Chapter 198: Feedback

Chapter 198: Feedback

Everyone happily munched away at their lunches while the pokemon chowed down. A few people were talking, causing a soft susurrus to fill the room but otherwise, it was quiet for the most part.

That didn’t stop me from feeling the very ‘loud’ stare Yolanda was directing at me.

I looked up to see what she wanted.

Yolanda shot Anita a look before flicking her eyes to me. Then she repeated the gesture. I rolled my eyes, well aware that she wanted me to have a conversation with Anita, and not just about the anxiety she displayed.

I suppose from Yolanda’s point of view, she might be afraid that I was being taken advantage of with a sob story.

I had to admit that... that might be a possibility, but it was unlikely. If Anita had been the sort she would have taken the badge then and there, unknowingly earning herself a black mark on her record from me to the effect of not wanting to grow.

Trent? If she’d chosen the badge at the end there? I’d have dragged him into a conversation straight away. I’d have talked a lot, and perhaps some of it might have resonated with him, but perhaps it wouldn’t have. I couldn’t detain kids for being kids. I could warn them of poor behaviour and if they did something warranting it I could arrest them, but kids being kids wasn’t bad.

The Journey was about growth and sometimes that meant growing to understand feelings and how to deal with them

If Anita hadn’t been able to calm down and had continued to lash out... Yes, she’d tried to push, but in doing so she’d revealed how out of her depth she was, and that she had a much deeper story than I’d been expecting.

For example, who had given her the Slaking? She’d mentioned a sister? What were the circumstances? I’d need her calm and willing to listen to find out more.

Honestly, I was just glad she hadn’t been able to get it to fight, cause if she’d been able to get that Slaking to follow her orders?

Well then.

If she’d wanted to push me, the kid gloves would have come off fast.

There was a reason I always kept at least three of my Elite pokemon on hand at any given time.

But they hadn’t been needed.

This time.

Still, Yolanda wasn’t entirely wrong, I did need to talk with Anita. I also needed to talk with Trent. I needed to capitalise on her calmer state of mind and expand the story.

I considered Anita and Trent for a while, taking in their postures. They were still a bit shy, with how they were hunched in on themselves. They listened, laughed and were happy to be included, but they were still slightly on edge.

I considered the issue as I ate through my ‘jelly donuts’, a smirk playing across my lips as I licked up any stray rice.

I looked over to Alexa. “What’s my afternoon look like?” I asked, knowing exactly what she was going to say

Alexa hummed, her eyes flicking to me before darting to the young duo. She brought out her tablet to scrutinise my schedule. “You have two later this afternoon,” she announced, earning a thoughtful hum from me.

“Hmmmmm, it’s been a while since I’ve done a patrol of Pewter City,” I said, faux casually.

“Say,” I slowly turned my gaze to Anita and Trent, as though I hadn’t just planned out this entire discussion. “How would you like to come with me on patrol?”

When they frowned, I dangled the pokeblock treat in front of them. “We’ll probably have to swing by some places like the playground, the race track, and the shops,” I said.

Both of the kids blinked in surprise at that. “The race track?” asked Trent.

I nodded. “Oh yeah, there are sometimes races there on the weekends, but they also have a lot of speed work for pokemon that need training in that,” I said, alluding to a certain speedy raccoon.

Zigzagoon didn’t even lift his head from his bowl of pokechow. It might have been empty, but the little pokemon was licking it clean for all it was worth. Anita however perked up. “That’d be interesting! Can we?” she asked and I grinned.

All according to Keikaku.

I ambled along, with Anita and Trent walking alongside me. They stared openly at Gawain as he marched along next to them. On my side, Link happily skipped along. Three other pokeballs rested on my belt for later release, but for now, I just let things progress naturally.

“So, LaRousse City?” I asked leadingly. I frowned when both Anita and Trent twitched and shot me worried looks.

I tilted my head. “I never got the chance to visit during my Journey when I was in Hoenn,” I said, dodging around the topic. The kids both relaxed slightly.

“I think it was known for the waterway and the two rivers meeting up in it, no?” I asked.

Anita nodded, her eyes darting off to the side while Trent stepped slightly forward, almost shielding her from my view, but only drawing further attention to there being an underlying issue here. “Yeah, it’s known for the meeting points of the Liomo and Tico rivers. People like to say that makes it the place where Milotic likes to visit, and that’s true. It has a really well-established contest scene, but it is also known for being highly advanced,” he elaborated further with the air of one that knows how to sell the City.

I nodded along. “Huh, Contests? I would have liked to attend that,” I said, noticing how both of them relaxed as I was drawn away from the other feature that LaRousse City was known for. The Battle Tower.

The Battle Tower was a site that was developed by the various battle clubs of Hoenn and La Rousse. LaRousse was a confluence point for many different factors had a lot of people and therefore trainers moving through, resulting in it being a great place to hone yourself. I had been planning on taking a pass through there towards the end of my pokemon Journey to sharpen up my team.

Usually, it was the feature people mentioned when talking of the city, therefore making it glaringly obvious that these two were avoiding mentioning it.

I played along, allowing myself to be drawn into discussing how the city got when it was time for the contest.

When we reached the first destination for the day, I grinned as I grasped the three pokeballs I’d brought along just for this. “Teddiursa! Gible! Cranidos! Come on out!” I shouted as I released the three pokeballs for some of my youngest pokemon.

All three appeared and blinked at what they found.

The playground closest to the Gym didn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles that other playgrounds did these days.

It was simple plastic and steel, with a structure with swings, slip and slides, sandpits and open areas leading into a jungle gym.

All three of my pokemon stared at it, unsure what to make of it. Gible and Teddiursa turned to me while Cranidos turned to headbutt Gible. I leaned down and intercepted the headbutt, nudging it off so that Crandios slammed into the soft sandpit, causing a small dust cloud to billow out.

I coughed and waved my hand back and forth before nudging the top pocket. “Zubat girl? Think you can blow away this dust?” I asked.

Zubat, who was happily nestled in my breast pocket, popped out and blew away the dust to reveal a very dirty-looking Anita and Trent, who hadn’t been prepared for a sudden Sand Attack.

I bonked Cranidos lightly on the head causing him to bray in challenge and attempt to nail me in the shin. “Sorry about him, he’s a young pokemon,” I said. “He takes a bit of care—” As I said that, I reached out and grabbed Gible to stop him from biting a hole in the jungle gym.

“None of that either,” I said. “No biting here, this is a playground,” I said, gesturing around us. I got back a round of blank stares. I turned to Anita and Trent. “I think I’m going to need your help for this,” I said.

They blinked and pointed at themselves. “Yup! I need you to help show my pokemon how to have fun.” I waved a hand towards their belts. “You should do the same.”

I smiled as the pair of them released their pokemon, bar Slaking. I gave Anita another look. “Not going to include him?” I asked.

She paused and shot the very delicate-looking playground a look as she chewed on her lip. “He might wreck it?”

I nodded. “He might, but tell you what, anything he wrecks, you can blame on me,” I said. Mentally I was banking on Slaking’s rather well-established species trait of being rather lazy. Less so than Snorlax, but still, they were known to laze around a lot.

Anita’s had eaten with us, but food was usually one of the best ways to motivate any lazy pokemon. When he’d been done he’d curled up on a couch by himself and gone to sleep.

Anita swallowed, straightened her spine and threw out her Slaking. Her pokemon appeared already in a lazing pose. He gave the playground a disinterested look, yawning.

I watched Anita fret and hummed. The most powerful pokemon in her team was both a shield and a weight to her, it would seem. It alone, along with the single comment earlier, made me wonder about other aspects of her past for a moment.

Eventually, Anita spoke up. “W-want to play with us?” she said haltingly.

Slaking gave the playground another look, then gave Anita a look over before grunting and shaking his head. Anita looked toward me and I gestured to the shaded bench off to the side.

“W-well, maybe you’d like to have a rest?” she said, waving frantically at the bench.

Slaking gave her another look before looking at the bench. Then it tilted its head and looked straight up at the sun for a long moment.

After probably giving itself sun blindness it looked down and blinked a few times, before rising to its full height to amble over to the bench were it lay down and scratched its back.

I shot Anita a thumbs up. It was baby steps, but it was still something Slaking would have wanted to do, which helped. “Alright!” I said regathering the energy. “Let’s play!” I said dragging Gawain and Link into the game by tagging Link with a light slap.

“Tag you’re it!” I said as I ran toward the playground.

This caused the other pokemon to sprint away while Link pursued, resulting in a rather fun game. When it was obvious none of the pokemon were going to be able to catch Zubat I accepted a tag from Gawain only to jump as high as I could to lightly tap her. “You’re it!” I announced triumphantly.

Zubat chose to chase Anita then and the young girl sprinted her heart out, diving through obstacles, scurrying through tunnels and faking out like a champion tag player. I made a gesture to Link and Gawain notifying them of my intentions and for them to distract Anita. They nodded and prepared themselves accordingly.

I decided to use the moment to sidle up to Trent.

“So, you’ve obviously been friends for a while, yeah?” I said, watching Anita finally get tagged, only for her to seek out Cranidos who was more than happy for an excuse to ‘tag’ someone else. Sadly for him he barely got any steam up in his charge before Gawain ‘mistimed’ a jump to get tagged.

Gawain turned his gaze upon Anita and the girl cursed before taking off again. She had impressive cardio, I had to give her that.

Trent nodded. “Yeah, we grew up together,” he said easily.

“Ah, childhood friends,” I said with a nod before continuing. “How long has she been putting you down for?” I asked nonchalantly, like I wasn’t interested in the answer.

Trent stiffened. “She doesn’t—”

“During your match, she was very much bullying you, I’m sorry to say. It looks even worse after her... well, collapse.”

I waved a hand. “Now she doesn’t have any pokemon that are mistreated or injured, which are the usual indicators for a bully or person that is far along on a spectrum, shall we say, but she does deride you and put you down.”

“It’s not...” Trent started to say, only to grimace. “She’s just under a lot of pressure.”

“Hmmm, nah,” I said in response.

“Nah?” Trent parroted back at me.

I nodded. “Yeah, nah,” I said, enjoying the oxymoron and how it caused Trent to look at me in dumbfounded disbelief, now clearly unsure what I meant. Good, he was willing to listen.

“Her acting like that to you is bad, and I’m sorry to say you laying down and supporting it is enabling it. You need to call her out if she does it to you.” I raised a hand. “It doesn’t need to be in public, it can be in private,” I suggested. “Consider how it makes you feel and tell her, but! Also consider that if she is using it as a method to calm herself down or build her own confidence, it’s only a weakness for her.”

“You know? Where you set up three barrels in a triangle shape and have the riders go through them from a standing start to demonstrate acceleration and agility? Or where you have a line of flags in a row and the rider and pokemon have to weave through them?” I offered, recalling events from my first life.

When I continued to draw blank looks I realised I might have made a mistake.

Clark Candor however beamed at me. “That sounds like a swell event! Agility and speed all in one!” he said. “Where’d you ever catch sight of that?”

I waved a hand. “Oh you know, around.”

Clark grinned. “Seen anything else that would work for our sporting field?”

I hummed, relaxing at his welcoming attitude. A few of the people, pokemon riders or event organisers judging by their attire, all seemed much more interested in what I had to say.

So I decided to run with it. “What about flag events? Where you have rider and pokemon dart out to poles that are further and further out, grab a flag off the top while making a turn and then stashing the flags in a small catcher at the starting point?”

“Oh! I like it!” crowed Clark.

I smiled, pleased that he was onboard with the idea. “When is your official opening?” I asked.

“A few weeks, we’re doing a soft open now to check the facilities over and iron things out a bit, then we’re going to have a big rodeo! Should be a real drawcard for Pewter, I reckon!” said Clark.

I nodded, agreeing with the idea. “Well, be sure to invite me along, I’ll bring my family and some friends,” I said.

“I’ll be sure to send you free tickets!” Clark said proudly.

I smiled and nodded in thanks before glancing at Trent and Anita. “What do you two think about that?” I said, prompting their input.

Anita blinked, having not expected to be called out. “Uh?” she said.

Trent coughed, stepping forward slightly. “Uhm, will younger people be able to take part, or is it only professionals?”

Clark whistled. “Now there’s a good idea!” He snapped his fingers and one of the suited individuals who’d been jotting down things the entire time we’d been talking continued to write. “Write that down,” said Clark.

“I have been, sir,” said the woman and I blinked, realising she’d literally been copying my ideas. Huh, looks like I’d started a Gymkhana event that was going to be for all ages, Suzie was so going to want to join when she saw it.

I couldn’t wait to see her zipping around on the back of a little Ponyta. She’d be so cute.

I coughed, noticing the time. “I need to keep moving, I’m sorry to say, but definitely contact the Gym, I’d love to hear more about this,” I said as I waved goodbye to the group.

I nodded my head towards the race track. “Sorry about that, let’s go check out the race track and see if anyone can help out with your Zigzagoon’s speed issue,” I said.

Anita nodded along slowly, her eyes tracking me in a very unsubtle fashion. Ah, she must not have thought about how I was somewhat of a local celebrity. Now she was experiencing it again.

“Sorry if that raised some bad memories,” I said.

Anita blinked. “Hmmm? Oh, no, you’re nothing like Gladys when talking with the public,” she said. “You also... asked for my opinion, that doesn’t happen... ever with her.”

“Hmmm,” I said. The more I learnt about her situation the more I pitied her and wanted her to avoid the pitfalls she’d been sprinting at. I glanced towards Trent, hopefully a softer approach might be all that is needed.

I could show them part of the way, but I couldn’t always hold their hands.

When we reached the race track proper, it was quite easy to talk to one of the race trainers into watching Zigzagoon and Anita to get an idea of what was wrong. The man quickly had some ideas and was already working with Anita to deal with the issue.

I sat off to the side with Trent, more than happy to be a spectator to a different style of training.

Overhead a trio of Pidgeot flew, with two of the birds twirling around each other in a tight helix. I frowned when I spotted both trainers hop from the backs of their pokemon.

I rose, instinct warning me to get moving now, I’d only have seconds to intercept them from that height—

Before I could do that, both riders landed on the other person’s pokemon and raised their hands. Oh, it was stunt flying. I sat back down and calmed my racing heart.

Trent glanced at me. “You’ve never seen that trick before?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Haven’t seen the stunt displays much to be honest,” I said. “Have to say that was rather scary to watch,” I confided.

“Hmm, it wasn’t very good,'' Trent said with a shake of his head. “They need to be tighter, it’s actually easy to do it as a jump, really skilled riders can lock into a spiral and go back to back and sort of counter roll to put them in opposite saddles.”

I blinked, picturing the acrobatics and how tight the margin for error would have to be. “That would be impressive to see.” I glanced at Trent. “Do you have much experience with it?”

“My cousins are stunt flyers and riders,” he said.

“Riders too, huh?” I said with a whistle of appreciation. “I really need to get out more if I’m missing those sorts of shows,” I commented. And didn’t saying it make it feel true?

I sighed and shook my head, deciding to sit back and enjoy the show while I had some free time.

For a short walk around Pewter, I felt like I’d gotten a lot out of it.

When I got home at the end of the day, everyone was in the dining room eating dinner. As I took a seat, Nanny Grav quickly slipped a plate in front of me. I raised my fork only to spot an undercurrent of tension in the room. I put the food back down. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow!” said Cindy with a grimace as she nudged around the food on her plate.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“We have swimming class tomorrow and I suck at it!” said Cindy.

I tilted my head and shot Flint a quick look. “But you’re a really good swimmer?” I said.

Cindy huffed. “Yeah, but we’re not doing it for fun today, we’re going to be competing in the swimming competition and this year I got signed up for the long-distance events! I have to swim a whole one hundred metres! That’s four whole laps!” she said waving her hands about.

I hummed. “You didn’t get any of the shorter events?” I asked.

“No, they went to other kids... well, I do have the relay and the single twenty-five-metre swim but everyone’s doing them! I just don’t like swimming long events! Can I call in sick tomorrow?” she asked, looking at me hopefully.

“Don’t quit!” chimed in Flint, cutting off Cindy’s attempts to get to me with her refined in-strength baby doll eyes. Flint pumped his fist. “You just need to push through! This is a good chance to show your grit!” he said with an upbeat attitude.

“I can’t do it!” Cindy wailed.

“You can’t with that attitude,” Flint and I said at the same time. I held back the shiver of uncanniness at us jinxing each other.

From the side of my peripheral vision I saw Tommy straighten, excitement in his gaze as he opened his mouth to shout.

I touched my nose and pointed at Flint. “Jinx! You can’t speak until someone says your name!”

“Daddy got jinxed!” cheered Tilly, only to gasp, “Oh no! I said Daddy’s name!” she said in horror.

I snorted. “Daddy isn’t his name,” I said, only to earn a wall of incomprehension from the younger kids.

Yolanda giggled while Salvadore looked up, tilted his head and opened his mouth. “Oh right, his name is—” he started to say, only for Cindy to lunge at Salvadore to silence him. She shot Flint a gleeful look.

I chuckled, only to realise why Cindy was doing this.

I coughed, ignoring Flint pretending to open and shut his mouth without saying anything as he played along with the game. “We are right though, Cindy, you shouldn’t just give up and say you can’t. Instead you should be like the Can Do—” I cast around for an appropriate pokemon and paused on Magikarp. “—the Can Do Magikarp!” I said with a winning smile.

Cindy and all the other kids stared at me. “The Can Do Magikarp?” they asked.

“Munchlax?” said Munchlax, leaning back and staring at me with interest.

I coughed, “Yeah? The Can Do Magikarp, have I not told you that story before?” I asked, knowing that I obviously hadn’t.

Cindy shook her head and I realised—judging from the looks I was getting— that I would need to perform the story now.

I stood and began to wriggle and wiggle like a Magikarp would, all while laying out the story of the Can Do Magikarp.

I wiggled my arms in a fish like motion, spearing them upwards while writhing. “And the little Magikarp continued to swim! Up and up the waterfall! Nothing could stop him! Not the rushing waters or the jeering pokemon below or around him!”

“Nooooo! Swim Magicup!” said Tilly with a passionate wail, waving her hands like she could urge on the fictional Magikarp.

I smiled, but didn’t chuckle like I wanted to. “So that little Magikarp continued to swim! With each slash of his tail the top of the waterfall grew closer! But! The water grew faster as it rushed over the edge! And it grew harder and harder! But in his mind, he stuck to the thought! I can do this! I can do this! And he began to inch his way up the waterfall!”

I writhed my arms about and squirmed my body, deeply amused to see so many eyes watching my impromptu performance.

“And then! When he reached the top he leapt one final time, clearing the Torii gate at the top and silencing all the pokemon that doubted him!”

“Woah!” said Suzie and Timmy together.

“And with his strength proven to all! He evolved into one of the most powerful Gyarados of the land!” I said with a fist thrust upwards.

“Woah? Really?” said Salvadore.

I coughed. “Maybe? It’s a story, and the point is to not give up, if you push yourself you can do more than you realise!” I said, giving Cindy a soft smile.

She chewed her lip and nodded. “Alright... I think I can do it,” she said with a small nod.

I sat back down feeling all the better for how I’d motivated my sister. I noted that Flint still couldn’t talk and decided to take mercy on him. “So, Flint, are you going to the swimming event tomorrow?" I asked.

Tommy, realising what I’d done, threw up his hands. “Argh! You ruined it!” he said, causing a chuckle from the older kids, myself and Flint.

I shook my head and decided to just enjoy my dinner.