Unbroken Disguise

The group ended up staying the night in the Pokemon Center. With all of the Hunter J business, the treatment of their wounds, and the investigation that occurred, it had become far too late in the day for them to make much progress outside of Jubilife. While that was annoying, it’s no different than where they would have ended up if their walk to the city had continued uninterrupted. Getting a ride from the police had really cut out a lot of time on the journey. So while everyone in the group would have very much preferred that the whole situation not happen at all, they could at least look on the bright side of things and understand that they hadn’t lost any time to it.

Plus, they’d gotten the chance to reunite the kidnapped Pokemon with their trainers. Maria had, understandably, been quite confused about the whole Fairy type business, but at the end of the day she’d been able to thank everyone with a smile on her face and Kirlia and Gardevoir at her side before the trio made their way back to their home on route 203. The Absol had been sent back to his trainer as well, but with the way things had worked out the Dark type ended up just getting a ride from the police, so they’d not had the chance to see the trainer’s gratitude.

N wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, releasing those Pokemon from Hunter J’s capture was undoubtedly a good thing. On the other hand… was sending those Pokemon back into the hands of trainers much better?

Maria at least seemed to be a kind person, and with Gardevoir’s poor attempts at defending herself, he could assume that the woman’s team weren’t being forced into battles on a regular basis. That made it sting less when he thought about it.

But the Absol? He didn’t know anything about the Pokemon’s trainer. The only time he’d seen them was when Hunter J’s Ariados had them all strung up in a String Shot. He couldn’t judge much from that. Were they a good person? Did they treat Absol well? For all N knew, the trainer might abuse Absol as soon as the police left the watermill. There was just no way for him to be sure outside of doing a thorough investigation himself.

That was the problem with trainers. Very few were near the level of Hunter J, but that didn’t mean that they were a good person who treated their Pokemon well. He would even go so far as to say that there were fewer people who treated their Pokemon as they should than there were who would abuse them like J.

Someone who stole and sold Pokemon for profit would only do so as long as others were willing to pay for their services after all. Who knows how many trainers had been in contact with her or someone similar, hoping to get their hands on a Pokemon that would give them a competitive edge.

These were the sorts of thoughts that plagued him as walked around the darkened skies and city lights of Jubilife City at night. The cool night air felt nice as they blew across his bandages. He held up his left hand, inspecting the ones the nurse had left to keep his burn wounds protected.

“Don’ go messin’ with yer bandages again.” Mimikyu chided from his shoulder. “Jus’ ‘cuz Brock has a bit o’ experience with medicine doesn’ mean ‘e wants ta constantly fix yer screw ups.”

“I’m aware, Mimikyu. They’ve finally stopped itching, I was just looking at them.” He was just glad that the areas affected by the Poison Sting didn’t need to be wrapped up. He’d been told that the backs of his hands would need to be protected from the elements for a few days, and his face would require some sort of cream applied once daily, but his clothing had protected most of his body. Of course, that had left the problem of his clothes being pretty messed up, but apparently Brock was quite handy when it came to repairing damaged clothes.

The two settled back into a silence, but not a comfortable one. N could feel Mimikyu squirming around on his shoulder, clearly trying to work up the nerve to say something.

“Is something bothering you, Mimikyu?”

“Pshh, nah… I’m…. I jus’...” The squirming came to a stop. “What if Gardevoir hadn’ been there, N? Ya heard the sound that room made when it hit the forest. I’ve been tryna keep my mind off of it, but I jus’...”

“I understand.” And he did. It was one thing to acknowledge the fact that they’d almost died. N had known how close they had come to death on an intellectual level as soon as it had happened. But that wasn’t the same as truly accepting it. Grasping that knowledge and coming to terms with it. It was only now, hours later after all the action and important discussions were long past that he felt a heavy weight press down on his gut, gnawing away at him from the inside.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been in danger. Pokemon, as much as he loved them, were very dangerous creatures. Any day could mean the end of your life, for any number of reasons.

But this was the first time he’d truly felt it.

“I wasn’ really thinkin’ about it at all ‘til Cynthia mentioned the body bags.” Mimikyu said in a soft voice. “And I got ta thinkin’... o’ course you an’ Ash an’ the others wouldn’ have made it. But what about me? My… biology is strange at the best of times. Would I ‘ave died on impact? Would I ‘ave barely survived? Maybe it would barely affect me at all an’ I’d just be trapped in the rubble surrounded by-”

“Mimikyu.” N interrupted the little ghost when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up.

“Sorry. It’s jus’... a lot.”

Truthfully, N hadn’t even considered those possibilities. He knew that Mimikyu was a bit different from most Pokemon in some rather strange ways, but they hadn’t really explored what really made the Ghost type tick. They’d been travelling together for a decent amount of time now, and so much about the little fairy was still a mystery.

“I suppose all we can really do is try to move past it.”

“I s’pose ya got a point there…”

Suddenly feeling much more drained, N began making his way back towards the Pokemon Center.

When the group set out for route 204 the next morning, the signs of a poor night's sleep were visible on just about everyone. Despite her efforts to hide it, they all knew that Dawn had cried herself to sleep, and her eyes were still a bit red and puffy above her big, fake, smile. Ash had bags under his eyes, and N was sure that he was much the same. Brock… he was better at it than the rest of them, but he was a bit slower on the uptake whenever someone asked him a question, clearly a bit too deep in thought.

But as he had told Mimikyu last night, it was time to try and move past that.

So he focused instead on what he enjoyed about travelling. The scenery and the Pokemon. As they left the hustle and bustle of the big city behind, he found that water was much more abundant on this route, or at least the area they were in at the moment. Large ponds, small lakes, rushing rivers, and trickling streams were plentiful all around them.

While many of the Pokemon in this area were becoming quite familiar to him, probably on account of his Sinnoh journey revolving almost entirely around Jubilife up until this point, this difference in the habitat did bring out a few new faces.

Resting at the water’s edge or on its surface were a group of rather thick yellow Pokemon that were all clutching their heads. The bills on their faces, their webbed feet, and their propensity for the water gave him a pretty solid guess on what their typing was, and Mimikyu confirmed it for him. Psyduck, the little ghost called them.

One Pokemon stood out from the group closest to him though. Blue in color, standing at more than twice Psyduck’s height and looking much slimmer, Mimikyu informed him that he was looking at a Golduck, the evolution of the Pokemon it was with. The gem on its head reminded him of a story he once heard about a singing Pokemon back home, making him wonder if it might gain a Psychic typing upon evolution, but that theory was quickly shot down.

Further from the water’s edge, but still out under the light of the sun rather than secluded away within the forest, was a tiny green Pokemon that liked to hide amongst the wildflowers. While shy, they seemed friendly enough, but Mimikyu warned him against trying to get too close. Rumor has it that Budew like to release their pollen on a sunny day, and that the substance might very well contain poison. Not something he was entirely sure he believed, but after experiencing Drapion’s venom, he wasn’t exactly keen on interacting with anything that might be similar. He would have to do some research on them if he wanted to make friends.

It was as he was observing a tiny blue Pokemon with a lilypad atop its head waddling down a worn path to one of the ponds that Ash made his presence known beside him.

“How are you holding up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

They were quiet for a moment, only nature’s sounds and the faint discussion of Brock and Dawn somewhere behind them keeping a complete silence from settling in.

“I think I’m doing alright. The bandages are annoying, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s not too bad of a price to pay.”

“You’re not wrong on that!” Ash laughed, holding up his own bandaged arms. “They’ll be off before you know it though.”

The quiet between them was lighter the second time, some of the tension having been broken.

“...I’d like to apologize, Ash.”

“Apologize? What for?” The boy asked, confusion clear on his face.

“When you… gave your explanation, after the Gym battle… I doubted your words.”

“Huh? I don’t see why you’d have to-”

“Please,” N interrupted. “Let me finish.”

Ash nodded.

“I… I asked you a question, you gave me a genuine answer, and I doubted you. I… I still don’t like the way that Gyms work, but after going through that… I think I can more fully appreciate your reasoning. Even when we were in the thick of things, you didn’t risk the lives of your other Pokemon, but you were fully willing to throw yourself into danger.”

“Don’t encourage that, you moron! He’s bad enough already!” Pikachu complained from the boy’s shoulder.

“Do ya really think N’s words’ll ‘ave an effect on whether Ash does somethin’ dangerous in the future?”

Pikachu could only sigh.

Ash gave a bitter smile, scratching under Pikachu’s chin. “You would have done the same for me, buddy.”

N knew that the way Ash understood Pikachu was nowhere near the level that he had reached with Pokemon, but he was still impressed nonetheless.

Ash’s attention was only on Pikachu for a moment, though. “I still don’t think you owe me an apology for that, but… I appreciate the sentiment? You shouldn’t sell yourself too short though. You were right there beside me the whole time.”

“I was only able to do it because you were taking the lead. When J was getting away at the waterwheel, I felt frozen, lost on what to do, but then I saw you running and it all just… clicked.”

“Well… then I’m glad I was able to help.” Ash’s smile became more genuinely happy.

Nothing else was said for a bit. They simply enjoyed each other’s company. But with unfamiliar Pokemon around, and someone who had travelled through several regions right next to him…

“Ash, do you know what Pokemon that is?” He pointed towards the one he had been eyeing before their discussion, the Pokemon now floating on the pond’s surface, a Budew being ferried across atop the lilypad. “Not the Budew, the one below it.”

“Hm? Oh, the Lotad? Yeah, I can tell you all about Lotad! Though if you really want to get into it you should ask Brock, he raised one into a Ludicolo. I guess to start off, they’re Water and Grass types….”

Dawn sighed a breath of relief as they exited the Ravaged Path. Why would you force people to go through a cave when all you needed was to get up a ledge! They could have easily had some Pokemon do some landscaping and created a trail along the length of it… they had done that in the middle of nowhere over on route 203! Surely the traffic between Jubilife and Floaroma was enough of an excuse to have someone do the work!

At least the trip through the very scarily named cave was short. It only took them a few minutes to get from the entrance to the exit, though that had still been long enough for everyone but Brock to trip over a Geodude and the Zubats to wreck their ears.

Though as unpleasant as it had been… it had made for a decent distraction.

Emotions were confusing.

She hadn’t been one of the people who had their Pokemon stolen from her. She hadn’t been one of the people who went onto Hunter J’s ship. She hadn’t been one of the people who got hit by attacks from those terrifying Pokemon.

So why did she feel so scared?

Even after everyone had been safe and received treatment from the nurses, she had found herself shaking in fear. Not enough for anyone to have commented on it, but it was there.

She had been perfectly safe the entire time, and yet…

And yet she had cried herself to sleep. She tried to keep it down, to not let anyone know and worry them. Her face had been a mess when she woke up, but she had cleaned herself up pretty quickly.

Brock had tried to have another heart to heart with her, but it just…

She already knew that everyone was safe. Telling her that the best thing they could do was move on and try to be better next time something happened wasn’t exactly helpful.

For one, the way he said it made it sound like this was going to happen again and again, which isn’t reassuring at all!

And moving past it… that just made her focus on the growing number of flowers on the route. The further into the distance she looked, the more flowers there seemed to be.

They were getting close to Floaroma.

That should be exciting for her! The site of her second Contest! An opportunity for her to come out on top!

But thinking about it just made her stomach do flips.

Being a trainer was a lot more stressful than she had thought it would be…

She couldn’t just quit though. She needed to become a top coordinator. One of, if not the best. The group was heading towards Floaroma just so she could participate. Everyone’s expectations were riding on her giving a good performance…

She needed to show Zoey that she had improved since their last run in. She needed to show her travelling companions that she was actually making progress, and not just some deadweight kid they were dragging along with them. She needed to show her mom…

It would turn out okay, wouldn’t it?

Things didn’t always go her way, but she’d been putting in the effort! At every chance she got, she was spending time with Piplup, Buneary, and Pachirisu to train. Coming up with ideas for making each of them shine under the spotlight, fighting against Ash’s Pokemon to better prepare them for the battle rounds, using Pokemon Center computers to watch old videos of past years performances…

If all of that wasn’t enough to put her at the top then she didn’t know what would.

She just needed to believe in herself. Believe in her team.

She was her mother’s daughter after all. Being a coordinator was in her blood.

She just needed to prove it to the world.

Professor Rowan read over the report for a third, and then even a fourth time.

How interesting.

Not as interesting as evolution, mind you, but interesting nonetheless.

“Due to an incident involving the individual known colloquially as ‘Pokemon Hunter J’ (real name unknown), and attempts to thwart her criminal activity, there have been two confirmed cases of the Fairy infection spreading,” the professor mumbled to himself. “These cases are both members of the Ralts line, which were already included on our list of known susceptible Pokemon. Both Pokemon are registered- Ah. Damn redactions.”

He could understand why they might redact the name of the trainer the Pokemon were registered to, but that didn’t stop him from growing annoyed at seeing the bold black lines. Though given how long the redaction went on for, it probably included location information as well, which was even more annoying.

How was he meant to know if this was his little researcher’s doing?

It was probable that Mimikyu had some sort of involvement in the case. But that did not make it certain. And if his suspicions about the increase in data usage for the lab being related to Porygon investigations was correct, he couldn’t exactly just contact N and ask the boy.

The lack of communication was annoying, but Rowan was a patient man. Or at least, that’s what he told himself.

Maybe he should just call and find out where they were at the moment. Fly on over there for a day or two, have an in person discussion where the League wouldn’t be breathing down their necks…

But the lab kept him ever so busy.

He’d give it a little while longer. The research into Dawn Stones should be wrapping up relatively soon, and he had a bit of free time between that and the start of the next research project.

Yes, that sounded like quite a good idea…

“Professor! We have a bit of a problem!”

Assuming he wasn’t arrested for murdering his useless assistants before that point, anyway.