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The Johto League

Chapter 11

Rivalry and Teamwork

Walking out in the sunshine now seemed like a blessing after the horribly dark, dangerous cave.

‘Gary… remind me not to let you pick shortcuts from now on.’

‘Why not? It worked, didn’t it. We must be nearly at Azalea Town by now.’

‘It would’ve worked a lot better if we didn’t get nearly killed doing it.’

‘You’re overreacting! My pokémon are strong enough to protect us, I had everything under control…’

We ended up bickering for a little while until I remembered that I would have another gym battle coming up again soon. Then we started discussing strategies.

‘D’you know what kind of Pokémon Gym they have in Azalea, Gary?’

‘Yeah, I think I remember… it oughta be real easy, if it really is a bug-type Gym.’

‘Bugs? …Well, at least we’ve had a lot of practice…’

‘I think I already know what I’m gonna get Gramps to send me for this Gym…’

As I wondered which Pokémon I would use, we were distracted by something squeaking. We all looked around, seeing nothing, until we looked up and spotted a Pokémon standing on a rocky ledge. It was a Cyndaquil, I recognised instantly.

Gary stepped forward, determined. ‘Gimme a sec, I’ll catch this, no problem…’

‘Hold on. I might want to catch it too.’

‘But it’s a Cyndaquil! Why would you want it?’

‘I know why you’d think that, but… it’d be a lot easier to take on the next Gym with a fire-type.’

‘Hey, that’s-…’

We looked up and the Cyndaquil had scampered away. Then we glanced at each other, knowing that this… meant competition.

We both separated and took our own ways up the jagged terrain.

‘Hey, er… what’s going on?’ asked Meowth from my shoulder.

‘Isn’t it obvious? We’re both gonna try and catch that Cyndaquil first… which way do you think it went?’

I took a look around and there was no indication of which way the pokémon might have gone. Meowth and I explored the area, searching in random places, but we found nothing, until…

‘…Use water gun!’

‘Aw no!’ I cried out; that was Gary’s voice. He must’ve found it already…

I snatched Meowth up and ran in the direction I heard Gary’s voice. Crashing through a few bushes, I found him standing over the weakened Cyndaquil, ball ready to throw.

‘Oh, there you are,’ he sneered, not even trying to hide the triumph in his voice or expression. ‘Come to witness my victory? I’m not surprised – after all, I am brilliant…’

While Gary went on about how great he was, the Cyndaquil spotted me, whimpered something, and limped forward. I just stared as the hurt pokémon took refuge behind me, clinging to my leg.

‘…and that’s why you’ll never be… hey…’ Gary finally noticed. ‘…Where’d it—hey, that’s not fair!’

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

The Cyndaquil looked up at me, and I kneeled down and petted him. He chirped cutely.
Gary shrank his pokéball away with reluctance.

‘Eh, who needs it, it’s probably weak anyway.’

‘Don’t be like that, Gary. It’s not my fault he likes me…’ I stood up, plucking Cyndaquil off the ground and holding him up to my face. My voice changed and I couldn’t help baby-talking at the little pokémon. ‘He likes me because I’M A GIRL AND HE’S SO CUTE! YES HE IS!’

Gary just scoffed and made his own way back to the path.

The rest of the walk to Azalea was rather quiet. At least, on Gary’s part. I got to introduce Cyndaquil to Meowth and carried my new charge proudly, while Meowth batted a paw, cat-like, at the little guy. I decided to name him Spike.

At long last the tops of some buildings came into view, and we reached Azalea Town. Small, quaint, and surrounded by forests, there wasn’t much remarkable about it except for the fact that there were Slowpokes. Everywhere. Dozing around on ever street, these pink, virtually unmoving pokémon dominated the town.

‘…I guess it’s their mascot or something?’ Gary remarked as we entered the pokémon centre. After handing over our pokémon as usual to be healed, we discussed what to do next.

‘I think I’ll go take on the Gym first,’ Gary checked over his mental strategy and remained aloof, ‘You might as well check out the town or something until I’m done. I guess there isn’t enough time for us both to challenge, you can go tomorrow.’

‘…Okay.’ I’d barely agreed before he had grabbed back his pokéballs and strutted out.

‘Wow. He’s a bit testy,’ Meowth said, as I welcomed him back to the usual spot on my shoulder.

‘All the more fun without him,’ I shrugged, and my pokémon and I headed off to look around.

We dodged a few Slowpoke, located the Gym, but nothing very exciting until we found a little house with a sign that read, “Kurt’s House – Maker of Apricorn Pokéballs”.

‘Apricorn…?’ I echoed.

‘Yes, apricorn,’ I heard a small voice say. Looking down, I saw a small girl.

‘Hello!’ she smiled, ‘I’m Kurt’s granddaughter! He makes pokéballs for trainers out of apricorn.’

‘Oh… what IS apricorn?’

‘You don’t know? I’ll show you!’

The chirpy girl took my hand and dragged me away from the town to a forest near Kurt’s house. There, she showed me a few specific trees. Only a few grew these apricorns, which turned out to be types of fruit. Apricorn come in seven different colours, and each one when hollowed out can make a different kind of ball.

After saying thank you to the girl, I opened up a few pokéballs. After all, this would be more fun to do as a group! Scout, Vesper, Needles and Spike joined Meowth and I to go picking these fruits.

Vesper’s job was to fly up and look around, finding the fruit-bearing trees for us. I could already see one with large pink coloured fruit, but Kurt’s granddaughter warned me not to take too many, so we left those. After that we discovered a tree with yellow fruit, and we all approached to pick some, but when we got there the tree’s braches were full of Pineco. We all just backed away slowly.

Vesper tried again and led us successfully to a tree with nice blue-coloured fruit. Not knowing how many to take from there, I picked out what seemed to be an appealing one and it snapped easily from the tree when I took it. Stashing it in my backpack, our group moved on. We were lucky with the next tree, white apricorn all ready for picking, and I took one of those, too. However on the next tree, with red apricorn, the fruits were all too small and hadn’t ripened enough to be picked.

I figured that having two apricorn was probably good, but as I was going to leave Vesper called out, having seen another tree not far away. We all followed his direction and came to a tree that looked like the other apricorn trees… but it didn’t seem to have any fruit. I was confused until I head Vesper call out again.

‘Lediiee! Ledeediee!’ he buzzed around something at the top of the tree – a single apricorn! It was green, so I almost didn’t see it. The only fruit of the tree, but this one looked ripe enough… but the problem was how to get it? All the other apricorn had come easily from reaching up to the bottom branches.

Vesper tried to cling to the fruit and pull it off, but it was as big as he was, and much heavier, and it didn’t budge. I could have tried climbing the tree… I’d had a lot of practice at that in the woods around New Bark, but these apricorn trees had no boughs low enough to hold on to.
I felt like giving up, until Scout tugged on the bottom of my jeans. She kept jumping up, and then managed to scurry up my body. And she sat on my head, reaching up toward the fruit.
At first it seemed insane, but with Needles, Meowth, Spike and Scout all standing on top of each other on my shoulders, Scout at the top was able to reach the lone apricorn and pick it off. …Then we all tumbled over onto the ground. But the apricorn was safe, and I put that in my pack as well. Pleased with our teamwork, we al headed back to town.

Kurt answered his door when I knocked. He was quite an old man, white-haired, but with the honed practice of expertise etched into him.

‘Hello, little lady. You’ll be wanting me to take your apricorns?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I nodded, and my pokémon team-mates sounded their agreement from the floor. Then I held out my blue, white and green apricorn for him.

He took them and briefly examined them. ‘Very well. Come back tomorrow and I’ll give you my specially made artisan pokéballs! Oh, as long as you’re okay to stay until tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, I definitely am,’ I nodded and grinned. ‘I still have a Gym battle to win.’