Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

The trip back to Jubilife city was thankfully uneventful, although I was starting to struggle to sleep due to... nightmares. Thanks to my almost healed injury, we managed to keep a good pace this time. I kept Togetic out of her ball most of the time so that she could get used to flying, and it looked like she was finally getting the hang of it. There was still a lot of progress to be made in the speed department, but she was at least able to keep her balance now, and she could fly without flapping her wings. I released Frillish less, but I still managed to get him to the lake on route 203, where we stayed for a few hours despite his incessant brooding.

I had started our training back up, and Frillish was finally starting to get the hang of Water Pulse, although it would probably take a week or two to perfect. The trick had been to switch up our approach. Instead of Frillish trying to get him to change the way he released water right away, we were slowly working our way down until the stream became a single ‘pulse’ of water. The problem had been Frillish’s muscle memory. Since he had been using Bubblebeam his entire life, undergoing such a sudden change was too difficult. I also decided that we'd work on Hex later. Togetic’s progress toward Ancient Power and Extrasensory was slower, since we had no base to start up from. Luckily, the mechanism behind both attacks was somewhat similar: she would need to use psychic energy to move things around— in this case, rocks or another Pokemon. Living beings were way harder to lift than objects, and right now, she struggled to lift even a small berry, but I hoped we’d be able to work our way up.

It took three days to get back to Jubilife. When we got back, it was already night time, so I wanted to barge home and surprise my dad. We made our way to my apartment and I sneakily opened the door, took off my dirty shoes, and tip-toed through the hallway toward dad’s bedroom. I put my head against the door and smiled after hearing his loud snoring.

I gestured to Denzel and lifted up three fingers, then two, then one. I barged into dad’s bedroom and jumped on his back.

“Surprise! We’re back!” I squealed.

“Ow, wha— Grace?” He said, beaming. “I wasn’t expecting you until late tomorrow!”

“We made it back faster than we thought we would,” I said as I hugged him. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, kid,” Dad softly said as he caressed my hair. “Hey Denzel, hope you had a good trip back?”

“It was as smooth as it could have been,” He answered.

“Oh, you kids must be hungry. Let me go make something, I have a bunch of stuff in the fridge,” Dad said. “You guys can go shower, because no offense, Grace, but you smell.”

“Why must you wound me so deeply?” I joked. “What kind of girl wants to hear that she smells…”

“The kind that’s getting dirt all over my bed. Shoo! We can catch up later along with your team.”

Dad left his room and started cooking while I went back to my room and emptied my bag.

“You wanna shower first?” I yelled out at Denzel.

“Nah, your house, you go,” He said.

“Gotcha!”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

I quickly grabbed a change of clothes along with my favorite shirt, which was actually my dad’s, and showered. It felt really good being in such cozy clothes after this long. While Denzel showered, I went to see my dad and released Togetic and Frillish.

Togetic flew toward dad and hugged him.

“Prrri! Togetic!” She chirped excitedly.

“There’s my girl! All grown up!” Dad exclaimed. “And the… ghost. Hi.”

Frillish flashed a creepy smile and started slowly approaching my father with a suspicious glint in his eye. Dad screamed like a little girl and ran out of the room with Togetic still in his arms, abandoning his hotpot.

“Dad he’s just playing! Come back!” I said. “And you!” I pointed at Frillish. “Stop scaring my dad.”

Frillish sniggered silently and spun around. I rolled my eyes as dad inched his way back into the room.

“Don’t be a wimp dad, he’s going to keep scaring you if you don’t take a stand,” I explained. “He’s the nicest guy around if you get past his rough and… strange exterior.”

“Tell it to the judge!”

I rolled my eyes and eyed his hotpot. “Whatcha makin’?”

“There’s meat, potatoes, mushrooms, and spinach in it,” Dad said as he tasted it with a small spoon. “Mm, good.”

“Were you expecting people? Why’d you even have all of this?”

“Well, obviously I was expecting you and Denzel, just not today. I already had all the ingredients prepared and cut up.”

“Thank you,” I said, leaning against his shoulder. “I haven’t eaten homemade stuff in so long… I can’t wait.”

“Leave some for tomorrow. Cooking two days in a row is a drag,” Dad said as he played around with Togetic. She flew around his head and grabbed his hair whenever he was distracted.

“I’m a growing girl, I’ve got to eat.”

“I still say that sometimes when I need an excuse to eat a lot before I remember I’m forty-five,” Dad chuckled. “How long will you and Denzel be staying?”

I groaned. “We haven’t even thought about it. A few days at least. I need to restock on potions, Pokemon food, and I want to get the new Poketch. You can pull some strings, right?”

“Don’t say it like I’m being corrupt. It’s just a benefit we get from working at the company,” Dad said. “Also, don’t you want to hang out with your poor old dad?”

“That goes without saying! Let’s go somewhere this weekend!”

We kept talking until Denzel came out of the shower, and then we enjoyed a very nice dinner. That night, I called Denzel to my room to discuss our future plans.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, closing the door. “I want to stay in Jubilife at least for the weekend so I have some time to spend with my dad, but other than that, I have nothing.”

“Well, there’s two ways we could go,” Denzel said. “We could either go to Eterna or try to catch a ferry to Canalave.”

“Thoughts on both?” I asked. I didn’t mind delegating this to Denzel, because he was clearly more knowledgeable than I was regarding gyms.

“Um, Canalave is closer, but we’d have to catch a ferry because Frillish is too small to even carry one of us across the water. It’s closer, but we’d have to pay a hefty cost— although it’s nowhere near as expensive as an airplane ticket. Their gym leader Byron is also one of the older ones, so he’s more experienced and harder to beat no matter what team he uses against you.”

“He’s the steel type leader, right?” I asked, thinking about Togetic and Frillish. “My team is terrible against those.”

Denzel nodded. “Mine isn’t great either. I’m not sure if Double Kick will do the job this time, so I’d rather wait to get more experience as a trainer and catch some new members.”

“So no Canalave then. What about Eterna?” I asked. “I know Gardenia’s the grass type gym leader. They made a whole fuss about her on T.V. when she was confirmed because she’s so young.”

“Correct. Eterna’s pretty far. We have to get through… route 204, the Ravaged Path—”

“The Ravaged Path?” I exclaimed. “What the hell kind of name is that?”

“It’s just what they call that cave because it has another path off route that apparently leads to some dangerous area. We won’t be going there.”

I nodded, and he continued. “When we get out of the cave, we’re on route 204 again and then there’s Floaroma, our first stop. Then there’s route 205, Eterna forest, and finally, we’re there.”

“You make it sound easy,” I mumbled.

“It’ll take two to three weeks of travel, depending on how long we stay at Floaroma. It’s not as bad as it sounds though, the worst part is obviously Eterna forest.”

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s do it. Eterna it is.”

——

The next day was Friday, and while dad went to work, Denzel and I went to the Pokemon mall to restock on supplies and buy whatever else we needed. I browsed the TM store and lamented at my lack of funds. Togetic could learn so many moves through TMs, and yet I couldn’t afford any. Even the more common ones were ludicrously expensive because they were extremely difficult to make. Only one company called Silph Co. knew how, and needless to say, they weren’t going to reveal that secret. But the result was that they could set the price at whatever they wanted, and no one would be able to do anything about it.

I met Denzel outside of the mall, and he greeted me with a fishing rod in his hands.

“What’s that for?”

“Catching water types, what else?” He deadpanned. “I’m going to go to route 218 and try catching my third team member. Hopefully this time it’ll go better than with Budew…” He trailed off.

His Budew was still unusable in battles, and it looked like she was going to be that way for a long time. He couldn’t even bring her out next to me or others because he was scared that she’d attack them, although she seemed alright with Eevee for some reason.

“You’re catching a water type when we established that we were going to Eterna literally yesterday?”

“Grace, Grace, Grace,” Denzel started. “I planned it all out. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not worrying, I’m calling you an idiot,” I said. “But now I’m curious, so I’ll come with you after we drop all of this off. Plus, you might do something stupid like attack a group of five Tentacruel or something, so I have to be there.”

“Touché. Again, I am sorry. I won’t get us in a dangerous situation again.”

“I’m just fooling around, don’t be so apologetic all the time. I already scolded you when it happened, and you clearly took it to heart, so let’s put the Budew incident behind us.”

After getting everything we bought back to my apartment, we took a bus to the gate to route 218 and walked to the small port. Denzel walked up to the pier and sat next to the edge before setting up his fishing rod. He placed a colorful Wishiwashi-looking lure on the hook and started to wait. After twenty minutes, nothing was biting still.

“Maybe the water’s too dirty next to the city,” I said. “Plus, the boats might be scaring the Pokemon away.”

“Dirty is good, but you might be right about the boats. Let’s wait another twenty minutes, and then we’ll move.”

Dirty is good? I thought. Strange.

We ended up moving to an empty pier at the edge of the port and setting up there. After only ten minutes, something bit. Denzel leaned back and reeled in the line as fast as he could before an ugly Feebas jumped out of the water. With barely enough time to spare, he threw a Pokeball at it without even dealing any damage. The Pokeball shook three times, and then stood still.

“That was easy,” I said.

“It took a decent amount of planning,” Denzel said with a smile as he picked up his Pokeball. “First, the location. Feebas are one of the most resilient water Pokemon out there, and they can live basically in any environment, including polluted water. That meant that my odds were higher in a polluted body of water than anywhere else because other Pokemon would stay away. Next, the lure was also planned. Water type predators tend to stay away from Wishiwashi because when it’s threatened, it calls other members of its species and form a huge school of fish that will make even Gyarados think twice. Feebas is a dumb Pokemon, so it didn’t think about that at all.”

“Wow. And also harsh, but true, I guess. Can I scan it with my Pokedex?” I asked.

Denzel released his Feebas on the pier, who flopped around with a dull look in its eyes.

Feebas, the fish Pokemon. Feebas’ fins are ragged and tattered from the start of its life. Because of its shoddy appearance, this Pokémon is largely ignored. It is capable of living in virtually any body of water.

Type: Water

“Aw, even the Pokedex is just roasting it. I feel bad for the little guy,” I said as Denzel recalled Feebas.

“Well, it’ll take a lot of work to take care of, and it can barely fight better than a Magikarp, but it’ll be worth it when he evolves into a Milotic,” Denzel said as we walked back to Jubilife.

“Mhm,” I agreed as I kept looking at my Pokedex. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. “Wait, it evolves into a Milotic? I forgot!”

TEAM:

Togetic - Pound, Sweet Kiss, Growl, Headbutt, Fairy Wind, Ancient Power, Extrasensory

Frillish - Bubblebeam, Night Shade, Absorb, Water Sport