Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Pokémon... it's not that I don't wish I did...
Chapter Three - Believe
"Five hundred for a Pokéball? You've gotta be kidding! The last time I was here, they only cost..."
James watched in amusement as Myrea irately protested the high cost of Pokéballs for a moment longer before walking over to look out the window at the passersby. Marill was sitting on his shoulder, watching him closely as though it was trying to figure out what he was thinking. What he had been wondering for some time now was if anyone would recognize him; hopefully they wouldn't, not with these clothes. Maybe he could get a haircut too...
He sighed, the strangeness of his current predicament catching up to him again. A few hours of travel (in the right direction) was all it had taken to get to Viridian City, where Myrea had insisted on buying him some Pokéballs and other supplies. He had protested her spending money on him like that, but she had brushed those protests aside easily and showed that she was very adept at getting her way, much the same as Jessie could. And as for Jessie herself...
The emotions he had been receiving from her for the last several hours had been rather confusing, drifting back and forth between sadness and an odd sort of determination. Right now he really just hoped that she would be alright, and that Meowth could talk her out of doing anything rash. He missed the both of them so much already...
"Hey, James! What are you doing over here anyway? Let's go! I got everything... stupid price increases, though." Slowly, he turned to see Myrea smiling at him, her arms quite full of the things she had just bought. Her smile faded a little when she saw his expression. "Hey, what's the matter? You sick or something? Or are you thinking about..." She shook her head abruptly. "Never mind that now, we can talk later. Let's just go, okay?"
He nodded briefly and followed her out into the fading sunlight, where shadows were beginning to fall long and black against the earth. A few people glanced their way curiously, but thankfully they weren't approached by any of them. In silence, they walked back into the forest, stopping at the clearing they had previously picked out to spend the night in. Myrea dumped everything on the ground, then began to set up a sort of "camp", if one could call it that. James just watched without really seeing, his mind still on the events of the previous two days.
"Excuse me? You're standing where I want to put my sleeping bag."
"Oh... oh, sorry," he mumbled, stepping out of her way. Then he noticed that she had already set up his own things. He blinked for a moment before he noticed her watching.
"Thanks..." he offered rather lamely.
God, James. That's great. You're so good at being grateful.
"Isn't a problem," she replied with a shrug. "You just look so... spaced out. Wanna talk about it?" She stepped closer, evidently just to see him better in the failing light. But he still began blushing lightly, and turned away from her intense scrutiny. Sometimes it seemed like she made him so uncomfortable... like she was somehow willing him to tell her things. But the rest of the time since he'd met her, like on the walk to Viridian, he had felt completely relaxed with her in pleasant conversation. This was confusing, but he promised himself he would figure it out later.
"Not right now," he mumbled in reply, seating himself on his own sleeping bag across from hers. Actually, it belonged to her and she had let him borrow it, since he had forgotten his. Now she wasn't looking like she was just going to let the subject go.
"You know... I feel real bad about all this... borrowing so much from you, and then having you buy all that stuff for me..." he said, hoping to change that subject.
"Hmph. Well, it's not like you're making me. I want to help you. Is that so bad?" she asked crossly, folding her arms and giving him a look that would have rivaled one of Jessie's.
"No... I... just... I..."
She smiled then, using that same disturbingly abrupt emotion change. "Look at it this way," she continued, flopping down on her bag and leaning in toward him. "You interest me. And that makes me really want to help you out. Like I've said before... you really need help, where do you think you'd be right now without me?" It looked like she was about to start laughing again, the way she did when she truly seemed to find something about him to be funny. Which was another confusing thing to him. But she didn't laugh, instead shook her head at his pained expression.
"Come on now. I don't want to make you feel bad about this. Be happy that I want to help you. I like to see you smile, if you must know." When this produced nothing but more blushing and stammering from James, she did laugh. "Alright, I get it. I'll try to stop embarrassing you. Try..." she giggled. "How about we eat? Would you like that?"
"You even brought food..." he managed weakly.
"Sure! Now cut out the 'I should be taking care of myself' act. This won't take long."
True to her word, it only took Myrea about half an hour to build a small fire and heat up a few cans of food - what she called "survival food", but James was all too used to it. It was only when they were nearly finished eating that she spoke again.
"So what are your Pokémon like?"
James looked up from the rest of his food, blinking rapidly as though trying to comprehend her question. He sat back slowly, thinking over the best way to put it.
"Well... I don't know much about Marill, since I just got it." He looked down at the little blue Pokémon, resting peacefully by his side, for a moment before continuing. "And I would have to say that Weezing is just about my best friend, we've really been through a lot together... it just needs a little more experience in actually winning." Here he stopped for a moment, sighing heavily. "Victreebel... is... is... well, hyperactive."
"Hyperactive?" Myrea asked quizzically.
"You see... it... it's kinda... sort of..."
"Just call it out."
"I'm not sure you want that..."
"Oh, come on. How bad can it be?"
"You asked for it then... or rather, I'm asking for it," he mumbled. Fishing around for a moment in his pack, he came up with it's Pokéball and stared at it for a moment. "Here goes nothing," he sighed again, tossing it out to the edge of the ring of firelight.
"Oh my... well, I see... what you mean... Does that hurt?"
"Not really. I've never been in here long enough for it to actually start digesting me." It seemed like his voice was echoing slightly from inside it's mouth. Myrea tried to stifle her laughter, certain that James really wouldn't appreciate it as he finally managed to get his Pokémon off and back into it's ball. But she had to laugh at the way his hair looked now. He shook his head despondently. "Now you see?"
"Yes... but I really wonder why it would do that... Either it needs a lot more training, or your hair tastes like cotton candy," she teased.
"I'm beginning to think it's both," he responded with a smile, which set her off yet again. When she was finally through, she had to wipe tears out of her eyes.
"Geez, James... You make me laugh so much. I like you." This comment seemed to sober him a little, and he looked away while trying to think of a reply. But when the silence went on too long, Myrea spoke first.
"Do you miss her much?"
"W... who?"
"That girl in the photo. I guessed she was your partner or something." James was a little shocked at this point, but figured it only made sense that she saw the picture when looking through his pack. That picture had been something he had kept for a long time, but had never really admitted to himself why.
"I... I guess so."
"You guess?" Myrea began incredulously. "How can you just guess? I know you must. Don't deny yourself the truths of your life... it's not right." This time the silence went on much longer while she just seemed to stare at him, maybe waiting for him to say something. Before too long, however, she just shook her head and began to stand up. "Well, anyway. I guess it's time to go to sleep now... We can start training a bit in the morning." And without saying another word, she put out the fire, then climbed into her sleeping bag, leaving James to merely watch again.
Long moments later, with Marill huddling up close to him, he finally lay down himself, reaching out to Jessie and her emotions again. He wished he hadn't. What he felt was... anger. It was directed at him, he had no doubt about that. He also didn't blame her one bit. Offhand, he wondered whether Myrea was angry with him now as well.
He didn't bother trying to stop the tears he felt welling up beyond his control, his only hope that maybe Myrea was asleep and wouldn't hear anything.
But Myrea was listening, and wondering herself whether it would be wise to do something to comfort him. Ultimately, she decided to wait and see if things could possibly get better in the morning...
"Wake up! C'mon, sleepyhead! It's time to get up! Hey!"
James opened his eyes a tiny slit, just enough to see the bright beam of morning sun shining directly on his face. "No... no, Jess, I don't wanna capture Pikachu today..." he mumbled, pulling the top of the sleeping bag back up over his head.
"'Pikachu'? Did you just say 'Pikachu'?.... Oh no you don't."
The comforting darkness turned back into that annoyingly bright light as Myrea grabbed the sleeping bag and yanked it off. "Are you dreaming? You better get up so you can get started training, or you'll never make it to the Pokémon League! Come on, come on!"
"Okay, just quit pushing me, I'm awake," he moaned, finally sitting up and blinking blearily at his surroundings. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was, but when that reality came back to him, it wasn't necessarily a relief.
"Breakfast?" Myrea asked with a smile, her head popping directly into his line of sigh. He jumped in surprise, then stared at her. She didn't seem mad in some way like she had last night. But then, her emotions did tend to be highly volatile. He nodded dumbly, his capacity for speech failing him, like it had seemed to quite often lately.
It didn't take him long to devour the plate of food she had already prepared for him, and she seemed to greatly approve of his appetite. He finally stood, looking down at himself with a wry smile.
"I guess there's something to be said for sleeping in your clothes..."
"Yeah, it's great, isn't it?" she replied, looking up from feeding Marill a bit of it's own food. "You get up and you're basically ready to go. Assuming you changed your underwear before you went to bed." A wide grin split her face, suggesting that she was about to start teasing him again.
"Come on..." he began plaintively.
"Don't worry. You can do it now if you want. It's nothing I haven't... seen before."
"No... um... I think I'll be fine for another day."
"Men... men have such disgusting habits," she sighed in mock dismay, before bursting into a fit of laughter. Fortunately for James' modesty, she made it through the rest of cleaning and packing up without making any more obnoxious comments.
"There, now everything's ready to go!" she announced happily. "But first... I want to see how good your Pokémon are. Lemon and Lime need a little exercise, anyway." She made a nice little dramatic show of calling them out, leaving James with an amused smile in spite of himself. "Of course, they'll only fight one at a time, but it seems they do better if they're both out at once," she told James with a confident nod, as if that explained everything perfectly.
"Oh... um... so what do you want me to use first?"
"No, no, no. That's not the way you do it! You're supposed to be confident. Just call something out, surprise me! You'll never make a good trainer if you're unsure of yourself," Myrea chided.
James shook his head, trying to focus a little harder. "Alright." He grabbed Weezing's Pokéball from his belt, hoping to look and act a little more sure of himself. "Weezing, go!"
"Weez... ing..." it groaned out happily, although James was fairly certain that only he knew it well enough to tell that it was happy because if it's perpetually sad face.
"Okay, Lemon... we've never been up against a Weezing before, but you should be just fine. Are you ready?"
"Slooooww..." one of the Slowpoke agreed, ponderously making it's way forward. James wondered if Myrea could possibly tell them apart - they looked exactly the same.
"I'll let you have the first move," she grinned, still looking much more confident than James felt he could ever be. He nodded slightly, but couldn't seem to stop staring at the Slowpoke; it didn't make sense that it could be as powerful as Myrea liked to say it was.
"You know, that's my opponent's usual first mistake. They're so busy wondering if I'm crazy or mocking my Pokémon that they don't pay close enough attention to what they're doing. That's not the main reason why my babies are at such high levels, but it's one of them." James just nodded again, resolving to do his best for the sake of his friends.
"Weezing, use your Smokescreen attack!" Thick clouds of black smoke billowed out from the poisonous Pokémon at it's master's command, making it hard for James to even see Myrea and her own Pokémon.
"Agility!" He could still hear her though, and his jaw dropped in shock.
"A Slowpoke with... Agility?" Remembering what she had said about not paying attention, he quickly shifted back to the battle at hand. "Take it by surprise and use Tackle!" he suggested next. He could only faintly see something moving through the smoke, but what it was he couldn't be sure. Unsure of the next move to make, he hesitated, eyes straining to see how the battle was going.
Finally he heard Myrea call out, "Good, Lemon! Now hit it hard with a Confusion attack!"
"Weezing, use Sludge! Blind it so it can't see to confuse you!" The haze was clearing a little, but the sight that met his eyes wasn't too promising - Weezing had obviously not been fast enough with the Sludge attack, the steady glow emanating from around the Slowpoke showing that his Pokémon had probably been confused already. This was confirmed when Weezing slowly turned about and headed straight for James; fortunately enough, it didn't use Sludge on him, instead used another Smokescreen. He began to cough, waving the smoke away desperately.
"No, Weezing!" He managed to call the poor confused Pokémon back before it could do any more damage, then ran aside to escape the black cloud. Tears leaked from his tightly squeezed eyes and he continued to cough from inhaling too much smoke. Eventually he became aware of Myrea standing next to him, gently patting his back while she waited for his coughing fit to die down, concern filling her purple eyes.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry that happened, it's just the unpredictable part of using Confusion. There now. Do you feel alright? Can you breathe?"
"I'm fine," he barely choked out, trying to brush away the hand she had put on his arm as if to steady him.
"Cut that out," she said sternly, grabbing it again. "You need to sit down for a bit. Here." She led him along to a large tree, where she seated him at it's base and knelt beside him, still watching patiently. He closed his eyes against the continuing stinging sensation, sagging back against the tree in relief.
"Mar... mar..." he heard Marill whimpering somewhere close by. Something pushed under his hand; he opened his eyes enough to see that one of the Slowpoke had nudged it up onto it's broad nose. Patting it uncertainly, he looked over at Myrea, who smiled gently.
"See? Even the Pokémon are worried about you. Lemon is just apologizing. You really shouldn't be so ungrateful all the time."
"Sorry," he sighed, shaking his head slowly. "But that was pretty pathetic, wasn't it..."
"Actually, no. Your Weezing did an excellent job, despite the difference in levels. I think if you keep working at it, it could be really great."
"Are you sure..."
"Now you're doubting! What is it with you? You're going to be a Pokémon master, right? James, you've got to think like one. Believe in yourself and your Pokémon."
Believe in... myself?
"You know... you're making a lot of sense. I'm glad I... I met you." The adoring smile that grew on Myrea's face was almost worth the struggle of saying those words.
"You see... That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me! There's hope for you yet!" With that, she flung her arms around his waist, hugging him so hard that it felt like she'd squeezed the rest of the air from his lungs.
"Th... thanks," he moaned, sounding rather like Weezing.
"So who's the gym leader in Pewter now, anyway? I thought that one... squinty-eyed kid..."
"You mean Brock," Myrea laughed at James' description. They were continuing on through Viridian Forest, in the direction of Pewter City. It would take several days to reach that destination, but they planned on training along the way, which would lengthen the journey to at least a week. "Since Brock left, his dad, Flint, took over. He's not that tough... heh, he has to spend most of his time taking care of all those kids. Last I heard, all he has is a big old Onix. The Boulder Badge has never been easier to get... which is a shame, I suppose. Although it's good for trainers just getting started." Her sidelong glance clearly indicated that she meant him. "Plus, your Marill and Victreebel will be great against him."
"Assuming that Victreebel listens to me."
"Well, we'll work on that this week. So stop worrying about it. Because I know you are!" She began to hum happily to herself, her arms up behind her head and apparently completely at ease.
James allowed himself a small smile, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other rather than letting himself think of anything that might bring him down now - such as whether or not he would really make a competent trainer, or... Jessie.
And hopefully, Myrea's outlook on life would rub off on him soon.
I know you'd like to send me comments... Yes, yes I do. So why haven't you yet? :p
