Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I had to give myself a few moments for my eyes to adjust from the fairly dark outside to the near daylight of the lobby. When I looked in through the glass doors, it didn’t seem nearly as bright so I guess the doors are tinted or something similar. I take a glance around and find that the lobby is fairly empty. Looking at the clock I see it is nearly ten o’clock. As this is the first day of the season for the new trainers, any that live in Viridian are staying at home or have already headed into Viridian Forest.

Any of the veteran trainers are already at Pewter City getting their first badge. Most veteran trainers already have their flying license. A flying license can be earned after getting your third badge in a region. This is a fairly easy requirement for most trainers, yet only active trainers are allowed to fly on a pokemon alone. Once a trainer’s badge expires, which is one year after their last renewal or gym circuit, they are no longer allowed to use a pokemon to get around and must use publicly available modes of transport. I plan to get my flying license as soon as possible as well, providing Zephyr is able to carry me by then.

I approach the desk in the lobby where one of the Joy clan members is standing. Trying not to be rude, as I get closer I examine the lady in front of me. She stood at a height of about five foot eight and had strawberry red hair done up in a hairstyle that gave her a loop of hair on either side of her head. She greeted me with a kind smile once I was in front of her.

“Welcome to Viridian City Pokecenter, how may I assist you?”

“Hello there, I am Frost Oak from Pallet town. I was wondering if there were any open rooms for my team and I?”

“Why certainly! This time of year we do not normally have a number of trainers as the city gym does not open until the last half of the season.” That is good information to know. Nurse Joy hands me a keycard for a room with a room number on it. “Your room is up on the third floor. Please have a good night.” She smiles at me with a kind look of dismissal so I grab the keycard and head towards the stairs.

“Thank you Nurse Joy. I hope you have a good night as well!” As I round the corner to the first floor, the unmistakable scent of hospital clean hits my nose and continues on the second floor as well. “I guess that is the hospital for trainers that have gotten hurt.” I whisper quietly. It didn’t take me long to reach my room once I got to the third floor.

As I opened my room door, I was greeted by a fairly utilitarian room. The room is only ten foot by ten foot in size with an industrial blue-gray carpet and a bed and window on one wall, another wall had a simple desk and chair available. Above the desk was a small TV mounted on the wall. On the opposite wall was a door heading to the bathroom and a chaise lounge type chair where a normal sized pokemon could lay down. Instead of the stark white most of the Pokecenter walls were painted in, the walls of the room were painted in what I would call contractor beige. It’s that omnipresent color that most places are painted in when they are first constructed.

I walk over to the bed and sit down hard, expecting the bed to give under my weight. It doesn’t. The bed is rock hard, clearly meant for something with weight to lay on it or else it was just the hardest mattress in existence. Skadi hops on next to me before spinning around a few times and laying down next to my leg with her nose in her tails.I smile tiredly at her and lay down on the bed trying not to disturb her and close my eyes to fall asleep as well. Alll latest novels at novelhall.com

*BOOM*

The sound of an explosion startles me awake. I notice that Skadi is already up and pacing around the room. I take out my phone, only to see it has only been about three hours since I went to sleep. My eyebrow twitches slightly in irritation. If there is one thing I hate, it is being woken up too early. Is it too much to ask for a good night's sleep? I need my beauty rest! Whoever caused this is going to regret it.

I get back out of bed and head back down to where the sound of the explosion happened with Skadi on my heels. As I come out of the stairwell onto the ground floor I pause for a minute due to all the smoke in the air. I notice that Skadi’s ears twitch like she is listening to something so I focus on my hearing as well.

“Ah a little bird. I was feeling hungry” Meowth grinned in a predatory manner at Zephyr.

“Ekans, catch that thing, it can be your dinner.” Jessie called out, not caring about the bird missile. Ekans sprung out from where it was hiding, its mouth opened right in Zephyrs path.

“Zephyr, weave around the snake and stay on course! Skadi, attack the Meowth!” I called out with a slight bit of panic in my voice. I didn’t want to have Zephyr potentially die as I’m still unsure of what can happen in this world. Everything I had seen from battles were all rule lawyered and nothing permanent was ever done to a pokemon. This was different though, they were criminals.

I watched in increasing horror and then relief as Zephyr dodged Ekans at the absolute last second before turning into a flaming streak across the room that slammed into Koffing with a sickening bang and crunch being heard at the same time. Zephyr recoils off the Koffing towards the desk where Nurse Joy is trying to call for assistance. She lands and skids across the floor but I don’t see her moving.

I start to panic when suddenly a blinding flash occurs from beside me and an enormous beam of pink light shoots across the room and hits Ekans, Meowth, Jessie and James all at the same time followed by another massive boom from the wall behind them exploding. The beam lasts for only a second but the after image lingers as I look at where it hit. I have to blink a few times as my vision returns and I find everyone that was hit by the pillar of light completely knocked out.

I turn my head to look at Skadi who looks up at me proudly before falling over, passing out as well. I picked her up gently before hurrying over to Zephyr now that the fight seemed to be over. I place Skadi on the desk before quickly rushing over to Zephyr and gently picking her up in my hands. I breathe a sigh of relief as I feel my brave little bird still breathing even though her wings look broken. I carry her over to the desk as well and wait for Nurse Joy to finish talking on the phone.

“Thank you for your assistance. I have seen everything you have done and informed the Jenny office about your assistance as well. Do not worry about your pokemon as we will make sure they will be taken care of like the little heroes they are.” Nurse Joy gives me a small bow in gratitude before placing my two pokemon on a nearby stretcher and using a pokeball to recall Nurse Chansey.

A few moments later I can hear the sounds of multiple pairs of footsteps coming from outside and I see a whole squad of police officers. Each and every one of them has the same teal hair and amber eyes, showing they are from the Jenny clan. They quickly go about handcuffing each of the Team Rocket members and placing their pokemon back into their pokeballs. They then place their pokeballs into a special locked case and taking it away. For the Rocketsicles that Skadi made, the blue energy is almost gone so they should be fine. It looks like even though pokemon moves can affect humans, the power is only temporary. I sigh in relief internally as I did not kill anyone.

After giving my statement to the Jennys, and seeing Zephyr and Skadi off to the pokemon care rooms, I head back to my room. Once back to the quiet of my room I strip off my dress and shoes and hang them up by the bathroom before taking a warm, even though the knob is turned all the way to cold, shower. I just let the water run over me as I slowly decompress from the excitement. I think back on what I did and realize I was not actually powerful enough to help in that situation. If they had attacked when I was in the open, or is Zephyr did not dodge the Ekans, things would have been different.

That was twice now that I had won by doing sneak attacks and preplanning. When I start fighting in gyms, that strategy is not going to work. Once my pokemon are healed up, I need to seriously train as we go through the Viridian Forest. As long as I can get the badge by the end of July, I won’t have to worry about the time to get the rest of the badges.

After about fifteen minutes I turn off the shower and head directly to the bed where I fall onto it face first and quickly start to fall asleep.

[Congratulations host! You have successfully repelled a criminal attack! You have been awarded one Gacha spin.]

I partially open my eyes and glare at the message before dismissing it with a huff and actually falling asleep moments later.