Chapter 235

Chapter 235

CHAPTER 235

"You know, I kind of wish I had some wireless earphones for this."

"We make some. We can have some sent to you tomorrow if you want," Melody's voice rang out.

"I'd only need them for today. Won't it be awkward if I have my phone to my ear while meeting all these new people?"

"Yes, it would be rude."

"Well, I'm about to hang up, then. We're coming to a stop. Thank you for the ride, sir."

The driver answered with a grunt. The people the Poketch Company sent to drag me around were always quiet. I stepped outside of the car and felt the cold morning air hit my face, blowing my hair into my eyes. In front of me stood Sunyshore's one and only mall.

Unlike Jubilife, which had many thanks to its massive size, Sunyshore only had one mall. The Sunyshore Mall stood in the southern part of the city, and I could see the Vista Lighthouse in the distance, with its beautiful spotless blue glass and its red and white pattern. Jasmine had boasted that it was actually small and insignificant compared to Olivine's lighthouse, but it was still one of Sunyshore's most recognizable symbols and a popular tourist attraction. That wasn't where I was going today, though. Of course, Sunyshore's policymakers were smart enough to put a mall on the way to the city's most popular attraction.

I knew Sunyshore Mall had existed, but I had no idea it was an open-air facility. The mall seamlessly integrated into the rugged surroundings that reminded me so much of route 214. Beyond the huge parking, the entrance was marked by a huge wooden arch with Sunyshore's badge carved into it, and Pokemon and humans filtered in and out of the establishment. A Machoke gently cradled a little girl in her arms while her mother packed everything they'd bought in their car. A flock of Starly perched on the wooden arch, the largest of which stood at the center and puffed up his feathers while his group admired him. A group of teenagers crowded over a T-shirt with Craig on it— a different one than the shirt Craig had given to Denzel all those months ago in Savika's cabin. I heard a lick of their conversation and noticed that it was apparently a new, limited edition with his Eelektross on it.

All in all, everyone was having a fantastic time.

"So it's where in the mall?" I asked. "I'm surprised you don't have a dedicated office like in Hearthome."

"I'll guide you, but there's a map as soon as you enter. And we have an office, it's just above one of our stores at the center of the mall. There weren't that many options in a city like Sunyshore. No need to waste money complying with their horrible construction code."

"Horrible, or inconvenient?"

"Why not both?"

"I guess. I don't really know anything about laws to build things."

"It was more to save costs than anything, really. There were plenty of lots being sold at the mall, so the company bit... by the way, I'm getting more emails. The reason the photoshoot was called so early was because Aubri Schneider's in town."

"Aubri? That rings a bell. Denzel probably knows her."

"She's notoriously hard to get a hold of and she's a... character, that's for sure," Melody hesitantly said. "She probably showed up in Sunyshore and the higherups jumped at the opportunity to actually get her in here. She's one of our sponsees. Arguably the most powerful one besides Craig."

The mall's interior was a series of interconnected paths and courtyards all adorned with lush greenery and vibrant, yellow flowers. There were stores of every kind here, both for people and Pokemon. Potions, saddles, food, Pokemon clothing, items— there were more things than I could keep track of. Of course, since this was Sunyshore, solar panels were on every roof and pathway. The mall's architecture was a big contrast with what I'd come to expect from Sunyshore. Only the boardwalk was as rustic as this place was. Giving tourists a break from the modernity of it all was probably the goal the people who had built this had in mind. I grinned when I passed by a little battlefield where trainers could battle and a small crowd had formed, screaming in excitement as soon as something unexpected happened in the battle.

Melody guided me deeper into the mall and toward its center which was mostly full of food stands and had a huge fountain that had a little Whiscash statue spitting water at the top. I stopped to buy myself a hot dog that I quickly scarfed down. The somewhat bland taste reminded me of Cecilia bragging about how real hot dogs were made in Castelia City.

I'd have to hold her to that.

I raised my sunglasses and entered the Poketch store, which was bright white with sleek, rounded tables where phones, tablets, laptops and more of their products could be tested by the customers. Melody told me to go deeper into the store, and one of the employees recognized me instantly.

"Okay, I'm hanging up Mel."

"Good luck out there! Make friends!" She cheered.

"Will do."

The employee directed me toward an elevator which was activated by a keycard only a few people in the store had. He sent me off to the second floor and left before the doors closed. The upper floor was a lot more quaint and less modern than the bottom one, but I supposed there was no need to impress customers here. It was a nice, carpeted and spacious hallway with plenty of offices where people typed away on their keyboards and drank their morning coffee. Melody had already told me where to go, however. At the end of the hallway, a huge room opened up with three trainers speaking with each other. A crew of photographers and some other people were in the back of the room whispering to themselves. I easily noticed Joshua Nance, who'd been the one to take my pictures last time.

I recognized one instantly. Ramon Casaus with his Raticate lazily sitting at his feet. I'd looked him up the day I had gotten sponsored because he'd been next to me on the Poketch website. I knew he'd made it to the Conference multiple times and had the most powerful Raticate in the region. He had actually been born and raised in Sunyshore, so if I had to guess he already had his eight badges and was swinging back home again. He wore shorts, sandals, a plain white shirt and had a blue cap on backwards. Ramon had light brown skin and was almost as tall as Denzel. Despite being a third year, he still had a baby face that made him look fifteen.

The other two, I didn't recognize, however. I must have scrolled past them.

The first was another older teenager, and the first feature that jumped at me was the gap in his front teeth. He spoke with a slight lisp, and he was rather thin. I did notice the huge scar on his shoulder since he was wearing an A-Shirt. That must have been a gnarly injury when it occurred. A tall Meganium stood next to him, chomping at his short hair.

The third girl was only a little taller than I was and looked to be the youngest other than me. She couldn't be older than seventeen. She was actually quite well-built with well-defined musculature, and her brown hair was tied into a short bun. She had a large Mothim attached to her back, and her huge wingspan made her trainer look like she had wings.

And of course, they were all wearing their Poketch Watches, including me. Ramon and the other boy both had eight Pokeballs on their belt while the girl only had six.

"There she is. Woman of the hour!" Ramon cheered. "Grace Pastel in the flesh!"

Raticate angrily growled at his feet at the sudden outburst.

"Uh, hey guys," I said.

"Hi, hi, don't be shy. This is Sharon Ayala. She's a bit of a bitch—"

The girl slapped the back of Ramon's head, and the other scarred teenager laughed.

"I'm Sharon," she said, outstretching a hand. "Nice to meet you."

I shook her hand, and her handshake was firm. It reminded me of Maylene's.

"I'm Bob Wallace, but you can call me Bobby," the scarred trainer said. "This is Meg."

His Meganium let out a smooth cry that was almost like music, and I was certain I'd seen some pink dust fall off her flower.

"And I'm Ramon!" He yelled.

"Nice to meet you all," I smiled. I finished shaking hands with all of them and then blinked. "Should I have a Pokemon out? I mean, you all do."

"Our starters. It's just common courtesy," Sharon gruffly spoke.

"My bad," I said, restraining a wince.

I released Princess as fast as I could, and she eyed our new acquaintances suspiciously before flying into my arms.

"This is Princess," I said. The fairy type reluctantly offered a greeting without even turning toward the three trainers.

"Heard a lot about her," Ramon nodded.

"So we're missing Aubri?" I asked.

"Oh yeah. She's always late," Bobby chuckled. "We don't know her that well."

"We do know she has a bit of a hate boner towards you," Ramon added.

"Ugh. Don't be so crass," Sharon moaned.

"She hates me? Why?"

"You came out of nowhere and stole her thunder. She worked hard to be the one to replace Craig, and you denied her that. Years of hard work down the drain," Bobby shrugged. "This year was a bit of a scuffle."

"Oh yeah. The Sharpedo smelled blood in the water and started circling," Ramon said, crouching down and petting Raticate. "But Aubri was the one who everyone knew had the best shot. Or we thought she did."

I restrained a sigh as Princess whispered some reassurances in my ear. These weren't really differences that could be sorted. I really had come out of nowhere, and the fact that I was a first-year was probably pouring salt onto the wound. Every trainer here was leagues ahead of me, and yet I was the one who had been chosen because I'd randomly befriended Craig up at Lake Acuity.

"I mean, you are kind of weak," Sharon raised an eyebrow. "And you're just as reclusive as Aubri. It's a wonder they picked you."

"Told you she was a bitch," Ramon smirked.

"How good are you guys?"

"We've all been to the Conference, although Sharon here hasn't been since she's in her second year. She's got the eight badges already though."

"Woah..."

"I'm a flying type specialist," she said.

Alakazam would love you, I thought to myself.

Ramon grinned. "Byron cockblocked her out of her eighth last year."

"And she made sure to destroy him this time," Bobby added with a smile of his own. "Ram and I are generalists. He made it to the top 128—"

"Top sixty-four, you ass!" He yelled.

"Oops. I forgot," Bobby said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. "I made it to the top thirty-two."

"Awesome..." I exhaled, wide eyed. "I'd love to battle you."

"Ain't she cute?" Ramon said. "M'fraid we can't, though. The big boys up top don't want their golden child to look bad."

"Plus you'd get stomped anyway," Sharon muttered.

Bobby sighed. "Sharon..."

"It's true!"

Her desire to keep calling me weak was somewhat grating, but it wasn't like they were being explicitly rude. Plus, Sharon was arguably just as talented as I was or more, getting seven badges in her first year and already having eight before her second was over.

"What about Aubri?" I asked.

"Semi-finalist," Bobby answered with his arms crossed. "She lost to Sarah Newman last year."

Sharon winced. "It wasn't really a good showing. That girl was in her head the entire battle."

"Good thing she fucked off to Kanto, eh?" Ramon asked. "One less person for the Poketch gang to worry about."

"Please do not call us the Poketch gang," Sharon groaned.

And she'd gone on to win the entire thing, beating Craig in the finals.

"So you guys are friends?" I asked.

Angel shook in excitement at all the new faces, and I had to stop him from touching everyone and annoying the others. His vines drooped and wrapped around me instead, and I gently caressed him with my hand.

Minior was a fractured brown shell whose cracks revealed the glowing pink flesh within. They had gaping, darkened circles in place for eyes because that part of their shell was still intact. Minior were incredibly rare because they only formed in space. I personally had no idea how some rocks could suddenly gain sentience, but the Pokemon still fascinated me.

"Can I scan them with my Pokedex?" I asked.

"Sure thing," Sharon nodded.

Minior, the Meteor Pokemon. Minior form in the ozone layer and above as rocks and particles slowly accumulate. When they grow too heavy, they fall down to earth like a meteorite. If they survive the fall, they will be stuck on the planet.

"She was almost dead when I found her," Sharon said gentler than usual. "Their shell regrows if you feed them the right space rocks. It's insanely expensive, but there's a market for it."

Her, then, I internally spoke. They were technically genderless Pokemon, but Sharon wasn't the only one to just stick a gender on a Pokemon without one. Cecilia with Lehmhart, Mira with Magnezone and Porygon, and many more trainers I most likely didn't know about.

"Good thing you were there to stumble upon her, then," I said.

"Like I said, we're going to do mock battle poses for the cameras. They won't actually be battles. We'll just ask your Pokemon to strike a pose and maybe send a gust of wind or a small stream of flames for the cameras. The pictures will go on Trainer's Daily and a slew of other magazines."

"Magazines are a dying breed, Joshua," Aubri said. "Drop those already."

"I don't make the rules," he shrugged. "Don't worry though, it'll also go online. The higher ups are terrified of X tech."

"Ooooooh. Assets! Spreadsheets! Terrifying!" Ramon mocked with his hands up.

"It's true. We're working on reaching out to younger audiences, which Grace has been very helpful with—"

Aubri clicked her tongue.

"—but they realized they weren't doing enough. Our social media accounts only get hundreds of likes per post except when we announce a new phone because nobody cares. You'll remedy that today. The picture will be going up on Chatter."

Part of me wished it had been a real battle in private, but I would have gotten destroyed without them breaking a sweat, so the pictures wouldn't have been great.

"Let's start with Aubri and... Grace. Your two Pokemon are the largest, so they'll really pop out in the picture."

Seeing as there was a greenscreen behind us, they were going to add the background in post-production just like last time. I thought it would have looked a lot better had we done it somewhere outside, but I wasn't the one in charge. I motioned Angel forward, and the grass type happily waddled into his position. Noivern used his wings to walk on all fours and Aubri shadowed him. Joshua grabbed his huge camera and adjusted the lens.

"Now Grace, I want your Tangrowth to shoot as many vines forward as possible like he's trying to grab Noivern. Aubri, you send a gust of wind— a small gust of wind. Please don't destroy the building. You're going to use the wind to send the vines back. Are we clear?"

"Got it," she said.

"We are," I agreed. "Can we start?"

This wasn't even a battle, yet I could feel my palms begin to moisten.

"Three, two, one... you can start!"

Angel's vines shot forward at incredible speed. They all converged toward Noivern, who stood on his hind legs and flapped his wings—

I closed my eyes and covered my face as a strong gust of wind nearly knocked me on my back. Even though I was in the shot, I'd been far away from Angel. His vines all diverged as if they'd hit an invisible force, and I heard Joshua's camera click multiple times.

"Perfect! We're done for now, thank you ladies. Leave it to you two to finish a picture in one shot."

Angel turned back at me, smiling with his eyes. He helped me fix up my hair and soon enough, we were replaced by Sharon's Minior and Bobby's Chandelure. Joshua took a while to find a position he liked for them, but he eventually settled on Minior using Charge Beam and Chandelure just surrounded herself with screaming purple flames.

"Have you been to Victory Road?" I whispered to Ramon.

"A few times, but I never stayed long. I'm more of a safety-first guy," he said.

"How was it?"

"Awful. It's dark as shit, the Rangers explicitly warn you that nothing will be done if you get lost, and the Pokemon there have a rage boner for any human that shows up. At least it's not anywhere as cold as Mount Coronet."

"It isn't?"

"Nope— ah, it's my turn."

We went through a whole lot of combinations after that. Angel and Mightyena, Mightyena and Noivern, Angel and Minior... Angel was actually in quite a lot of the pictures. In fact, I had the most pictures of the entire group. It took a few hours to get through it all.

"Joshua."

The lanky man stopped looking through his picture and turned toward Aubri. "Yes?"

"Grace Pastel has a lot of pictures for someone with five badges. It looks fake to pretend like she can stand up to us. Trainers will see through that. It makes us look less authentic."

"It's not about the badges. She's Craig's successor, so she gets the most exposure," Joshua shrugged. "If you have any complaints, take it to the board."

Ramon cackled. "Good luck speaking to them!"

"Is that so uncommon?" I frowned.

"You'd have better luck finding a mega stone in the middle of route 222," Sharon shrugged as Minior orbited around her. "You should know by now that all contact is done through our sponsorship liaisons. Only Craig gets to speak to them face to face."

"So... she'll probably get to do it too once he retires and starts working for the League," Bobby said.

Everyone paused. I didn't know how to answer that. They were all far better trainers than I was. It was unfair, I realized. The only reason I was in this position was a combination of incredibly unlikely events I had stumbled into.

"I'm done here," Aubri snapped.

"Chatot would have given you an earful, you're lucky he isn't here," Ramon said with a sheepish smile. "Glad to have met you, Grace Pastel. Maybe I'll see you at the Conference."

"If she gets past Byron, I'll give you 50k," Sharon said.

"Bitchy as always, Sharon," Ram said. "At least give her the benefit of the doubt and say she'll wipe out in the group stage."

She hit him on the back of the head.

—

The ride home was quick since Melody had a car sent for me, and soon enough I was back in Cece's Center room, where she, Mira and Chase had been waiting for me for the past hour.

"There you are! How was work?" Cece asked after planting a kiss on my cheek.

"Weird. They're mostly nice, but I can tell there was still some tension with a girl called Aubri. The others were cool, even if I could kind of tell they don't like the fact that I leapfrogged them."

"So long as you didn't threaten anyone," Mira said.

"It's work. I wouldn't do that," I rolled my eyes.

"You been working out with my gift?" Chase asked.

"Uh, no. But I'll do it at some point!" I exclaimed. "It's been busy, that's all. You know, there was actually this girl called Sharon that had a lot of bulk on her..."

I went into detail, telling my friends about the new people I'd met and some of their Pokemon. Chase and Cecilia were quite intrigued. After all, which trainer wouldn't be? Cecilia already hated Aubri, but there wasn't much we could do. She hadn't really done anything wrong anyway. She'd been professional and behaved perfectly during the photoshoot. I almost thought she'd use the opportunity to 'accidentally' hurt Angel, but that was my prejudiced mind speaking.

If I'd been in her position, what would I have done?

Not attack her Pokemon, that was for sure, but I couldn't deny that I would have behaved worse than she had.

Mira was more preoccupied with the Voice, even if she forced herself to listen to my story.

"Let's start. Cece's said she won't use it, so it's up to you, Chasey. We can only use it once per day, right?" Mira asked.

"That's what that asshole said," Chase nodded.

"Ok. Hit me. Today, we'll start small and slowly ramp up to find the limits. Ask me to jump ten times as high as I can."

The hair on Chase's arms and neck stood on end as he tensed. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

"Mira, Jump ten times as high as you can."

The voice resonated throughout the room and Chase stumbled, his skin paling and he leaned against the desk in order not to keel over. Cecilia and I were unaffected, but Mira? Something in her eyes shifted, and she started jumping. It wasn't very high, but she was giving it everything she had. Her leg muscles strained and she groaned as she hopped over and over as if her life was on the line. Cecilia couldn't bear to look at someone robbed of their freedom and she turned away.

After the tenth jump, she blinked and her eyes returned to normal. She took a few tired breaths and whistled.

"That was weird," Mira said as she gasped for air. "Like, I thought I'd be able to try to fight back, but that didn't even cross my mind. Are you alright, Chasey?"

"I'm good," he groaned. "Just feeling a bit... weak."

"If you use that in the middle of a life-threatening fight and you just collapse, it'd be pretty bad," I said. "You'd have to either be sure that you'd deal with your opponent in one go or keep it as a last resort."

I could see the ability being very useful. Getting an enemy trainer to off themselves to throw their team into chaos would be effective.

Mira nodded, her hand rubbing her chin. "Tomorrow, we'll try affecting multiple people—"

Cecilia snapped. "No!"

"Yes," I shook my head. "I'm sorry Cece, but this is too important."

My girlfriend bit her lip, but said nothing.

"Next, we have to figure out if there's a time limit. Like, can you order me to do something for one hour? Two hours? A day? I'll be the test subject for that one," she casually said. "And can you give impossible orders? Like, if you ask me to fly, what the hell am I gonna do? Hop on Magnezone and ball? What if you ask me to grow a third arm? There's a lot of things to try..."

Mira kept rambling for a few minutes, and I paid as much attention to her as I could, adding a few of my opinions along the way. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon together anyway since it had been a while since the four of us had hung out and Jasmine was at her support meeting.

And so, multiple days passed. Justin's Corviknight made a healthy recovery, as did the rest of his and Louis' team. We all trained and strived to improve each other as much as we could. Soon, I would sign up at Volkner's Gym, as would all of my friends.

The time for my Gym Battle was approaching.