Chapter 170

Chapter 170

CHAPTER 170

The next morning, I reached the Café Cabin.

The Café was a lot smaller than I'd expected. From the outside, it seemed that it was barely large enough to fit a few dozen customers at a time. A decorative sign with a happy Milktank and a glass bottle of milk sat above the entrance, and there was a huge enclosure full of them further in the back. I hadn't seen one since my short stay in Twinleaf, but they seemed a lot larger than what I remembered. Some lazily grabbed tufts of grass with their hands and calmly ate while others just hung among themselves.

What I hadn't expected was for a small town to have sprouted around the establishment. It wasn't much, just a few homes, a store and a Pokemon Mart. Most of the homes were inhabited by the Café Cabin employees, but I couldn't deny that I was witnessing the early birth of a city here or something close to it. Unfortunately, there wasn't a Pokemon Center, but that would probably run the Café Cabin out of business, since they doubled as an inn. In the distance, the ever-present fog hid the rest of route 210 away from human eyes. It was a wonder how people actually lived up here. Celestic was the most isolated city in Sinnoh— even moreso than Snowpoint. Later in the year, thousands of trainers would brave the route to get there and challenge Candice.

I stepped inside of the Café Cabin and I was immediately hit with the smell of freshly baked goods. The place was packed with trainers after the mass exodus from Solaceon, and for a second, I was wondering if I'd have to sleep outside. Luckily, the crowd meant that people were too busy to recognize me. I pushed past the sea of people and walked past the bar, opting to go to reception instead to see if a room was available.

"Hi. Can I have a room for one night?" I asked.

The girl over the counter didn't even look at me and kept typing on her computer. She looked frustrated, and for a good reason. Having to do work in this loud house was probably torture. I asked again, and then she shook her head after staring at me like I was an alien for a few seconds. She'd recognized me.

"We're full, sorry," she finally said. "If you want, we can put you on a waiting list and take your number? We have service and WiFi all around Café Cabin!"

"No, it's fine. Thanks anyway," I said disappointingly. I'd have to camp out tonight, but with Sunshine around I didn't really care anyway. I would have enjoyed a bed, but—

"Are you sure? We'd love to have you at our establishment! I'm sure someone will leave soon and we'll give you one right away."

"Uh, no," I said. "I'd feel bad if I was given special treatment."

I awkwardly waved at her and left. A few heads were turning my way now, but I ignored them. The poor girl had probably wanted me to stick around because it would be good publicity for the Café. Business was booming, but they could never have enough customers. Their waiters and waitresses seemed to be handling the boom rather well, carrying dozens of drinks or six plates in their arms at a time and weaving in between customers like it was nothing. They'd been well-trained.

I opted to buy some orange juice and a cheese bagel to go. There was no way I was going to stick around in this suffocating place.

I would have never guessed that I'd come across Chase on my way out. He didn't seem surprised at all to see me. The tears in his cap had been hastily stitched back together, and he had bandages all around his hands. I stood there, gobsmacked until he finally spoke.

"What happened to you? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said with a confident smirk. "I thought I might run into your little group by coming here."

"Uh, hi," I said. "It's— it's just me. Have you heard what happened to Solaceon?"

Chase raised an eyebrow at me. "Huh?"

—

"What the fuck? Some moron Shiftry was the cause of all of this?" He asked incredulously.

Somehow, Chase hadn't heard about anything while he was in Celestic. I knew that the fog was too thick for him to have seen the darkness in the distance, but apparently he was completely out of the loop. I would have expected him to hear something about it! It was all anyone could talk about these days! I shuffled on the grass we sat on and nodded.

"He'd been controlling Solaceon this entire time, and when we exposed him he threw a fit," I said. "We were all targeted... it was terrible."

"Well, you made it out alright, so it can't have been that terrible," the boy shrugged. "I'm surprised you're traveling alone. You never seemed like the type."

"I needed time to figure things out. I did a lot of things that made me discover a lot about myself."

"Sounds mopey as hell, but fair enough," he said. "Whatever happened down there, it was to defend yourself, no? I don't see that much of a moral conan— conun... what was it again?"

"Conundrum," I said. "And you—"

I sighed. I was going to fight him and say that he didn't know what it was like, but I honestly didn't feel like it. Chase was a lot nicer than he'd been months ago, but he was still very rough around the edges. Pauline definitely would have agreed with him.

"What happened to your hands?" I said, staring. "That looks pretty gnarly."

"Oh, it was this whole thing," Chase waved dismissively. "I got into a fight with an asshole Klawf and then I fell into a hole with this entire ancient city—"

My eyes almost fell out of their sockets.

"—there were a bunch of old Sigilyph there, but they were weak enough. I ended up catching one who saved my life too, but the real issue was some kind of weird, fucked up ghost that had a hard-on for hating humanity."

"H—hold on, can you say that again?"

"Which part?"

"The entire thing. Go into vivid detail, please."

Chase ended up explaining his entire ordeal, from falling into the ancient city to battling an illusionist ghost through the entire place. What really caught my interest, however, was the way he described a certain mural. It had depicted Sigilyph in large numbers, and Claydol in smaller numbers, but higher in the food chain, so to speak. If I wanted one, then I knew where to look.

"You shouldn't go down there, at least not yet," Chase warned. "That ghost? My Pokedex doesn't even know what it is. It said that there was insufficient data somehow, and it was strong enough to take my entire team. Fighting it without a dark type or some kind of anti-ghost tactic is suicide."

"I wasn't going to go there right away anyway," I said. There was no way I was going to take that risk and break my promise to Cece. Plus, I wouldn't be allowed to have more than six Pokemon until I passed that test in Veilstone anyway. "But I just want to know for the future— you didn't end up seeing any Claydol or Baltoy there?"

"Nope. They were nowhere to be seen, but I didn't exactly stick around that long."

"Okay... did you warn people, at least? That ghost sounds dangerous."

If I wanted to go there in the future, it'd be after Sweetheart had evolved so I could make use of her dark typing. Tyranitar weren't exactly known to be subtle, but I was sure that I'd be able to create something to counter ghosts. Plus, Buddy would be able to put up a good fight as well. That was a long-term plan, though. Right now, I just wanted to relax and do nothing life-threatening.

Part of me wanted to keep the information for ourselves. If teams of rangers— or the League, if the ghost proved strong enough— made it down there, then there was a possibility that I'd miss my chance to capture a Claydol, but people's safety was a lot more important than my desires.

"You called him Sunshine? Still terrible with names, I see," he said. "What did you think he'd do?"

"Worst-case scenario? He might have thrown a fit and attacked your Pokemon— but I would have recalled him instantly!" I hurriedly added. "He's really sweet, you just have to get to know him."

"I didn't expect you to lie to my face."

"I'm not lying! You just have to work past his barriers! He's kind of like you, actually."

Chase seemed to take great offense at that. Sigilyph had moved onto analyzing both Buddy and Honey. The electric type felt obligated to let her get close, but Jellicent's body literally shrunk and reflexively avoided her until he couldn't take it anymore and sprayed her with a jet of water. Sigilyph let out a few panicked beeps and took refuge behind Zangoose, who was lazily preening her fur on the floor. The normal type grumbled, but let her stick around.

"Your Zangoose and my Turtonator are kind of similar," I noticed.

"Are you kidding me? Zangoose is nothing like your dragon. She's a stand-up Pokemon."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I angrily asked, placing my hands on my hips. Just when I was about to launch into a tirade about all of Sunshine's good qualities, Lucario strode up to me. "Oh... hi."

"You can still call him Ri," Chase said.

"Cool."

The fighting type grabbed onto my hand and I felt a cold energy rush into my arm.

Thank... care... Chase.

He'd meant to thank me for taking care of Chase. I had completely forgotten that Lucario could speak even though Cynthia's had done so right in front of me.

The voice was there, but it was faint, and unlike with psychics, I felt no pain at all! When Slowking had spoken to me, the voice had been completely smooth and almost void of emotion, which was how every psychic spoke (with a few minute deviations between individuals), but Ri's voice was deep and full of life. It was as if a human had been speaking to me.

"No problem," I stammered. "He's my friend."

"He's been talking my ear off to practice speaking through aura," Chase explained. "It's a work in progress."

"I mean, that's great progress if he's only been a Lucario for a week," I said.

Chase's team had always been full of dedicated and hard workers. Princess chirped a greeting at Lucario, who replied with a respectful nod. Every single one of his movements evoked a certain elegance.

Sweetheart couldn't resist anymore, and she crawled toward Ri faster than I'd ever seen her move in her new form. She could have been faster by rolling, but I could tell that she hadn't wanted to embarrass herself. Sweetheart liked strong individuals, and she seemed to think that Ri was a Pokemon she could admire just like Sunshine, which surprised me.

"Hey, do you want to battle?" I asked out of the blue. I'd been thinking about it ever since I'd seen that Ri evolved. After seeing what Cynthia had done with her Lucario twice now— once at Valley Windworks and then against Shiftry— I wanted to battle him. "Not a full six-on-six obviously, but what about a three-on-three?"

Chase lit up for a second, but then he hesitated. "Uh, I'm not sure. Maybe when we get to Veilstone."

"You seemed happy enough to do so," I frowned. "What's wrong? I can't imagine the Chase Karlson being nervous about battling."

"There's no Center here," he muttered.

"Yeah, but it's just a friendly battle. Obviously we won't go too hard, and—"

Lucario shot me a look, and I understood. He was struggling with money again, wasn't he? He'd emphasized his lack of potions very clearly while recounting his travels, both during his stay in Mount Coronet and route 210.

"Listen, I can hand you some potions if you want."

"I don't need your pity," he said.

"It's not pity, it's just being a decent human being. My friends lent me potions all the time before the Poketch Company sponsored me—"

"We can battle," he finally decided. "But I won't take any of your shit. Three-on-three's fine. No substitutions?"

"No switches is fine with me," I nodded.

"But we're doing this right away. I don't want to leave you time to start planning shit like you usually do."

"Sounds like you're scared," I teased. "But alright."

I didn't need to plan. I already knew that he'd use Ri in the battle, but he wouldn't lead with him. From the way he'd spoken about Sigilyph, they were relatively weak and there was no way his had already overcome that, so she was off the table. If I had to guess, then he'd lead Abomasnow, using his massive strength and bulk to play it safe. The last Pokemon was still up in the air, but guessing two out of three wouldn't be bad. It'd possibly end up being Vikavolt if I lost the first bout.

As for me? Chase was probably preparing to face Turtonator, but he'd unfortunately be disappointed. The fire type shot me a look that instantly let me know there was no way he was rising from his nap for this. Honey, Angel, and Buddy would have to do some work.

But I was also considering using Sweetheart if the opportunity arose and Chase used Houndoom or Zangoose. It could be a stupid idea, but even when unable to move, there was no way those two were breaking past her cocoon.

Chase and his team faced us while my entire family was at my back.

"In three seconds, call out the first Pokemon you're sending out," I said. We were improvising, since we didn't have a referee. "Three, two, one— Jellicent!"

"Abomasnow."

I took a deep breath as both Pokemon stepped forward. I was working with the type disadvantage, but I was confident it wouldn't matter that much with Buddy's survivability. It would have been a lot worse if it'd been Vikavolt.

Chase began to count down from three, and I braced myself for the coming battle.