The Road to Anistar City

Also This is a continuation of my first story:
Let's Catch a Gastly (How Ghastly! I know!)


Let’s Catch a Pawniard and 2 Ralts! 1 Complex + 2 Hard


Hard x2 - 40 - 60k

Complex - 30 - 40k

MCR: 70-100k
Character Count: ~72.25k

Chapter 1: Finale of Laverre Gym and Francois’s New Companion


Francois looked at the doors to the Laverre City gym, ready for his challenge. With his new acquisition, his Gengar, in which he so dutifully trained since catching it in the Haunted mansion, he knew that he would not let Valerie down. The air that day was particularly chilly and knew it smelled of victory. November was nearing half way and he knew he needed to continue before the Lumiose Conference in January. If he were to reclaim his title as champion he needed to work fast on developing the correct team to defeat Alain’s Mega Charizard X.


He had stayed in Laverre for an extra week than anticipated to expedite training on his new ghost type and find a trainer willing to trade his Haunter for a Gengar. He simply had to fill a trading request at the Pokemon Center, but they had to find another trainer willing which took a few days. Regardless, it was ten past ten and he was twenty minutes early to his final battle with Valerie.


The receptionists giggled when they saw Francois enter, probably giggling at the fact that such a domineering personality had succumbed to the pressures of none other than cute little fairies. The waiting room was almost as plain as the pokemon center, except the walls were cotton candy pink, and accented with the medium pinks like a Sylveon or Slurpuff. The walls were lined with models on catwalks of women in dresses with pokemon themes designed by none other than the gym leader herself.


Francois held his nose high, “Hello, I’m ready for my rematch against Valerie.”


“Oh yes,” said the receptionist as she was typing on the computer, trying hard not to giggle, “Valerie will be right with you. Please take a seat and we’ll call you when you’re ready.”


Waiting experiences are always dreadful to him. Francois is naturally impatient and being at a gym in which he has to challenge a third time, the first being before he failed to dethrone Alain, the second, last time, and now… this. He sat on one of the pinkish red couches on the opposite wall of the reception desk. To the side of the couch were nonessential magazines that featured all sorts of fairy types and simply fashion magazines. This waiting would make Francois hate fairy types even more.


When the time finally came, he was super excited! He had thought when waiting that it would never end, but alas his bored thoughts had proved him wrong! The receptionist who signed him in got up from behind their counter and told him,


“Monsieur Moreau, your battle with Valerie will commence shortly. Follow me.”


The receptionist was short, and wearing the gym’s uniform: an elegant, pink kimono decorated with the fleshy bows of a Sylveon. He could not help but think about how gross that was. Just why did he pursue Valerie in the first place? This was not a time for complaining, he told himself. His conflicting thoughts on his hatred of fairies, his anger at the outcome of the previous battle, and his determination to get that badge and finally move on ran deep and conflicting emotions within him.


The lighting was bland and the gym smelled of Kalosian perfume. Clearly a Spritzee or Aromatisse had fought in this place recently. Francois knew from his last challenge that he would not encounter such a weakling. The last time he fought Valerie, his Blaziken had not evolved yet and Valerie’s Klefki did a number on his team, only to be finished off by her Azumarill. He couldn’t even get to his final pokemon. Now having bought his Gengar a very special TM Sludge Bomb from the Laverre City Pokemart, he was confident that he could figure a way around her fairies. He had the excitement pulsing through his veins. He was going to put her in her place and win that badge!


He stepped into the center of the dirty arena. There he stood in the middle, to greet Valerie, and by Sinnohese tradition, both exchanged bows. Valerie was dressed in a white and rose kimono decorated more to the liking of a Clefable, rather than her signature Sylveon. Her hair was long and black and her eyes huge and dilated; it was almost menacing how cute she was. There was a rose-colored bow poking out of her hair. She smiled after bowing and promptly started to her station at the opposite end of the battlefield.


Francois continued to his side as well. The referee was the receptionist who led him in.


“Ladies and Gentlemen, here we open for another battle at the Laverre City Gym! We have our challenger, Francois Moreau on one end and leader Valerie on the other! Both players will send three pokemon. The first trainer with no pokemon able to battle wins! Only the challenger may make substitutions! The challenger will send first!”


Francois sighed. He was intensely focused. He knew what he had to send: Blaziken. It needed to finish the job it had started and kill that Klefki, once and for all.


“All right, Heisenberg! Let’s go!”


Francois activated his poke ball and threw it out into the battlefield. It opened and send out his tall, powerful firebird. It growled, as it materialized from the ball’s escaping white plasma. It stomped its feet on the dirt, ready for action.


Valerie remembered precisely that her Klefki could only take the Combusken because its power was not substantial enough to break through its reflect and could Dazzling Gleam it to death. This time, however, Blaziken was strong enough. After a moment’s hesitation, she proclaimed, “Let’s go Azumarill! Teach this bird how to play!”


She tossed her pokeball onto the battlefield, and it opened and on the ground materialized a blue and white patterned ovoid creature with two very long ears and a wiry tail that ended with a blue sphere. It had a small beady eyes and miniscule mouth. This thing looked hardly threatening, at least to the untrained eye. Francois knew Azumarill carried the lethal ability Pure Power and when combined with a move such as Belly Drum, can sweep his team, as it did the last time he challenged Valerie.

The sight of that water rabbit sent shivers down his spine. He knew that creature could completely destroy his team and had no true counter. His Blaziken could since his trainer’s fear, but remained confident that it could persevere.


As Francois began to take a deep breath, Valerie commanded, “Time to show this challenger the true power of fairies! Azumarill, use Waterfall!”


Her water rabbit agreed, focusing its attention at its targets ahead. With its power, Francois knew Blaziken was in trouble. The rabbit bent over, as if it were about to dive and from under it erupted a massive torrent of water about it sized that it propelled its way to Heisenberg. It surfed along with it straight towards the fiery chicken, leaving a trail of dark mud behind. There wasn’t anything to hide behind so Francois had to think of something quickly.


“Blaziken, quickly dig under the earth of the stadium and strike it from behind with a thunder punch!”


His Blaziken gruffed in agreement and promptly dove at the ground, quickly digging himself underground, leaving a huge trail of dust behind. By the time the Azumarill approached Francois’s side of the gym, Blaziken was already underground. The rabbit took the torrent halfway up to the ceiling overhead and fell gently to the muddy floor. It looked around in confusion for a little while until a large mound appeared from behind the rabbit. It grew larger and larger until it burst revealing Heisenberg completely covered in mud and dirt. The Azumarill was shocked. As Valerie was commanding it to attack, the Blaziken quickly made a fist that sparked and crashed it straight into the Azumarill’s face. It twitched as fell to the ground, but it was on all fours then, and noticeably damaged, muddy, and breathing heavily.


“Azumarill, please get up,” Valerie called out from the other side of the stadium.


“Quickly, Heisenberg, use Blaze kick and send it back to her master!” Francois had a fire in his voice to which his Blaziken clearly picked up on.


Flames erupted from the chicken as the water rabbit struggled to stand up, it glanced over at the oncoming firebird with one eye open and before it could do anything it was kicked powerfully, being sent flying back to Valerie’s side. It rolled like a tumbleweed and stopped about a yard away from its trainer. By then it was clearly knocked out.


As Valerie recalled her pokemon, the referee declared, “Azumarill is no longer able to battle!”


Valerie looked at Azumarill’s pokeball and noticed said something that Francois couldn’t hear off in the distance. Most likely, he thought was some encouraging words to her fallen friend. Blaziken looked a bit tired and recalled him, to save him for a future challenge. Valerie sent out her next pokemon: Clefable. Francois was surprised that her Klefki wasn’t send. Perhaps because of Blaziken’s performance, she knew it would be a pointless endeavor. Clefable was certainly an interesting challenge for him, and sent out his newly acquired Gengar to aid him in the process. He hoped that it did not know any psychic moves else his ghost would be a goner.


The pink fairy about half of Francois’s height came out with its happy and naive smile. Francois always thought that when fairies smile it means they’re up to something and that something is never good. That thing is always unpredictable.


“Nichloas, use Sludge Bomb on the bastard fairy! There is no way it can stall us!”


His ghostly, black cloud of a mirror Clefable grinned happily. The pink thing with wings was happily, dopily swaying, pretending to be cute.


Valerie called out to her pink thing, “Clefable, be a doll and set up a light screen!”


It cheered and let out a “‘Ble!” in agreement.


The grinning ghost dropped into a shadow which trailed across the gym floor at an alarming rate and much before it could set up its light screen. If popped up from the shadows and hurled a massive, purple ball of sludge at the fairy, completely covering it in filth. Gengar returned to a shadow and slithered to the center of the field, where it reemerged. For a while the purple mound of sludge didn’t move but ever so slowly, the pink ball of pure, unfiltered evil emerged from the filth, albeit dirtied, panting, and scratched. It closed its eyes and moved its head and a burst of light turned into a seemingly glass screen around it. Francois commanded his ghost to again sludge bomb it, while Valerie commanded Clefable to use Psychic! Her Clefable closed her eyes, took a deep breath and its shadow started moving and stretching. Gengar had disappeared and appeared from the shadows behind the slow fairy as Gengar was enveloped in the white psychic it energy it clenched its eyes in pain and mustered the energy to hurl another pile of filth, which released the ghost from its psychic torture. For a few seconds the pile of filth was motionless, and soon enough it started to shake than the fairy rolled out from under it completely unconscious.


Both Francois and Valerie recalled their pokemon. Francois was astounded that this battle was going so well! He almost couldn’t believe it. As the judge called for Valerie’s next pokemon, he ordered Blaziken back onto the stage. With that light screen up, he knew he wouldn’t be able to do suitable enough damage to whatever pokemon Valerie sent next.


Valerie looked nervous. She looked like she was about to cave in and her best answers to Francois’s Blaziken were knocked out.


Valerie proclaimed, “Sylveon, I choose you!”


Just the sight of that bug-eyed, pink fairy fox with bows and ribbons made of flesh emerged on the dusty area safely behind the light screen. It was certainly a cheerful pokemon, but it also was a menace and a threat to be taken seriously.


Francois called out, “Blaziken, charge at it with a Flare Blitz!”


It yelled, “Blaze!” in fiery agreement and quickly darted across the muddy field. There was a mass of fire emerging in front of him, encircling his surrounding in fire.


Valerie quickly called out to her precious fairy, “Sylveon, use psychic!”


It yelped in agreement with its sight on the target. It closed its eyes, lifted its heat and Francois could clearly see Heisenberg slow down. It was struggling to stand up due to the mental attack. There was a light glowing light surrounding the fiery chicken in addition to the flames.


“Fight it,” Francois called out to Heisenberg.


Francois saw that they bird was slowly gaining control beneath the encircling flames and darted off directly towards Sylveon, jumping at it when it was only two yards away, diving for the target. In a fiery ball of blinding ling light, Blaziken grabbed the fennec fox as he fell to the ground, rolling on muddy floor. Soon the embers died down and Blaziken got up and jumped about two or three yards away.


With only Blaziken left to go, feet firmly planted, fists curled, breathing heavily, and glaring at the fairy fennec fox with fleshy ribbons in front of him, Jacques knew he had the upper hand against Valerie. Combusken was singed from several flare blitzes that melted her Klefki and Mawile. It was just Blaziken and Sylveon remaining. Sylveon was noticeably scratched as well, it looked like it couldn’t take another flare blitz to the face. It was angry with its glowing, buggish, blue eyes glaring angrily at the fiery chicken. Was this the end? Surely a dazzling gleam would finish off Heisenberg, leaving him empty-handed twice in a row against Valerie. He was not going to give up. After suffering the nightmare on Route 14, he knew what it was like. The memories of that gengar who haunted him sent shivers down his back. The laughter. The cold floor, the endless rooms, finding out about the demise of the home’s owner, all transported him to another alternate reality as he finally came to terms with his current battle.


“Just, one more flare blitz…” he though. He knew it would be too much for Blaze and would knock him out, but his other moves simply were not powerful enough to one-shot that godforsaken evolution of Eevee.


Without a moment’s delay, Francois exclaimed, “Blaziken finish off her Sylveon with one more flare blitz!”


“Blaze!” he huffed in agreement and stomped the ground, and released a torrent of flame from his tightened fists. Heisenberg erupted in a ball of flame that hurtled straight towards the fairy fox like a meteor. It gasped, and glowed bright white to use a dazzling gleam in an attempt to blind the meteoric chicken before impact, as it was consumed in the red. After Blaziken made contact, the burst of light and fire faded to smoke and when it cleared both Sylveon and Blaziken were unceremoniously strewn about floor unconscious. Valerie and Francois called their pokemon back.


“Great job, Sylveon” she shed to her pokeball.


“Heisenberg, we did it. We finally won and we couldn’t have done it without you.” Francois said to his pokeball.


Both the gym leader and Francois walked the dusty, badly lit gym at the center where Valerie smiled and shook his hand. “Congratulations, Francois, you’ve finally overcome my fairies. Talk to my assistant and she will hand you your badge. I do intend to see you fight Diantha in a few months!”


Francois nodded sternly, “I will.”


As he left the gym with his newly acquired Fairy badge he took a breath of the fresh Laverre air. The city was perpetually autumnal and never seemed to change yet was always in a permanent state of changing. A chilly breeze ran through the city streets. By then the battle dragged on for ages and it was near the end of the day with the sun setting in the distance. He liked the mystical charm of this city, but alas had to continue on with his adventure. His next stop: Anistar City, and finally Snowbelle City. But perhaps he must rest a bit before heading off as the gym tired him. Gengar was very useful in his battle, but it also proved to be troublesome when her Klefki set up a light screen, set up and used psychic enough time to knock it out of play. His Pupitar did not fight that game as Blaziken’s flare blitz destroyed the keys, after of course taking a psychic.


The last time he ran for the elite four Francois skipped Anistar on principle. He dislike mega evolutions and found its large crystal so gaudy and the gym leader so fake. Yes, he knew Olympia took part in the battle to rescue Kalos, but is in perpetual disbelief of her psychic powers aided by her Meowstic. He found the whole concept strange. Nevertheless, he knew a psychic gym would prove troublesome for his team and to properly account for psychic types, he needed a real challenge for Blaziken. Of course Snowbelle would be a breeze for Blaziken, but due to its distance away, it would be close to around the time for the Lumiose Conference anyway.


Nevertheless, he wandered over to the nearest pokemon center to heal his hurt team. As he was walking the sidewalks through the city, in a hidden alleyway, in the shadow a of a dumpster was a small metal thing peeking out, hurt and cold. It hid quickly behind the dumpster as Francois walked past. It seemed to be looking for someone but was not sure if Francois was one he was. It had some sort of intuition, though, as it peeked from behind the dumpster again after Francois passed. The little metal thing made of blades walked fast, but carefully so as to no not make too much noise from its clanging appendages to get a better idea of where Francois was going.


In the pokemon center, Francois was relaxing in the waiting room, waiting for his pokemon to be healed. He was impatiently tapping the ground with his feet and was getting more and more antsy to leave. He wanted to win he needed to defeat Alain. Trainers went by, left and entered, all weary and happy that their pokemon were being restored or healed.


Then one girl about Alain’s age with long brown hair, a dull yellow cardigan and a skirt came running in carrying what appeared to be a Togepi wailing in agony, wrapped in clothing with some red stains. She was crying and ran up to the counter. It caught everyone including Francois in the reception room off guard.

“Help me!! My Togepi,” cried the girl to the nurse.


Nurse Joy gasped, “Oh no, what happened?”


The girl was sobbing, “I… I don’t know! I left it for a minute in the park, and, and…”


“We’ll have to give it care immediately! We’ll save the story for later!”


The girl handed the injured baby pokemon swaddled in the blanket to the nurse and out came a Chansey with a stretcher from the back room behind the counter. Nurse Joy turned to the girl; “We’ll handle this from now on! Please wait while we work!” And Nurse Joy went back into the backroom with the stretcher.


The girl was sobbing less now, but noticeably stressed and relieved. The people in the waiting room returned to their normal business. She walked over to the booth opposite of Francois and rigidly sat down. She was still in shock. Meanwhile, Francois was pretending he did not notice anything. A few awkward, silent seconds passed, as she just stared out in front of her while Francois was pretending not to look.


She broke the silence with her face still and her voice somber, “It’s okay. I just hope my little Togi will be fine!”


Francois caved into his humanity and said, “I hope so too! What kind of monster would do such a thing?”


“I…” she stuttered and started sobbing, “I don’t know!”


“Oh no! Uh….” Not knowing what to do in that particular situation, “I’m sure your baby fairy will be fine! You can always trust Nurse Joy!”


Her sobbing lessened and wiped her eyes. “Yes,” she said drearily. “I know.”


Her hair was long and beautiful. This girl reminded her of Jasmine from Olivine city, but wasn’t Johtoese, at all; very Kalosian. “So cheer up! I want to punch whoever or whatever did that to your Togepi!”


Almost chuckling, “No please don’t. I just to go with my Togepi.”


“Ah, well then. I am Francois, by the way.”


“Oh! Well…” she looked both ways looking desperately for a way to escape. Meeting new people was last thing she wanted to do right now.


“Yes?”


Sighing, “Yes, I am Yvonne. I am from Laverre and…”


“And…?”


“Well, that Togepi was very special! Valerie gave this to me after winning a fashion contest!” She burst into tears again. “But now it might not even live!!! Why did I think to leave it in the park unattended?”


“That might not happen. Togepi is in great care. I’ve been to the park before and let my pokemon play before; we had no problems there. This is strange that something like that ever has happened before. Do you have any idea who or what did it?”


“I don’t know! I did see something metallic and covered in blades run off, but I could have been just scared!”


“Covered in blades?” Those words resonated with Francois, bringing back his memories of defeat against Alain, when his Bisharp managed to destroy his weakened Chandelure. He gasped for a while as he told her, “I’ve had a rather, unfortunate experience with a Bisharp once. It was not pretty. Both it and those Pawniards can be ruthless.” Francois knew that Pawniards were common on route 15, but he never realized that they would be here in the city, as well.


A few more hours passed because everything was delayed due to the injured Togepi demanding the most medical attention. The trainers that had entered after this ordeal were told to go to the other pokemon center nearby. It was then that the Nurse Joy walked out into the waiting room. Yvonne was the first to notice. The nurse walked to where she was standing and with a smile on her face told Yvonne, sat down on the booth and politely said, “Evening! Your Togepi is in excellent care right now. It appears that it was cut very deeply and is resting now. We want to keep your little baby pokemon overnight because we just want to monitor how it is healing.”


“Oh…” The fear in Yvonne’s eyes turned to relief.


“Your Togepi should be good as new by tomorrow! However you’re going to take better care of that poor thing!”


Yvonne bowed her head from embarrassment.


“No worries, though!”


The nurse went back to the counter. The sun had set at this point and Francois was growing hungry. He hadn’t eaten since before Valerie’s fight and thought taking Yvonne out to cheer her up.

He approached her from around the corner and awkwardly told her, “Um hello, I know we just met, but I think considering your recent trauma, that perhaps I could, perhaps treat you to dinner?” To Francois, Yvonne seemed to capture his attention unlike most people below him.


Yvonne blushed, from embarrassment and turned away at the sudden request. “Why is that man so… abrupt? Why would this stranger care so much about me and my situation?”


She was torn. On the one hand Francois’s sudden request reminded that she was hungry, tired, and emotionally drained, but on the other hand she was still on her guard having her only pokemon in the immediate care. For a second she neither responded nor looked at Francois thinking about her response.


“Surely you must be famished,” said Francois with a sense of concern.


Then again she was certainly hungry, but to open herself to another stranger in one day? Francois grew impatience with her indecision and started for the automatic, sliding doors of the pokemon center.


By the time Francois was about to activate the door, Yvonne came running to Francois, exclaiming, “Wait! Why thank you, for your generosity, but--”


“But?”


“--But I just can’t take the generosity of strangers… it is so…”


“Terrifying after the incident?”


Yvonne gasped. How did he know?


“Please,” said Francois reassuringly, “I mean no harm. It will be fun. Your fairy is in good hands.”


His voice was frighteningly reassuring to Yvonne who agreed to go with Francois. When has someone been so kind to me as to off dinner after my poor fairy was injured, she thought. Something in the back of her head was pining for adventure and there was a gut reaction to follow Francois to dinner. Should she trust her instincts and follow this man?


“Well, I thought you would appreciate someone’s offer of generosity when grieving; after all, I heard a saying once about how having a full stomach eases the pain of suffering,” said Francois as he walked to the door.


Yvonne eyed Francois down indecisively as he walked to the automatic doors of the pokemon center. By the time he had reached the sliding doors, she sighed out of frustration, and exclaimed, “WAIT!”


Francois stopped and turned his head back, smirking as he saw Yvonne running to catch up with him.


When Yvonne approached Francois, she said, “I’ll go with you on one condition: this is not a date.” She blushed at her sudden burst of honesty.


Francois was shocked. He calmed down, and said, “Sure, let’s go.”


~~


The autumnal evening in Laverre was brisk and cold. The city was quiet and magical, with the faint image of dead leaves swirling in the streetlights. The mood was quiet and forlorn. Yvonne was clearly worried about her fairy. Perhaps food would help improve their mood.


After passing the alley where the lonely Pawniard peered out to see them passing, the little Pawniard hard his distinctive boots tapping the ground. The little metal creature was quietly waiting behind the same metal dumpster, apparently for his return. Pawniard became excited at the possibility of seeing this person return. The pokemon clanged over to the corner of building near the sidewalk to spy on our protagonist and saw that he had a friend! They were walking away from it unnoticed. It quickly hobbled over behind a street light as quiet as possible but having a body composed of blades, could not help clanging across the sidewalk a little. Francois and Yvonne stopped for a minute, with him looking side to side and back to see what made the noise. The Pawniard noticed and was petrified at the thought of it getting caught.


Francois noticed that there was something there that made the clanging, scuffling noise across the concrete, much to Yvonne’s fear. She was especially weak now having no pokemon. He walked a few paces towards the street light and caught a glimpse of the light reflecting off of Pawniard’s metallic blades. He saw it dart across the sidewalk back into the alley. In the moment in which it was running, did he rust, or, blood on its blade arms? Yvonne let out a scream, and Francois decided not to pursue it. Francois reassured Yvonne that she would be fine.


Francois and Yvonne found a nice fast food restaurant. Good food for cheap. There, Francois told of his victory story, and badge, of Valerie, the crazy incident in the Haunted Manor and saving the Floette, all of which Yvonne was very interested. The best stories she could recount was when she won the Fashion Design Valerie and her line held about a month ago. Hearing Francois’s stories just made her angry wondering she had been doing with her life up to this point! She attended fashion school, idolized Valerie, and won her silly contest, but what else!? She shied away from being a pokemon trainer and always wondered what it would be like! Yvonne remembered the times she spent with her father as a little girl coming home from the Laverre Gym, and saw many powerful battles. She never understood how he was so good at battling. He retired early because of an awful trainer who used his pokemon to injure him and thus forced him to retire early. She remembers that police apprehended the trainer, but are all trainers like that? Why should I trust something so dangerous as a pokemon to care for?

With Togepi, she thought, what kind of creature will it become when it is fully evolved. To raise it right she needed to be with someone who cares about pokemon.


The way back was quieter. Yvonne felt much better having had some food but she felt like she was bursting. Should she tell him? Will she ever meet Francois again?


Before they passed by the alleyway, there was something small, metallic, and glistening in the streetlight. It was the Pawniard. There were clearly some dried blood stains on its blade arms. Yvonne froze, and Francois felt irritated. The Pawniard had an aggressive stance; it wanted to fight. Yvonne looked to Francois speechless and widened her eyes, expecting him to do something. Could it have been the little steel pokemon that sliced her Togepi earlier? It could also be dried trash or something else, as it has been lurking who knows where. Francois thought that this dark creature could be of use. He did remember the painful memory his Chandelure being utterly destroyed by it during his Champion challenge, but never before had he seen such finesse from a pokemon. He remembered he needed to challenge the Anistar gym leader, Olympia, so perhaps, he thought, that such a creature would be a good catch.


Francois noticed the Pawniard was shivering slightly. Was nervous? Excited? Cold? He did not know. Having a pokemon almost designed to be a perfect anti-Pawniard, he decided not to send out his trusted Heisenberg the Blaziken. Blaziken’s near-perfect anti-Pawniard typing would probably prove too challenging to keep the little sucker alive. When he dove for Blaziken’s ball in his belt, it was missing! He remembered that his Blaziken was back at the pokemon center being healed from the fight with Valerie. Francois had not sent Pupitar in his rematch against Valerie because he was afraid of the Azumarill destroyed his team the last challenge. He sent out Pupitar trusting that it can handle a metal claw. Being in a city, he knew he had to be careful so as to not cause too much harm to the surrounding architecture.


When Pupitar materialized from its ball upon command of its trainer, it sighed and released a large puff of air. It was a cocoon ready to thrash around. Upon sight of the Pawniard in its fighting stance, it let out some more compressed air. It did not seem to mind the apparent type disadvantage. Yvonne gasped when she saw that Francois chose to fight with Pupitar rather than Blaziken. His bizarre choice was interesting, but seemed to work.


“Pupitar, weaken the poor thing with a screech!”


Pupitar gave out a muffled grunt of approval. Right as the Pawniard as diving straight at the rock cocoon, Pupitar screamed very loudly, putting the swordsman off guard.


“Fantastic! Use your compressed air to dodge!”


The 300-pound-plus Rock Cocoon shot into the air with a forceful jet of compressed air, causing the Pawniard to run straight into a nearby light pole. Pupitar fell straight back on the concrete on its side, cracking the concrete around him, landing on his side. He launched another jet of air and regained its balance. Pupitar had minor scratches, but was clearly still in good shape.


Yvonne cringed in nervousness right when Pawniard tried to hit Pupitar, thinking that it would be it. But upon seeing how Francois managed to get Pupitar to outmaneuver the pokemon with very little damage, she relaxed a little. Witnessing a wild pokemon battle had never been so… interesting!


“Pupitar, now that the poor thing is weakened, use Thrash and knock him into the pole again. Try not to knock it out,” Francois called out to his rock cocoon. It gave another muffled huff of approval, leaned towards the Pawniard, released a jet of air and dove for the creature. Pawniard was still straightening itself out from the hit into the poll and when Pupitar landed, it used its momentum smash it into the light pole. The pole vibrated and the light flickered.


“Pupitar, that’s good, move away so I can catch the swords creature!”


Pupitar puffed another jet, obeying its trainer, and jumped away from the Pawniard. By now the Pawniard was on the ground, but hobbling to get up. It was on its last leg. Yvonne was dumbfounded on how such a simple, normal typed move would deal so much damage to the poor Pawniard. Francois threw an empty pokeball at the creature and it dematerialized into the ball.


The pokeball closed, with its central button glowing red. It shook once, twice, thrice, and then the glowing red light in the button turned white. Francois had captured the Pawniard! Yvonne was astonished. She’d never seen a trainer catch a pokemon before. She had seen many battles but never seen a trainer in the making. She wanted to see more from Francois.


~~


On the way back to the pokemon center after the Pawniard capture, it was completely night and lights were on in the streets. The pokemon center’s lit glass doors were shining in the distance. Its silhouette illuminated by the streetlight.


There was a moment of silence and then Yvonne stopped, throwing Francois off guard. “Francois, I know I just met you, but, I’ve never done anything risky in my life and I want to go on a pokemon adventure with you! I want to go to Anistar City, Dendemille Town, see the shining lights of Lumiose City! I want to see a Kalos Queen Performance! I… My father was the previous gym leader of Laverre City and I never understood how a trainer and pokemon operate in sync with one another! If I ever want to be the top fashion designer of Kalos, I’ll need to know how to connect with the thing I love most after clothing: pokemon! Oh, please can I go with you?”


“And how would wandering with me, a trainer who is very impulsive, stubborn, and bold to someone who is so quiet, delicate and kind?”


“When I saw you caught that,” Yvonne cringed a little at the thought of Pawniard hurting her Togepi, “pokemon, I saw that you and your pokemon were working in sync. I… I’ve never seen such confidence before!”


“Well, surely there are other trainers…”


“No! Since graduating the fashion academy, I have been struggling to find work! Yes, even after I won my contest! Ever since my initial success I have been mindlessly wandering the fashion world You’re the only trainer I’ve met who has given me a sense of protection, while your actions are risky and bold, they are clearly giving you the rewards of your energy spent. My dad would be so proud to see a trainer like that!”


Francois was confounded. He did not know how to respond to why this girl wanted to go on an adventure with him so suddenly. He shook off her monologue like she was crazy and carried on as normal.


After her profuse exclamation, Yvonne felt especially embarrassed unloading like that in front of a semi-stranger. It was quiet on the way back. Yvonne knew she blew it. They entered the pokemon center and without a word Francois went to the front desk to retrieve his pokemon who were just healed and dropped off his newly obtained Pawniard to be healed.


Yvonne waited patiently by the door. As he left, he said without making eye contact to her, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning after you pick up your Togepi.” He promptly left.


Was this it? Was she really going to go on an adventure? For the first time in her life something magical happened that night for the first time outside the world of fashion. She was beginning to wonder: was this all a dream or was this a set up? Would he suddenly change his mind and forget about her? Yvonne, despite achieving such a prestigious award, knew very little friends as she was mostly focused on her studies. Often she would have girlfriends like any other girl her age, but something about Francois interested her and she wanted to find out more about this man and wondered what he said was true and the other part exaggeration.


Yvonne had a naive facade but she was intelligent on the inside. She could spot a bad character from far away, but with Francois she needed to be extra careful not to let her guard down. He hated getting stepped on and learned to fight back in fashion school. Yvonne just wanted to know how people connect with their pokemon so well. Often she viewed her Togepi as a toy, a trophy, rather than a living, breathing thing and now when it got heart and after Francois battle so seamlessly with his Pupitar, she wondered how badly out of sync she is with her Togepi.


~~


The following day, was cool and crisp like any other. It was brisk and sunny and generally great for picking up on the adventure. Francois was right on time, just like he said. Upon entering the pokemon center he could see Yvonne sitting on one of the couches opposite of the reception desk. He was surprised that she found a way to return to her home after the ordeal last night. She was wearing new clothes and looked refreshed. She was sitting in the waiting area with here pitifully bandaged Togepi swaddled in what appeared to be a small blanket. It was napping peacefully in her arms.


We walked by the waiting area close to Yvonne and said, “Morning,” sternly.


“Oh hi!”


She jumped as she was focusing all of her attention on Togepi. She seemed lost in thought before Francois caught her attention.


“Hi, Francois, are you ready?”


“Almost, I must pick up my Pawniard. How is your little one?”


“Oh, you mean Togepi,” she asked turning towards her sleeping egg pokemon. “She’s doing fine. Nurse Joy said that she suffered many cut wounds from a steel blade about the size of a Pawniard’s.” She looked at Francois, and said morosely, “I think it was the Pawniard you caught who did this to her!”


Francois did not know to respond. “Well it simply could be any Pawniard! They are commonly found on the route 15, the route we need to travel through to get to Dendemille and eventually Anistar City.”


“Right, I guess you’re right…”


“It is just so insensitive that you caught the kind monster that cut my poor baby!”


“And you didn’t that that I had had my reservations with its evolution, Bisharp, as well!? The CHAMPION of Kalos defeated me with a Bisharp! I caught it because I know it is a powerful pokemon!” Francois was shouting now and turning heads from the people in the pokemon center. Francois noticed and sighed. Much more quietly, he said, “Please, part of being a pokemon trainer is letting go of a past and having trust in your pokemon. Pokemon who trust their trainers do not disobey their trainers. If you don’t want to travel with me, then stay here in Laverre all alone. The Fashion market is in a bit of a crunch here and your opportunities lie in Lumiose if that is what you so desire. Now I have a pokemon to pick up.”


Francois walked stormed over to the counter. Yvonne felt especially torn, knowing that her Togepi was in danger from Francois’s brashness and carelessness or a life of desperate boredom. He was right; the fashion market in Laverre was struggling to remain competitive with the Lumiose market and staying here would mean even less job opportunities for Yvonne. She knew she was not going to be a trainer forever, but this was her one chance to leave Laverre City and see the rest of Kalos. Besides there are pokemon centers along the routes, right? And there are police officers, right? So if Francois or one of his pokemon were to lash out violently against her or Togepi she would have some means of escape, right? This decision was the most important in her life. She was not dropping her career at all, but she desperately needed a break from the fashion industry.


Yvonne blurted out, turning to Francois who just started walking towards the front desk, “Ok, fine!” She sighed, quieter this time, “I’ll go with you. Now get your pokemon from the Nurse and I’ll be waiting for you out the door.”

~~~


Yvonne did what she said and when Francois returned with his healthy pokemon, the nodded and left. Her Togepi was still snoozing; they must have given it a lot of painkillers in the center. Yvonne clearly thought that was better than having to stay awake in pain. The two trainers were off on their own pokemon adventure!


Chapter 2: Route 15: The Road to New Beginnings!


As Francois and Yvonne passed by the outskirts of the town, along the eastern routes, clearly demarcated as the way for foot-passing trainers, Yvonne told Francois to stop. The road was on a high hill overlooking the city. Togepi had awoken by now from its long nap but didn’t mind Francois. Her arms were folded, tightly holding the egg fairy. Yvonne was staring out, looking at the most familiar place she knew and saying goodbye to it. Francois knew she was having an emotional moment, and did not question it.


A tear rolled down one her eyes, and closed them tight, fighting the tears back. Yvonne pulled herself away, and charged forward in the opposite direction of the town without a word. Francois was confused at first, but quickly realized it was her way of saying it was time to go and followed her. An easterly, autumnal breeze whipped by as our heroes stepped foot onto the following route. Yvonne reassured herself that the future held many great things and there was no holding back.

~~


The hilly, autumnal path through the woods was certainly quiet yet enjoyable. Yvonne held Togepi in her arms at all times as they walked along the trails meandering through the maze of orange and brown brush. Togepi, despite being injured, seemed to be having a wonderful time enjoying nature as it passed, sitting comfortably in its trainers arm. Occasionally it would see something pretty and cream at it like a toddler begging their parents, but was usually a passing thing and our heroes would continue on.


They camped overnight as they did not quite make it to the nearby Pokemon center along the route in the time that they had anticipated. Francois was upset that Yvonne simply could not keep up to desired travelling pace but nevertheless, resigned as the health of her Togepi mattered the most in this situation. Luckily, Yvonne brought her own camping gear with her which included an inflatable tent and other things. Francois was rather relieved knowing that he was not required to sleep in a tent alongside his travelling buddy.


The night fell and everyone went to sleep. Togepi was nestled along with Yvonne in her normal swaddling clothes next to her sleeping bag. There was a zippable door to her tent and it was zipped shut to ensure that Togepi would not run off in the night. The little creature had a naturally strong, unwavering sense of curiosity and was surprisingly brave for something that small sized.


The hatchling pokemon could not sleep. It tossed and turned in its blanket thinking about seeing that Pawniard in the park. How it looked into its eyes and sliced it across its belly. It almost cried. The poor thing turned to see its trainer soundly asleep and it was terrified.


It remembered how it ran off in the park on that day, seeing something curious. It was definitely something green. While Yvonne was off reading a book, Togepi was left to play in the sandbox for other pokemon. There were no others that day and felt particularly lonely. There was a curious green thing with some pink horns hiding off in the bushes around the sandbox and playground and the little spike ball saw it and went to investigate. When the little spike ball hobbled out of the sandbox, and decided to check the bushes it was not there. It was baffling to the little fairy that was determined to figure it out. It left a trace of some white fur, and well being a spike ball with small, tiny arms, could not to pick it up and examine it any further. It definitely was some sort of fabric that was caught on some of the brambles of the bush. It hobbled around the park area looking for any other possible signs of that green hair and pink horn, but it could not find any trace. It wandered around some more, while its trainer had not even noticed.


After searching for a while, the Togepi remembered it got lost in the park searching for that mysterious green creature. It was just too curious not ignore it! In fact, the little Togepi thought it could not have gone too far away from that bush. It could not have. It found itself in a secluded, area of this city park in what appeared to be a maze of bushes very far away from its distracted trainer. It was nice for the little creature to temporarily get away and enjoy the world, but it soon grew worried and wanted to go back. Before anything it saw a something else rustling in the bushes to its side and went to investigate. It saw something red peeking out so maybe it was that green creature with the red horn?


It waddled over to that location and investigated. As it approached the bushes a red, silver and dark gray creature, covered in blades with an angry expression hopped out of the bushes, pointing its steel blade arm at the fairy. It huffed aggressively, freezing the little hatching in fear. It appeared angry like it was looking for something. Its intense glare meant that it was serious. The poor little Togepi did not know what to do. For a moment they both stood there, the Pawniard was expecting it to flee, but it the hatchling did not bother. The Pawniard swiped the air as a warning signal to back off, but the Togepi was too naive to really understand that that meant. To it, it was attacking it.


It reflexively tried to cover itself, but failed because of its stubby arms and cried out in a high pitch loudly and the Pawniard grew nervous. To try and calm it, it approached Togepi, but it interpreted it as a way of attacking it causing it to cry even louder, and started squirming hoping to fight it off. The Pawniard tried to calm it down by resting a blade arm on but wound up slicing it across the belly, leaving some blood on its blade. It quickly withdrew terrified that the screaming baby was not screaming even louder and was bleeding profusely. The Pawniard quickly fled back into the bushes as its trainer came over quickly and found the poor thing in that state, baffled about what happened. The Pawniard could see the worriedness of its trainer and the harm that it caused. It was guilty.


Perhaps it should go outside and walk around to help calm its nerves?


The little thing lost itself the last time and it got hurt, but with its attacker in Francois’s pokeball, surely it must be all right? It quietly hobbled out of its blanket and felt the chill cold of the autumn night. It was dark and chilly. It was starting to approach the middle of November and the nights clearly felt like it. Winter was certainly coming soon. The hatchling hobbled over to the tent door without stirring its trainer. It had healed enough by now to walk, and felt no pain; the bandages now were mere clothing now rather than protective of healing wounds. Using its teeth, as its hands and arms were too stubby and far apart, the Togepi lifted the zipper handle with its teeth on the tent door just enough for it to squeeze through.


The campsite was dark. There were a few remaining embers in the fire pit but otherwise all was still and calm. The bandage-laden Togepi waddled to the embers of the campfire and looked at for a while trying to warm itself from what was left.


Much to its disappointment, there really was not enough heat left to be warming. It hobbled near a large rock Francois used as a chair when they lit the fire earlier that evening and firmly sat itself on it. It took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. A few minutes passed and it was starting to grow cold.


It got up from its improvised chair and started wandering around Yvonne’s tent aimlessly, thinking that it could warm itself. It made sure to be super quiet not to wake its trainer. After about half a minute or so, the poor thing started getting hungry. Its belly ached. It was late and it did not have much to eat for dinner earlier because it was not hungry from the pain of its injuries. Togepi saw Francois put the leftovers in his gear inside his tent. Was it worth the risk trying to sneak into his tent and grab a bite to eat and not get caught?


The little egg creature waddled over to Francois’s tent and found that it was zipped from the inside. No use getting there. Flailing its stubby arms at the zipper did not work either. In a huff, Togepi realized it was not going to get any more food that night without its trainers, unless, it thought, it could find some berries in the woods. Togepi was a bit dismissive about running from camp and knew Yvonne, but what it runs off in the woods for a few minutes would scold it? Just to find a berry or two?


The Togepi wandered off into the dark, surrounding woods. Earlier that day it saw a really interesting green pokemon with a pink horn, maybe it would run into it again? After about a minute or so of wandering in the nearby woods outside from the campground, the campsite was fading faster into memory. The world looked fascinating to the little fairy. The trees were so tall, going off into the misty blackness of the night sky, stars peeking out from behind the trees. It was a truly magical time to be awake even if it did not understand it. From the view of the happiness pokemon, no matter how small something is, every living thing mattered.


As it waddled through the woods, the late night crickets chirped and the underbrush felt damp. It went deeper, and deeper, well insofar as normal walking distance for a human, but for an injured Togepi, this was a great distance. The campsite was still off in the dark distance, invisible due to the large bushes lining the campsite. The part of the wood Togepi was walking was on a slight decline and had a clear enough path that it could roll down and not stop for a while. Best not to trip, it thought. The roots on the forest floor hidden by the dead leaves slick with dew were especially meddling. Occasionally the poor little Togepi would trip on one of those hidden roots but it would be able to pick itself back up. It saw a small tree in the faint moonlight that there were large spherical objects in a small tree ahead and wondered if that was the berry tree it was looking for all along.


Togepi laid face to the ground in the damp leaves staring at its target. Alas maybe it would find some needed midnight sustenance! The tree only looked like it was twenty feet away, a satisfying challenge for the infant fairy. Togepi picked itself up, determined as ever, ignoring the damp leaves and dirt plastered over its body from its fall. It took one valiant step forward over the trifling tree appendage and unceremoniously lost its balance and tumbled on its back. Being mostly an egg, the Togepi turned and turned like an overturned tortoise desperately rocking itself to gain the needed momentum to overturn itself back into sanity. Unfortunately for the Togepi, the forest floor was too slippery and by squirming uncontrollably to reposition itself properly, it started to roll ever so slightly down the slope of the hilly forest floor. It was crying for help, but no avail the fairy’s plea echoed off into the distance, unheard.


Back at the campsite, the little fairy did scream loud enough for at least one creature to hear: back in Francois’s tent, Francois summoned the Pawniard out to sleep outside his pokeball with its newfound trainer to bond, and was fortunately, a light sleeper. Earlier that evening, the Pawniard tried to bond with the Togepi, but it cried before the campfire at the sight of its appearance. The baby pokemon still has not forgiven that Pawniard’s cruel act against the Togepi.


On that fateful day in the park, it remembered that it was hunting for those two evil, psychic creatures. It had gotten word that from the Ruins of the Lost Hotel, which they had managed to escape their holdings and find their way to cause all sorts of chaos in Laverre city. It was only trying to protect the Togepi from harm. The Ralts were looking for that Togepi.


The Pawniard knew there must be some way for it to win its trust and friendship. The Pawniard awoke to the sound of Togepi’s faint cry off in the distance. Francois was sleeping soundly in his sleeping bag and apparently was too tired to be awoken by the disruption. Knowing that its blade arms are fully sharpened it had really no way to safely nudge its trainer awake other than make a petulant noise itself. It scratched one of its blade arms on its body and made an awful screeching noise that very quickly awoke his trainer.


Sitting up, annoyed, and reasonably surprised, and clasping his hears shut, he screamed “WHAT, Pawniard; what?”


Calming down and lowering his hands as his Pawniard stopped screeching, Francois continued drowsily, “Pawniard, what is it?”


Pawniard danced, shivered, and pointed one of its blade arms in a strange direction, clearly referencing something beyond his tent.


He asked, “Is it something outside?”


Pawniard nodded. He found his jacket, socks and shoes and put them on. He unzipped his tent, peeked out and saw the campsite undisturbed. He looked at his Pawniard with weary confusion and the Pawniard insistently pointed out.


“Fine, I’ll have a look. I don’t know what you want me to see, but I check if the coast is clear. I hear there are many bear pokemon at night that we should be aware of, but I know Pangoros aren’t found around here.”


Francois walked around the campsite to investigate to see if any potentially dangerous pokemon have wandered here. The coast appeared clear. Apparently Yvonne had not heard Pawniard’s screech. She must have been sleeping very soundly as this was really her first day of true exercise. Francois wondered how she even made it this far and if she will be able to maintain the pace he intended.


He turned to his Pawniard, and said, “I don’t think there is anything potentially hazardous around here. Why don’t you keep watch and tell me if you see something?”


Francois retreated back into his tent to return to his peaceful, uninterrupted slumber. Pawniard dutifully saluted him like a soldier as its trainer retreated back to bed.

~~


The Togepi rolled uncontrollably down the hill, gradually picked up momentum, scratching itself on the under brush, getting covered in the slick mud, and freezing. It would up rolling into the base of a large oak tree at the bottom of the hill. There it cried and cried. It was cold, wet, tired, hurt, and hungry. Why did it do such a thing? At least the crash had allowed the Togepi to figure out a way to stand up, but it was much too tired to climb up that hill, so it sat under the shelter of the tree. No use crying, as it would only attract unwanted attention.


It became drowsy sitting all alone in the forest. No one and nothing were around the dense blackness of the night. As it was blinking in and out of slumber, a flash of light brought it to attention! What did it see? It looked both ways and should see two small green and white creatures, each having two red horns, had a body the shape of an hourglass, they were about its height standing on the roots of the trees staring next to it. They were silent. There was a glowing, white aura that surrounded each of them. The disappeared for a moment, which confused the baby and reappeared on some low branches of trees nearby, looking straight at the fairy. Togepi was surrounded. In unison, they looked up and then off in the near distance the fairy heard leaves rustling. Something was coming!


In a matter of moments, the rustling grew louder and from the dark emerged five large darkish scorpion-like insects, with large fangs and each had a tail that hovered over its head with a huge, single barb. Their eyes looked larger than their head and they all appeared to be very angry. They surrounded and cornered the fairy into some large roots at the base of a huge oak tree. They slowly approached the baby fairy. The Togepi was terrified. It screamed its loudest it could possibly muster.

~~


Back at the campsite the Pawniard on guard sat sleepily on a log beside the dead campfire. It was about to give up and turn in for the night when it heard a long, drawing scream, much like it heard before, but only as a faint echo, off in the distance. The Pawniard knew that scream was Togepi’s and he knew it was in danger! Could it be in the hands of the evil Ralts duo, the same duo?


Luckily the scream was long and drawn out so he could race to find its location before it was too late. Pawniard adeptly ran through the forest, dodging the tangled roots, and the wet ground unlike its fairy compatriot. In a matter of minutes it could locate the tree in which the Togepi crashed into. Pawniard saw the gang of Skorupi batting their tails and hissing at the hatchling. The two Ralts controlling the Togepi took notice of the blade creature and stared right at it. Soon, four of the five Skorupi, under the spell of the two Ralts, turned around to face the Pawniard, who was in battle position and ready to fight. The Togepi off in the distance cried at the sight of his arrival, but was clearly scared and even more confused. The one in front of the Togepi threatened its movement with a loud hiss, essentially paralyzing it in fear.


Soon, four, entranced Skorupi surrounded Pawniard. It was ready for some heavy fighting. Pawniard made a swing at the Skorupi closest to him, but it dodged it and the three behind him tackled the steel monster, causing him to fall over. He struggled for a while as they tried to dig their tail pincers into his metallic body. Being made of steel, and having the ground be slick let him side from their grip. He slid a while, which his chest blades kept him from going too fast, however, and he quickly hopped back on his feet and dove into the confused pile of poisonous insects, slashing them at the center. He managed to knock off one Skorupi, but the telekinetic energy emanating from the controlling Ralts kept it from going too far. It was clear that the bugs were suffering from the intense psychic pain. But the two psychic little ones were clearly focused and remained on the offensive.


After Pawniard swung at the Skorupi, it had to immediately turn around and dive back again knocking a second one away, but they would just return and tackle the metal creature. Skorupi after Skorupi, they simply wouldn’t back down! He needed help! The two Ralts commanding this brutal fight appeared to be entertaining and they have consistently kept the psychic pressure, after all they both appear to intend on wearing Pawniard’s energy down over time, rather than putting it out of its misery quickly.

~~


Yvonne was sleep talking some gibberish while tossing around sleeping in her sleeping bag. She suddenly woken up, stating drowsily, “OH! Where’s…”


She looked over to her side and noticed that Togepi was missing and that the zip-able door had been open wide enough for it to escape. She screamed.


Panicking, “Oh, no!! Oh no! Where is Togepi? I hope he didn’t run off!!!”


She got out of her sleeping bag, found her shoes and slipped them on. She was wearing warm pajamas and didn’t care enough to put socks on before putting on her boots. She promptly left her tent and ran over to Francois, screaming, “Francois!! Wake up!!! There’s an emergency!”


She could hear shuffling emanating from his tent and then heard a, “What, what is it?”


“Togepi is missing! I think he ran off!!! Oh no what have I done!!”


There was more shuffling coming from inside his tent. Soon his door opened, he had messy bed head and he wore an expression of acute alertness. He stepped out of his tent and walked around, also looking for something. He also was in his pajamas and wearing his boots without socks.


He turned back to Yvonne and said, “Oh my! I believe that my Pawniard ran off as well! He woke me up earlier thinking something was off, but I thought you had Togepi with you when you were sleeping! I told Pawniard to keep watch. He must’ve ran off as well! Perhaps if you were more responsible with your Togepi, then maybe we wouldn’t have been in this situation!”


Yvonne burned in resentment, “How! You…! I had no control over Togepi’s actions while sleeping! You had every reason to keep watch and look for him when your Pawniard woke you up!”


Francois retorted, “As if I had any idea that your precious Togepi was missing!”


Both were glaring each other down when off in the distance a high-pitched scream echoed from the distance, grabbing both of their attention.


“Did you hear that!? Do you think that could have been Togepi!?”


Francois looked at Yvonne directly. “Probably. We need to check it out!”


Yvonne added, “Togepi couldn’t possibly have run off that far.”


France, “yes, now we must go to search for them!”


The two darted off in the direction they thought the scream came from. There was an intense focus in both of them embarrassed at their own negligence for watching their own Pokémon. It wasn’t long until both of them caught a visual of the battle between Pawniard and the four Skorupi down below near the base of a forested hill. Francois only had time to grab two of his pokeballs in addition to Pawniard’s before running off. He opened one and his Noivern materialized from the ball.


“Ah, bien!”


Francois was happy that he randomly picked up Noivern’s ball! He commanded his bat dragon to swoop down and help his Pawniard out. His Noivern let out a, “Noiii!” in agreement and swooped down to the scene. Noivern dove deep down into the scene. The two Ralts watching from afar took notice but maintained their mind control on the four helpless bugs.


With a great flapping of its wings, blew the four bugs back enough for Pawniard to breathe as it was pinned down to the ground. The two Ralts’ mind control petered out while they flew back. Pawniard got up on its feet and shook off whatever damages the bugs had dealt to it and it was then that Noivern quickly realized that Pawniard could handle itself and let Pawniard resume fighting and swooped over to the Togepi in danger. The Togepi was clearly happy to see Noivern come and protect it while Pawniard fought off the bugs. Meanwhile, Francois called out his next pokemon, not really knowing which one it was for, and Pupitar materialized, much to Francois’s disappointment. He had hoped it would be his Blaziken who would set all of those insects on fire.


He sighed and commanded the rock cocoon to help out with the pressing issue currently at hand. The cocoon huffed in agreement and shot a current of air, landing directly on a Skorupi. It yelped and was knocked out upon impact. This sent a little shock to one of the Ralts who was mind controlling it. They looked at each other, very sure they were about to leave and from the corner of their eye say Francois carefully walking towards the scene and in sight to see them. They both panicked and immediately cut off ties with the remaining three bugs and disappeared quickly in small flash of psychic teleportation energy.

Back at the scene of the battle, Pawniard was delivering blow after blow onto each bug. With the fourth down it was much simpler for it handle. The bugs seemed to be much at a much lower level than it, which made them in numbers tiresome while individually no problem. But just as the three Skorupi, with Noivern and Pupitar eyeing carefully at the situation, cornered him on the tree below one of the Ralts ready to intervene if necessary. They were mostly curious in Pawniard’s ability to perform under pressure and continued to watch it unfold. When suddenly, the three bugs stopped, confusing all of the combatants. They shook their heads as if they were confused, squabbled around randomly, calmed down and turned to evaluate the situation. Once they saw Pawniard, Noivern, and Pupitar ready to pounce they became noticeably frightened and ran off to nearby bushes.


Soon after Francois with Yvonne following him appeared from the tree behind Pawniard, confused.


Francois was shocked at the sight of the metal creature “Pawniard?”


Looking to Noivern, he saw the missing Togepi. He pointed to the tree and Yvonne darted to the tree, picked up the tearful fairy, asking where it has been profusely crying out that she missed it. Slowly walking over to Yvonne, Francois saw his Pupitar on the crushed, but barely alive, Skorupi and commanded Pupitar to get off the pinned insect. Pupitar did as Francois said and sent a large gush of air, propelling it about a meter away, landing nicely. The compressed air also pushed the fainted Skorupi directly against the tree Togepi was huddled against. Once he reached the tree, he recalled Noivern back into its pokeball, thanking it.


He turned to look at Pawniard who was nervously awaiting punishment from its trainer. Instead, Francois called out to it, “Thank you Pawniard! If it weren’t for you I… I might not have found Yvonne’s precious Pokémon! I was silly to think that nothing was wrong! While you did scare me, I am proud that you stuck to your guns to rescue Togepi! Have a good rest!”


He took out Pawniard’s pokeball and recalled him from a distance, and placed it back on its belt. As he grabbed Pupitar’s pokeball he heard an immediate rustling in the nearby bushes in which the three Skorupi fled. He hesitated and Pupitar let out another gust of compressed air which lifted him up and fell right on its feet in front of Francois ready to defend.


From the bushes came a large, purple and black monster with huge eyes and giant, ribbed arms protruding from its head. It has a long, fat tail and short bug-like legs, all of which had sharp needles at their end. Francois scowled in disgust while it let out an angry shriek. It rotated its head and flexed its arms. Togepi in Yvonne’s arms started squirming and crying loudly.


“Hello, we mean no harm.”


It continued flexing its arms and shrieking. Looking around for possible reasons as to why this thing was so angry, Francois could barely see that there was a Skorupi that was attacked by his Pupitar.


Meanwhile, the two Ralts from before reappear in the trees behind Francois, looking carefully at the situation, safely on some high, hidden branches. They at least appeared on the outside emotionless, as if they were observing something scientifically, quite strangely for members of their kind being the Emotion Pokemon.


The Drapion let out another cry and ran to the Pupitar, swinging its arm like appendages at it. Pupitar braced itself before hit brutal swing and as it hit, Pupitar started glowing white shocking the Drapion. Francois moved back a few steps to make sure he wasn’t being hit as well. Suddenly Pupitar’s white, glowing body enlarged and morphed into something much taller than François, it has a triangular body and a spikey tail. It was evolving into Tyranitar! The creature stopped glowing and a Tyranitar materialized with its green and black patterned body, small head, and sharp claws, ready to att. It lead out a loud roar which shut the crying Togepi in Yvonne’s arms up. It slammed its tail on the ground, shaking nearby trees, leaves and twigs fell onto everything including Yvonne, the two hidden Ralts and the combatants. There was a noticeable shake up in the trees surrounding of smaller forest pokemon fleeing the scene.


Francois was excited that his Pupitar had finally evolved! For ages he had tried to get it to evolve but to no avail. Now, he had finally something useful at his disposal.


“Tyranitar, use Thrash!”


And in just that the rock monster grabbed the scorpion and flung it around, hard, tackled it, and slammed it against the tree next to its dead baby. Yvonne had to vacate hiding behind the tree and ran off behind Francois just as Tyranitar slammed the angry Drapion into the tree.


The two Ralts were eyeing the scene with mild amusement. They both snickered as it was mutilated. They appeared to enjoy the suffering of members of the poison type get hurt, being fairies.


Meanwhile, Togepi normally fixated on the scene heard that snickering from afar and started crying and pointing into the bushes.


“What is it Togepi?” she asked.


Togepi chirped about three times, and wagged its stubby arms by the bushes the two Ralts were hiding in. It started squirming as if it wanted to be let go. Yvonne didn’t know what to do. She could clearly see that the Togepi wanted to get down and knew that something was in the bushes, but she also just found the fairy after being lost in the woods.


“Togepi,” she said firmly. For a second her Togepi stopped to hear what her trainer told her, “if I let you go, I will follow you. I don’t want you getting lost again! You worried me sick! Okay!”


Togepi grunted in agreement. Yvonne carefully placed her down. The fight was still raging between the Drapion and the Tyranitar. They both seemed equally matched against each other and were equally determined to win. It grew tiresome for Yvonne to watch and she wanted something more interesting to find.


Togepi waddled fast for something its sized and by the time Togepi went to the bushes the two Ralts were hiding in, they were gone! Togepi let out a cry of disappointment as Yvonne picked it up and comforted it in her arms, “I’m sure whatever was there is gone now, ok?”


It growled in agreement. It knew it was on to something but just missed it again! Togepi knew it had to look harder.


Nevertheless, the two Ralts reappeared at the scene in their original branches where they mind controlled the four Skorupi. Upon teleporting, they caused a stir in the branches which Togepi heard. Togepi yelped again, wagging preciously at the branches that move. “What did you see?” Yvonne asked, “another Pachirisu running in the branches?”


Togepi was disgruntled by that response. Yvonne said, “Oh, ok Togepi I’ll check it out.”


Francois was too busy battling to take notice of what was happening with Yvonne and Togepi. The matter with Drapion and Tyranitar was simply too pressing and serious. Yvonne leaned down to get a better view of the branches in questioned and quietly snuck up on them. From a distance she did see two small, odd creatures with horns peering at the scene. “How strange,” she thought, “Togepi was right, all along, but what do they want or see in us?”


Togepi chirped in excitement at the fact that finally someone understood what it was talking about and it had finally seen what had been stalking it all this time! Yvonne quickly shushed it because she didn’t want to get found out, but it was too late and just when she looked up the two Ralts had vanished from the trees. They were standing in front of Yvonne and Togepi with a sinister look on their faces, definitely odd considering they were baby psychic pokemon that can read people’s feelings. Yvonne cried for help but Francois was too engrossed in his own battle to hear.


The two Ralts hummed and a white light shown around Togepi hoisting it out of her arms. Togepi started creaming and crying while Yvonne desperately held on to her baby fairy. Luckily their psychic energy wasn’t strong enough to completely break through a human’s full strength of resistance. Yvonne screamed out of pain as she struggled to keep Togepi from entering the two evil Ralts’ grasp, when suddenly one of Francois’s pokeballs on his belt burst open with another white light and Pawniard materialized from its ball!


Pawniard let out a cry and pointed its blade arms to the baby fairies. Yvonne saw that Pawniard materialized and screamed, “Pawniard, can you please help us! Keep these Ralts from taking my poor Togepi!”


The poor Togepi didn’t even notice the Pawniard when it materialized because it was in so much pain. Pawniard let out a huff of agreement and charged directly towards the two psychic children.


Meanwhile, Tyranitar and the Drapion were both at their wits end, since both were lacking moves that would be essential toward either’s defeat, they were almost at a stand still. The thrashes Tyranitar dealt weren’t strong enough and Tyranitar naturally resisted everything Drapion could do, minus a Brick Break, or Earthquake, but this clearly was a wild Drapion and had no access to such moves.


Francois called out to it, “We are terribly sorry for disturbing you and rest assured, I have my Noivern ready to fight you at any moment. Please, just let us be!”


The Drapion was still angry, but it also have appeared to have calmed down a bit to allow for more reason.


“What I did to your Skorupi was unforgivable, but we truly meant no harm. Please take your young and go. We want to rest and move on.”


Tyranitar had its gaze locked on. It had more fighting left. The parent was tired and resigned with a large sigh. It picked up its severely injured infant and walked off in the bushes. Francois recalled his Tyranitar, praising its endurance and turned to see Pawniard attacking to Ralts, and Yvonne and Togepi covering from it.

He called Tyranitar out again, and commanded to get a roar. This stopped both Pawniard and the two fairies dead in their tracks. The two Ralts were noticeably terrified and ran off.


After they ran off, Francois asked Yvonne, “What was that?”


“I don’t know,” Yvonne answered, “They seemed to have been following Togepi for ages and had just confronted us now. You were too busy fighting that Drapion to know what happening. Luckily enough your Pawniard came out of your pokeball and wanted to help out!”


Francois looked at the Pawniard again, defiantly leaving his pokeball, also awaiting punishment, “Good job.”


It smiled. “You know,” Francois said to Pawniard, “Why don’t you just walk with me outside our ball. We’ll definitely like to have you around.”


He recalled Tyranitar and helped Yvonne back to her feet.


“Thank you! Oh Francois, let’s get out of here!”


And so the travellers returned back to camp. Just before parting for their tents, Francois told Yvonne, “We’ll find the closest Pokemon center tomorrow. For now, however, let’s get some rest! We all deserve that!”


To Be Continued.

 

Claaaaiiim

 

THE STORY STUFF

There isn’t a central focus to this, which worked for some parts and didn’t for others: the drive of the story is Francois’s titular journey to Anistar, but there’s a lot of sidetracking along the way. Some of these plots had more value/coherency than others. The arc with Yvonne/Pawniard was very tightly-written, for example, and all the events there flowed together pretty smoothly; in contrast, the Drapion fight at the end felt really rushed, and the story’s ultimate antagonist (the pair of Ralts) are only featured very, very late in the story.

There were lots of good things, though! You have a good handle on writing action—the gym battle was well scripted, the general choreography of the various fights was pretty good, and you do a nice job of keeping tension/mystery in the middle of the story.

Some bits, in particular the ending, felt rushed. You have all of this buildup and fighting toward one ending, only to pull an “aha, it’s actually X!” and have the Skorupi appear to cause some more drama, only to pull another “aha, but it’s actually Y” and the Drapion appears, and right when we think it’s over there’s “aha but it’s actually actually Z!” and have it be the Ralts as a pair of masterminds for everything. You have a series of plot twists that don’t really have any forward buildup, so there’s no particular surprise anymore.

Think about big reveals in movies. It’s usually done in such a way that there’s a revelation about an established character or something important to them—in other words, we learn more about something that’s previously been important to the plot. We wouldn’t have really cared if Darth Vader were secretly Stormtrooper 4724’s father, or if Joffrey called for the beheading of a totally random peasant from that arbitrary tavern, or if the seventh horcrux were actually a Subway sandwich. There’s no impact in any of these revelations because we barely know about the object of the revelation, so there’s basically no effect.

Pulling this back to your story: take the introduction of the Ralts at the end, for example. It felt like you were trying to spin it as “oh, these poor Skorupi were actually being manipulated and they aren’t the real villains”, but given that the Skorupi themselves had also just been introduced a little earlier, it really didn’t work. The end result here? There’s no actual development of plot or characters: things get introduced with no payoff, replaced with other things really quickly, and messily herded along. Francois beats a gym leader, but outside of how important that is to him beating Alain later (which we also don’t see discussed much in this story), there’s not much in the way of impact. Yvonne’s Togepi appears and is gravely injured, but then it’s fine by the next day, and that just segues into the next battle. There’s no real weight to anything and nothing sticks because there’s no background to your characters or their motivations.

These rushed emotional stakes-attempted payoffs tie into a lot of elements of your storytelling: the gym battle, Yvonne/Togepi, the quickly-resolved catching Pawniard sidequest, and so on. This story has a more serious tone, and as such your plot points need to have some sort of background before you can start using them to pull huge amounts of weight.


THE NARRATION STUFF

So this is actually one of the more unique uses of narration I’ve seen in a story here. You tend to have a tight focus on Francois’s inner thoughts, but you’ll sometimes pull away from his narration to other character’s minds, which makes an overall quasi-omniscient narrator. WHICH IS PRETTY NEAT.

The thing is, playing with omniscient narrators is rough—no one person knows how the rest of the world works or how everyone else is thinking, so it’s jarring to see this applied in literature, which means you need to approach situations like this very carefully. When you make these breaks out of Francois’s mind and into another’s, you need to ask yourself what that new perspective is saying about the story, what they’re adding, and if they’re contradicting things that Francois is saying or doing. And if it’s the latter, and what that new perspective is doing is putting Francois’s actions into a bad light, that should probably be addressed once we return to Francois, or else the narrative looks hella inconsistent. Let’s take a look at this section:

Francois is narrating. There are a few things presented in these two paragraphs: one, Francois thinks that she’s pretty, and two, that she has verbally expressed only focusing on her Togepi in its time of peril.

Now. Yvonne is narrating. The narration clearly states that she doesn’t want to talk to Francois and she’s “desperately” trying to “escape” this conversation.

Back to Francois, who repeatedly presses her for answers that Yvonne clearly doesn’t want to give (both in her hesitant responses and in her previous narration), and now she’s crying in front of him. And then, a bit later:

Francois narrating again. This gives us a bunch of key information about his character at this point: one, he sees most people as “below him” (and he seems to see Yvonne as below him as well); two, he’s entirely aware of her “recent trauma” and how it must be impacting her; three, he wants to take her out to eat anyway.

Yvonne’s narrating again, and we again get reinforcements that she’s rather uncomfortable with this situation—she’s emotionally drained, she doesn’t want to open up to another stranger, and this guy is being really abrupt about her situation for no reason to her.

And all of this somehow translates into Francois taking Yvonne out to lunch and us expected to see this as a good thing, despite having clear evidence from both Francois and Yvonne that Yvonne doesn’t want to go. This is an interesting way to use multiple narrators here, but I don’t think it really worked—you had Yvonne giving some facts, Francois agreeing with the facts that Yvonne’s narration gave, and then Francois ignoring all the facts that he saw and that Yvonne gave in favor of achieving his goal anyway.

Which, ultimately, makes Yvonne’s portion of the narration basically useless, and actually detrimental to your story: it cements the fact that Francois has no empathy, rather than leaving it up to chance.

Like some of Yvonne’s narration is genuinely concerning and I don’t think this was entirely intentional:

Yvonne says that on some level she’s genuinely terrified of Francois attacking her when they’re alone in the woods together, and she would actually rather face wild, aggressive Pokemon rather than him in that situation, but somehow we the readers are supposed to interpret their decision to travel together as a positive experience.

And this meshing of multiple narrators could’ve worked out really well—maybe you want to portray how both parties are totally misjudging each other, or how Francois is secretly manipulating Yvonne’s clueless nature, or how communication is really subjective, or how your main character is actually a psychopath—but that doesn’t really feel like the story you were trying to tell here. Instead, you seem to use Yvonne’s thoughts as a way to justify Francois’s actions, when they really just throw them into question.

The gist: narration is weird. Having multiple points of view removes any of the fuzziness you could’ve had by having a single narrator, and it casts your characters into a much more difficult, less subjective light. Be exceptionally careful with how you use this—the way you’ve presented it, there’s a ton of dissonance between the Francois you’re trying to present (a charming and talented, if a little impatient, champ-in-the-making) and the Francois that your perspectives actually present (a manipulative monster with no regard for others who somehow gets people to agree with him anyway).


THE PRETTY STUFF

You had some pretty slick details in here. I especially liked the subtle ones, like:

It’s a nice, tiny detail that shows a lot of things—how observant Francois is, how the gym exists, how Valerie battles—all wrapped up in a pretty simple statement of how the gym smells. This was great!

Overall, your description is pretty straightforward. I think you put the most care into describing your battle choreography, and those definitely feel fresh and well-described, but sometimes the other parts of the story feel lacking. The forest is a forest with some trees, the pokemon center is a building, and so forth. And this isn’t necessarily wrong: you’ll obviously focus on the parts of the story that mean the most to your characters, and here, a lot of the importance is on the physical conflict/battle between the pokemon.

Just bear in mind that description needs to be a conscious choice: if you only tell the readers that Yvonne is a girl with brown hair in a cardigan and a skirt, then that’s all the readers will know about her.

Also something you should examine is how you introduce characters/how blatant you want to be with them: the classic debate of showing versus telling. You have a habit of listing some details and then explicitly stating what the conclusion should be, which is a little off-putting: imagine if someone introduced themselves to you and said, “Hi! I have bright blue eyes and wear ribbons, and I’m also a huge menace.”

Things that aren’t available on a cursory glance feel weird when people say it about themselves, but it also feels weird when your narration says it about them—just what about this interaction makes Francois come to this conclusion? Maybe it has pretty pink ribbons that he’s seen it use to choke people, or when it lands on its dainty pink feet the ground shakes from beneath its power—you can tell it however you want, but when the conclusion is a) laid out so blatantly and b) doesn’t really follow any of the build-up, it reads a little strangely.

You end up doing this show/not tell stuff quite frequently, so if you were to focus on any area of your description, I would pick this one—because, when applied ineffectively and excessively, this tell/not show thing leads straight into:


THE DISSONANCE STUFF

Here is Francois talking about pokemon:

Note how, in general, he doesn’t really see them as companions or even as sentient creatures that have any purpose outside of serving him. Francois orders Heisenberg to burn himself up so Francois can win the gym battle. Pupitar is always addressed as ‘it’, and upon evolving to a final form, Francois’s thoughts are not “wow my friend grew so much that’s amazing”, but instead “finally, something useful; this thing has had no value to me before I could use it to beat up things with more power.” He then proceeds to use his friend to unceremoniously murder a baby.

The gist—the details that you’ve shown here? Francois doesn’t think that Pokemon are anything more than glorified tools of war. And that comes across with other things, as well—in the way he describes Valerie’s team as monsters, how he refers to Pokemon/masters, how he states that he captures Pawniard despite it potentially being dangerous because he just sees it as a strong Pokemon, how he describes the worst part of Alain’s Bisharp beating up his Chandelure isn’t his Chandelure getting beaten up, it’s Francois losing. And that’s an okay viewpoint to have, as long as the crux of your secondary character’s conflict doesn’t get expressed as telling us this:

This statement—that Yvonne doesn’t see Pokemon as living things but Francois does—flies straight in the face of everything Francois has done up to this point, and I think it speaks to a key flaw in your narrative style: just because you say something about your characters doesn’t make it true. You’ve spent a fair amount of time building up Francois as a calculating, exacting trainer, and that’s a perfectly fine character to build—but you can’t have him be that and have him be admired by the supporting cast for being the best, kindest trainer on the block who totally views his Pokemon as living, breathing things even though he repeatedly doesn’t.

In short: this also ties back into how you use narrators, but you can’t really go around having characters doing one thing and then have the narrative say something completely different.


THE GRAMMAR STUFF

There were some typos—just remember to proofread your stuff before posting, because too many grammatical errors can detract from the readability of your work. Mostly you had spelling/homonym things, but there’s some misplaced words and such to look out for as well.

In terms of consistent mistakes:

Paragraph spacing—was kinda weird. You had two spaces between each paragraph instead of one, which made the entire story seem really stretched out.

Capitalization—you flip between capitalizing Pokemon/pokemon a lot, and while the debate for capital/no capital is still ongoing. In more specific instances, you flip on pokemon/Pokemon, keep ‘pokemon center’ all lowercase, and capitalize all names. For a more applicable analogy, this is like animal/Animal, animal vet, and then Molly’s Dog vs that Dog—point being that you should pick a convention (capitalize everything/capitalize nothing) and hold it throughout the story.

Dialogue—Overall good punctuation stuff here, but there are some specific cases that you repeatedly messed up:

Non-dialogue sentences (such as ‘Yvonne cringed’) shouldn’t be attached to the rest of the sentence—use hypens and have the quotes separate from the sentences, or have the sentence be a dialogue sentence (like ‘Yvonne said’) like so:

This was your most common mistake. Dialogue is tricky! But the best way to get it right is to practice, so keep reading and writing to get a better idea of what’s commonplace.


THE LENGTH STUFF

Around 72.5k—checks out!

One thing that I would bring up: the overall pacing of your story is pretty good. You keep a tight, focused pace that keeps the emphasis on the action, which is good. But looking back, it’s hard to see the sum of these events as a continuous story.

For me, this divides into two distinct parts: Francois fights Valerie / Pawniard Shenanigans, which have very little connection to each other and overall minimal impact on one another. There isn’t much about the Laverre Gym battle that impacts the story; as soon as its done, we basically never touch back on it, and the Pawniard Shenanigans chunk doesn’t really acknowledge that it existed. Both of these stories could realistically be separate from each other with no real loss to plot/character development—which makes presenting them in this bundle here a little jarring when we transition between them, and even more so when all of the attempted captures mostly appear in the second chunk and the Ralts are basically shoved in at the end.


THE OVERALL STUFF

This was an ambitious capture attempt, both in terms of the scope of the Pokemon you were aiming for and the scope of the story you were trying to write. There was a healthy mix of adventure and nefariousness, but there wasn’t really the development or background to back it up, and the character development was a huge mass of mixed signals. For now, I’m going to say one Pokemon captured. You can decide which one; I think you had the quality here for at least one Hard or Complex capture.

However, moving forward, I think there was a lot of room for improvement:

• Flesh out characters and events before trying to make them mission-critical to the story—incorporate the Ralts better, have each of the events have some actual impact on the story after them, etc
  
• Patch up your narrative dissonance
  
• Reduce the showing instead of telling, or at least tell details that actually align with the rest of the story
  
• Clean up the grammar/remove typos

You don’t necessarily have to address all of these categories in the exact ways that I outlined, but you should heavily revise some aspects of this story in order to get a complete capture. Please reach out to me if you have any questions moving forward!

 

I actually had another leg of the story I chose to cut because of the character length. It directly involved the pair of ralts and how they continue to antagonize Yvonne's Togepi. I think including that in might help...

For now, however, I will claim the pawniard! And I'll get to work on the stuff that you said I should work on.

EDIT: I'm also not quite sure I fully understand your readings of narrative dissonance, but I guess I can work on it :0