Chương 52: 4.16 Fish

Aaron's Pokemon - Artoria (Kirlia) - Jeanne (Flaaffy) - Durvasa (Mankey) - Soft-Boiled (Egg) - Magellan (Chikorita) Fish 4. 16 Aaron Fulan Rustboro City Lisia and I spent the morning doing some light training. Apparently, seeing my team work hard pushed hers to not fall behind. It was a good opportunity to watch someone else train, someone who had a distinctly different philosophy when it came to our shared profession. Wallace excluded, there really was a distinct difference between coordinators and trainers.

The League made no distinction between battlers and coordinators, we were all "trainers," but it didn't need to. The populace did that well enough without an official ruling. In short, I saw my team, and myself, as swords that needed to be sharpened. We honed ourselves to a razor's edge through dedicated repetition, like a sword being scraped along a whetstone countless times until the swordsmith was satisfied. To that end, iron will and steel-like discipline were the things that defined my training.

Even when I set up little games for my pokemon to play, there were ironclad rules and clear objectives. Not so with Lisia. If I was a swordsmith honing my pokemon, Lisia was a painter, an artist standing before a blank canvas. To my shock, she gave few orders. She literally told her team, "Dance! Do whatever comes naturally to you. Use moves that resonate with you!" She was like one of those impressionist painters who began each masterpiece by grabbing random pails of paint and chucking them against the wall.

The hilarious part of it all was that it worked. She would look at each pokemon for a moment, then come up with choreography that best used their unique body types and abilities. Like a painter who began with the background and slowly filled in the details, she focused down on the strengths of her team to bring out their best qualities. When Ruby the slugma breathed out a violet cloud of poison, she gently urged him weave ribbons of it.

She had Ali using his wind and mist to disperse it unevenly, forming a purple and blue aurora around us that had us spellbound. It was awe-inspiring. It was something I'd never seen before. Mother was so structured, psychic discipline and willpower that coordinated her training sessions with ruthless efficiency. Pops was full of wonder, always looking to the heavens with a scientific curiosity that I could never match. I was a sword, refined but cutting.

Lisia's style was something I'd never seen before, something I'd never thought possible before. She told me that she had more structured moments, but she enjoyed doing this exercise to come up with new combinations, new choreographies that would take the judges' breath away. Her eyes positively sparkled with passion as she coached her team, as she painted a masterpiece. In that moment, I saw it: This was what made Lisia splendid. She didn't become a star in canon because she was beautiful, though she was that.

Nor did she coast off her uncle's reputation. No, it was her ability to coax beauty out of chaos that truly made her stand out. Like a master painter, she could see the finished product amidst splotches of color. She had vision. Our training session came to an end when Chaz woke up and graced us with his presence. He was well-dressed in his trademark blue suit, with not a hair out of place. At his side was Macherie the machop, still wearing an oversized pink bow.

He also had a venonat named Veronique and a growlithe named Smolder, two more pokemon than I'd expected.

"Good morning, Lisia, Aaron," he called.

"It's almost noon, Chaz," she replied with a giggle.

"And thus it's still morning, no? It takes effort to look this good, you know," he said, tossing his head and causing his hair to flip to the side. Like straight out of a shampoo commercial. I didn't know people actually did that.

"Of course, of course. Have you had breakfast yet? Aaron and I were going to grab lunch soon before going shopping. He doesn't have his contest outfit yet." Chaz gasped as though that personally offended him.

"How? Lisia said you have a ribbon already!" I shrugged.

"I mostly compete in my Mossdeep Gym uniform. Getting a new outfit really hasn't been a priority. The important part is that I show off my sponsor anyway."

"You are such a boor. How can you expect the judges to see you at your best if you won't even put in the effort to dress well?"

"By the skill and strength of my pokemon. Jeanne's the one competing."

"I pity her for having such a boor for a trainer."

"And I pity Macherie for having a fop who can't even fight as hers."

"Excuse me?"

"She's a fighting type. Throwing hands is in her blood. She'd probably be thrilled to start training seriously."

"We do train seriously!" I sideyed him with a languid smile.

"Care to back that talk? There's a difference between practicing a choreographed routine and learning to fight. I'd bet money on Durvasa over Macherie any day of the week even though you've had your machop a lot longer than I've had my mankey."

"Now, now, boys, you're both pretty," Lisia cut in before we could really start to argue. She grabbed us both by the arm and began to drag us off. X I learned three things about Chaz Rosemund that day: First, like Lisia and I, he was a product of his environment. He looked like a pompous, diamond spoon brat because that's exactly what he was. Apparently, Rosemund Enterprises was a major investor in the advertising, cosmetics, and public relations industries.

His family has had a finger in the contest circuit pie for twenty years now. Though his family wasn't known for being pokemon trainers, it had its sphere of influence. Second, Chaz Rosemund had no idea how to interact with people outside of his elite social clubs. I found that out when he insisted on hearing my ideas for a costume. To my surprise, he worked with Lisia to give me a few recommendations, peppered with plenty of backhanded compliments.

It took me a while to realize that he was even trying to help at all, what with him constantly calling me a "styleless boor" and "sword-idiot." I tried not to take offense; he was right after all. I quickly figured out that a charcoal-gray suit with a blue shirt would just make me look like an inverse of Chaz and scrapped the idea. With their help, I settled on a fitted suit of mostly grays and blacks with muted, pink and blue accents that would match the Mossdeep Gym logo.

Lisia also got me a bandana to wrap around my neck. It was dark-blue with the Mossdeep badge embroidered throughout for "contrast and a pop of color," not that I had a clue what she was talking about, or why I needed that and a tie. Then again, when Hoenn's next pop idol gave you style advice, you didn't say no. The grudging admission of "tolerable," was probably as best as I'd ever get from Chaz. Third, Chaz had it bad for Lisia.

It was so painfully obvious that I could only assume Lisia was as dense as a black hole; there was no other way she could have missed his pining. Or maybe she did know, didn't know how she wanted to respond to a friend having such a blatant crush, and was going with the tried-and-true ostrich approach. She was, no matter how talented, still just a thirteen year old girl after all. After lunch, I took them to a rock candy store, a Rustboro specialty.

The originals were apparently made with mountain springwater that made them rich in minerals beyond just sugar. They were also supposed to be consumed when a mother learned she was expecting so that her children would be "as stout as stone and as sweet as sugar." Or maybe the shopkeeper was lying to me. Either could be true, to be honest. These weren't anything special, just sugar crystals hardened and flavored via evaporating syrup, but they looked really pretty.

The priciest crystal candies were shaped into gems and fitted onto necklaces and tiaras made of brass that children could wear, though the shopkeeper did say they could get sticky in the sun and warned us not to take them out of their wrappers. To the untrained eye, they really did look like precious stones. I picked out a few "sapphires" and "pink amethysts" that reminded me of the gym and the twins.

"They're very pretty, mister. Do you have any that fit into gift boxes?"

"Of course," the old man said. He could smell a sale.

"Who's it for? Maybe that lovely, young lady behind you?"

"They're for my family in Mossdeep. These can be shipped just fine, right?"

"Yes, they can. How many would you like?"

"Four. Two for my younger siblings and two for my parents."

"That was really sweet of you, Aaron," Lisia said as we walked away. We had smaller sticks of rock candy that we were sucking on.

"How are Tate and Liza?"

"They're great. I'm pretty sure Tate's winning their prank war. Liza's not sneaky enough to get around Tate's precognition."

"H-Hey, Lisia?" Chaz said, tapping her shoulder. He had a rock candy necklace of his own, studded with sugar crystals that looked like turquoise gems.

"I got you this. They reminded me of you. Your eyes are the same shade, and even more beautiful." I had to give him props. He managed to say that with barely a stutter. I didn't think I was that confident at thirteen. Lisia took it with a confused smile that quickly transformed into bubbly cheer.

"Oh, thanks? How'd you know I have a sweet tooth? I'll be nibbling on these for a week. Oh! Let me pay you back! This looks really expensive!"

"No, I couldn't. It's a gif-""I insist!" Lisia said, practically shoving the money in Chaz's suit pocket. She browbeat Chaz with the force of her personality, forcing him to take the money and turning what could have been a romantic gesture into a snack between friends. It went like that for a while. Everywhere we went, Chaz tried some way to impress her, whether it was with treats or trying to show he was the best at the arcade. I was pretty sure he pulled a muscle on the punching machine.

His questions to a traditional tea merchant about the language of teas and flowers, and romance in particular, were especially cringe-inducing. For her part, Lisia deflected his attempts at seduction like a master fencer. Had this been a duel of swords, I would have declared her a prodigy and offered her lessons. There was affection in her aura, but that was directed towards us both so I had to assume it was platonic. There was also a hefty dose of uncertainty whenever she used her bubbliness as a shield.

Had she been genuinely uncomfortable with Chaz, I might have intervened, but I saw the awkward dance of two teenagers who had no idea what to do with their feelings. I, being the wizened elder that I was, opted to enjoy their mutual suffering and laugh at them later. The courtship dance of the wild Hoenn teenager aside, that tea merchant was a real treat. She was old and gray, with hair as white as her shiftry's. After some smooth-talking, I got to try a unique experience: shiftry tea.

Her partner of many decades literally dipped his hand inside a teapot to steep his fan-leaves. A few minutes later, I had a steaming cup of the stuff. The flavor was difficult to put into words. I was no great connoisseur of tea, but my time in Japan did make me rather familiar with the stuff. I'd become a fan of ochazuke in particular. The flavor was minty and sharp, with a brightness that couldn't be found in normal, dried or roasted teas.

It was an experience I'd never had before, and one that made me wonder what Magellan tea would taste like. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"So how was the Feather Carnival?" I asked Lisia.

"You said you'd tell me all about it once we met up."

"Oh, yeah! Thanks for reminding me, Aaron," she chirped. We were seated on a park bench, our pokemon let out to play.

"I learned so much from just watching Winona. Did you know that the difference between a flying type and a pokemon who happens to be able to fly is their innate mastery over the wind?"

"I mean, I'd assume so? That affinity is what distinguishes psychics too, or any other type for that matter."

"Well, yeah, but seeing it was something else. Her swellow, the one on her elite team, was sooo awesome! Like, she used Quick Attacks at supersonic speeds to make her own drumline!"

"Wait, how does that work? Wouldn't all sonic booms sound the same?"

"Not if swellow outraces its own sonic booms and uses Boomburst at the same time to set a different tempo. The impression we get on the ground is an entire drumline taking place in the sky."

"That sounds incredible. I didn't know Winona had any interest in music. Could a skarmory's feathers be used to mimic cymbals then?"

"Yup! She did that too. The amount of control that takes… Wow, I have goosebumps even thinking back to that," she said with a happy shiver.

"How about you? How was Petalburg Woods? You walked the whole thing, right?"

"Kinda? I did the first time from Verdanturf to Oldale. I got my ribbon there. Then, I got my second badge from Norman and headed up through Petalburg again to Rustboro. But on that second trip, I ended up getting involved in an anti-poaching operation with the rangers. Fought some people, crossed swords with a scyther, it was wild."

"You crossed swords… with a scyther…?" she asked, trying to make sense of that statement.

"Poachers stirred up the local scyther swarm and they started attacking humans indiscriminately. I didn't really have a choice."

"Yeah, right. A human can't beat a scyther," Chaz scoffed.

"I might have believed you if you said your kirlia beat a scyther."

"I don't lie, Chaz, not about things like this. Besides, how else would you explain Magellan there? He's one of the pokemon the rangers and I saved. He wanted to come with me and I'll be training him in earnest once his spine heals."

"I can believe you found an injured chikorita, maybe even that you helped the rangers with something, but humans can't beat pokemon, Aaron."

"I never said I beat a scyther. I said I crossed blades with one, and only for a few seconds. Honestly? If Ranger Acosta didn't arrive to save our asses, we'd probably be dead. We ran into the poachers a few days after that, only to find they'd cornered several chikorita. That's when my team intervened."

"That still sounds like nonsense. I mean, finding a Johto starter in Petalburg is already incredibly fortunate." I nodded. He was right, to be honest. The regions were open to travel, but that didn't mean it was common. Trainers did, and some pokemon too, but starters were starters because they were rare even in their native regions. And chikorita weren't exactly the kind of species known for bouts of wanderlust.

"Then don't believe me. I maintain that everything I said happened, happened," I said with a shrug. I had nothing to prove, not to him.

"Anyway, after we saved the chikorita, we waited for the rangers and Ranger Acosta was kind enough to fly us the rest of the way here so I didn't walk the whole forest the second time around."

"Sounds exciting," Lisia said.

"I'm kinda with Chaz on this one though. That story's a little hard to believe."

"Suit yourselves. I agree that sounds like a lot." I opted not to mention the mega stone. Or how I ended up saving Norman Maple's son. Really, put like that, my journey did sound improbably eventful.

"Say, Chaz, how about you? How'd you get your first ribbon?"

"Heh, trying to scope out your biggest competition, I see," he said with a confident smirk.

"You need to try harder than that, Aaron."

"You know the contests are recorded and uploaded online, right?"

"No matter, Macherie and I are not the same as we were in Ambertown. That recording won't help you much against us."

"It's not a contest, you guys," Lisia said with an exasperated sigh.

"It is in fact a contest, Lis," I said with a teasing grin.

"That's what it's called."

"You know what I mean!"

"Where's Ambertown anyway?"

"It's a small town near Fallarbor and has maybe six thousand people," Chaz informed me.

"They're famous for making little trinkets out of the amber found in the nearby forests, hence the name."

"Huh, that's really neat." It still took me aback sometimes to find that there were more towns than in the games. Hoenn was an ancient region in which multiple kingdoms and city states rose and fell. There were plenty of places off the beaten path outlined by the gym circuit where humans lived. Few were true cities, but small towns like Ambertown weren't unheard of. Hell, the Mossdeep Archipelago had more settlements than just Mossdeep City.

The largest island, annoyingly called Mossdeep Island, was over four hundred square miles, with the city proper taking up about seventy square miles. There were several coastal villages, farms, and fisheries dotted throughout the island that answered to Mossdeep's provincial government and the gym. X Rustboro Contest Hall was utterly unremarkable. Slateport's had been beautiful and vast, as much a masterwork of modern art as the Grand Festival it hosted.

Verdanturf's had blended its architecture with its people's love of nature. Even Oldale's had its share of personality, a barn and cattle auction hall that doubled as a gathering place for the farming community. Comparatively, Rustboro's was stark. The building was certainly large, and made of the sandstone the people here favored, but it was completely void of decorations. Without the sign outside, we might have passed it by as just another apartment complex or office building.

Then again, maybe that was Rustboro's personality: stark, minimalist, and no-frills.

"There are so many people here," Lisia squealed happily.

"Gee, imagine that, people, in the city," I drawled. She responded by pulling down her eyelid and blowing me a raspberry.

"Blegh! You're such a sourpuss, Aaron. Tell him, Chaz." Chaz groaned something unintelligible as he stumbled along next to us. It was nine in the morning and the contest began in half an hour, which meant the blonde was up two hours earlier than he usually was.

"Whoever organized this to start at nine-thirty needs to be fed to a salamence," he groused.

"Nine-thirty is a perfectly normal time to be up," I opined with a shit-eating smirk. I could pretend to be sympathetic, but we'd all know I'd be lying.

"I've been up since five-thirty, Chaz."

"Because you're a sword-idiot."

"What time did you sleep?" Lisia asked.

"Two? Three at the latest."

"How? Why? What were you doing up that late?" His face flushed at that.

"It's not important." I snorted. He reminded me of some of my friends from college who kept similarly twisted sleep schedules. They at least used that time to study or write papers, for the most part. What he was doing, I didn't want to guess. We walked past the main lobby and into the coordinators' wing, an area set aside for us to make last minute preparations. We were each handed programs which contained the names of every coordinator participating.

There would be forty-eight of us in the normal-rank, far larger than any other contest I'd been in so far. It wasn't just the numbers. There was a far more eclectic variety of pokemon as well. I saw a beautifly perched atop a woman's head, not unlike how Ali liked to pretend he was Lisia's scarf. I also saw marill, vulpix, skitty, pikachu, and even a bellossom. There was definitely a bias towards marill and skitty, four and five of each respectively in our group of forty-eight.

They were pokemon native to the city's outskirts, common, easy to raise, and generically "cute" contest pokemon.

"How unoriginal," Chaz muttered as he eyed a marill who was seated on its own tail-bulb.

"Cliches are cliches because they work," I pointed out. I'd considered an azumarill for my team as well, albeit not for contests.

"Those things are adorable."

"And they shall appear all the more uncreative because they rely on those cliches. The essence of a coordinator is innovation."

"True. But it's not as though you can't stand out with an exceptional marill or skitty. Like you said, the trainer's creativity will define the performance."

"We'll see if they have what it takes then," he said, clearly with expectations to the contrary. We watched the first few rounds go by. Even capped at five minutes per appeal, with forty-eight contestants, the appeals round would have taken upwards of four hours. Seeing the sheer impracticality of it, the appeals round had been divided into two divisions performing at the same time. Two coordinators would move on from each division to create the brackets for the battle round after a lunch intermission.

When Lisia's number got called to stage A, we both completely forgot about the vulpix on Stage B. Whatever that vulpix was doing, it practically didn't matter. Chaz's silly crush aside, we knew without question that Lisia Mikuri was the gal to beat. X Lisia Mikuri I took a deep breath. My heart pounded in my chest. The thrill of the show raised goosebumps down my arms. I felt positively wired, like I had one of those energy shakes meant for electric pokemon. This was it. I was here again.

Here, backstage, ready to dance my heart out, to show the world that there was more than one way to raise pokemon. It was so exciting! The stage! The lights! The people! I never felt more alive than the moments before a show. Sure, it was just five minutes in a normal-rank contest now, but one day, Ali and I would dance for the world. Was this how Uncle Wall felt when he took center stage at the Grand Festival? Was this how Aaron felt about his kendo? Would Chaz feel this way when it was his turn?

I giggled thinking about my friends. They were more alike than different, even if they'd never admit it. Maybe that was why they got on like a pair of wet meowth. I'd never seen anyone my age as self-assured as those two. Well, except for me maybe. The emcee called my name and I dashed onto the stage with a cheerful bounce in my step. The music I'd chosen, an energetic pop song I'd listened to a million times before, blared around me. There was electricity in my veins. I couldn't slow down even if I tried.

There was no time to waste. We'd be cutting it close even if things went perfectly. Risky? Probably. Thrilling? Definitely. My faith in Ali? Unconditional.

"Hello~ Rustboro!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. I didn't care that there were less than two hundred people watching. As big as the city was, most people weren't interested in normal-rank contests.

"Come! Soar with us!" With that, I hurled Ali's pokeball as high as I could. His pokeball opened, releasing my dearest friend into the air. My other friends weren't quite ready with their routines, but they would be soon. I couldn't wait to bring them on, maybe even a doubles routine someday. That would come in time, an option once I reached the super-rank. But for now, this was Ali's time to shine. Ali was magnificent. I couldn't have asked for a better partner.

He emerged with a song on his beak and a trail of mist behind his wings. A thick fog began to cover us, courtesy of Ali's Mist. Ice type energy didn't come naturally to swablu, but that just meant we could highlight Ali's hard work all the more. I began to twirl and dance to the music. Above me, Ali mirrored my movements in an elegant spiral, exuding more and more Mist all the while. Soon, we had a towering cloud around us, as big as the stage would allow.

The spectators could see only an outline of me marked by the stage lights, but that was okay; I wasn't the star here. We'd watched ourselves for countless hours, picking apart our recordings so we could improve. Every tilt of the head, every gesture of fingers and wings, it was all calculated, perfected in the same way Aaron perfected his sword swings or Chaz perfected his hair-flippy thing. Then, as we danced, Ali's wings began to brush and comb the cloud.

He incorporated Gust and Fairy Wind into the choreography, shaping the cloud and leaving glittering pink accents in strategic locations. I thought about doing the same with little hand fans, but I could never match his finesse. The song hit its bridge. It was time. I broke our synchronized routine and ran out of the cloud cover. My skin was shining with sweat and precipitation but I didn't care. This was it, the climax I so desperately wanted to share with the world.

"Ali! Bring it home!" I shouted, my hand pumped to the sky. I wore a dazzling smile on my face as bolts of joyous anticipation shocked through me. I prayed that the crowd could feel even a bit of this energy. He answered with an elegant trill. As the song hit its final repetition of the chorus, Ali swept into the air, brushing his wings against the ceiling. There was a hole there, the tunneling path that Ali flew through.

Our cloud sculpture looked like nothing now, just a spiral with some lopsided protrusions, but it was like a balloon, meant to be inflated. My partner took a deep breath and breathed out azure dragon fire, directly into the hole that some might have called an oversight. The result was immediate. Ice type energy in the cloud warred splendidly with Ali's draconic breath. The resulting steam inflated the cloud, revealing what we made to the world.

An altaria, wings spread in cloudy majesty, loomed over the audience as the last notes of the song faded. The neck, originally the spiral tunnel, glimmered blue with dragon fire. The wings, clouds flattened out by Gust, spanned the stage. Certain sections of the sculpture had been intentionally seeded with Fairy Wind, leaving gorgeous, pink accents that gave the illusion of motion as the glitters of power wafted in the wind. But that wasn't all that Fairy Wind did.

When we first started out, it was almost impossible to make the sculpture hold its shape. Draconic aura didn't want to stay still. It warred with everything. The only way for the statue to truly hold its shape was to patch some of it with fairy aura, disrupting the draconic and supplementing the ice. This statue was a testament to what we could make, and a promise of what we would one day become. It was a study in contrasts warring auras balanced into something splendid, artistic flair framed by technical skill.

This was our magnum opus, for now. Author's Note Spoon hasn't been winning lately, but I kinda feel bad for not updating this so have a long-ish chapter. Chaz only has a machop in ORAS, but there is an entirely different Chaz in the anime who has a venomoth. I decided to mush the two together because why the fuck not? It's not like either character is fleshed out at all. Ochazuke is green tea over rice. It's very soothing; you guys should make it sometime.

That comment about Mossdeep's size is made with Hawai'i as reference. Hawai'i, the Big Island, is over 4, 000 square miles. Mossdeep Island, at 400, would still be smaller than the main four Hawaiian islands. Hopefully I made Lisia and Ali's debut performance on this fic suitably impressive. Just like how Aaron hits way above his weight class in badges, Lisia is a prodigy who doesn't belong at the normal-rank.

Food Fact: If you have allergies to pollen, you may have heard that eating locally sourced honey can help alleviate the symptoms. The idea is that honey is made from pollen and eating it can help your body become desensitized to it. Unfortunately, though plenty of people say that, this has no scientific basis. The honey collected by bees is not at all guaranteed to be sourced from the same flowers that cause seasonal allergies.

Seasonal allergies are caused by windblown pollen, the kind that don't require bees to pollinate. Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https: //linktr. ee/fabled. webs.