Chapter Seventy-Seven

Choco was as happy as anybunny else when Jazz returned to the Pokemon Centre. She was a little dishevelled, smelled stinky in a way he wasn’t used to, and when she arrived one of the first things she did was rush the front counter and hand over her pokeballs to the Nurse Joy there.

“Hey guys,” she said.

“You’re back!” Broccoli said with a cheer. Then it was hug time, and Choco did his best to join it. He flomped down from Broccoli’s head and onto the shorter Jazz’s head, arms spread wide for maximum hug contact.

“Yeah, I’m back. Sorry for not calling, or leaving a message or something. I uh, got a little busy underground where the reception isn’t the best,” Jazz said. “But yeah, I’m back.” She pulled out of the hug and Choco found himself suddenly stranded on Jazz-Head-Island, at least until familiar hands wrapped around his torso and pulled him down into Jazz’s embrace. “There’s a few things I wanna explain. Do you guys have a minute?”

“Of course we do,” Broccoli said. “Did you want to chat here, or...”

“Our rooms would be fine,” Jazz said. “And... hey, how about we order some food? There’s got to be a place that delivers around here, right?”

So they did! Jazz had to wait for the nurses to be done checking up on her team, but in the meanwhile the rest of them poured over some foldy paper menus with pictures of delicious-looking food on them.

They got pizza.

Pizza, as far as Choco could tell, was like a large flat bread, but better because there was warm sauce on it, and lots of cheese. He liked cheese, even if it made him fart a bunch.

Once food was ordered in bulk quantities and Jazz’s pokemon were back from the nurses, they slipped into their rooms at the back of the centre. Then Tabitha had to run back because the pizza arrived at the front.

Soon they were crowded around a table almost too small to hold the pizza boxes with half of them sitting on the beds and the other half on the floor or in chairs they stole from the corridor.

“So, uh,” Jazz began after a few bites. She was staring very hard at her paper plate. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“Wherever you want,” Broccoli said. “Take your time.”

“Distressing emotions can take a lot of time to work through,” Tabitha said. “That’s both because of their complex nature, their links with a vast number of strong memories, and because humans need to put a lot of effort into understanding and coping with their own mental and physical insecurities. Something that bothers you this much must be complicated enough that you’ll need time to work through it.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Jazz said. She took another bite, then put her plate and food down. Choco eyed it, but he still had a long, narrow strip of pizza in his mouth and was working on chewing through the cheesy bits.

Jazz shifted, then nodded, mostly to herself. Her pokemon were out in the room, Bell was wiggling by the window, eating some sunlight and Sage was hovering above. Zubat was the only one sharing in the pizza, and he was hanging from the top bunk, eating his pizza... the right way up while he was upsidedown.

Choco flipped his pizza over to see if it tasted better that way, and his cheese splatted onto his tummy fluff.

“I went on my first journey... a few years ago,” Jazz said. “I was thirteen, at the time. Pretty normal age for that, I think. I wasn’t Jazz Poison then, I was... anyway, it doesn’t matter. The best kids, those with connections and who had good grades, got pokemon from the local schools to start with. I wasn’t one of those. I wasn’t poor, but we weren’t that well off, and I wasn’t very good in school. So my journey started with a few pokeballs and a lot of... well, it’s not bravery so much as a lack of fear and common sense.”

“A common start,” Tabitha said.

“Yeah,” Jazz agreed. “I met my first pokemon in a field. She was a little injured from a fight with a pidgey that had gone wrong. She was afraid of me, but I approached her carefully... and ate a Poison Sting for my troubles. But we both made it to the pokemon centre, and even if my parents weren’t... happy  they couldn’t say no without looking bad.”

“Oh,” Broccoli said. Choco didn’t know what she ‘oh’ed’ about, but it felt like she’d jumped to a conclusion that he missed.

“Anyway. We went off, and we fought that pidgey together. Won, too. It was probably more luck than anything. So my journey started in earnest. We went to Violet city, which took us some time, and on the way we fought a bunch, grew a little stronger, and grew a little closer too.”

Jazz smiled, she seemed to like these memories.

“Violet City was tough. Faulkner could fly, of course, so we had to practice a lot. It took two tries, so we lost a couple of weeks, but in that time we grew a lot stronger and I made... not friends, exactly, but I met some other trainers at the start of their own circuit.”

“What kind of pokemon was your friend?” Broccoli asked.

“Ah. She was a Nidoran,” Jazz said.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jazz took a sip from a can, then continued. “Poison Sting won us our first badge, so we continued on the circuit. Second badge was easy. We were pretty darned confident. With just one pokemon... well, it was easy to train a lot, grow stronger.”

“What happened?” Broccoli asked.

Jazz licked her lips. “We never got past the third badge. It’s something of a wall, and while Nido was strong, very strong, she was alone. I failed once, but it was close. I failed a second time, and it was even closer. I went out and caught some pokemon. Tried a third time with a slightly bigger team, but only Nido was trained properly. Well, as properly as I could manage as a new trainer. We lost again.”

“Time,” Tabitha said.

“Yeah, time. Most gyms, especially gyms in big cities like this, have a restriction in place. If you fail, you need to wait two weeks before you can try again. Those stack up. By the time I was ready... the circuit was past its middle. There was no chance I’d make it. So I grabbed my team and went home.”

“Okay,” Broccoli said. “That’s not so bad, is it? Does everyone make it on their first try?”

Jazz shook her head. “No, of course not, but... the next year wasn’t much better, and my parents...” She swallowed, then glared at the innocent pizza who had done no harm. “They took Nido. Sent her off to some breeding farm somewhere. Told me that two tries was enough. I did everything I could to get her back, but... there’s nothing I could do. That was last year. I spend the year in a slump and... yeah. This year, I caught Bell with a ball I stole, packed up my stuff, and ran.”

“Oh, Jazz.” Broccoli moved around the table, carefully took Jazz’s plate, then gave her a big hug. Jazz was teary eyed, but not crying.

Choco looked over to Oran, and his friend shrugged a little. “Bun buneary bun bun?” So what’s a breeding farm?

Broccoli choked on a giggle. “Choco, a breeding farm is... uh... when two friends love each other very much, and are in a stable financial situation, they might want to consider making, uh, new friends... organically.”

“Broccoli, are you trying to give them the talk?” Jazz asked.

“Just like my mom did for me,” Broccoli said with a nod.

Jazz started to laugh. It was a laugh that sounded like it had a lot in common with a cry, but it was still a laugh. “I feel like maybe you’re not the most qualified person for giving the talk.”

“Buneary bun bun?” What’s a financially stable?

“Ma marill marill rill marill.” It means you make lots of money.

“Buneary un bun buneary, bun.” I guess no breeding farm for us, then.

Jazz wiped her eyes, then took a deep breath. “Thanks, guys. I needed that.”

Broccoli gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “Anytime, Jazz. We're here for you.”

Jazz took her plate back, and started eating again, and so did the rest of them.

It was a good meal.

***

Chapter Seventy-Eight

“Are you certain?” Tabitha asked. “Because there’s no harm in postponing this event, or even eschewing it entirely. My plans are capable of taking some amount of bending, and there are other pokemon that I desire to catch which can be found in these environs.”

“It’s fine,” Jazz said.

Tabitha eyed the girl for a moment, really  eyed her.

Jazz was in her usual attire. Trainer gear that emphasised purples and blacks. She was, as usual, a very attractive young woman. Fit and thin. The constant walking and occasional running that came with being a pokemon trainer, not to mention the actual training itself, meant that most trainers were more fit than the average population.

Then again, Tabitha had met more trainers with injuries than civilians with the same. Pokemon training wasn’t a job with no risks, and trekking through the wilds was also quite dangerous. From trips and falls far from civilization to meetings with wild pokemon that could be fiercely territorial or simply disliked humans.

The Rangers took care of keeping the routes safe, but every higher-level trainer knew that the strongest wild pokemon were found far off-route and in places where they’d have to put themselves at risk to discover.

Tabitha refocused. What was important now was Jazz, not her wandering thoughts about danger, even if looking at Jazz for too long made the parts of Tabitha that calculated risk fire off. Strange, that the same didn’t happen with Broccoli who was, by all metrics, a greater physical and possibly a greater mental threat.

“Is it smart to go out this late at night?” Broccoli asked.

“It’s not unheard of,” Jazz said. “A lot of pokemon are more relaxed around dusk. They’re preparing to head back to their burrows but aren’t there yet. They’ve had a day to do... pokemon stuff, so they’re pretty calm.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Broccoli said.

“It’s a good idea to bring food with you, if you’re planning on capturing a pokemon without first battling it,” Tabitha said.

“People really capture pokemon after fighting them?” Broccoli asked. Choco, still firmly planted on Broccoli’s head, blinked at that as well.

Tabitha nodded. “It’s one of the more common ways to capture a wild pokemon. Battle them to show that you’re capable and strong, then tend to them after the capture.”

“That doesn’t seem very friendly,” Broccoli said.

“It’s less effective at promoting a friendly start to a relationship than capturing a pokemon by coercing it into a ball, or by raising a pokemon from babyhood,” Tabitha agreed. Her own two kings-to-be were both captured in the friendlier way. King Krabby had practically joined Tabitha without issue, and Slowking had joined after agreeing to be with her.

“Huh,” Jazz said. “If you do get a n-nidoran today, that’ll bring you up to three pokemon. We’ll be equal.”

“Only in the number of pokemon,” Tabitha said factually. Hers were, after all, far stronger still.

Jazz glared at her, but it didn’t carry much heat. Tabitha was once again glad to be able to read people’s emotions, because people like Jazz who glared so much without feeling any anger behind it were far too common. Why couldn’t people just wear the emotion they were feeling?

It didn’t take too long to get everything they needed to head out, they had prepared for this in the morning in any case, and had yet to return all of their things. Tabitha did insist on making one stop on the way back to the route to the north of Goldenrod, however. A quick stop at the department store where she rushed to the pokemon food area and purchased three boxes of pokesnacks .

Choco and Oran both perked up on seeing the boxes she carried out with her, and King Krabby was... not begging, per se, because she was raised better than that, but she was certainly giving Tabitha a look  and Tabitha could literally feel the want pouring off of her crab.

She opened one of the boxes and gave each pokemon who wanted one a pokesnack. She refused to hand out more, even when Choco and Oran hit her with a tag-team Baby Doll Eyes that made her heart wilt.

She had to stay strong! If she folded to the first cute thing she saw, she’d never become a king of kings.

They finally made their way north, Tabitha deciding to splurge on a taxi to carry them across the city. The taxi had a ‘No free pokemon’ policy. Choco and Oran used the same trick on the taxi driver who immediately folded and said that they could ignore it as long as they all behaved.

A few minutes later they were back out of Goldenrod, back on Route 35.  

The route was quieter than usual, the sky fading to twilight as the sun dipped below the horizon. Tabitha took in a deep lungful of the cool evening air. It was tranquil. She was getting used to the psychic loudness of Goldenrod, but even still so close to the city, this area was much quieter.

She led the way, eyes scanning the underbrush along the edges of the route for any movement. “We’ll need to be quiet,” she said softly. “Nidoran are cautious creatures. Loud noises might scare them off.”

She stopped when she heard a loud crunch  from behind her and turned to see.. Broccoli with a pokesnack in her mouth. Choco was reaching down from atop her head to grab it, and Oran was reaching up from her cradle in Broccoli’s arms for the same.

“I... wanted to see what it tasted like,” Broccoli said.

“You moron,” Jazz said. She sounded angry, but felt exasperated and yet amused. “That’s not human food.”

“Is it dangerous?” Broccoli asked.

“No, it’s gross.”

Tabotha shook her head and pushed her senses out. There were plenty of pokemon around, but she couldn't pick out a nidoran’s thoughts from the rest. Still, she started into the side of the route and the others followed behind her. She discovered some pidgey hopping along the ground, and further in a small group of yanma  around a pond where a psyduck was floating on its back.

They continued, eventually running into a family of drowzee who’d evidently just woken up despite the sun being on its way to setting. Broccoli chatted with them for a moment, and they were pointed further in.

That’s where they discovered a small group of nidoran congregating around a much larger nidorino.

Tabitha took a moment to assess the situation. The nidorino was clearly the leader here, watching over its... children? That seemed correct. The smaller nidoran, both blue and purple, were scattered about a small clearing, some nibbling on plants while others tousled and played. They were clearly all a little tired though, and some were resting already.

“We need to approach slowly,” Tabitha whispered to Jazz and Broccoli. "Let them see we're not a threat.”

They moved forwards, Tabitha leading with her hands visible and posture relaxed. The nidorino stiffened, but didn’t attack. Instead, his eyes narrowed and watched them closely.

“Hello there,” she said, keeping her voice soft but firm. “We don’t mean any harm.”

The pokemon sniffed the air, then took a tentative step forwards. Its ears twitched. A little nidoran poked its head out from behind him. It was tiny, the runt of the group, but it nonetheless locked eyes with her and exuded a pure, unrestrained sort of curiosity.

“Hey there,” Tabitha said, kneeling down and extending her hand with a pokesnack. “I’m not here to hurt you. Look, I’ve got something tasty for you.”

The nidoran took a tentative step forward, sniffing the air. Tabitha remained still, her heart pounding with excitement and anticipation. Slowly, the nidoran approached, its nose twitching furiously as it got closer to the pokesnack.

The nidoran finally reached Tabitha, cautiously sniffing the pokesnack in her hand before taking a small nibble. It chewed thoughtfully, its eyes never leaving Tabitha’s.

“That’s it,” Tabitha whispered, gently placing the pokesnack on the ground. She reached into her bag and pulled out another one, offering it to the nidorino, then she scattered a few across the clearing once the one the bigger pokemon took was approved of.

Tabitha smiled, reaching out her hand slowly to pet the nidoran’s head. It flinched slightly but didn’t pull away. “You’re a brave one, aren’t you? I could use someone like you on my team.”

As the Nidoran finished the second pokesnack, Tabitha reached for a Pokéball.

She held it out, giving the Nidoran a choice. “What do you say? Would you like to join us?”

It wasn’t quite so simple. She had to negotiate with the nidoran’s father, and explain what joining her meant, but by the time the sun set, Tabitha had another ultra ball clipped to her belt and was one small step closer to being the king of kings.

***