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It’s raining.
With his hood on his head to protect his face from the water and his feet that slip into the wet grass, Shiro runs over the hill, the egg steadly in his arms and closes to his hear, under the coat.
The lights of the town are getting near, so despite his short breath and the pain on his knees, he doesn’t stop.
His attempt to make his pursuers losing his traces has brought Shiro outside the route he was following. He has no idea which town it is, but he smiles has he spots the familiar lights of a Poke Center just at the edge of the town.
The glass doors are closed because of the late hours, but the nurse at the desk notices Shiro even before he got the chance to ring the bell. He’s probably a very unappropriate vision, with every clothes wet from the rain and the mud that dirties his shoes and pants until his knees.
Yet the nurse opens the door and looks at him with a worried look. Shiro opens his coat to reveal the egg behind it.
“Please,” he says. “They tried to stole it and it fall down. I took it back immediately but…” At the top of the blue-spotted white egg there is a small crack with the form of a star.
“Come in,” the nurse says immediately, as he gently takes the egg in his hand.
“Uhm, you should be informed it’s a water type egg.”
The nurse nods. He closes the door behind Shiro and then, without another word, he hushes inside the clinic bringing the egg with him.
With a sigh, Shiro looks around in the dim light: it’s like every other Pokecenter, with a welcoming hall with the desk, a sofa, the computer for the pokeball traiding and a small shop, now closed. Since they aren’t in a very big city, it doesn’t even have the upper floor for the pokemon traiding.
Shiro hopes they have at least the right instrumentation for healing a cracking egg.
He takes off the coat and hangs it, before sitting down on the sofa. He’s dripping water from every clothes and even himself, he notices passing an hand on his white hair floof. He opens the backpack to take a sip of water and looks at his cellphone; it’s too late to call Sam and advises him about the incovenient during his journey back.
But he checks on the map his current location: Marmora Town.
In the night and the rain he hasn’t recognized it. Marmora may be a small town between the mountains at the edge of the Johto region, buti t has a very harsh pokemon gym of ghost type, so hopefully their pokemon center, yet small, should be advanced enough.
And Shiro isn’t too far from the route he was supposed to take. Passed the Moon Cave, he can reach Altean City and takes the train to Olkari from it.
A shadow appears on his coms and Shiro lifts his head: the nurse is in front of him, a cup with something hot in his hands. Shiro looks at him and in the light he remains a little bit stucked in the blue-violet eyes of the nurse.
“I bought you a coffee,” the nurse says, with a little smile. “I feel like you need something to warm up.”
“Thank you.” Shiro accepts the cup and takes a sip of the bitter drink. He helps him thinking clearly. “How’s the egg?”
“I’ve done a smal check-ups and they I put it in the water container,” the nurse explains. “It doesn’t seems the crack made the egg losing the water inside, but depending of how developed is the pokemon inside, we may be proceed of a force opening.”
“That may be a problem,” Shiro murmurs. “But the important thing is the pokemon is safe.”
“We can’t be sure until we perform some x-frame analysis,” the nurse continues. “I called the Doctor, he’s coming so we will proceed as soon as he arrives. If you’d like to rest, I can suggest you a nearby hotel.”
“Can I wait for the Doctor first?” Shiro asks. “I need to know the egg is safe.”
“Of course.” The nurse adds. “If you had been in a fight, do you want me to treat your Pokemon too?”
Shiro realizes that, without the clothes, the six pokeballs he has at his belt are visible. “That will be nice, thank you.” He takes them off and lends them to the nurse, who disappears once again inside the clinic.
The second time, it’s the Doctor himself to come for Shiro. The empty cup rests on the sofa next to him and his clothes are still wet.
“I wasn’t informed our guest is the Champion of the Elite Four,” the he says, shaking Shiro’s hand. “I’m Doctor Ulaz. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thanks, but I’m not the Champion anymore.” He left that position when Garrison didn’t stand with him after the infortunate explosion at the Unknown ruins, and Shiro felt he lost all his motivation of being an example for young trainers. “How’s the egg?” he chances subject immediately.
Ulaz nods, understanding. “It’s fine, the fell hasn’t hurt the inside. It won’t necessary forcing the birth either. My advice will still to keep the egg under observation here until it hatchs himself.”
“I was ask to bring the egg to Doctor Sam at Olkari,” Shiro says. “I may try to contact him, but I won’t be able to move the Pokemon from here once it’s born.”
“What about a Pokeball?”
“I don’t want to capture it.”
Ulaz nods. “Let me patch up the egg and I can have you transport it into a special container. The egg should resist until your arrival in Olkari if you take the train from Altea.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good, then,” Ulaz says. He lends him a visit card. “Go to the gym, we have a dormitory there. They’ll lend you a room where you can rest. I need some time to prepare the egg.”
Shiro admits he’s tired, especially now that the adrenaline wears off and the egg is safe, so he accepts with gratitude the visit card and asks for direction to reach the gym.
He wakes up that the sun is already up and warming the room from the small window. He got some nice hours of sleep and he’s ready to walk his way towards Altea.
He puts on his clean clothes and climbs down to give back the key
“The gym leader wants to meet you,” the man at the reception informs him, with a small gesture towards the hallway that bring to the main room of the gym.
Even if Shiro’s hungry and eager to take back the egg from the Pokemon center, it’s rude to refuse a gym leader’s invitation, so he nods and follows the direction he received.
Marmora’s gym is minimal, dark, with purple walls and sand on the ground. The gym challengers aren’t there at the moment, probably they won’t expect any trainers for the day. Shiro has heard of Kolivan, even if he hasn’t meet him before, and he admits Kolivan i sas imponent as the voices said.
Still, Kolivan is kind enough to ask, “do you have breakfast?” and to bring Shiro to his office after the negative response and offer him biscuits and tea.
“I was informed about your arrival yesterday,” Kolivan states. “You had a bad encounter with some poachers on the Zela Mountains. Do you think they were Team Rocket’s members?”
“They don’t look like that,” Shiro answers. “Just regular poachers that want the egg to sell it at the black market.”
“I guess the egg is special?”
Shiro can say it to Kolivan: between all the gym leaders, is known to be one of the fighter against Team Rocket and overall crimes against Pokemon. “It’s the first finding of a Mantine. It may lead to the discovery of a previous evolution of it, that’s the reason I’m bringing it to Doctor Sam.”
“And the reason you don’t want to capture it or having him hetching here,” Koliva understand, with a small nods. “Unfortunately, Team Rocket’s activites increases in the area since someone spreaded the voice one of the three legendary dogs is around.”
Shiro’s attention sparkles at it. There is a moment on his life, where he was a young trainer, that he loves exploring the world just to meet new Pokemon, and of course the legendaries were on the top of his wish list.
“For this reason,” Kolivan continues, “I’d prefer if one of my gym will accompany you during your journey to Altea. Even if you’re totally capable to win fight by yourself,” he adds, to prevent Shiro’s complains, “he knows better the route to take towards the Moon Cave, and it may be easy to protect the egg if there’s two of you.”
Shiro reflects on it: he isn’t used to travel with someone anymore, yet he needs to think about the egg first, and one of the reasons it got hurt in the first place was because Shiro had to fight with his own Pokemon. And he’s a little out of shape, he admits.
“You have my gratitude.”
He returns to the Pokemon center and finds Ulaz at the desk. “Here you are,” he greets Shiro. “Give me a minute and I’ll be back to you.”
While he waits for Ulaz, Shiro buys some medicine at the shop; he notices they have different kind of pokeball, some of them of the most recent types, and he turns his gaze away from them, painfully.
“Here we are.” Ulaz returns with Shiro’s pokeballs and a quadrangolar box full of water; inside it, the egg has been tight secured and it has a bandage upon the cracked spot. “It has a sound alarm, that warn you if the egg is about to hatch of if something of its conditions change, so you can monitor him.”
“Great.” Shiro pushes the box inside his backpack and puts the box inside.
Whe he lifts his gaze again, the nurse from the previor night is in front of him; not more the uniform, he now wears jeans and a red leather jacked. At his belt, six pokeballs.
“Here’s your guide,” Ulaz says.
“I didn’t know you’re a trainer too,” Shiro comments, baffled.
He answers at it with a strange sound. Then, “I’m Keith.” And he shakes his hand.
Keith walks steady, a person that knows those places very well. He stays one step ahead Shiro, cheking the path for him, and doesn’t say a word. Shiro follows, wondering if he should start a conversation. He’s been a long time since he walks with someone, and it’s even possible Keith was pushed from Kolivan in being Shiro’s guide and he isn’t liking it very much.
“Sorry,” Keith says suddendly. “I’m not a great company.”
“Oh, that’s not it,” Shiro hurries to clarify.
“It’s just I’m used to be alone,” Keith adds. “And I like the quiet here. You know, the silence of the woods. I come here everytime I can.”
Shiro smiles. “I understand.”
They continue their journey in silence, but now Shiro walks next to Keith, and they look at each other and speak with gaze when they meet a pokemon or a particulary nice view.
When night come, they make the camp in a clearing. Shiro prepares the food and then lets his Pokemon free from the pokeballs. Bellossom immediately grabs Shiro’s pants and demands his attention, while Emolga grips his shoulder and licks his ear. The others are more discreet: Dragonite sits down next to Shiro, waiting for food, Arcanine starts to lick itself and Poliwrath curls agains Arcanine’s fur.
It’s a little bit strange to have them around another person, it’s something Shiro doesn’t do anymore. Yet Keith doesn’t seem to mind, focused on his own Pokemon to feed. He has only evolution of Eevee.
Shiro looks baffled while Flareon jumps around him, askng food.
“What?” Keith frowns a little at Shiro’s staring, a little red on his shoulder.
“Nothing. I just thought you would have ghost type, giving the Marmora gym.”
“Oh, that.” Keith hums. Jolteon tries to joke with Vaporeon’s tail as it waggles it nervosly. “Kolivan is my uncle and sometime I train in his gym, but I’m not a member of it.” Then, a sigh. “I used to be a trainer, you know.”
“Oh,” Shiro murmurs. “For real?”
Keith nods. “Yeah, children’s dream, you know. But my father was great – my mother at the time was MIA because her investigation about Team Rocket – and captured for me this little guys,” he rubs Umbreon’s nose, and it wringles. “Well, he was an Eevee back then, that’s how I become obsess with them. Anyway… my father died so I didn’t really get any chance later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Keith murmurs, as Espeon jumps on his back and tries to stole food directly to his hand. “I like my work at the hospital. They say I’m pretty good at Pokemon battles, but I think taking care of Pokemon is what I really want to do.”
There is a part of Shiro he wants to ask more, he wants to see Keith’s battles. Damn, past Shiro would have asked for a match. The present Shiro just hope Keith won’t ask him anything about him or his pokemon, or about the fact he quitted his job as the Elite Four Champion.
Leafeon rubs his body against Keith’s legs and he bends down to caress him. He still looks at Shiro, with a sort of sadness in his eyes, but he doesn’t ask anything.
The Moon Cave looks scaried from outside, and Shiro knows it’s easy to lose direction inside the labyrint. Yet, Keith walks like he’s in his home, and with the light Jolteon flashes, they’re able to see around like they aren’t inside a cave.
“You come here often?” Shiro asks.
“Not so often as I’d like,” Keith answers. “But I’ve explored enough. Sometimes my uncle comes here at night for ghost pokemon hunting.”
“Looks scary but funny.”
“It is.”
Despite the light Jolteon gives, the cave is still full of tunnels and secret passages, and for someone that’s exploring it a long, it’s easy to trap someone else. That’s how Shiro and Keith find themselves surronded by Team Rocket’s members, all of them with Zubat and Geodude at their side. Kolivan told Shiro about their presence, but they don’t expect such a large group: it looked like the Kanto’s invasion at the time.
“Surrender your Pokemon and we let you go,” one of them says.
Keith grits his teeth. “You shouldn’t be there.”
Leafeon and Vaporeon are outside their pokeball in a swift, and they join Jolteon. They are all well-trainer, and with some powerful moves that only expert trainers teach to their pokemon. Keith has a good grip on the situation, but even fi the men’s pokemon are weaked, they’re in a greater number.
Shiro’s hand is unwilling on his own pokeballs, but he can’t push himself into summoning his pokemon. He stands him, freezed, as he watches with big eyes as the zubat fell on the ground after a thundershock, or the way the vines whip the geodude around.
“Shiro? Are you okay?” Keith yells, and Shiro blinks, registering that a geodude is about to hit him with one of its hand. Vaporeon sends it flying with a water splash. Shiro’s gaze fell upon it and he starts trembling.
“No… no…”
Mist feels upon the group and Shiro feels someone dragging him fowards. His weak legs manage to substain him.
“Shiro. Look at me.”
The mist disappears and Shiro finds himself at the beggining of a tunnel, the entrance closed by a wall of ice. Keith’s hand are on Shiro’s face, to keep him steady.
“You’re having a panic attack,” Keith says. “Just breath, okay? Follow my lead.”
Shiro does, and he finally gets a new grip on himself. Still, his gaze fell on the three pokemon, tired and battered at Keith’s feet.
“I’m sorry.”
Seeing him quieter, Keith releases him, and the warm disappears. “What happened?” There isn’t curiosity on Keith’s eyes, just a desire to understand.
“I can’t fight anymore,” Shiro confesses. “With my pokemon.”
“Okay.” Keith nods, and it looks that the explanation is enough for him. It’s not enough for Shiro.
“I was captured,” he continues. “Back at the Kanto’s emergency against the Team Rocket. They… they made me fight against their super-powered pokemon, to prove their strenght. That’s how I lost my arm… and that’s how I had to defeat many pokemon with my own hands.”
Keith’s eyes widen in horror, and Shiro’s heart fell. Of course Keith would look at a pokemon killer like this. But then, Keith hugs him tight.
“I’m so sorry, Shiro.”
Shiro leans on him. “I can’t… see pokemon hurt anymore. Not because of me. I can’t let my pokemon battle for me…” he whispers. Keith helds him tighter.
The ice wall cracks and Keith is forced to let Shiro go to prepare for whatever is coming. They aren’t prepared at what appeared.
“Sendak!” Shiro exhaled. Why one of the big bosses of the Team Rocket is there? All his rock pokemon are behind him, ready to fight. Steelix, Rhydon, Camerut, Gigalith, Aloah Graveler, Machamp, all of them.
“A pleasure to see you again, Champion. Boss will be happy when I’ll bring him your pokemon.”
Flareon appears next to Shiro and opens an escaping route with a powerful fire move. Keith jumps between him and Sendak, Umbreon and Espeon that join the battle alongside the others.
Shiro looks in awe as the battle begins. Keith’s pokemon are varier, and they have more moves from their side, but three of them were already tired from the battle before. Plus, Sendak’s has a couple of rock pokemon like Camerut and Aloha Graveler, and they make difficult for Vaporeon and Leafeon to have the upper hand.
One of Shiro’s Pokeball opens by itself, and Dragonite appears at Shiro’s side, looking at him with decise eyes. It wants a gesture, a something, to throw itself in the battle. Shiro looks at it and all he images was to see it hurt and bloodied. And he can’t stand it.
“I can’t… I can’t…”
Then, the air seems tremble and coolder around them. A vibrating wave passes throught them and everyone freeze on the spot. A blu shadow jumps between Keith’s pokemon and Sendak’s: with a huge wave of water, both Sendak and his pokemon get pushed away, back in the darkness of the main cave.
The shadow turns and Shiro helds his breath: it’s Suicune, one of the three legendary dogs.
It’s beautiful, with his blue aura around him and his long purple mane.
With a sigh, Keith makes all his tired Pokemon returning in their pokeball. He lends his hand fowards and, with Shiro’s surprise, Suicune moves next to him, rubbig his muzzle against Keith’s palm.
“My Pa always said I have a special connection with Pokemon,” Keith murmurs as he turns towards Shiro. Suicune’s muzzle is on Keith’s chest. “But this time Suicune didn’t come for me. It came for you.”
“For me?”
Keith nods and Suicune walks towards Shiro, sniffing the air around him. With a smile, Shiro bends down and lets Suicune cudding in his arm. He smiles softly.
“I understand you’re scared for your Pokemon and that you’re tired of battle,” Keith says, “but often Pokemon just want to help and protect us. And they’re fine with that, even for game battle.”
“I know. I’m just not that person anymore.”
“I tried to get accepted at Garrison once,” Keith says suddendly. “It doesn’t work in the end, because, Kanto’s war and everything, but I tried. And I tried because I saw you, because you said to me that I shouldn’t give up on myself. Because I wanted to be a trainer like you.”
“You…” Shiro’s eyes widen and he remember the little, scruffy guys with an Umbreon that he met during one of his journey around the region.
“So you are that kind of person,” Keith assures him, with a smile, before Shiro has the time to apologize for not recognizing him before. “I should return to Marmora to warn uncle Kolivan about the Team Rocket’s presence in the Cave, they’re plotting something for sure. But you better bring that egg to Doctor Holt.”
“Without your guide?”
Suicune moves from him and sits down with all its four paw, suggesting Shiro to hop in its back.
“You’ll have a better guide than me.”
Racing with Suicune was amazing. It run delicately, as its paws don’t touch the ground, like it was made out of wind. Shiro let Dragonite free to fly next to him and since the Kanto’s war he felt reconected againt to the Pokemon, he felt young again when he just loved being around them and discovering them.
It was like living in a dream, or in a fairytail, and was hard to let Suicune go, but its last gaze seems to indicate they will meet again. But Suicune can’t accompany him in the city, so he left Shiro at the end of the hill, and Shiro walks his way throught Altea, returning in the real world.
The train is supposed to depart in half an hour. Shiro buys the ticket and sits down in one of the seat in the empty carriage. Just when he’s about to relax, a insistent beep wake him up: it’s the box with the egg, ringing to advise Shiro. He takes the box out of the backpack in time to see the egg covered in crack before breaking entirely.
A small fish compars on the box, floating in the water. Immediately, Shiro opens the upper part of the box and let the Pokemon pushing its muzzle over the water surface. It’s definitely not a Mantine, so Sam is right when he suspected there could be a previous evolution of it. Shiro lets the point of its fingers touching it’s back and the Pokemon lends towards the touch.
Shiro rums inside his backpack to find some food, and his hands touch an empty pokeball, the last one remained unused, one Shiro couldn’t force himself to throw away. He takes it and, after letting the pokemon eats, he show it the ball.
“Will you?” he asks, and the Pokemon looks at him with expectations. It’s probably too little to understand, buti t seems to trust Shiro enough. “You’ll be fine, I promise,” he murmurs, rubbing his back again before touching its head gentle with the pokeball.
The Pokemon disappears inside in a flash of red light, and then the pokeball is automately teleporter on Shiro’s database, since he already has six pokemon with him. Shiro watches a little in awe before taking his cellphone and calling Sam.
“Shiro! I was waiting for you! Where you are?”
“I’ve been occupied. And unfortunately, the egg hetched before we thought.”
“Oh, well. But are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Shiro assures him. “And you were right, it’s a new Pokemon finding for the first time. I caught it, so it’s in my database now. Can you pick it up and check on it? It’s so small, I don’t want to leave it alone.”
“Of course! I’m so eager to see it! I’ll take care of him in the meantime. When will you manage to arrive on Olkari?”
Shiro looks outside the train’s windown. “I don’t know. I have something to do first.”
He leaves the train and the city behind him, his pokedex again in the pocket of his jacket. Suicune is waiting for him in the same spot of before, and Shiro smiles at the sight.
“Let’s go back.”
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