mean, mean person, Lily,” he said, but a smile still tugged at his lips.
“Yeah, well. You’ve been teasing me nonstop since forever ago. I don’t wanna give up my material just yet… if it’s all the same to you,” she told him and he knew the last part was actually a serious question.
“It’s fine,” he reassured her with a grin and a shake of his head. He’d really won the friend lottery all the way back in Viridian Forest. “I have more ammo than you anyway,” he added, his grin turning more amused and ever so slightly… mean.
“One day, Pierce,” Lily threatened then, knowing that she’d lost that exchange. Too bad for her, he couldn’t see a way for her to get more material to work with than him. After all, she depended solely on what she got from the time they met onwards. Pierce could actually dig up stuff from her past, which was really just unfair.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it anyway.
[}-o-{]
“That’s really mean of you, Pierce,” Lily – the Sensational Sister – criticized, even though she was sporting a smile on her face. “You are bullying the poor single badge trainers with your monster of a beedrill and the poor Cerulean trainers with your anti-Water type training.”
“I feel like they should be used to the latter already,” he replied, gesturing with the fork in his hand before stabbing it into his meal. “Nothing to say about the former though, Narcissa is destroying the poor bastards,” he added and his beedrill made a pleased sound from where she was eating some distance to the side.
‘Lots of people here,’ he thought to himself. The Sensational Sisters – all four of them, despite some of their fans having less than stellar opinions of Misty – were all having lunch with Lily – his traveling companion, that is – and him. Their pokemon were also around, all of them gathered in groups here and there. Although, expectedly, the Waterflower pokemon didn’t have any trouble moving around between those groups. For Lily’s and Pierce’s teams, however, it was a little more complicated.
Orion and Star had no problems socializing like the children they were, but the rest of them were either too withdrawn, aloof or antisocial to really go out to talk with the unknown pokemon. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Pierce was like that himself, really, despite what people might think. He was friendly not extroverted, or at least he thought so. He would never turn away from someone that approached him but he wouldn’t go out of his way to talk with someone. Hell, even with pokemon, most of the time they were the ones that approached him.
“It’s a little mean don’t you think? You should be going for your third badge now, at the least, instead of the second,” Daisy commented, making him roll his eyes. Then again, they seemed to be mostly teasing.
“Not my fault that the first Gym I came across was Pewter’s. My team was really not fit for it,” he replied, bringing his fork up from the plate he held in his other hand. As he chewed though, an idea popped in his mind and it sounded kind of enticing. It’d need some money spending, but he was kind of loaded at the moment. Furthermore, it didn’t look like his earnings would go down. Trainer jobs were always around and he had a feeling that he was more likely to be called the more jobs he did for the League too, so there was that.
‘I might go for it,’ he thought, pushing the decision for later.
“It would be nice,” Cygnus told him. Pierce expected that, but it was still nice to hear. Yeah, the more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded. Still, he wanted to take some time to ponder on it and maybe make some plans. He might need to adapt some of his already ongoing ideas as it was.
“You gotta admit that it doesn’t help that you are taking your sweet time,” Violet pointed out with a grin. “You spend quite a bit of time everywhere you go.”
“That’s not my fault either,” he replied flatly. Because it really wasn’t. First it was Orion needing his help in particular back in Pewter. Then came the Mt. Moon pokemon. Now, it was the Water types, which had taken much longer than any of the other instances. “Besides, what’s the rush? Pretty sure we have time and we need to train and plan properly for the Gyms anyway.”
“You are gonna be a headache for some of us, but that’ll be fun,” Lily – the Sensational Sister again – said and she certainly sounded like she would find that amusing. “Or, I guess you’ll be a fun challenge. Not often we get low rankeds that are actually capable, even when they can beat the low level teams.”
“Depends on if we warn them or not, really,” Daisy followed up with. “Which, unfortunately for you, we already have, somewhat.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“In fairness, we were doing regular reports on what happened here,” Violet said, even though none of them looked particularly apologetic. “It’s just that you are… How to put it? An eye-catching person. No way they haven’t come across your file,” the blue-haired sister explained, making him deflate.
“I guess that’s fair,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“And besides, even if you weren’t so ridiculously notorious with the stuff you pull off, more than one would keep an eye on you just going by the company you keep,” Daisy added, making him blink.
“So, it’s all Lily’s fault, got it.”
“Excuse me?!” his traveling companion asked.
“I feel like I should be offended, even when I know you aren’t talking about me,” the Waterflower Lily commented idly.
“But I was talking about you.”
“What?”
“What?”
Both Violet and Daisy burst into giggles immediately after both Lilys confused response. Pierce, for his part, simply allowed an amused smile to appear on his face. It was a very close thing to stop himself from laughing, admittedly. The only reason he didn’t, really, was that the whole situation was feeling kind of… familiar.
It reminded him of being at a family gathering or spending a night out with his friends. There were people he got along with and others he didn’t even properly know. He was almost annoyed at the reminder, actually. Not because he wanted to forget, but because whenever such a thing happened, his mood would inevitably drop.
Pierce just wanted to continue with his life. He was getting his feet under him now. Yet, his old life wouldn’t let go, or maybe it was more accurate to say that he couldn’t let go of it, much as he’d have wanted to. No matter what he did, if he ignored it, if he reminisced, if he hurt, if he cried, if he laughed… At the end of every day and at the most random of times, Pierce would still remember and still feel the same loss.
‘Is it ever going to be easier?’ he wondered.
“What does that even mean?” the pink-haired Lily asked, eyes narrowed.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” he replied with a smile that he hoped was good enough to fool them. Fortunately for him, either it was, or everyone decided not to point anything they might have found weird out. “So, do I have to look forward to harder challenges?”
“Some, probably,” Violet answered for him, still looking fairly amused from before. “Surge will definitely give you a harder time than necessary. Sabrina is a bit of a coin toss. I don’t see Erika going for it, but she might try to push you a little, just to see more of your character. I think Koga is likely to give you a harder time too, but he might not, if you are lucky. And Blaine…”
All three of them grimaced at that.
“Well, Blaine will definitely give you a harder time, if you can even get there on a day he’s at the appointed Gym,” Daisy finished then and Pierce was reminded of some vague pictures he had in mind, something about Blaine hiding away from the Gym. He didn’t remember if that was anime or game or manga though, and he’d long since started taking whatever little metaknowledge he had of the Pokemon World with a grain of salt.
“He should, really,” Lily Waterflower commented from the side, still giving him a narrow-look from the side. “Especially because I can’t see you being discreet from here to Blaine’s Gym, honestly.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” the other Lily agreed. “He really couldn’t be normal if he tried.”
“I resemble that,” Pierce grumbled, stabbing another piece of his meal in fake annoyance while the girls giggled. It brought to his attention that he was, in fact, surrounded by girls. ‘I need guy friends,’ he thought to himself.
“You really can’t, Lawson,” Misty chimed in. She hadn’t actually said much through the whole meal, he noticed. She didn’t strike him as the kind of girl to just fade into the background, but then again, she’d been acting remarkably unlike her character that Pierce knew, if only because he’d seen her in very specific situations. Maybe she was feeling overshadowed even in a normal setting like that?
Either way, she’d spoken then, so maybe he could help her out.
“That’s Mr. Lawson to you, Miss Waterflower, and I’d be careful, or I’ll have you doing more homework after next class,” he told her.
“You don’t have me doing any homework,” she pointed out before realizing that maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t a good idea.
“You are right, I didn’t… Before that is,” he told her, making the girl pale. “As it is, since my efforts to teach you seem to be thoroughly unappreciated-”
“I’m sorry,” she squeaked, which was a good thing. Pierce didn’t even know what he could give her homework about when he was teaching her how to better deal with her fear of gyarados. It wasn’t like he would have her interact with one while he wasn’t around or anything like that. That was probably just asking for trouble, although he could maybe get her sisters involved?
She hadn’t wanted them to be though so…
Well, whatever she had imagined was bad enough that she’d helped him avoid having to come up with something, thankfully.
“You better be,” he told her with a grin while she pouted.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How’s it going?
Cerulean is just the gift that keeps on giving, I guess. I’m kind of waiting to do a mini-timeskip or something so we can move on from here, but everytime I think the place has enough going on, new ideas pop up. So, we are kind of stuck with this Slice of Life arc, I guess. I know many of you people aren’t fans, but I hope you bear with me.
I’m genuinely trying to move on from here, I swear.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: Vulpix or Froakie? (Fun fact, for this, I asked my brother to pick two random pokemon without giving him a reason or anything.)
See you.
Comments
Buck Futter
Alolan vulpix
Will Turner
Froakie or Vulpix thats a hard choice but froakie.
