Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Becoming a trainer was the last thing Ava Stanton, or anyone her age, wanted to do.

As she rode the bus away from the only life she ever knew, in her panic, there was only one repeating thought in her head.

“I am going to die”.

...

A long time ago, becoming a pokemon trainer and taking on the Gym Challenge was what every kid dreamed about, and most at least attempted it. Even those who weren't trainers often had one pokemon as a pet or used one for work. Pokemon were so ingrained in the fabric of society that when that Cataclysm came, everything broke down.

The driving force behind the Cataclysm was due to the actions of Team Rocket, one of the most notorious pokemon gangs around. They had been working on capturing legendary pokemon to aid them in their crimes and use their destructive power to take control of the government and beat the League.

Team Rocket had created plans and preparations to be ready to fight against some of the strongest trainers in the world. Then, when they successfully captured the three legendary birds, Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos, they were ready to put their plan into action. What they weren't ready for was the response of the legendary pokemon when they combined forces.

The legendary pokemon led the charge against all of humanity, across all regions of the word. Millions of pokemon, once friendly, became enraged by the legendaries and started attacking people across the globe. These animals, which once lived in peace and community with humanity, became feral and destroyed cities and towns.

The trainers were able to put up some sort of fight with the pokemon they trained previously, not seeming to be affected by the changes caused by the legendary pokemon. However, for the majority of towns and small cities, there simply were not enough people or resources to fight against the onslaught of superpowered attacks. Within a week, all that was left of humanity were the most populous cities with high League and trainer support and the few individuals who managed to hide away.

The reason these towns survived was due to the League taking strong action by rallying the remaining trainers and refugees in the bigger cities. To protect themselves they started building walls around the cities to keep out the pokemon. Trainers guarded the walls and were constantly at war to keep pokemon out.

This all seemed to be for naught as the waves of pokemon kept coming, and even bigger cities were starting to be destroyed. Then a final wave of pokemon came and broke through the walls of every city and started rampaging. It seemed to be the end of everything until, all at once, the wild pokemon froze, stopping the fighting and returning to nature.

No one knows why the coordinated attacks stopped. There were theories that it was due to the mercy of the legendaries or that they stopped, while others believed they had accomplished their goal of finding the captured legendaries and saving them. In the end, the reason was never discovered, but whatever it was allowed humanity the chance to survive.

Rebuilding was a massive undertaking, and not every place survived. With 90% of the population decimated, a lot of society collapsed. There were food shortages, an increase in crime, and a lack of essential infrastructure. The remaining Leagues and cities gathered together to figure out how to survive and keep what's left of humanity safe.

Since there were no centralized governments left, each city was declared as a city-state and given the right to rule themselves without outside interference, with the exception of the regional League having offices in all areas to deal with matters related to pokemon. With transport being extremely dangerous, it was essential that these cities could be self-sufficient and not have to rely on others for supplies.

Pokemon training also underwent massive changes. Since pokemon were still essential for protecting against outside threats and growing the city, it was necessary to keep training and catching pokemon . Things were different now, and the first generation that tried to restart training almost ended up wiped out. The changes in pokemon were permanent, and while they were not being led in battle by legendaries, they still remained extremely aggressive compared to before and would attack ruthlessly.

No longer were people flocking to train pokemon, instead they became a source of terror for most people and something they actively avoided. This shortage of trainers was dangerous and put many cities at risk of collapsing. A mandate for trainer conscription was put in place for all cities. Once a year, all people aged 15-20 would be required to take part in a ceremony to randomly choose people to become pokemon trainers for the rest of their lives.

Two hundred years have passed since then, and this ceremony, which came to be known as the Selection Day, is still in place.

This was also the day that Ava’s old life was over, and she began her new life reluctantly as a pokemon trainer.

...

Selection Day was always a gloomy affair. As the thousands of people eligible to be chosen trickled into the stadium used for the ceremony, all you could hear was the shuffling of feet and the officers directing traffic. Ava’s stomach was tangled in knots, thinking about what the future could hold. If she were chosen, the worst that could happen would be a quick death in the first week of becoming a trainer. The best she could hope for is to be forever ostracized by most people in her life, never be able to get a real job, and be stuck in a dangerous profession til she was either killed, unable to work, or could retire. She tried steeling herself. She had already survived three selections, if she gets through today, she will only have two left.

The tension in the air could be cut with a knife, everything felt much more oppressive than it had at the start of the previous year's ceremonies. Every year, the number of trainers chosen fluctuates based on the needs of the city. The previous year, there had been over 100 people drafted, the highest any of them had ever seen. Higher than anyone thought possible. That now weighed on all their minds, especially Ava's, as she had been one of the first group to sit, so all she could do was overthink and wonder if that would happen again.

Ava had been sitting in her spot for the past hour when the final group of people came and were seated. If it was quiet before, now it was deathly still as a strict-looking woman walked up the stage in her trainer uniform. Quite enough to hear the steps, she climbed the stage and walked towards the microphone.

“Good afternoon, citizens of Taluda. I am Captain Cunningham, the official representative of the League. I have been tasked with leading this year's Selection Ceremony and the recruits that come from it. Furthermore, I know a lot of you are scared right now.” She paused. “And you have every right to be. Pokemon are immense in their danger, and now a select few of you are going to be in charge of training and raising them to help protect and provide for the rest of the civilians. This comes at a high risk for your life and wellbeing. I will do my best to make sure that each one of you survives,” she said as she looked out across the crowd.

Cunningham’s remarks did nothing to appease the tightly wound audience, and it only made the pit Ava felt in her stomach dig even deeper. She finished her look around the stadium before continuing, “Due to high performance and a lack of deaths in the past year, we will only have to pick out six new people to join the League as trainers.” The wave of relief across the stadium was palpable, and even Ava started to feel a little more secure.

“Before I start with the ceremony, if there is anyone who wants to volunteer and take up the mantle and join our ranks as a pokemon trainer, please stand up and raise your hand. One of the officers will be able to walk you down.” Ava turned her head, much like the rest of the people around her, trying to see if anyone would volunteer. She didn't notice anything until an officer three columns to her right started walking down toward the field with a boy following behind him. He looked to be one of the younger people here. Ava secretly thought he was an idiot, but she still felt better now that one spot had already been taken. The volunteer confidently walked down the field and up the stage to be greeted by Captain Cunningham.

After a brief conversation between them, Captain Cunningham turned back to the mic and spoke up, “This year we are honored to have a volunteer. Please welcome Oliver and thank him for his service.” After a half-hearted applause, she continued. “We now only have to fill five more spots for this year, do we have any more volunteers?” After seeing no response she said “Alright then we will move on”.

The large screen behind her lit up and started flashing through the names of all the people here. The suspense built in the air as the names started slowing down before stopping on one. “We are honored to welcome Ava Stanton as our second pick this year, please stand up and follow an officer down to the stage”.

Ava could barely hear her, her blood was rushing through her ears, and all she could process was her name, undeniably large on the screen.

Everything that happened after hearing her name happened in a blur. Ava was led down to join Captain Cunningham and the volunteer in the middle of the field. She knows more people were chosen and joined her on the stage, but did not remember anything about them.

Now she sat on the bus that was taking them away, and it really started to sink in. She was going to be forced to become a trainer. No longer would she be able to go to college like she planned or get to choose any job she wanted. Would she even be able to see her family anymore? Would they even want to see her? All of these questions rattled in her head as she steadily pulled herself out of the daze. This was real, and this was happening to her.

Looking around, she noticed the other people selected. Besides the volunteer, they all seemed to have a mix of shock, fear, and despair, just like she was sure she had on her face. There were four boys and one other girl, they all seemed to be processing what had just happened, so she didn't want to bother them.

As she gazed through the window, the bus entered more and more areas she had never been to, and eventually they entered the trainer district. This was the 10% of the city that was put aside solely for pokemon trainers. They passed multiple pokemon centers, stores and what seemed to be residential areas. She also happened to notice there were some pokemon traveling alongside their trainers, a sight not usually seen unless there were emergencies.

The bus finally pulled into a pokemon center, and as they piled off, they were greeted by Cunningham, who had been waiting for them in front of the building, saying, “Welcome to your new home. This pokemon center is going to be where you will stay while preparing for the Ordeals and until you are able to provide for yourself.” She led them through the doors and to the woman stationed at the desk. “This is Mary, she is in charge of this pokemon center and will be the one giving you your tours.” Mary gave a small wave before Captain Cunningham continued, “Once you have finished the tour, you will have the rest of the day and tomorrow off to gather yourself and get acquainted with the area. You will also be able to call any family or friends that you may want to talk to. Then, on Monday, we will start your week of training to prepare you for your Ordeals. I wish you luck and will see you on Monday.” With that, she left the pokemon center.

Mary took charge after Captain Cunningham left. “Hello, it is great to meet you all. As Captain mentioned, my name is Mary, and I am the one in charge of this pokemon center. You may see other people or trainers helping out, but I should be around most of the time to answer any questions you may have. Now follow me”. As she spoke, she led them through a door further into the building. “This is the lounge area where you can relax and wait between missions. It is open 24/7; however, there is no food allowed and a strict intolerance to any pokemon battles or fighting. Failure to follow these rules can result in a ban from the area. The Lounge connects to the most important areas you will use as trainers, the cafeteria, the healing center, the poke mart, the computer rooms, and the barracks”.

She continued down the hallway and entered on the first door to the left. Once Ava and the rest of the trainers filled in after her, they were greeted with rows of computers. Each computer had a device next to it where there were six indentations that would fit poke balls. “Here is the computer room,” Mary said. “This is where you will be able to access the local internet, communicate with your families, and, like all pokemon center computers, you will have the ability to view and accept missions once you become recognized as official trainers”. Ava could see a few people who were in the computer lab doing just that.

Pointing toward the device that held poke balls, Mary continued, “This device next to all the computers is called the Pokemon Connector, or a PC for short. By putting your poke ball in the slots, you will be able to access a large portion of the capabilities. You will be able to view all the data about your pokemon including gender, age, and more. Not only will you be able to view data, but you will also be able to break down poke balls into computer code to be stored in your trainer account or used to trade or sell your pokemon to other trainers. There are more specifics regarding long-term pokemon storage, but Captain Cunningham will go over that with those who pass the exam”.

The group was then led to the door right across the hall, where there were six large devices with a similar structure, “This is the healing center and will be the most used room by any of you.” Here, she paused and took on a more serious tone. “These devices are one of the most important pieces of technology that allow us to maintain a fighting force and protect the city. By putting your pokemon in here and pressing this button,” she showed them all a green button on the front of the machine, “you will be able to restore your pokemon back to full health. The healing center is open 24/7; however, under absolutely no circumstances are any pokemon allowed out of their poke balls inside this room. The same goes for any food, drink, or goofing around. If you break or damage any of these, you will be cited with a fine that would take most of your life to pay off, and your wages from any missions would be garnished until it is paid off”.

Seeing the slightly scared looks on everyone's faces, Mary felt they were properly warned. Leading them out of the room and further down the hall, they entered a glass door with a blue sign that held a white poke ball. “This is the poke mart. This is where you can buy all the supplies you need for your pokemon like poke food, potions, antidotes, poke balls, and more. This is open 8am to 5pm. We do have the ability to open it up after hours, however that is only done for emergencies, often specifically related to missions. So make sure you are always prepared.”

Walking to the door at the end of the hallway, she stopped in front of it. “This door leads to the cafeteria, for the duration of your Ordeal, and then for one month after, we will provide free lunch and dinner for you. After that period, you will join the rest of the trainers, who get one free meal a day. Any other meals or snacks will come at your own personal expense.” Ava perked up at the thought of a meal, her appetite had been nonexistent this morning and afternoon, and she was only now starting to realize how hungry she was. She was a little disappointed when Mary followed up by saying they would get a meal at the end of the tour.

Turning to the right, Mary opened the door and walked up a flight of stairs to the second floor. “Our final stop of the tour is the barracks. This will be your home for the foreseeable future. There are over a dozen bunk beds for trainers to sleep in. There are storage lockers that you can use, and laundry is at the end of the hall. You will be able to use the barracks at no cost to yourself; however, there is a limited supply of beds and storage, and they are on a first-come, first-served basis. Once you start making money, you will be able to leave and rent your own place for more privacy if you so desire. We have cleared out any current trainers to other pokemon centers for the duration of your Ordeals, so you won't have to worry about that. The boys barracks are off to the left, and the girls are to the right. Each of you should have a package with your name on it on your bed.” With a clap of her hands, Mary said, “Well, that concludes the rest of our tour, are there any questions?” When no one had any, she took her leave and left them alone.

No one seemed to know what to do until the volunteer boy scoffed, “I am going to go to my bed, you idiots can keep standing around here if you want” before stomping off. Ava thought that was really rude and wondered if she should call him a rude boy instead of a volunteer boy.

It seemed as though everyone took his lead, though, because the rest of the boys followed him while the other girl had already started to the girls' barracks. Ava scrambled to catch up to her and then reached the two beds that had a package on them. Finding hers, Ava immediately opened it. Inside was a basic change of clothes, toiletries, a single piece of chocolate, and a note letting her know her family could ship them additional clothing and items. The note also mentioned that Captain Cunningham wanted them to meet in the computer labs on Monday morning at 8 a.m.

Looking up from her package, she took a good look at the other girl, she was shorter than Ava with long, dark hair and glasses. Mustering up some courage, Ava stuck out her hand. “Hi there, it's nice to meet you. My name is Ava”.

The other girl looked up from her package and gingerly grasped her hand. “Nice to meet you, my name's Amiyra.” They both fell silent, not really sure what else to say.

Ava broke the silence. “This might just be because I was not super focused, but did they ever explain what they meant by Ordeals?”

That seemed to break some of the tension because Amiyra smiled and said, “I was thinking the exact same thing! I felt kind of stupid cause it seemed like everyone else knew.” With that, they both started laughing a little.

“Well, I was going to go grab something to eat. I was wondering if you wanted to join me?” Ava offered.

With a smile, she nodded, “I would love that,” and they both started walking down to the cafeteria. Even though there was no one else staying in the barracks, the cafeteria still had more people than expected. Ava had stopped, unsure of where to go next, and Amiyra grabbed her hand and led her to where a small line had formed. After going through the line, they were handed a plate that had a sandwich and some fresh fruit and went to find a spot to sit.

Ava noticed a rude boy and another boy from the selection ceremony and made her way over to them. “Can we sit with you guys”.

The rude boy stood up with a glare and grabbed his tray. “The tables are all yours, we’re all done here”. Ava knew this wasn't true, as he still had food on his tray. It looks like rude boy has evolved even further into asshole boy.

“Sorry guys, he's not super friendly right now,” apologized the mousy boy who had been sitting next to him. “We should definitely talk later though!” he said before shoveling the rest of the food into his mouth, real quick following after the asshole boy.

“God what a dick,” Ava said.

Amiyra seemed to be a little nicer as she tried to reason out his behavior. “He's probably just stressed and nervous, like the rest of us.”

“But he's the one who volunteered; he at least had some idea he'd end up here. The rest of us were totally random”

“Yeah, I guess you're right, he was kinda acting like a dick for someone who chose this”. Amiyra said.

Sitting down to eat, in between bites, Ava started conversations between the two. “So, how old are you?”

“I turned 20 a couple of months ago,” Amiyra said, “frustratingly close to being free from this.”

“Oh god, I'm so sorry” Ava responded. She couldn't even imagine what it must feel like getting so close to being safe and then having the rug swept out from her. At least hers happened halfway through instead of right at the end.

“It's fine. I was the one who had gotten my hopes up after not being picked last year. I shouldn't have started planning for a future that I knew could drastically change,” she said ruefully, “but what about you? How old are you?”

“Well, I turned 18 last month, so this was my fourth selection day, and I…” Ave continued to talk with Amiyra throughout dinner, each learning new things about each other, their past, and their families. After feeling more full and after the stress of the day, both of them started to feel exhausted and went back to the barracks to spend the night. Ava ate the small chocolate from her package, enjoying the small comfort it gave her.

And if Ava heard any crying that night, she wouldn't tell a soul, as long as her new friend ignored any crying that she heard.

Chapter Text

The screen in front of her taunted her. After waking up this morning, Ava knew she had to call back home but kept putting it off. First, she had to get used to the communal showers and then was going to go down, but the computer lab was too busy, and she wanted a private conversation, so she planned to come back. She then walked the district a little bit, saw some training grounds, but eventually got a little spooked seeing so many pokemon out and about. When she came back, well, it was lunchtime, so she had to go get her first meal of the day. And then she distracted herself for the next hour or so sitting in the lounge. Finally, she dragged herself into a computer chair and has now been staring at the blank computer for the past ten minutes.

Ava had been very close to her family. After her mom died when she was young, all that's left were her dad and two younger twin siblings. She had been a real brat once mom died, but dad had been there for her despite grieving himself. As she's grown older, they have built a strong bond. She doesn't know what she would do if he stopped talking to her because she became a trainer. After telling herself to stop being a coward, she finally turned on the computer and went to call him. After five rings, he answered the call. “Hi, Dad,” she said nervously.

Dad looked absolutely exhausted, and she could already see tears starting to form in his eyes. “Oh, Ava, it's so good to see your face.” He started to get choked up. “I am so sorry that this happened to you.”

Seeing his face was already starting to get to her, but she pushed past it. “It's alright, Dad. I can't change it now,” she said with a weak smile. “Gotta do the best with the situation I've got, right?”

“That's my girl. You have always been so brave.”

“Thanks Dad. I… I wanted to ask you something.” At his nod to go ahead, she continued. “I know this is new, and who knows if I'll even survive this, but I just wanted to ask, when things get more settled, can I still talk and visit you guys?” Ava was not used to being this forward with her emotions, but she knew she had to ask this question and not dance around it, or else it would eat at her.

“Ava, look at me.” After raising her head from where she had been looking at her hands, she looked into Dad’s eyes, who said, “You being a trainer has no change in how I think of you, and of course we still want you to visit. I love you so much, nothing can change that.”

Hearing this lifted a huge weight off her heart. Knowing that she wasn't going to be abandoned by her family made all of this almost feel possible. “Thank you,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she asked, “So where are Olive and Noah? Can I see them?”

Dad's smile turned a little sad. “Ever since they have heard the news, they have been having a rough time. I think they are a little too young to understand that you didn't choose this. They kept crying because I told them that they weren't going to be able to come any time soon, and they didn't take it well. They are sleeping right now after crying all morning. I can wake them up.” He stood up a little to do just that before Ava interrupted.

“Don't worry about it, I will talk to them once I get more settled in.” Knowing she wouldn't be able to see them hurt a little, but she didn't want to wake them up.

“I'll keep working on them, they should be fine soon, especially once we get to see you again.”

She nodded a little. “Well, I should probably get going, I want to get more settled in and explore a little. I'm glad we were able to talk.”

“That sounds good Ava. Let me know if you ever need any money or want me to send anything over.” Ava nodded, knowing she would only ask for money if things were truly dire. She had a little saved up that should last her until she could start taking on missions. 

“Oh, and one last thing before you go,” Dad said, his expression turning serious. “Don't think I didn't hear you say that comment about not surviving. I am telling you right now that this isn't an if or a maybe. You will survive. That is a non-negotiable. You can only die once I'm already buried six feet under, got it?”

This produced a wet smile on Ava’s face, she hasn't cried this much since she was ten and was really thankful she waited until the computer lab was mostly empty. “Thanks Dad, I love you”

“I love you too,” he responded, as the call ended.

Ava left and went to meet back up with Amiyra, and they walked around the fields around the pokemon center, exploring a little bit before grabbing dinner. At dinner, the mousy boy had come up to their table to let them know that the guys were planning on doing a little get-together in the lounge at 7 p.m. and invited both of them.

When they got down to the lounge, all the guys were already there. They sat on a small couch, joining in the circle the others had formed. Ava felt awkward with the silence but was not going to be the first one to break it. She was surprised when the first one who spoke up was the mousy boy, since he looked like he would be quiet.

“We haven't really talked since the ceremony, so I figured we could start with introductions! My name's Theo.” Pointing to a blond boy to his right with tanned skin, he said, “This guy's name is Flynn, and the guy to his right is Jacob.” The dark-haired boy raised his hand as a quick greeting.

“And you have already met him, but this guy's name is Oliver,” Theo said, pointing to where the asshole boy sat with a glare on his face. Ah, so he had a name. Maybe if she felt nice, she would actually use it.

Ava then introduced herself to the group, and Amiyra followed suit.

“So, what made you want to do this little get-together?” Amiyra asked Theo.

“Well, I figured we are all in the same boat, so it might be nice to get to know each other, and I'm guessing we are going to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, so it would be better to actually know who I'm going to be around. Also,” he cut himself off by fumbling around in his pockets for a bit before producing a deck of cards. “I was able to get a deck of cards from Mary and figured we could use something to take our minds off of this whole situation”.

Seeing the deck of cards, Ava brightened up. She was super competitive, just like the rest of her family, and card games have always been a fun pastime at family holidays. “I have a perfect game for you if you are willing to spend five minutes learning”

Getting the affirmative, Ava started to explain the rules to Up and Down the River. It turned out Theo and Flynn had already known how to play, so she just had to teach the rest of them the rules.

While going over that and playing the game, she learned more about the rest of her group, except for Oliver, who had remained silent the whole time he played. She learned that Jacob had grown up around a farm, so he was used to seeing trainers patrolling the fields, protecting the crops, but had never really interacted with them before. She learned that Flynn was on the swim team at her rival high school. It really is a small world sometimes. She also learned that Theo and Oliver had actually gone to the same school together, and while they weren't friends before, situations like these can tie even the loosest of connections close together.

As the evening wore on, and they moved onto a different card game, Ava started to get really annoyed at the asshole boy. He only seemed to respond to questions with a grunt, no matter if the question was why he chose to volunteer or even how old he was (15, Theo supplied for him).

At a pause in the games, she decided to confront him, “So what's your deal, huh?” She asked. “Cause we are all here trying to have a good time and get to know each other, and you're being all pissy and ruining the vibe. Why did you even come here if you weren't going to participate”

This got his attention, and he responded with a sneer, “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I do, that's why I asked.”

“The only reason I am here is because Theo basically begged me to, and as he seems to have the second best shot of surviving this besides me, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The reason I am not talking to you is that I simply do not see the point. None of you have given me any indication that you have what it takes to survive the Ordeals.”

“What even are the Ordeals!” Ava said exasperatedly.

“Are you serious?” he said with some shock on his face before it turned into laughter after no one would meet his eyes. “Oh my god, you are! Well, let me be of service and enlighten you,” he said condescendingly. “The Ordeals are when, after our little week of ‘training’ we are tossed outside the walls and told to find a pokemon that we can tame or die trying. It doesn't matter how injured you get or how many times you come back, unless you have a pokemon you will get tossed right back time and time again until eventually you don't come back at all. A lot of people don't come back.”

He continued, “I know I will make it and Theo is gonna make it too. But the rest of you? You dead weights who have spent their time doing absolutely nothing and who seem more likely to give up and let something eat you before trying. No, I'm not gonna waste my time. So sue me if I don't feel like getting to know people who aren't even gonna last a week from now.” With his outburst finished, he stormed back to the boys' barracks.

The air felt much colder than it had previously. “You know what, it's getting late, I am going to head to bed too,” Amiyra quietly said. Everyone else agreed, putting the cards away and heading back to their rooms without another word.

…

When Captain Cunningham came to the computer labs at 8 a.m., everyone was already sitting with a focused look on their faces. Passing out notebooks and pens to them, she headed to the front of the room.

“As mentioned previously, my name is Captain Cunningham. I used to be a captain in the Army, but now I am an A-Rank trainer, and over the next five days I will be teaching you essential skills and information to get you prepared for your Ordeals.” Ava felt she brushed over that Army fact a little bit too quickly but didn't get a chance to say anything before she continued. “Today is the first day of that teaching, and on the sixth day you will have to take your Ordeals. The notebooks provided are for you to take notes as you see fit.”

She paused. “I will first go over the history of the Ordeals. When the Selection Days were first starting, the league provided starters to all the new trainers. However, small and untrained pokemon were still dangerous, and even the ones that acted tamed could turn on their owners, killing them or hurting others. One smaller city in our very own region had fallen because of this. During a large attack from wild pokemon, a lot of the supposedly tame pokemon used the confusion to attack their trainers, which led to chaos and the destruction of the entire city.”

“After a lot of trial and error, the League found that the best solution was to institute what we call the Ordeals. The reason pokemon were turning on their trainers was due to the fact that they felt they were weak. Having been given to the trainers by stronger trainers and prevented from attacking by stronger trainers, most never really respected or listened to their owners. So when the opportunity arose to attack, a lot took it. To avoid this, new trainers now have to venture outside the wall without an escort and catch and tame their own starter by themselves.”

“Why do we have to go without an escort?” Theo asked.

“This may seem cruel on the surface, but the Ordeals serve two important factors. The first is long-term sustainable growth as a trainer and society. Through a lot of research, we have found that this is the best way to produce real results when it comes to taming a pokemon and maintaining obedience in chaotic situations. The reason why you don't have an escort plays into the second reason. We are only able to take the strong. Training is an inherently dangerous occupation, you will be sent out and choose to go on missions outside the wall alone all the time. You will also be the one people look to in a crisis. This is a test of your resourcefulness, skill, strength, and luck. We simply do not have the time or resources to invest in people who aren't able to pass this first test.”

“I can say this is for your benefit as much as I like, however I want you to understand how dangerous this test can and will be. It is very rare for everyone to come back from this test, and it hasn't happened for the past 15 years. So the odds that some of you will not make it past this week are almost guaranteed.”

This caused almost all of their faces to fall. 

Cunningham continued, her face like stone. “But that is why we have this week of training and why I am here. I promise to train you to the very best of my abilities, and I can only hope that you all make it back alive.”

After that, Cunningham started to go over the basics that they would need to know. Ava felt overwhelmed with how little she actually knew. She had never paid attention to things related to pokemon and most people tried not to talk about them too much. So information about different typings, species, how to use potions and antidotes, and all about poke balls made her brain spin. She made sure to take notes on everything Cunningham was saying until her hand was cramping.

“We are almost done with today's session, but there are a few more things I want to talk about. The first relates to pokemon care.” With that, she put her hands to her waist where a belt held five poke balls, grabbed one off and opened it, releasing a bi-pedal pokemon with black and blue fur and spikes on its hands. When it appeared, everyone except Oliver and Theo jumped to their feet. “Stand down. He won't attack you unless I order him to. This is a lucario, and he was my Ordeal pokemon.” Ava had never seen a pokemon this close up before, and her heart was pounding. The lucario looked so different from anything she had ever seen, and she hoped that she did not run into anything that looked that dangerous on her own Ordeal.

Cunningham pulled out a bag of beef jerky and gave him some, which he promptly ate while she kept talking. “Feeding your pokemon is an essential part of being a trainer. Much like humans, if you starve a pokemon it doesn't matter how tamed they are, they will do most anything to get some food. While poke balls are great at slowing down injuries and keeping them in a semi-stasis, it is not a full stasis, so time will still pass. A pokemon should be released once a day to be fed, and the same goes for any stored pokemon you may have. I would personally recommend, when in a safe, letting your tamed pokemon outside their poke ball often. I have found it helps with temperament and makes them easier to tame.”

Cunningham returned her lucario and pulled out her trainer ID, which contained her name, other identifying information about her, and a large A in the corner. “Trainer ranks and missions are the next topic I want to cover. I won't go in depth on this topic, but I will explain the basics. You guys are not officially trainers yet. Once you pass your Ordeal, you will be classified as an E-Rank trainer. E and D-Rank are the low rankings, as you get more experience, you can move on to the middle ranks, which contain C-Rank and B-Rank. After that are the high ranks, with A-Ranks containing the elite trainers of the region. Then there are the S-Rank trainers. The absolute strongest trainers in the city.”

“The amount of pokemon you are able to have will increase per rank as well. As an E-Rank trainer, you will be able to have two pokemon with one on your person and the other having to remain in the box. As you move up ranks you are able to hold another pokemon at a time, so as a D-Rank trainer, you can have three pokemon with two on your person and the other in the box. Your poke balls will forcibly maintain this, and you won't be able to open any additional poke balls unless you follow these rules and store any extra pokemon.”

“Trainers are allowed to take on missions that are their rank or the rank below them. You will only be able to take on higher ranks if you are joined by someone of that rank. Missions are classified as either D, C, B, A, or S depending on their difficulty,” she said.

Ava raised her hand. “So if we want to go on a mission as an E-Rank, we would have to ask a D-Rank trainer to join us?”

“That brings up a good point,” Cunningham said. “E-Rank trainers are not allowed on missions. You are only able to join missions once you become a D-Rank. The test to become a D-Rank is fairly easy and is focused on making sure your pokemon is trained and will listen to your commands in the field. Once you pass, you will be able to take on D-rank missions and will be given required missions to take. While you will never go back to being an E-Rank trainer, every pokemon you catch will have to pass the D-Rank exam in order to be allowed to join you on the field.”

Flynn raised his hand to ask a question. “What happens if you can't tame your pokemon?”

“If you can't tame your pokemon you will have to retake the Ordeal and your pokemon will be put down, sold, or put to use if possible.” She looked around. “I hope you find a pokemon that you can train, I would be a waste if you made it back from your first Ordeal to not come back on your second.”

“That is the end of today's sessions. I will be around to answer questions, and would highly recommend using the computer lab's pokedex app over the next few days to research more about the pokemon found outside the city. One last thing before you leave,” Cunningham said, pulling out six different envelopes and passing them out. “In this envelope is the gate that you will be leaving out of your Ordeal. Use this to help you in your research.”

She wished them luck and left the room. Opening up the envelope, Ava found out she was assigned West Gate. As much as she doubts it, she hopes it will lead to a field of flowers that only contains easy to tame pokemon. She could at least maintain that hope until tomorrow.

Chapter Text

It turns out that the west gate did not contain a lush field of flowers. Ava tries to be shocked. Instead, it led to a dense jungle full of wild pokemon. Especially ones with sharp stingers and poison. It seemed that it was the second-most dangerous gate to exit from for your Ordeals out of the four gates.

Amiyra and Oliver would be leaving from the north gate, the most dangerous gate. This would take them towards the mountains and caves where the city's ores and minerals were mined. It's also where they would find pokemon that can throw rocks and punch through walls. The east and south gates both led to the grasslands, with Theo leaving from the east gate, while Jacob and Flynn would be leaving from the south gate. Ava would be the only one leaving from her gate.

Knowing which gates they were leaving from helped focus their research. Ava spent the next five days when not in class researching the forest and the pokemon there. She needed find a way to make sure she was able to come back. The days passed too quickly, and eventually it was the night before the Ordeals, and Ava could not fall asleep for the life of her.

“Hey Amiyra, are you still up?” Ava whispered.

“Yeah,” Amiyra replied.

“Are you nervous?”

“Terrified, you?”

“Shitting my pants, but tryna stay positive, so I keep telling myself that I'm gonna kill it.”

“That's nice, I wish I was able to fake that kind of confidence.” Amiyra paused slightly. “Where do you think you would be right now if you didn't get picked?”

Ava took a moment to think about it. “Well, if we are talking about right now, I would be asleep in my room back at my dad's place. In a more general sense, though, I would probably be asking for more shifts at my job. I work, or worked, I guess, at one of those fancy clothing stores. It wasn't my favorite, but I wanted to spend the next year saving up money to be able to go to college. So I think that's what I would be doing.” Ava sat for a little while, still in contemplation. “What about you?”

“I wanted to be a doctor,” Amiyra wistfully responded.

“No shit.”

“Yeah. I had everything planned out, too,” she said with a rueful grin. “I knew what I was going to major in, what classes I was going to take, when I would apply to medical school, even down to which hospital I wanted to intern at. All my friends were waiting until they couldn't be chosen to go to college. I told myself there was no way I would be picked, so I went anyway. I spent the past two years studying and preparing just for it to amount to nothing.”

She continued quietly, “I just feel like my whole life has been a waste.”

Ava sat up, frowning a little, and looked at Amiyra. “Don't say that, your life hasn't been a waste”

“It sure feels like it has been.”

“Well it hasn't.”

Ava sat back and looked at the bed above her. The moonlight peeking through the window made it so she could faintly make out her surroundings. “I know this is totally selfish, but for what it's worth, I'm glad it's you who's here with me.”

Amirya didn’t respond for a minute, and Ava started to regret saying that until she heard a response. “For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here with me too.”

The rest of the night passed restlessly, both of them tossing and turning, unable to get any real sleep.

…

Everyone had gathered at the magnet train station bright and early after being woken up by Mary. Ava noticed that everyone seems to have not slept well, based on the yawns and tired looks. Even Oliver didn't seem immune to the nerves.

Cunningham had beat them to the station and was standing in front of a table with six backpacks on it. She was joined by four other trainers in their trainer uniforms that Ava didn't recognize.

“Now that you are all here, your Ordeal can begin,” Cunningham said. Pointing to the bags behind her, she continued, “These bags are being provided to you by the League. They are filled with essential items that can help you while you are out. They are fully yours, and you will be given time to look through them before you are sent out.” Each of the trainers standing next to her grabbed a bag and handed it to them. Ava got handed her bag by a guy around her age who stood a couple inches shorter than her with a sharp buzz cut.

“You will also be given three poke balls to be used to catch your pokemon. As of right now, they are unregistered, any pokemon caught in a poke ball will not be able to be released until the poke ball is registered to a trainer. Once you catch a pokemon return to the city gate and your escort will lead you back to the pokemon center.”

“Why are we given three poke balls when we only have to catch one pokemon?” Amiyra asked.

“There are two reasons for that,” Cunningham responded. “First, a pokemon may not be caught right away, especially if they are at full health or have evolved. If it escapes the ball or you happen to miss your throw, the first thing they will do is try to destroy the poke ball, as that is their biggest threat. You will only have seconds to try to capture it again or escape and try for a different pokemon.”

“The second reason is that you will be E-Rank trainers when you pass. This means that you are able to have two pokemon at a time. So if you find that you have captured a pokemon and have more time and poke balls, you are technically able to catch another pokemon.” Cunningham took a chance to look everyone in the eyes. “I would not recommend doing this. You can always catch more pokemon so if you find yourself with one pokemon forget about trying for another and return to the city. You never know what danger lies lurking out there, and you will not have any pokemon or backup to protect you.”

Oliver spoke up, “What happens if you get three pokemon?”

“While I have never seen anyone do it, if by some miracle you get three pokemon you will select two of them, and the third will be handed over to the city, and we will deal with it.” Ava thought that the look in Oliver's eyes was more competitive than it should be in this situation.

Cunningham moved past after responding, “Those who are entering the south gate will remain here, while the rest of you will board the magnet train and be taken to your respective gates. If you are at the same gate as someone else, one person will go first, and then 30 minutes later, the second will be sent through. Even if you have not caught a pokemon, return to the gate before sundown. If you do not return by sundown, we will assume that you are dead and not making it back at all”.

She made sure to keep their attention when she made her last remark, “My final piece of advice for all of you is to find the absolute weakest pokemon you can, catch it, and come back as soon as possible.”

With that, Ava, Theo, Oliver, and Amiyra were led onto the train by their escorts, while Jacob and Flynn got in a car to head to their gate. Ava used this downtime to take a look at what was in the backpack that she was offered. She found a water bottle, rations, a compass, a pocket knife, some rope, a repel, and a small case that contained ten bottles. Five of these were potions, while the other five were an antidote, paralyze heal, awakening, burn heal, and ice heal. She had learned in class that each of these bottles had three doses and, while meant to be used on pokemon, worked for humans as well.

Theo was dropped off first, with Amirya and Oliver following soon after. Being alone on the train made her nerves start jumping more than they previously had. She stared out at the city passing her by, hoping this wasn't her last time seeing it. It was a beautiful summer day with a clear sun and a cloudless sky. She felt like it should be more gloomy knowing what could happen. The train slowed to a stop, and she followed her escort as he led her to the gate.

Even from a distance, the wall was much larger than she had anticipated, it loomed over her, smooth and gray. Ava had never been this close to the walls before, and it was extremely intimidating knowing that she would soon be forced outside the confines of this beast.

Her escort said something into the walkie-talkie that had been sitting at his waist that had caused the west gate to start opening up. He turned to her, handing her three poke balls. “Your Ordeal has officially begun, please exit through the gate. Stay safe and return with a pokemon.”

With a determined nod, she started walking towards the gate and then crossed the threshold to enter a whole new world.

…

Ava had never been outside the walls before. The dense foliage of trees is a completely new terrain for her. The most nature she had ever seen had been at parks scattered throughout the city. She had to remind herself to refrain from gawking at how tall the trees were and how the forest seemed to go on forever. It made it easier to focus whenever the sounds of the forest reminded her that she wasn't alone in it.

She had sprayed herself with the repel before she entered the forest line. While not as useful as spraying it on a pokemon in front of her, it should work to keep most of the pokemon away while she heads to her destination. From her research, she decided to go to a small river nearby. Instead of seeking out a pokemon, she would hide and wait until one she thought she could take came for a drink.

The river was around an hour-long hike away. While it was deeper in the forest, which was more dangerous, the main thing Ava wanted to avoid was beedrill hives. All her research and every older trainer she had asked for the forest gate had said the same thing. Avoid all the weedle you can, and don't even try to catch one. She had learned that there was a strong weedle presence toward the tree line and near the entrance of the west gate. That means that there could be beedrill hives anywhere near that. So going deeper in the forest allowed her to avoid those dangerous parts at the beginning.

She was steadily making progress with her repel in one hand, trying to keep an eye out for any silk webs and any buzzing of bug pokemon. She hasn't seen a pokemon yet, besides a glimpse of shaking leaves and random appendages of pokemon running away. It seemed as if the repel was working.

Ava ventured deeper into the forest but at one point stopped. This area felt strangely quiet compared to the steady noise of the forest she had gotten used to. Looking around, she only had a small warning of rustling leaves above her before a large pokemon with four legs jumped down from above.

Ava thanked years of sport and pure luck as the reasons she was able to dive out of the way in time. She quickly turned and sprayed the repel right in the ariados’s face. Ava was glad that her first response to spray the repel was right. With how close the Pokémon had gotten, running right away would not have been a wise move.

Repels work slightly differently for bug pokemon than other types. While the strong smell is usually what drives pokemon away, if the repel is sprayed directly on the bug, it can actually burn them. Ava heard a screech but did not wait around to see if that was true and started sprinting as fast as she could, leading her deeper into the forest.

The panic from almost dying took her far, and eventually she stopped and hid behind a tree. She tried to catch her breath and stop her heart from beating out of her chest while checking to see if the ariados was following her. After a couple of minutes of not seeing any signs of being followed, she was able to think more clearly and remembered that ariados are nocturnal creatures. They don't like to be out during the day unless they are protecting their territory which Ava must have unintentionally entered. She felt a little better when she remembered that because it meant the ariados was probably just trying to scare her off. The fact that she wasn't being followed helped that theory.

Now that her adrenaline was winding down, she was able to feel the sharp pain in her leg. It looks like she hadn't dived out of the way fast enough and had a long, viscous slice from her thigh down to her ankle. It was really starting to hurt, and she had never had an injury this big before. Cleaning it as best as she could with her water bottle, she grabbed a potion out of her bag and started spraying. Wincing at the sting, she kept applying the potion until she stopped bleeding. This took all three uses of a potion to do. Ava didn't know what she would have done if the potion also didn't have a numbing agent. She also took a dose of antidote as a precaution in case she had been poisoned.

If this was the result of a five-second encounter with the pokemon she dreads to think of what would have happened if one actually wanted to hunt her. If the ariados had wanted to kill her, she's sure she would be dead by now.

With that sobering thought, she pulled out her compass and reoriented herself towards the river. It might be a little risky to keep going with her injury, but she had stopped bleeding, and it wasn't feeling that bad right now. If she could make sure she wouldn't have to retake the Ordeal she could put up with a little pain. As she trekked on, she made sure to be extra cautious and checked everywhere for webs she might be missing. Ava was worried that she only had one more repel left, and she really did not want to use that before even getting to her destination.

To her relief, after only a short walk, she could hear the babbling of a brook and headed in that direction to find her river. Finally, she could actually try to get a pokemon. She found a good vantage point where she could see the river, but was still fairly hidden against an ambush. She grabbed a long, thick stick off that ground that would be part of her plan and got into place. Standing as still as she could, she waited. She waited some more. Then she continued to wait. Frustration was building as the more time passed and he leg was starting to bother her more. She hadn't even seen one pokemon and had been standing still for well over an hour. Finally, she saw a bush near the stream rustle.

Ava held her breath, out popped a sewaddle, a baby bug pokemon that couldn't move very fast. She smiled. This was exactly what she was waiting for, a weak pokemon who was all alone. She waited a little longer, watching it inch toward the river and started drinking from it. Just as she was about to hop out from her hiding spot she saw two swadloon, the evolved form of sewaddle, join it. There goes her first chance.

Now that she knew pokemon would come to the river, she felt more confident about waiting. Pokemon came at a faster pace, but there were none that she felt she would be able to capture. There were a few starly’s that would have flown away the second they saw her, a whole crew of aipom, and a goldeen that swam down the river faster than she could react.

Ava stood at attention when a small feline pokemon with a gold coin on its head walked up to the river. Meowth usually traveled alone, but she waited until she was sure there were no other pokemon joining it before creeping out of her spot. She moved towards it as slowly as she could, trying to make as little noise as possible. It must have been engrossed in drinking the water because it didn't notice her until she was right behind it. And even then, it didn't notice quick enough as Ava swung her stick and knocked it away from the river, leaving it dazed.

Shaking off the damage, the meowth hissed at her while on all fours, getting ready to attack again. She got the stick in front of her before the meowth lunged. She caught it with the stick and was able to knock it back. However, the push had caused her to take a step back, and her foot caught on a rock, making her fall over and drop the stick, which conveniently rolled into the steam

“Oh fuck” Ava muttered. She was now defenseless in front of an animal that wanted to hurt her. The meowth seeing her weakness, pounced towards her. Scrambling around trying to find a weapon, her fingers wrapped around a rock that she swung with all her might right as the meowth was on her.

The rock slammed into its skull with a sickening crack. The meowth was knocked to the side. Seeing it start to get up, Ava started panicking and scrambled towards it, bringing the rock down on its skull again. It stayed passed out on the ground.

Ava got a little closer to check if it was still alive, and seeing it still breathing, she fumbled for a poke ball in her pocket and tapped it against the feline, which got sucked into the ball. She let out a small sigh of relief. Only living creatures can be sucked into a poke ball so she hadn't killed it. The ball gave a couple of shakes before giving a pleasant ping.

She did it. She had caught her first pokemon! The relief swept through Ava in a wave that brought her to her knees. She had actually done it, once she got out of here she was going to be a trainer.

Ava didn't let this distract her too much from where she was and quickly got up. The fighting had caused her leg to start bleeding again, so she used another potion to close it back up. Tossing meowth’s poke ball into her backpack, she grabbed the repel and started to make her way back to the west gate.

She took a longer route than she had coming in, she wanted to make sure to avoid the ariados nest she almost died in by a long shot.

Even when she was waiting by the river, it had started to get hot, but now the heat and humidity felt almost unbearable. Especially since she felt constantly on edge. Being so close to victory, everything felt much more dangerous.

Ava was nearing the gate when she heard a mangled chirping near her. Pausing, her senses on full alert, she kept listening. It was closer to her than other bird sounds she had heard. Locating the sound, she slowly moved forward, bringing the repel in front of her. She was ready to spray the final dose at the pokemon and then run like hell towards the gate.

The culprit of the noise came into view. She moved closer and found a bird with sparse gray, white, and black feathers covering it and a wing that didn't look quite right. Ava thought it looked like what she remembered pidove's looked like from her research, except weird and young. She looked up and around, trying to see a nest. After not seeing one, she looked back at the pokemon with a broken wing struggling on the ground.

There was no way this was going to be that easy. Grabbing another poke ball, she tapped it against the baby pidove which disappeared in a red light. The ball didn't even shake before a noise indicated a successful capture.

Not only had she caught one pokemon, but she was also able to grab another one right at the end. She smiled. This was going to be so fun to rub in Oliver's face.

Putting the pidove away, she quickened her pace and reached the gate.

“Hey, I'm back from my Ordeal,” she shouted at the guard tower. The gate slowly started to open, and she jumped through as soon as she could. She turned back around and waited until the gate closed fully before letting herself relax. She then let out a joyous shout of victory.

Once Ava was done yelling, she opened her eyes to see her escort looking a little surprised but with a slight smile on his face. “Welcome back. I assume that means you caught a pokemon.”

She beamed back at him. “Fuck yeah I did!”

Chapter Text

After seeing the large cut to her leg, Ava was quickly moved to a room in the guardhouse, where a nurse had been brought specifically for the ordeal.

“How did you get this?” The nurse asked as she inspected the wound.

“An Ariados got the jump on me.”

Her escort gaped at her. “No way. And you made it out in one piece?”

Ava grinned a little viciously. “Yeah, I dodged its first attack, was able to spray a repel right at its face before it could attack again, then booked it. I definitely got lucky that it was only aiming to scare me away.”

“Got lucky indeed,” the nurse chastised. “It doesn't look like it cut through your muscles, thankfully, but you could have been in a really dangerous situation out there. Since you're not dead, I assume you took an antidote.” Ava nodded in affirmation. “Good, you at least have some sense. I am going to give you another dose just to be safe, and then I will stitch up that leg.” After she shooed her escort out of the room, the nurse cleaned the wound and then, with a sanitized needle and string, got to work on closing the gaping wound on Ava’s leg.

After her leg was fixed up and wrapped in gauze, she was given a crutch and a weak painkiller with instructions on when to take it.

Her escort walked her back to the train and, once safely on, asked her, “So what pokemon did you catch?”

“I actually caught two,” Ava proudly stated. “A meowth and a pidove.”

This caught his attention, “I'll be damned, you're a twofer.” Seeing her confused face, he elaborated. “A twofer is someone who was able to capture two pokemon during their ordeal, they are pretty rare, so it always creates a bit of a buzz when someone does it. In my group there were only two people who were twofers, and we had over a hundred people take the Ordeal” he explained.

Ava was surprised, not thinking that he had been chosen from last year's Selection Day and was going to ask about it before the realization that she hadn't been alone shot through her spine like lightning. She sat up, “have you heard anything about the others taking the Ordeals?”

Her escort rolled with the serious turn of conversation. “I have not heard anything about any of the others. But we try to avoid going on the comms to report non-emergencies, so it should be a good sign. We are almost at the pokemon center, and Captain Cunningham will have more information about them.”

In her excitement, Ava had not spared a second thought about how Amiyra and the others were doing. Her guilt and worry stayed with her as they arrived at the pokemon center.

Hobbling in, she saw Cunningham stand up as she entered and gave her a smile. “Welcome back, Ava. I heard you passed, congratulations are in order.”

Ava had never seen the serious woman's lips even twitch in amusement before, so seeing her smile stunned her for a second, and she wasn't able to respond before she got pulled down the hall into the lounge.

“We have some food at the table in the lounge that you are welcome to have as much as you want. I will hold onto your poke ball while you wait” Cunningham's eyebrow raised upon seeing not one but two poke balls but didn't say anything about it. “Theo has been the only one who has passed so far, you may join him in the lounge”. Hearing that someone else had already passed gave her more reassurance than she thought it would.

Upon seeing her, Theo jumped up, “Ava! You made it!” he had made it as if to hug her before stopping, realizing they didn't know each other that well. Ava pulled him into a hug, glad she could have someone who went through the same thing she had.

The food that was sitting on the table made her realize how hungry she actually was, so she beelined there after finishing greeting Theo.

While eating, Ava recounted her tale to Theo, who acted with appropriate shock at the ariados and meowth fight and surprise at the extra pidove encounter.

He geared up to tell his own story, “I don't have as cool of a story as you, but I was able to catch a poliwag.”

It turned out he had had similar thoughts to Ava about catching a pokemon. The east gate wasn't far from a small pond. He had gone hoping he could catch a pokemon drinking off guard. He ran into similar issues that Ava had, where a lot of pokemon were too dangerous or too quick to actually catch. His pond seemed much busier than hers, which made it harder to find a time when there weren't other pokemon to get in the way. During a lull in traffic at a pond, a poling walked out of the pond, trying to get used to its legs. When it got far enough away, he threw a poke ball at it. He had to use all three of his poke balls, but was able to catch it with his last one and then booked it back to the pokemon center.

“I was waiting for two hours before you came back. I was getting worried that I would be the only one who made it back.” He said it with an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I'm glad you were here when I finished, that must have sucked waiting,” Ava said. “I hope the others come back soon.”

Now that she was safe in the pokemon center and had a full stomach, exhaustion was creeping up on Ava. As much as she tried, her eyes kept drifting shut. Soon her head rested against the back of her chair, and Theo’s rambling voice helped lull her to a dreamless sleep.

She was awoken by a loud noise. Jumping up, she looked around for any danger but quickly realized that the noise had come from Theo quickly standing up, accidentally knocking his chair to the floor. Turning, she realized the reason he had reacted like that was because both Amiyra and Oliver had returned together.

“Amiyra!” Ava hopped over to her as quick as she could and grabbed her in a hug.

After pulling away, Amirya responded, “What happened to your leg?”

Ava waved her off. “It's just a little scratch I got. But what about you? Did you pass?”

Nodding, she responded, “Yeah, I caught my pokemon really early. I was going to come back, but they wanted us to wait for Oliver to come back, so I was just waiting at the guard house.”

Turning to Oliver, who was reluctantly hugging Theo back and feeling petty, she made a sarcastic remark, “Well, look who ended up being one of the last people to come back. What was it you called us again? Dead weights? Weird how the tables have turned.”

He made a face and said, “Blah blah, talk all you want, but I caught two pokemon, so I'm already a step ahead of you”

Oh, this was going to be so sweet. “Hmm, that weird cause I also caught two pokemon. What are the odds.”

His face lit up in disbelief. “There is absolutely no way you were able to capture two pokemon.”

Theo stepped in and said, “guys chill, we can all talk about our Ordeals. Let's let Amiyra and Oliver grab something to eat. I'm sure they are hungry.”

They let themselves be led to the couch, still glaring at each other. Ava took the end of it so she could keep her leg off to the side. She volunteered to tell her story last, wanting to keep him in suspense. Theo offered to tell his story first, and after that, Amiyra went.

It turns out she hadn't been exaggerating when she said that she caught her pokemon really early. She had only been out for 20 minutes before a pokemon came running at her. She threw a poke ball at it to slow it down and was running to get away from it when she heard the successful capture sound. Not even an hour had passed by the time she was able to make it back to the gate. Apparently, it was one of the fastest times anyone has come back from an ordeal.

“It all happened so fast that I still don't even know what pokemon I caught.” Amirya confessed.

“Really?” Ava and Theo said in unison.

“Yeah, the only thing I remember was that it was on four legs and was kind of big, around my chest height.”

The next couple of minutes we’re spent speculating on what her pokemon could be. A stantler had gotten thrown out, but she could neither confirm nor deny it. Ava wasn't much help during this part, having spent all of her time focusing on pokemon in the forest, she had neglected to check what pokemon were around in other areas. Realizing they weren't going to figure it out, they moved on.

Oliver told his story next with much reluctance. He traveled outside the wall and kept near the wall until he found a clearing that was actually close to the forest. From there, he pulled out his chocolate and a sandwich to be used as bait, and then set up a trap using rope from the bag.

Ava suddenly felt really dumb. Why did she not think of using food as bait to bring in pokemon? Now, her idea for hitting one with a stick felt very rushed and ill-prepared.

Oliver continued telling about his Ordeal. He was able to get three uses out of the food he had. The first time a graveler had come by eating the food. He had been too big for the trap to be effective, as it was made for smaller pokemon. He was successful on his next encounter, as a teddiursa drawn in by the chocolate got stuck in the trap. Most traps wouldn’t be able to hold pokemon for very long, and the same was true for the basic trap Oliver set. However, it gave him enough time to rush in and spray a repel in the bear's face to distract and hurt it. He then took the chance to use a poke ball which worked to catch his first pokemon. He reset the trap to try and catch another, but the same graveler came back and ate the food.

Oliver decided to try to get another pokemon in the caves that littered the mountains. He ran into a lot of zubat and paras that all seemed to run away from him. Then the ground started to shift around him, he had moved away but kept a ready stance. A larvitar started eating his way out of the ground, and Oliver threw a poke ball at it. It failed, and the larvitar broke free and, in its flailing, broke the poke ball. Oliver chose to spray his water bottle at the pokemon to try to weaken it a little and threw another poke ball, this time catching it.

“No way! A larvitar!” Theo exclaimed. Oliver nodded, a smug look on his face from getting praise.

Even Ava had to admit this was impressive. While she didn’t know much of pokemon that could be found in the mountain area, in their lessons they were taught about dangerous and powerful pokemon, in hopes they would avoid them. Larvitar and its evolutions were on this list.

Catching himself, Theo moved on from excitement to scolding “Wait why did you continue even after catching the teddiursa? You if all people should know how dangerous that is.”

Ava was curious about that statement not knowing much about the two boys past and their connections to each other but wasn’t able to ask about it before Oliver responded, not really answering the question “Well I was aiming to catch three pokemon, but I wasted two poke balls trying to catch that larvitar.”

Theo looked ready to continue his questioning when the door opened and Cunningham walked in. Her normally strict expression looked even more serious than usual. Ava could tell that something must have happened.

“We received word of the situation at the south gate. Both Flynn and Jacob had been caught up in a stampede of rapidash. Jacob was able to escape and is being treated for his injuries right now. We have strong reason to believe that Flynn will not be returning” Cunningham said in a solemn tone.

Ava felt like the wind had been knocked from her. Flynn and her weren't that close, and while crass, if she had heard about this randomly, she probably wouldn't have blinked twice. But now that she was a trainer, it felt different, it felt more real. Ava knew that this was a dangerous profession, but it didn’t click until now that she truly could have died out there. She had her share of panic and fear while in the forest, and she was constantly told how dangerous the Ordeals were. And of course she knew she could die, but in the same way, one could die from falling down the stairs. A possibility that doesn’t feel real until you take a hard fall or know someone who died from it.

Amours gasped, “Is Jacob okay?”

Cunningham nodded in affirmation, “Jacob will pull through, he is in shock, but the only serious injury is a broken arm and a large amount of scrapes.”

“Was he able to catch a pokemon?” Oliver asked. Even he seemed to be taking this seriously.

“No, he did not.”

Ava finally found her voice. “What will happen to him?”

“Like I mentioned before, if anyone returns without a pokemon they will have to take the Ordeal again as soon as they can. Since a broken arm won’t restrict him from walking or catching a pokemon, he will be sent back out tomorrow.”

“That’s not fair!” Amiyra shouted. Ava was a little surprised, she had never heard the quieter girl raise her voice before.

Cunningham fixed her with a glare. “Of course, it’s not fair. If things were fair, most of you wouldn’t even be here. This is a part of being a trainer. He certainly won’t be the last person you know to get injured or even die. The protection of the city is the most important part of our job, and that will often come at a personal sacrifice. Now follow me, and we will get your Pokémon registered to you,” she said in a tone leaving no room for discussion.

The group all followed her in an uncomfortable silence as she led them to the computer room.

Ava had always liked Cunningham. Despite her stern demeanor and rough way of talking, it always seemed like she did care about them and how they turned out. Now Ava wasn’t sure if that was true or if she had just latched onto the first person who knew what they were doing and imagined a stronger relationship than there was.

There was no one in the room when they entered. Going to a computer that was on, she pulled out four ID cards. Turning back, she spoke, “I once again offer my congratulations on passing your Ordeals. You are now all E-Rank trainers. I will activate your ID’s and register your pokemon you your account. Before that, I have some items for you.” She went to a table that contained four sets of clothes and four armbands and handed them out. “Whenever you are on a mission, you will have to wear your trainer uniform. We provide one, any others after this, you will have to buy on your own. When you are off duty and going to a civilian area, you will have to wear that armband so they can identify you.”

Moving back to the computer, Cunningham pulled out six poke balls with a piece of tape labeling their respective names. She first grabbed Theo's poke ball. After scanning her own ID card, she then scanned Theo's new ID, activating it. His photo popped up on the screen. Ava doesn’t remember taking a photo for this, they must have used the photo required when registering for the Selection Day.

Grabbing the poke ball with Theo’s name on it, she put it on the tray next to the computer. A poliwag appeared on the screen, and after a few clicks from Cunningham, the button on the poke ball flashed blue twice before returning to white. She handed Theo this poke ball and ID, offering another quiet congratulations before moving on.

She grabbed Amiyra’s ball next and repeated the process. They were all craning their necks to see what surprise pokemon would pop up. An image of a mudbray flashed upon the screen, but her poke ball also flashed blue before being given to her along with her ID.

Oliver was next, and when the larvitar appeared on the screen, Cunningham paused a little, glancing over at Oliver before registering it and moving on to his teddiursa. Returning his poke balls and giving his ID, she moved on to Ava.

Ava’s face popped up on the screen, and she winced. It was definitely was a photo taken when she registered for the Selection Day. She had been rubbing her eyes that entire week because they were extremely itchy for some reason, so her left eye looked really red in that photo. She had thought she would never see that photo again, but it looks like she was mistaken.

Continuing on, Cunningham scanned her first ball, and a Pidove appeared on the screen. Ava realized she had never gotten around to telling her story when she saw everyone try to peer at the screen, much like she had done when Amiyra’s pokemon appeared.

Her second poke ball was grabbed, and as it scanned, instead of a normal picture pulling up, it showed a meowth with a red shade all over its body. This caused Cunningham to really pause before standing up.

“Since you are all now E-rank trainers, you will have to pass the D-rank test to start taking missions. Once you think your pokemon is tamed enough to listen to your basic commands, I would recommend taking the exam. I will be the one who tests you. Talk to Mary or another poke center manager here to schedule that test. Ava and Oliver, can you stay back? The rest of you are free to go.” Cunningham said.

Amiyra shot her a confused look, and Ava shrugged, not knowing why she was held back either or why she hadn't been given her pokemon back.

Once the two had left, Cunningham spoke to Ava: “I need to speak to Oliver privately, but I will be right back to have a conversation with you.” Ava nodded, still confused, as the older woman led Oliver out of the computer room.

It had only been a few minutes before she heard Oliver’s muffled yell, “That’s bullshit!” Soon after, Cunningham re-entered her room.

“What was that about?” Ava asked.

“Despite being an essential tool, pokemon contain many dangers. Some Pokémon are deemed too dangerous and are illegal to own. Larvitar’s final evolution, Tyranitar is one of those pokemon. Adult ones can grow up to 15 feet, if not more. On the off chance that one rampaged, it could mean extreme danger not only for lives but for the very infrastructure we need to protect ourselves.” Her face had a stored expression. “He did not have a good reaction to the fact that if he wanted to keep it once it evolved, it would have to surgically have an everstone implanted in it to make sure it never evolved into its final form”

“What’s gonna happen to it”

“Well,” Cunningham responded. “That depends on what he wants. He can either keep it, sell it, or kill it. Regardless, right now I want to focus on you, and to be frank, I have worse news for you. Before that, though, could you tell me everything that happened during your Ordeal?”

Ava recounted her tale about the near miss from the ariados and then eventually catching her two pokemon.

Once she was finished, Cunningham had a grim look on her face. “Thank you for telling me that. It seems the damage your meowth took was very severe, and on your journey back to the gate, he did not survive.”

Ava reeled back. “What do you mean he died? I was able to catch him?”

“Like I mentioned in the training, poke balls do not work as a full stasis. While they are extremely useful to help slow injuries down to get to pokemon centers they are not an end all be all. Pokemon can still die in poke balls if their injuries are too severe. Once you returned to the poke center I healed your Pokémon so that means the meowth died on your journey back to the city.”

“Wait, when you mean injuries you're talking about the ones I gave him right?” Ava said as realization slowly dawned on her. At Cunningham's confirmation she started to feel sick. “Oh my god so I killed him? I killed my starter? I’ve never killed anything before!”

Sensing Ava start to panic, Cunningham got closer putting a hand on Ava's shoulder. “Hey I want you to listen to me, hey look at me” she gently shook Ava’s shoulders. Once getting eye contact and her attention Cunningham said sternly. “You did what you had to do. If you hadn’t, there’s a good chance you would be much more injured or worse. This just means that you're a fighter, don’t ever feel guilty or bad about that.”

“It’s not all bad either,” Cunningham said, grabbing a poke ball and handing it to her. “Since you were able to catch two pokemon, you won’t have to re-do your ordeal if you can tame this pokemon. Not only that, but you got very lucky with the pokemon you were able to catch. This pidove is fairly young. This species has an instinct called imprinting, where a young animal imprints on whoever takes care of it and views them as if they were the same species. If you are able to successfully take care of him and get him to imprint on you, you won't have to worry about him turning on you. You will have a very loyal pokemon, a lot of trainers are not as fortunate to have that. I will also make sure to have someone take care of the meowth and return your poke ball to you. You can get reset it, and then get that one and your other one registered in your name.”

Ava was still feeling a little stunned but was handed her trainer card and led to Mary who was on shift. Since her pidove is young, the care he needed was unique until he got a little older. Mary walked her through the steps of what to feed him and how to do it. She let Ava know that he wouldn’t be able to start being trained until at least a week later. Ava made sure to write everything down and accepted the papers Mary printed that had more in-depth care instructions on it, and planned to meet her the next morning.

Ava returned to the barracks, where Amiyra was waiting for her. She told her about what happened, and Amiyra helped take her mind off things by playing a card game with a deck she borrowed from Theo.

Once in her bed, she let herself feel as sad and frustrated as she wanted. But tomorrow she promised herself she would move on and work on the pokemon she still had left.

Chapter Text

Feeding her pidove was harder than Ava thought it would be. After waking up, she went down to try to find Mary. She couldn’t find her but met another poke center manager named Gavin who was on the taller side, around her height, with a slightly rounded face sporting a well-maintained mustache.

Apparently, Mary had updated Gavin on her situation, and he had been prepared to help her feed her pidove. All poke center managers had a large amount of expertise in the field of caring for pokemon. Part of Gavin's expertise was in avian's, so he was able to give more detailed instructions.

She let her new pokemon out under the supervision of Gavin. The pidove was wary of her when he first appeared. He also quickly realized his wing was fixed and ruffled the few feathers he had on it.

Ava made sure to keep him at arms length; she knew she could take him if he attacked, though, since he was so much weaker than even the meowth she killed yesterday.

“Hey there, buddy,” Ava said awkwardly. “I was able to get you healed, but you are now my pokemon and will have to listen and follow me.” He didn’t make any response indicating he acknowledged this. All he did was cock his head, looking at her.

She slowly tried to reach for him, causing him to panic and try to snap his beak at her. Pulling her hands back quickly, she put on the heavy gloves Gavin had prepared for her. She grabbed the thick syringe full of a faux-crop milk that a pidove’s parents would usually produce.

“I am going to try to feed you, okay? It’s been well over a day, and I don’t want to lose you too. This might be a little forceful if you fight it.” With that warning, Ava snaked her arm out and grabbed a hold of the bird. She made sure to keep her grip soft though to not truly hurt him.

He started straining against her, trying to get free. She slowly brought the syringe to his face, which he kept trying to avoid at first. This caused some of it to spill out. Ava thinks he started to smell the food, because once some had spilled, he got a little calmer, and she was able to get the syringe in front of him to eat.

He relaxed a lot once he was eating. Ava started to relax a little too. As he ate, she talked with Gavin to pass the time while he made sure she didn’t feed him too much. It was then he brought up an interesting point. “So what are you going to name him?”

Ava took a moment to think. Remembering everything that led to her being here with this pidove as her pokemon. “I think I’ll name him Lucky,” she said with a smile on her face.

Time passed quickly. Caring for a baby pokemon felt like a full-time job. She had to make sure that he was fed and was spending most of her free time just being around him, trying to bond as much as she could. She wanted to make sure he would imprint on her if he still could.

Cunningham had been right that he would be easier to tame. After that first feeding, he got less and less skittish as time went on. He even fell asleep in her hands recently. While she wasn’t able to train him to attack and use moves yet, she was able to get him used to learning some simple commands like to come to her and got him used to responding to Lucky.

She made sure to send a message to her dad that she had passed her Ordeal, which he was really excited about. Visiting was still out of the question; she learned that she had to pass the D-Rank exam to be able to interact with civilians.

While using her computer, she also scanned Lucky and was able to get some more information about him.

Species: Pidove - The Tiny Pigeon Pokemon

Type: Normal/Flying

Gender: Male

Age: 2-4 weeks

Moves: N/A

There was some more information about the species in general and other information a trainer might find useful. The moves section seemed to be editable, so you could track what moves a pokemon was taught. It also contained moves that the pidove line could naturally learn, and she made sure to take a look at that to see what she could start with once he got a little older.

Over the next couple of days, the person she interacted with the most was surprisingly Theo. Amiyra was still taking the situation hard and mostly remained in the barracks, which had started to fill up with other people now that their ordeals were over. Ava really only talked to her to comfort her whenever she seemed really down.

She had started talking to Theo more when she started bringing Lucky outside.

“How’s it going?” Ava asked, walking near him, where he was situated next to a small pond of water that his poliwag was swimming in.

“I think it’s going really well, actually!” Theo excitedly said. “The training seems to be effective; I was able to get her to stop attacking me or trying to run away pretty quick. Now I’m working on getting her to follow my orders when she uses her moves. She’s pretty playful, so she doesn’t always listen.”

As if she heard him, the poliwag shot a gentle water gun at Theo, getting him soaked with water. “That's another thing she does. There hasn’t been a single day yet that I don’t get drenched. I think I’m on the janitors hit list with how much water I’ve accidentally brought into the poke center. I swore I saw him glaring at me this morning.”

This caused Ava to laugh. “At least it doesn’t seem like she’s doing it to try to hurt you. What’s her name?”

He blushed a little at her question, “You can’t judge me, okay?” Ava nodded. “I wanted a name that would strike fear in our enemies, so I named her Savage. I didn’t know she would be so playful when I gave her the name.”

Ava managed to hold on to her smirk fairly well but couldn’t help but ask, “Tell me more about the abundance of enemies you seem to have.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” he whined, punching her on the arm.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Better safe than sorry when fighting against those who have sworn vengeance on you,” she said sarcastically. “It is a pretty cool name, though.”

“Thanks, and what about you? How's it going with your meowth and pidove?” Theo asked after giving Savage permission to play in the water.

Ava suddenly realized that she hadn't told anyone but Amiyra about having only one pokemon. She had been so focused on raising Lucky right so she wouldn’t have to retake the Ordeal.

“My meowth’s injuries were too severe, and I took too long to get back, so it ended up dying before making it back to the pokemon center.” Ava said, trying to act as nonchalantly as possible.

Theo gasped, “Oh no, I’m so sorry!”

Shrugging, she responded, “It’s fine; nothing we can do now. I’m just glad I was able to catch two pokemon. Who knows if I would have made it back my second time.”

“Yeah I would not want to go back out there without any protection again. I’m glad Jacob made it back alright.”

Dang it. Ava couldn’t believe there was another thing she had let slip through the cracks, she hadn’t even thought about Jacob since that first night. “What happened with him? I haven't seen him yet.”

“He chose to go out of the forest side this time. I’m guessing he didn’t want to go out of the grasslands gate after… the situation.” Ava nodded grimly, knowing he didn’t want to mention their dead friend. “He got back without any injuries and was able to catch a ledyba.”

“That’s great! I’ll have to visit him sometime.”

“He actually isn’t here anymore. He passed the D-rank exam yesterday.”

“Really? He started even later than us; how could he have passed already?”

“No idea, maybe he’s just super talented at training pokemon or the ledyba was really chill. But after that, I saw him packing up, and it turns out he has been offered a permanent position somewhere.”

Ava was confused. “What do you mean permanent position, can’t we not take on any other job? Also, he just passed; how could he have already gotten an offer?”

“He’s still a trainer. While it’s not common, it turns out sometimes people get offered more permanent roles by businesses and people. As long as you are able to do your required guard missions, the league doesn’t care how you spend your extra time, outside of getting a civilian job, of course. Do you remember how Jacob mentioned growing up around a farm?” Ava nodded affirmatively, vaguely remembering that from their group game night. Theo continued, “His dad actually owns that farm and offered him a permanent role to help them out around the farm. It was probably just a way to get him to live with them again.”

“Huh, that’s a really good idea. Do you think we could ask our families to do that?”

Theo shook his head negatively. “Probably not; for one, most people don’t own houses and live in civilian zones, which we can’t do. Houses are unique, and the owners can choose to let a person live there. Also, most people couldn’t afford to pay the fees. Farmers are one of the groups that get subsidized costs due to their importance and how often there are pokemon trying to steal food.”

“There goes that idea. How do you know so much about all this already?” Ava questioned, curious that he knew so much while she seemed to not know anything.

“My aunt is a pokemon trainer. I was raised by her since I was ten, so I picked up some things here and there.”

Ava could sense that landmine and decided to steer clear by changing topics. “How’s Oliver been?”

Theo took that change in stride. “He actually passed the D-Rank exam this morning. He was pissed he wasn’t the first one. I think that motivated him to knock it out today.”

Ava could understand that. She was a little bitter Oliver had beaten her to the punch. Remembering her conversation with Cunningham, she asked, “Do you know if he’s gonna keep the larvitar?”

It was Theo’s turn to look confused. “Why would he get rid of his larvitar?”

Ava hadn't realized that might have been private information but was too deep to turn around, so she explained what Cunningham had told her about certain pokemon restrictions.

“I didn’t even know they had rules like that. I know he only passed the exam with his teddiursa so either his larvitar is hard to train or he’s planning on getting rid of it. I’m not sure, though he hasn’t mentioned anything,” Theo said with a shrug.

Ava didn’t understand that. Even without fully evolving, she’s sure larvitar could grow extremely strong; why would he waste that? Knowing Theo wouldn’t have an answer, she moved on, asking more about his poliwag’s training. They spent the rest of their time together going over that and plans for the D-Rank exam.

As the week progressed, Lucky slowly transitioned from a purely liquid diet to increasing solid food. His feathers were mostly all grown now, which has allowed him to start flying. The first time Ava had taken him out, he was pretty uncoordinated, but the more time he spent trying it, the more coordinated he became, and the time he could spend flying extended.

It also seems like the imprint has taken effect because he has been really affectionate towards her. He nuzzles up against her whenever there is downtime and has been resting on her shoulder and head when he is tired. He also has been responding well to any actions she calls for him to. It was eight days after her Ordeal that she was given the go ahead by Gavin to start actual training. It came at the right time too because the food and care required for a baby bird pokemon had been sapping her savings faster than she anticipated. The free meals at the pokemon center were a big reason she wasn’t completely broke yet.

Ava set up in a training area where there weren’t many people around. She made sure she had access to a pokemon dummy that could be used for basic training before releasing Lucky.

Materializing in a bright flash, Lucky appeared on the ground. Seeing Ava, he fluttered over to her out raised arm and landed on it, chirping happily.

“Hey there, buddy,” Ava crooned, rubbing against his neck in a way that she learned he liked. He leaned into it, obviously enjoying the light scratches.

“Today we’re going to be actually training. You gotta get stronger to be able to protect me and yourselves. Okay?” Ava knew he wouldn’t be able to fully understand what she meant, but speaking out loud made it easier to collect her thoughts.

She had learned from Theo once he passed his exam two days ago that to pass the D-Rank exam, you would have to have at least one attacking move to damage any wild pokemon. She tried asking more about the exam, but Theo was unusually tight-lipped about the whole thing.

Usually when catching a pokemon they know how to do some moves, and the goal is to get them to use it on certain commands. The issue with Lucky is that since he was a baby, he never had the chance to learn any moves from his parents. So she would have to figure out how to teach him moves she had no experience in.

The moves she wanted to try today were Peck and Gust. They were the only damage dealing moves pidove could learn this early; she hoped he was old enough to try to learn at least one.

“Okay, Lucky, I first want to start by trying to peck this dummy.”

Lucky’s head cocked in confusion, clearly not understanding what she asked.

Walking up to the dummy, she repeated, “Peck” and imitated pecking the dummy with her nose. She repeated that action with the command as pidove hopped to the dummy and looked her in the eyes before giving it a quick peck.

“Yes! Peck,” Ava exclaimed, knocking her nose against the dummy again, while the pidove followed suit. She spent a little longer getting Lucky to peck the dummy when she called out the command Peck.

“Come back, Lucky.” He flew back to her arm when she fed him some small pieces of a cut up strawberry she had prepared as a treat for today. “Good boy, you're doing so well!” She said, as he ate the food, looking proud.

“Right now you are just pecking the target, which is a great start, but for it to be an actual move you will need to use some energy. From what I've read, there is this internal energy that pokemon use for certain types, like flying moves. I want you to close your eyes and try to bring out that energy.”

This was a more complicated command, but Ava tried to talk slowly and used her free hand to gesture. She had heard pokemon were smarter than people thought, and was proved right when Lucky gave a chirp of affirmation before closing his eyes.

He stayed that way for a while, searching for something within. Ava had sat down, trying not to jostle him on her arm. She really should have moved him before starting this process, as her arm was starting to ache.

After 40 minutes, he opened his eyes, and excited, Ava said, “Lucky Peck.” While pointing to the dummy. He flew and pecked at the dummy. It didn't look any different. Ava had seen videos of pokemon using Peck, and you could definitely see some energy when done correctly. It also would have been stronger than the previous pecks, which did not seem to be the case.

Lucky fluttered over to her, looking dejected. “Ah, so you weren't able to find it, huh. That's okay, you've been doing really good so far!” She said, trying to cheer him up. She had been worried about this. From her research, she had learned that it was sometimes difficult for a baby pokemon raised by humans to be able to figure out how to use moves.

She tried practicing with Gust, not really expecting to see any results but wanting to get him used to the command just like he had with Peck. It was after this that she noticed his efforts were really starting to flag as he became more and more tired. She called him over and fed him some more apple treats before returning him to get some rest in his poke ball.

She was still thinking about how she could teach him how to find the energy to use his moves as she entered the poke center. Seeing Mary sitting at the front desk, a light went off. Remembering her help in getting information for pidove care, Ava figured it couldn't hurt to ask her if she had any tips.

“Hey Mary, how's it going?” Ava said smoothly.

“I'm doing good. What do you want?” Mary said, barely looking up from the computer she was typing on.

“What makes you think I want something? Maybe I just want to talk to you.”

Mary fixed her with an unimpressed look.

“You got me. I was wondering if you had any tips on how I can get my pidove to feel the energy to use for his flying moves. He struggled to learn it today, and I'm not sure what to do next. I'm worried since he doesn't have his parents to teach him that I won't be able to figure out how to do it.”

“If his parents didn't teach him, just get another pokemon too,” Mary casually responded.

“They can do that?”

“Of course they can.”

“Thank you so much!” Ava turned to leave before quickly stopping and turning back. “You don’t happen to know anyone who has a bird pokemon who would be willing to teach me, would you?” Ava put a smile on her face, hoping it would convince her.

“We both know someone who could help you. Gavin has a staravia, and he’s nice enough that he would probably help you without even asking for money.”

“Is he here right now?” Ava asked.

“No but he will be here tomorrow morning if you want to ask him.”

“Thank you so much!”

“It’s been my absolute pleasure,” Mary responded in a straight tone, still typing on her computer.

Ava went back to the barracks. Her and Amiyra had decided to share a bunk bed so they wouldn’t have to bunk with a stranger as more people came. Ava had taken the top bunk, while Amiyra had the bottom. Amiyra was still lying in her bed, in the same spot Ava saw her in before leaving in the morning.

Amiyra had not been doing well in training. She had actually been doing better in the week before the Ordeal. But for some reason, the past week she has barely even left her bed, let alone try to train her pokemon. Ava thinks it might be because there is no looming threat. For the Ordeals if she wasn't focused, she might not have come back. Now, though, there was no time limit or real push to make progress, so she just didn’t.

Ava sat down on the edge of her bed and spoke gently, “Hey, how are you doing?”

“Fine,” came Amiyra’s short response.

“I thought you were going to try to tame your pokemon more today.” Ava prodded about the conversation they had earlier.

“I decided not to. I’ll feed him after dinner.”

This was the response Ava had been getting for the last week. She thought that over time Amiyra would get better, but it’s already been a week and nothing seems to be changing. In fact, she would say it’s even gotten worse.

Ava thought for a moment before deciding to take decisive action. “Alright, it’s time for some tough love.”

This got Amiyra’s attention, who finally looked up. “What do you mean by th-AH!” She got interrupted by Ava picking her up and throwing her over her shoulder. Ava was always an athletic kid, which made it easier to carry the light frame of her shorter friend.

“What are you doing?” Amiyra shouted, trying to shake out of Ava’s grasp to no avail. Her grip was like iron.

“Helping,” Ava replied, grabbing Amiyra’s poke ball from her bag before walking out of the room with everyone watching her.

“No, you’re not. Let me down now!” Amiyra screeched.

Ava’s response was to ignore her and keep moving. When they got downstairs closer to the entrance, Amiyra saw Mary. “Help me, Mary!” Mary lifted her head, looking at the scene in front of her before continuing with her work, not saying a word.

“Traitor!”

It was only when Ava reached a training ground that she dumped Amiyra off of her shoulder. Scrambling off the ground, she shouted, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You've been moping for an entire week. It's time to start putting in some work,” Ava said.

“This is stupid; I'm going back to bed.” She made a move to walk back but was blocked by Ava. “Get out of my way.”

“No. I'm not gonna let you go back until you start putting in an effort, and I'm stronger than you. You won't be able to get past me. I know you had a dream and a passion that you won't be able to achieve, and I'm truly sorry about that. But you told me you felt like your life was a waste. If you keep doing what you’re doing, then it will be. While it might not be ideal, you have to accept that you will never be able to go back to your old life. You have to make the best of what you've been dealt.”

Amiyra exploded, “Why do you even care? You're just a stranger who I don't even know. You don't get a say in how I live my life.”

Ava stayed silent for a moment. “It's fine if you don't think I'm your friend, but you're my friend, and I don't want you to die.” After not getting a response, Ava continued. “If you can't tame your pokemon you will have to retake your Ordeal. Flynn already died from that; there's a chance that you won't make it back at all. At least if you pass the D-Rank exam, if anything happens to your pokemon, someone can help escort you to catch another one. Please, do this for me.”

Ava could see that her little speech affected Amiyra slightly. She no longer looked as angry and, after a sigh, gave in. “Fine. I'll start training my pokemon. I'm still mad at you, though.”

“Thank you. Have you done anything so far?”

“Every time I try to release him, he just starts running away. The only times he doesn't run away is when he gets too hungry and has to eat the food I put out. As soon as he's done, though, he tries running again.”

“I know Theo did this, but what if you try returning him every time he tries to run and just repeat the process until he realizes he can't run away?”

Amiyra agreed, and that's what they spend the next hour trying to do. Every time the Mudbray was released, it quickly tried to run away, but Amiyra was always ready and kept returning him to the poke ball. Eventually he stopped running right off the bat, but wherever they seemed to let their guards down, he bolted away. The progress seemed good, but after another hour he still seemed agitated, and besides that one attempt he had taken to sling some mud at them, nothing changed. That was not fun to be on the receiving end of.

“Okay, so let's take a quick break.” Ava said, rubbing her temple. “What do you know about mudbrays?”

“Well he eats the food from the pokemon, but he should be able to eat grasses as well. I've also read that they really like mud.”

“What if we let him out in the mud? Maybe he will like it.”

“Worth a try,” Amirya said.

They didn't really know how to get enough water to an area to make mud, and it hadn't rained recently, so the ground was pretty dry. Ava remembered that Theo had a water pokemon that liked spraying water, so they went to see if they could find him. He was in the boys barracks, having just gotten back from his first guard session, which he said went well. After hearing their plan, he agreed to help them out and joined them outside.

Letting out his poliwag he ordered it to spray water around a small area of one of the dusty training grounds. They had used sticks they found on the ground to mix up the water and ground, and kept adding water until there was a good amount of mud around the area.

Amiyra released her mudbray, and he was about to run away before noticing the mud on the ground. The change was almost instantaneous. He fell in the mud, rolling around, getting it all over himself. Ava could hear happy neighs coming from him. She and Theo backed off a little, letting Amiyra take the forefront. He allowed her to get closer while he continued to roll in the mud, even eating some of it.

Ava whispered to Theo, “Is it healthy for him to eat mud?”

“No clue,” Theo whispered back. “But he seems to like it, so I'm sure it's not that big of a deal.”

While that didn’t seem to solve all of Amiyra’s problems with taming her mudbray it seemed to be the breakthrough she needed. Ava and Theo left her be while she worked to get her pokemon to listen to her commands more.

Ava was getting ready to go to bed when Amiyra came back to the barracks. She was covered in mud, but had a stronger fire in her eyes than she had the previous week. She walked right up to Ava. “I want to thank you for what you did today. While I still don't think it was okay to basically kidnap me, I needed a push, and you gave that to me. I can't guarantee I will always do it, but I'm going to try my best to take your advice and make the best of this situation.” She rubbed her hands against each other, losing a bit of her confidence. “I also wanted to say I'm sorry. I said some mean things earlier, and I do consider you my friend. I hope my actions didn't ruin that.”

Ava smiled. “It's no problem! I'm glad I was able to help a little. Of course, you didn't ruin our friendship. You're stuck with me whether you like it or not,” she joked, secretly relieved that Amiyra still considered them friends.

“Well, I would give you a hug, but as you can see,” she gestured to herself, “I'm a little messy right now, so I'm going to hop in the shower.” Amirya left for the showers after gingerly grabbing her towel and clothes.

Ava thought that everything was turning out better than expected today. She was able to get Amiyra out of her slump and got a lead on how to teach her pidove. She and her near empty bank account were ready to pass the D-Rank exam and make some money again. With that hope, she drifted off into peaceful rest.

Chapter Text

Ava was preparing for lunch by buying a second meal that neither she nor Lucky would be eating. She had met up with Gavin in the morning when he came for his shift in the poke center. After she explained what she needed from him, he promised her that he would help her over his lunch break if she bought him lunch. Ava felt this was a great deal. She brought up what she was planning to Theo last night; apparently having other trainers pokemon explain moves was a fairly common practice. However, it was usually done for moves the pokemon wouldn't naturally learn, in place of buying a TM. So while cheaper than an actual TM, it was still significantly outside of her price range to hire someone to help. She also didn't know anyone else who had a flying pokemon. The price of a hamburger for Gavin was an easy one to pay.

Walking to the training grounds, Ava saw Gavin already there talking to a bird twice the size of her pidove. The avian had dark feathers with a tuft on top of its head. That must be the staravia Mary mentioned. Ava did not know what kind of pokemon that was when she first heard Gavin had one. But seeing it now, she could tell it looked like an evolved form of starly, a common pokemon in the forest. She had even seen one during her Ordeal.

“Hey Gavin, thanks for coming out. I really appreciate it,” Ava said, trying to act a little more professional as she reached the spot where he had set up a dummy near a small bench.

“Don't worry about it, and you brought me my lunch, so we’re even,” he said, holding out his hand. She handed over the container that held the burger and fries that he had asked for.

“Release your pidove. I already gave the run-down to Lady over here. She should be able to teach yours just fine.”

Lucky came out of his poke ball in a flash of light before resting on her arm. Ava told him the plan and gave him a quick pet before he flew off to join the staravia. Ava followed Gavin's lead as he sat on the bench.

“How long do you think it will take?” Ava asked.

Gavin responded in between bites of his burger, “Hopefully it doesn't last more than an hour. That's how long my break is. If it does last longer, you might have to buy me another burger,” he joked. “Seriously, though, I see it only takes 30-40 minutes. The main goal will be to just get him to identify and bring out the flying energy. Since pidoves are flying types, it shouldn't be too hard to find. You'll obviously have to train him to get that energy actually usable in moves, but that should go much faster once he has a grip on the energy.”

Ava actually didn't know that Lucky wouldn't know the moves after the training, but she wasn't going to admit that out loud. She can't believe how much basic information she still didn't know about pokemon. She can't imagine she will ever stop learning about pokemon and their oddities.

Gavin was right in his time frame. After about 35 minutes, Ava saw that some light blue energy was flickering around the pidoves body.

Excited, Lucky flew to her, where she held out her hands for him to land in. “You did it! Good boy,” she praised while rubbing the feathers around his head. His content coo's let her know he appreciated her reaction.

“Huh, I know I was the one who helped you, but he really latched onto you.” Gavin remarked as his staravia landed gently at his feet.

“I'm grateful. It looks like the imprint worked.”

“You're very lucky. Not many people can build this much of a connection with their pokemon. He's going to be a great asset once he gets trained up some more.”

“Speaking of, thank you so much for today. I'm extremely grateful you gave up your break to help me. I can let you enjoy the rest of it.”

“Eh, it's no bother. I already committed to using my break to help you. Let's get the most of it. Lady can help him in directing the energy a little more.”

Ava didn't know what she did for him to be so nice to her, but she promised herself if he ever needed help, she would try her best to provide what help she could. She wasn't going to fight him from helping, and they spent the rest of his break practicing the two moves Ava wanted to learn. They were able to make slight progress with Peck but spent most of their time was trying to learn Gust. It turns out it's much harder to gather energy and send it out than it was to just gather it in a beak.

They had made some progress before Gavin had to leave. Once he left, her growling stomach reminded her that she had skipped her lunchtime as well. Taking a small break, she grabbed some food and made sure to feed Lucky some nutritional pellets and seeds. He had gotten old enough to be fed those, and they were thankfully much cheaper than the custom formula needed when he was younger.

They spent the rest of the day working on those two moves. By the end of it, Lucky was obviously exhausted as he lay sleeping in her arms. Ava was sitting on a bench with a tree providing shade. She watched as the sun set, painting the clouds above in warm reds and oranges with a hint of pink. She wanted to let Lucky get some rest outside the poke ball, so she just sat watching as the sun went further and further down the horizon.

They have made great progress today. Peck was now able to make the dummy shake and seemed to be hitting the target harder. The energy looked much more focused than when they had started the day. Lucky was able to figure out how to send his energy for Gust, but it fizzled out quickly, and he had to be close to the target for it to be effective.

Now that they had a move, Ava felt she was prepared to take the D-Rank exam later tomorrow. She would spend the morning training to get Gust in a better place. Since this was an exam focused on taming, she wasn't really worried about Lucky's moves not being the most developed. He already listened to her completely, and that should be enough to pass.

With her plan set in her mind and the light from the sun all gone now, she returned Lucky, gave him a quick heal in the pokemon center, and went to bed to be ready for her exam tomorrow.

…

It turns out she would not be moving to a D-Rank today. She had woken up and talked to Gavin about scheduling. Cunningham had been pulled into an emergency mission that he couldn't share the details of, but that meant she couldn't give Ava her exam. Since it was her first exam too, she couldn't take it with any of the other proctors either. She was able to schedule a time for the next afternoon, as Cunningham should be back by then.

That left her with a free afternoon to work more on the moves she had wanted to train with. Peck was already in a good spot, but after some practice, Lucky was able to call on it quicker and use it while flying towards a target. Gust was able to get more polished and could actually be used as a semi-long distance move compared to before. She tried to use the time to teach Lucky the moves Growl and Leer. However, with no other pokemon around, it was hard to see if they had any of the desired effects.

While she wasn't able to move up in ranks today, she was glad that Lucky was more prepared for the exam and missions that would come after it.

Ava ate dinner with Amiyra and Theo that night. Theo had just gotten off his second guard shift ever. They both listened in intrigue as he told them about a couple of starly who had flown over the wall. With the help of the other trainer on duty, they were able to stop them before they could cause any damage or hurt anyone. Ava could tell he was proud of himself as he told his story, especially since that was his first time fighting off a pokemon as a trainer.

She learned from Amiyra that she had made tremendous progress in taming her mudbray, which she named Abraxas. Ava thought that was a pretty fancy name for the literal mud horse but made sure not to say it out loud. In fact, she made so much progress that she scheduled her own exam, despite it only being two days since she started trying. Her exam was actually scheduled in the slot right before Ava’s.

Knowing this, when they woke up the next morning, Ava got ready early so she could walk Amiyra to her exam.

They headed towards the gym, which was a couple of buildings and training areas down from the pokemon center. It was still early in the morning, and there was a foggy mist that left dew on the grass.

The reception area welcoming them when they entered was not a large one. There were glass doors past the reception desk that presumably led deeper into the building. They went up to the desk, and Amirya said, “I have an appointment to take my D-Rank exam with Captain Cunningham.”

The middle-aged receptionist typed a little on his keyboard. “Yep, I have you listed in here; if I could just have your trainer's ID real quick.” Amiyra handed it over, and he gave it a quick scan before returning it. “Alrighty, you are all checked in. Take a seat, and we will let you know when we’re ready.”

Amiyra went to the waiting area, and Ava repeated the process to check in as well before joining Amiyra in the blue chairs.

They did not have to wait long before Cunningham came in. She looked no different from usual with her short blond hair, muscular build, and strict uniform in place. “Good morning, ladies. I hope you are well rested.” Not waiting for a response, she continued, “Amiyra if you would follow me, we can begin your D-Rank exam.”

Ava wished her good luck before they both went deeper into the building, leaving Ava sitting in the waiting room. Boredom quickly hit her; she asked the receptionist if she could let out Lucky to give him a pep talk, but apparently pokemon can’t be released inside the gym without supervision as an E-Rank trainer. So she just sat and restlessly waited.

It was a little less than an hour when Amiyra came back. “Did you pass?” Ava asked, standing up from her chair. Amiyra didn’t respond. Instead, she just held out her ID, which now has a D on it instead of an E.

“Congrats! I knew you could do it,” Ava said excitedly.

“Thanks! It went much better than I thought it would go.”

Ava was just going to ask her if she had any tips before Cunningham interrupted. “Ava, I am ready for you if you want to come back,” she said while holding the door open.

Turning to Amiyra, Ava said, “You don't have to wait for me. I’ll catch up with you back at the pokemon center, okay?” Getting a nod of agreement, she quickly followed Cunningham down the hall and through a door to a large gymnasium. There were a lot of different areas to the gym. Ava saw a group of training dummies, multiple perches presumably for flying pokemon, a set of weights, an open area, and even more things she couldn't recognize.

Cunningham stopped in front of the area with training dummies. “Here is where we will start your D-Rank exam. Before you release your pokemon I will release one of mine for safety purposes.” She threw out a poke ball from her belt. Ava really needed to get one of those. Currently, she was just using her pockets. From the poke ball, a familiar lucario appeared and stood next to Cunningham. “You are already acquainted with him from our training, but this is my lucario, Scout. You are free to release your pokemon now.”

Ava released Lucky, who stayed on the ground, cleaning his feathers with his beak. Ava had told him about the exam yesterday and had high hopes they could figure out whatever was thrown at them. She turned to Cunningham, waiting for instructions.

“The first part of this exam is to see what moves your pokemon can use and if they will listen to your commands. What moves does your pidove know?” Cunningham said.

“He knows Peck and Gusts. I did practice Growl and Leer, but I wasn't able to find a pokemon to see if they worked.”

Cunningham nodded. “We can test those against my pokemon to see effectiveness. First, let's go through his attacks one by one. Use them on the dummy in front of you.”

“Lucky,” Ava said to get his attention, pointing to one of the dummies. “Peck that target.”

Lucky took off flying and was able to successfully peck the dummy, causing a small splinter in the wood. He returned to her. “Good job,” she praised, gently scratching him.

“That Peck looks good. You can move on to your next attack.”

“Lucky, use Gust.”

He flew back to the target and, using his wings, directed air toward the dummy, causing it to shake.

Cunningham frowned a little. “Do the same move, but have him do it from further away.”

Ava repeated the instructions to Lucky, who moved back and used Gust. The wind sputtered out before reaching the dummy and became a gentle breeze.

“It looks like Gust isn't fully mastered yet. It should last longer and be able to hit targets a little further away. It is still effective when close enough, but make sure to keep practicing it. Now we can move on to the status moves. Scout, come stand near the dummy.”

The lucario walked over to the dummy Lucky was just attacking. Cunningham gave Ava the go-ahead. “Lucky Growl.” He gave a cute little growl at the lucario who looked like he relaxed a little.

“Scout, did you feel that?” The lucario shook his head affirmatively. “Looks like Growl was effective. Move on to the next move,” Cunningham said.

Ava gave the order to do Leer, and Lucky tried to give an intimidating glare. Given the unaffected look of the lucario Ava knew that the move had not worked, and the negative head nod by lucario confirmed it.

“Let us move on from this part of the exam. I want you to return your pokemon now.” Ava returned Lucky to his ball. Cunningham walked to some racks on the wall and came back with a box. “The reason I asked you to return him is so the only instruction he would receive would be from you. In this box are five rings. Do you see the perches over there?” Cunningham pointed to a group of ten different perches all at different heights with numbers on each and continued once Ava nodded, “You will have your pidove fly these rings to specific perches in order. Then, once you are done with that, he will have to return those rings to you in a different order. The perch order is on a sheet of paper in the box. You may release your pidove once you are ready.”

Cunningham handed her a box with five rings, each one having a number from one to five. She saw the papers with the orders on them and studied it quick before releasing Lucky. He appeared in front of her for the second time that day, and she explained what she wanted him to do. He gave a coo of understanding, and she handed him the first ring, pointing to the highest perch on the right. Flying to the desired perch, he set the ring on it gently, and returned for the second ring. The only trouble he ran into was on the fourth ring, where he almost set the ring on the wrong perch. “No, Lucky, not that one. The one right behind it,” Ava shouted, and he heard it settling the ring on the correct perch this time.

They didn't have any more complications after that, and after Lucky returned the last ring and settled on her shoulder, Ava put the ring in the box and closed it. She looked at Cunningham, who stood further away from her than she remembered.

“Very good. Set the box to the side,” Cunningham said loudly. Ava did as she was told, setting the box off to her left.

“Is the exam over?” Ava asked.

“Not quite.” That was the only warning Ava got before Cunningham started sprinting towards her.

Ava was startled and took a couple steps back. “What are you doing?” Cunningham's response was to keep running towards her. “Oh fuck.” Ava realized Cunningham would be right on her soon and started scrambling back away. Lucky sensed her agitation and screeched at the threat and started flying at her.

“Lucky no! Stop!” Ava tried to shout, but Lucky did not respond and kept flying towards Cunningham. His beak was glowing when lucario intervened, grabbing Lucky and slamming him to the ground. Cunningham stopped her charge and stood next to the downed pidove.

Ava ran towards them. “Lucky, are you okay?” she said panicked.

“Don't worry, he’s still alive,” Cunningham said. “You should return him, though he will be injured.” Ava grabbed his poke ball and returned him before spinning back to Cunningham.

“What the hell was that?” Ava spat.

“That was the final part of the D-Rank exam,” Cunningham said.

Ava felt confused and angry still. “How is attacking me part of the exam?”

“The D-Rank exams are split into three parts. The first part is how we check if a pokemon will follow your commands when doing their moves. The second part gives us insight into how they respond to simple instructions and if they will continue to listen to you by doing something they might not see the purpose in. Once you pass those two, the final part addresses a critical lesson. If your pokemon will listen to you in stressful moments. When on the field, any number of things can happen. If your pokemon doesn't listen during a fake test, then there is a good chance they won't listen during a real emergency. Your pidove took me as a threat, and despite you telling him to stop, he continued to try to attack me.”

“So, what does this mean?” Ava asked.

“Ava Stanton, you have failed your D-Rank exam.”

…

Ava felt extremely frustrated. After healing Lucky she ran into Amiyra. Ava’s face probably gave away how she was feeling.

“Did you pass?” Amiyra asked tentatively.

“No, I failed at the last part of the exam. That’s such bullshit,” Ava exclaimed.

“I mean, as much as it sucks, it does make sense on why they do it,” Amiyra carefully retorted.

Ava took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “Yeah, I know. It does make sense. I just got frustrated. I thought I had this exam in the bag, but it turns out I was wrong.”

“Yeah that’s rough. How about I help you after dinner? I could be the threatening person.”

“You’d do that? Thanks!”

“It’s no problem. I owe you at least this much for helping me out of my funk.”

After a quick dinner where Ava scarfed down her food, they then went to the training grounds. Cunningham had given her some advice after Ava failed the exam. Despite Lucky being easier to train due to finding him really young and being imprinted on. This also meant that he viewed her as his family and his own species. So seeing Ava in danger he tried to protect her. While sweet on the surface, it was dangerous for him to not listen to instructions.

Ava released Lucky. “Hey there, buddy. Do you remember what happened recently where you tried to protect me?” He nodded, looking proud of himself. “While I appreciate it, you cannot be attacking another human with me saying so. If I say stop, then you absolutely must stop.” Ava wasn't sure if he understood, but he didn't look as proud of himself anymore. Hopefully that meant he understood.

Keeping his poke ball at the ready so she could return him at a moment's notice, Ava gave a thumbs up to Amiyra who took off running towards Ava while yelling.

Lucky’s feathers started to ruffle, and he hissed at her. “Lucky, stop,” Ava commanded. He didn't listen, and as Amiyra got close, he started to fly towards her. Ava recalled him with a sigh; while she hadn't truly expected he would listen right away, she had hoped it would be a quick fix. They repeated that process multiple times, with Lucky still attacking.

Eventually Lucky realized that he wouldn't be able to attack, and when Ava said stop this time, he still seemed agitated but stood down and did not fly toward Amiyra.

Abe felt excited about the progress, giving Lucky praise and treats for following her orders. They repeated this testing to see if his reaction would remain the same. It did. Ava knew though that there was one final test she had to do before she would try the D-Rank exam again.

Returning Lucky so he would overhear what she was going to say to Amiyra. “This time I want you to actually hit me.”

“What? No, I'm not going to hit you!” Ava exclaimed.

“Please, you have to. I need to know if he is stopping because he’s listening to me or because he learned that you weren’t actually trying to hurt me. So you gotta give me a good hit, okay?”

Seeing her point, Amiyra sighed, “Fine, but you can’t get mad at me.”

They returned to their starting place, and Ava released Lucky off to the site so she would have enough time to react if she did attack.

Amiyra rushed towards her, and Lucky stayed right where he was under Ava’s orders. Amiyra winded back and threw a punch right across Ava’s face.

Ava fell to the ground clutching her face, “Oh fuck that hurt.” Realizing where she was, she saw Lucky start flying while screeching. “Lucky stop!”

Ava felt her poke ball almost ready to use it, as he hadn’t stopped yet, but then he slowed and backtracked to where he was before, still glaring at Amiyra. Ava knew she should be more excited, but her check actually really hurt.

“You really pack a punch,” Ava said, rubbing her jaw.

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t get mad at me,” Amiyra said.

“I’m not mad, just shocked. Thought you would gimme a slap on the arm, not a slug to the face.”

“Well you should clarify next time. I didn’t even want to do it.”

Ava thought Amiyra really went all in for someone who hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place, but since she was the one who asked for it, she wasn’t going to complain too much. “I think this means we are ready for the exam. I’m gonna try and schedule another test.”

“Alright, I’ll see you once you’re done with that. I’m thinking of asking Theo and Oliver if they want to play cards, if you’re interested.”

Not having anything else to do for the night, Ava agreed. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll meet you in the lounge when I’m done.”

After waving goodbye, Ava went to schedule her exam again. Mary was the one manning the desk. It seems she usually takes the afternoon and night shifts, while Gavin works mostly in the morning and afternoon. Ava had seen two other people working, but had never really interacted with them before.

She was able to schedule her test for the next morning, and Mary gave her a potion spray that would speed up the healing from the punch. Ava spent the rest of the night playing card games with Amiyra and Theo, the only two that showed up.

…

The first two parts of the exam went as expected. Nothing had changed from that aspect. When Cunningham sprinted towards her with her fist raised, Ava gave the command, “Lucky stop,” to keep him from attacking. She was successful this time, as he obeyed and didn’t try to attack.

“When you signed up to take the exam, not even 24 hours after failing it the first time, I was worried that you were getting cocky. I’m glad you proved me wrong. Congratulations on passing your exam; you are officially a D-Rank trainer. Follow me to the office, and we can get you in the system.”

Ava returned Lucky and Cunningham led her through a door in her office. It was a smaller office that seemed to be used by different people, as there were no personal effects around. It looked more like the computer rooms back at the pokemon center, but with only one computer. Upon being asked, Ava handed over her trainer ID. Cunningham scanned her own ID and then Ava's. She rubbed the right corner of Ava’s ID over what looked to be a black circle and then popped out the right corner, which contained the letter E, out of the card. Ava didn't know that her ID could be split into two parts. She assumed she would be getting a totally new card. Her card was then swiped again, and Cunningham spent a few minutes typing things into her computer.

Cunningham handed her newish ID back to her, which now had a large letter D in the corner replacing the E. “You are now registered as a D-Rank trainer, and your pidove is registered as passing the exam, so you will be able to use him in missions. You are now able to own three pokemon and use two at a time. Remember, any new pokemon you catch must pass a form of the D-Rank exam before being able to be used in the field.”

“You will now have the chance to take on missions. All D-Rank missions take place within the city wall. All D-Rank trainers will be assigned a mandatory of three missions a week to patrol the wall and guard posts. Your schedule will be posted at the first of every month.” Cunningham showed her how to access the schedule posting by swiping her ID, opening the missions' app, and clicking the taken jobs tab. “These are a required part of being a trainer. If you do not show up for these posts, without external influences, you can be faced with fines. If enough are skipped, you will have criminal charges and jail time. You can put your own postings up for other users to take if you can't or don't want to attend them. However, if no one takes them you are still responsible for going to your shift. There are exceptions that would allow you to be exempt from attending your shift, but those are rare, especially for D-Rank trainers. If you ever have a question, you can ask a poke center manager. Your pay will be automatically deposited to your account after you clock out, and you can use your ID as a debit card. Your first three shifts are training shifts. You will be assigned to a guard shift in addition to the people who are already scheduled. Your pay will be less than a normal mission to reflect this. I have scheduled your first mission for tomorrow at 9am. You can view the details once you return to the pokemon center.”

Cunningham reached into a drawer and pulled out a thick plastic card, a small round electronic device, and a green piece of fabric with a pokeball on it, much like the trainer uniforms and arm bands. Scanning the card, she handed it over to Ava. “As a prize for passing your exam, we are giving you a voucher for the TM Hidden Power, which can be redeemed at the poke center.”

There were a lot of things about the pokemon world that Ava still did not know, and this was one of them. “What is Hidden Power?” she asked.

“Hidden Power is a move that every pokemon can be taught through T Ms. It is a unique attack that changes its type depending on what pokemon is using it. A water pokemon could have a hidden power that's a fire type or a grass type. You won't know what type it will use until it learns the move. We had these out as a prize for new trainers to give them another weapon in their arsenal as well as provide them with a long distance move. A lot of pokemon, especially the kinds you can catch at your ordeal, don't have access to a long distance move. Take Amiyra and Oliver; neither of their pokemon have any long distance moves. This is a problem when a large threat we face is flying pokemon coming in over the walls. This TM gives trainers the ability to fight a larger range of pokemon while they work to catch and tame more pokemon to fill in their weaknesses. While many people opt to use this on their starter, if they already know a long distance move, others might save it to use on a pokemon they catch at a later date.”

Scanning the round electronic device, Cunningham handed it over. “This is a trainer response device. This device is registered to you and allows us to find your location in necessary situations and is used as an alert system for emergencies. If you ever hear this make a loud alarm sound, go to the nearest pokemon center to get information about the emergency. This should be on or near your person at all times. You can fit it in your armband like this.” Cunningham took off her own armband, where the side that faced her body had an opening that the device could slide into. Ava copied her and added it to her own armband.

Cunningham handed over the final item, the green bandana-like cloth. “All flying pokemon are required to wear this bandana while in the city. This is to make sure there are no false alarms raised if someone sees them flying, as well as to protect them from being attacked by a well-intentioned trainer who does not see you or know that it is a trained pokemon.”

Ava made sure to watch closely as she explained how to put it on a pokemon. The last thing she wanted was to have Lucky seen as a wild pokemon and killed.

“Do you have any questions?” Cunningham asked.

“No ma'am.”

“Good, you are free to leave then. Congratulations on passing your D-Rank exam. May you work to keep our city safe.”

Ava gave her thanks and walked out of the gym. As exciting as this, especially when she considered how little money was left in her bank account, she was now nervous for her next challenge. The first day at a new job.

Chapter Text

Ava did not have her own alarm clock to wake herself up. Thankfully the pokemon center had an automatic alarm go through the barracks at 7am. While she had been annoyed by it the first times she had heard it, now she was glad to have something to prevent her from sleeping through her first shift.

As the other bleary-eyed trainers in the room got ready for the day, Ava joined them, taking a shower and brushing her teeth in the communal bathrooms. She had washed her uniform last night and hung it up on the bunk bed she shared with Amiyra who had woken up even earlier to go on a run.

Putting on the trainer's uniform for some reason felt embarrassing. It was as if she was playing pretend despite being specifically given these. The uniform consisted of a black undershirt with a green jacket and dark pants. The Pokémon trainer emblem of a white poke ball was embroidered on each of them, fully labeling her as a Pokémon trainer on a mission to civilians.

She remembers seeing boots for sale at the poke mart. Once she started making money, she might have to invest in a pair, especially if she was going to be venturing outside the wall again. The white shoes she wore for her ordeal still had dirt stains on them and were out of place compared to the rest of her uniform.

Her shift went from 9am-3pm, she scarfed down some breakfast, made sure Lucky had his bandana on, and gave him a quick heal so he would be in tip-top shape for today. Her excitement for passing her exam and figuring out what she needed for today led her to forget about the hidden power TM she was given. It would have to wait till after her shift. She boarded the magnet train and got off at the station closest to where she was assigned.

The area she was in was a more commercial part of the city. Lots of shops and restaurants. Being near people who viewed her as a trainer was a new experience for Ava. Since being selected, she has stayed in the trainer district, as she wasn’t allowed to leave until she became a D-Rank. Now that she was around people, she was acutely aware of the fact that most civilians did not like trainers. On the train, she saw mothers pulling their kids closer, people giving her wary glances, and a berth of space between her and any other rider. It made her feel like a criminal.

Walking through the city was no better. While she wasn’t heckled or attacked, people crossed the street when they saw her coming if they could. There was an overabundance of caution surrounding her that she had never experienced. Looking back, she had definitely acted the same way when she was younger, and her family helped by gently steering her away from trainers. Being on the other end of the treatment was unexpected.

As she got closer to a guard post, there were less and less buildings, until there was a sudden stop in architecture all together. This opened up to a large park. Many years ago, there were lots of pokemon attacks around this area due to the proximity to the wall and the forest, where a large amount of flying Pokémon could be found.

The area was renovated, and the wall extended further out to contain a large stretch of parks that spanned across a majority of the wall that stretched from both sides of the west gate. The additional space allowed for easier paths to patrol and fewer civilians to be injured if a pokemon were to attack. Civilians were allowed to go to the park, and many still did, despite the higher risk of a pokemon attack. Ava had been here a couple of times as a kid, but not as much as some of her peers.

The whole park is technically called Patterson Park due to the sheer size; however, it often gets split up arbitrarily, which changes depending on who’s talking about it. Ava remembered getting into arguments with her classmates on what different sections were called.

That was probably why the mission details didn’t specify where in the park in terms she had heard before, but instead she was to go to a guardhouse labeled West-3. It was the third warehouse from the west gate to the north gate.

Entering cautiously, she was greeted by the sight of a small room with a table, some cabinets, a computer, a door with a sign showing it led to a bathroom, and another door. There were two people, a guy and a girl, inside talking.

“Um, hello, I’m here for my first guard shift.” Ava stated, hoping she was in the right place.

Recognition dawned on the guy's face, and he smiled, “Yes, I was told about you; welcome to being a trainer rookie! My name is Riley. It’s great to meet you!” He held out his hand, which Ava shook.

“It’s great to meet you too,” Ava greeted. Riley was almost as tall as her, a rarity at her 6’2 height, which usually lets her loom over most people. She could easily meet his gaze without looking down, and his enthusiastic personality made her relax a little.

“I will be this shift's lead, so you will be reporting to me. That person over there is the previous shift lead. You're around 15 minutes early, which is the perfect time for me to walk through essentials. First, let’s get you clocked it.” He led her over to the computer and pulled up an app. “We aren't paid hourly, so clocking in and out is more of a way to keep track of guard personal and resources in the event of an emergency. You won't have to clock in to other missions if you take them on. There are other systems in place for those.” Ava swiped her card when he signaled. “When you end your shift, just make sure to clock out. I will be here to remind you, so don’t worry too much about that.”

“So this is a typical guard mission. In most guard houses, outside certain exceptions and emergencies, there are three guards on duty at a time. Two of those will be the ones who patrol, keeping an eye out for pokemon and protecting the civilians. They usually consist of D-Rank trainers, but C-Rankers get assigned or take the jobs sometimes too. The shift lead is typically a C or B-Rank. As a C-Rank I will be your lead. While you are all patrolling, I will be monitoring the
radio, managing the intercom, responding to situations, and dealing with anything that is too difficult for you.”

“As it’s your first day here, you will be shadowing one of the other trainers. They can walk you through the ropes of the actual patrol and what the shift will look like.”

Ava had been too focused on their conversation; she hadn’t noticed another person slink in. It was a gloomy looking guy who very much looked like he didn’t want to talk. She hoped she didn’t have to shadow him today, or it might be a long day. Just as she was thinking that, the door opened, and another person entered the room.

“Oh great, it’s you,” the newcomer said dryly. Of course, it was Oliver. She hadn’t seen the guy since the ordeal, but he suddenly appeared at her first shift.

“Do you two know each other?” Riley asked.

“Something like that,” Ava responded.

“Perfect, that makes things easier. You can shadow him today.” Maybe the gloomy guy might have been a better choice. Ava didn’t say anything, though, and neither did Oliver. Both not wanting to go against their pseudo-boss for the day.

Not long after that, another person entered the warehouse. It was getting a little crowded with six people in there, but that didn’t last long. The person who entered was on the previous shift, and they were here to replace them. Riley chose her and Oliver to go out first, so they left the guardhouse, starting the patrol.

Oliver explained to her how the point of patrols was to look around to see if any pokemon slipped through the cracks and report that back, as well as to be prepared to protect civilians.

Along the way, Ava moved to release Lucky when Oliver stopped her, “Don’t release your pokemon here.”

“Why? I thought we needed them to patrol?” Ava asked.

“While we are close to a wall, this is still a civilian park. Having a pokemon out when not needed can cause tensions. It’s best to just wait to see if they are needed.”

That made sense to Ava, so she kept the poke ball in her pocket. She saw Oliver had a poke belt. It reminded her of another thing she needed to buy once she got some more money. At a closer glance, she noticed that his belt only had one poke ball. Curious.

Oliver continued to show her the ropes as they walked through the park. It really was a nice day out with the breeze blowing gently across the park. She could get used to this if all days were as nice as this. Without anything happening that Oliver could explain, the stuff he had to tell her ran out pretty quick, and silence rang between them.

“So, how have you been since the Ordeal?”

“Fine,” he said, not looking like he was going to elaborate or ask about her. The quiet came back in full force.

Ava let her curiosity get the better of her. “So, what happened to your larvitar?”

He shot her a sharp glance. “How did you hear about that? Are you stalking me?”

“What? No!” Ava replied incredulously. “Cunningham told me after she told you.”

He sighed, “Of course she did. If you must know, I got rid of him.”

“Can I ask why?” Seeing his eyes harden, she elaborated. “Not in a judgmental way or anything. I’ve just realized there’s a lot that I don’t know about this, and you seem to know a lot, so I’m genuinely just curious.”

He didn’t answer for a little before finally responding, “So she told you about how once he evolved into a pupitar they would have to give him a permanent everstone right?” Seeing her nod, he continued, “Do you know what a pupitar is?”

At this point, Ava didn’t have much of an answer. While she had heard of it, she didn’t really know anything about it. There were so many pokemon it was hard to keep track sometimes when she’s been so focused on getting her pidove up to par.

Seeing her fumble for an answer, Oliver took that as a no. “Pupitars are like a cocoon but for a rock pokemon instead of a bug. Their shells are much harder, but they have the same limit of having no limbs. They can’t really move around besides flailing wildly. While this can be effective in certain situations, in the long term, not so much, especially when there is no end to it through evolution. As a trainer, the most important thing is versatility. How would a pupitar be able to beat a flying pokemon, or run after a Pokémon fleeing into a city? How could one protect me outside the walls? The answer is that it couldn’t. When I caught it, I was willing to put up with that for the potential of what it could become. An extremely strong Pokémon that could take on most threats. Without that and with another pokemon ready to be tamed, there was no point in wasting any time by keeping him.”

He obviously put a lot of thought into this decision. He really did know a lot more about pokemon than she did. Now that she’s having a real conversation with him, she realized just how young he looked. He was over three years younger than her, and she could tell. His cheeks still held some youthful fat to them, and he was on the shorter side. To be fair, she wasn’t sure if that was due to his age or if he was just kind of short. He looked even more out of place in that uniform than she did. Her previous annoyances towards him might have been unfair to a degree and come from her fear instead of actual dislike. Not wanting the conversation to end, she asked, "So what did you do with him?”

“I sold him.”

“To who? Wouldn’t no one want him for that exact reason?”

“Not every city and region have the same restrictions that we have. While he may have been worthless to trainers here, that doesn’t change the fact that he was a very rare pokemon and in a place where he could actually evolve, he was very valuable. I made a lot of money off that sale.”

“Ooh how much?”

“I’m not telling you that,” he said firmly. “It doesn't matter anyway. I’m not going to have it much longer.”

“If it doesn’t matter then why don’t you tell me?” Ava needled. “And if it’s that much money, what are you spending it on this quickly?”

“If I told you how much, you would probably try to kill me and steal the money.” Ava’s affronted hey went unresponded to. “I’m using the money to catch a better second pokemon.”

No matter how much she wheedled he didn’t tell her anything more about his plans for the money or how much he made. Now that the ice was broken though conversation flowed easier.

Every 30 minutes, Oliver gave a report that he saw no problem. As they walked through the park, most people gave them a large berth once they saw the trainer uniforms.

It had been a pretty uneventful couple of hours when the walkie-talkie crackled to life. It was Riley on the other line. “A group of rattata have been seen near West-3, moving towards West-4. Does anyone have eyes?”

Oliver picked up, “Oliver here, we are closer to West-4. We can head back to West-3 and be ready when we see them.”

“Lloyd here. I’m nearer to West-3. I will keep my eyes open and head towards West-4.” That must have been the gloomy guy she had seen at the guardhouse.

“Copy that. As soon as you notice anything, reach out to me,” Riley said.

The intercoms in the immediate area then started playing alarms, and a voice rang out, “Wild pokemon have been spotted in the area; civilians, please evacuate the park.” That message repeated multiple times, and she saw people quickly gathering their things and leaving the park. Some were even sprinting out.

Oliver turned to her and grabbed the ball in his belt. “Now is when we would release our pokemon.” With a flash of light, his teddiursa appeared. Following his lead, Ava let out Lucky.

“Alright Lucky some rattata are in the area. If we find them, we are going to have to fight them, so be prepared. I want you to fly around, but stay near me and keep your eye out for them. If you see any other pokemon besides that one over there, you come and let me know, okay?” Ava explained the situation, pointing to Oliver’s teddiursa so he knew that one wasn’t the threat.

Chirping in affirmation, Lucky took flight, making little circles above her on the lookout.

It looks like Oliver gave instructions to his teddiursa as well, so they started a brisk pace back toward the West-3 guardhouse, keeping their eye out for any motion. Ava thought she had seen something twice, but it was just the wind shaking bushes.

They first real sign they had was Lucky returning to Ava to get her attention. “Did you see anything?” He nodded and started flying ahead of them to the right. She alerted Oliver that Lucky might have seen something, and they both followed the bird pokemon. He soon stopped and faced ahead of them. At first, Ava didn’t see anything, but then she saw a group of six or so rattata running toward them. “Oliver-,” she went to notify him, but he had already seen and had the walkie-talkie at the ready.

“Oliver here, we have eyes on the rattata. There are around seven headed towards us.”

“Lloyd here. I should be close by. Where are you?”

“There are no distinct landmarks near us. It’s an open area, though not too many trees.”

“Can any of your pokemon send a signal?”

“Not yet. My only ranged move won’t go that high in the air for you to see.” Ava got an idea and shook Oliver’s arm. He tried to brush her off, but she held firm and pointed towards Lucky. Understanding bloomed on his face. “We are going to send a pidove up above us. Let me know when you see it.”

Ava told Lucky to fly high in the air above the nearby trees. The radio was silent as the wild pokemon got closer to them. Finally, there was a response from Lloyd. “I see it. You’re close by. I’ll be there soon.”

Ava called Lucky back down to her. Oliver was using his teddiursa’s hidden power to slow down the pokemon. The brown orbs of energy knocked some back, and one seemed to be down for the count, but the rest continued on their path.

“Lucky Gust,” Ava commanded. He flew closer and sent a gust towards them. Half of them were able to dodge, while the others were hit. It didn’t seem to slow them down that much, because they kept coming, “Again.” Lucky sent another gust towards them. This caused the pack to split up, and two of the pokemon came her way.

“Lucky Growl.” Hearing this, he growled cutely at the rattata making them falter and slow down. They now focused on Lucky.

“Keep using Gust,” Lucky sent multiple gusts toward the two rats. They were able to keep dodging the moves while unsuccessfully trying to reach the flying pokemon. However, one was slower than the other and eventually got hit a couple of times. Realizing it wouldn’t be able to reach Lucky, the ratatta changed tactics and turned towards Ava.

Ava realized she had positioned herself badly. The wild pokemon kept her and Lucky’s attention, and the way they had been fighting the rattata was now in between Lucky and her.

“Lucky Peck on this one,” Ava said, a little panicked as a ratatta started charging her. A slight glow gave it a burst of energy. That must have been an undeveloped quick attack. Knowing her Pokémon wouldn’t be able to reach her in time, she prepared herself to be hit. She barely had time to react before she had to whip out her leg, nailing the ratatta as hard as she could. She made a solid hit, and the rattata yelped as it flew backwards. It wasn’t able to get back up before Lucky slammed a peck into it, knocking it to the ground, where another Peck made sure it didn’t get up. Her leg throbbed after hitting it. She might have to spray a potion on it later.

The other rattata fled back in the direction it had come from. She turned to see if Oliver needed any help, but was just in time to see his teddiursa take down what looked to be the third rattata. He turned to her, “Were you able to get all of them?”

“One of them ran away in that direction faster than I could catch him.” She pointed in the direction it ran off.

“Same.” Pulling out the walkie-talkie, he made a report. “Oliver here, five rattata have been subdued. Two have run off in the direction they came from.”

Riley responded, “Good, stay there, Lloyd; keep your eyes out for the other two.”

There was a pause before Lloyd answered, “I just caught one, and I see the other. I’ll be able to take care of it.”

“Alright. Lloyd, go to where Oliver is when you're finished and bring the bodies. Ava, return to the guardhouse for supplies. Oliver, stay where you are and guard the bodies.”

Oliver and Lloyd responded with affirmatives. “Do you know the way back?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah, I can figure it out. Lucky, come here.” Scratching her bird neck in the way he liked, she started walking away from Oliver, but not before he gave his teddiursa the command to finish the job and kill the rattata that were laying about.

“You did a very good job today, Lucky! I’ll make sure to give you some treats when we get back. You can stay on my shoulder if you want, or you can follow me while flying while I head back.” He chose to rest against her shoulder. He hadn’t had this much activity since she had him, so he must have been tired.

Ava made her way back to the guardhouse with very few mistakes in direction. She had seen Lloyd on her way back carrying a rattata by the tail while a raticate walked by his side with one in its mouth. When she entered the guardhouse, Riley handed her some trash bags and ties. “We have a dumpster near the gate where the bodies can be thrown into. You and Oliver can bring them back and then take your lunch break. Lloyd will stay out and patrol while you do that. You did a good job for your first time. Keep up the good work.”

Grabbing the supplies, Ava went back to Oliver. He and Lloyd were guarding the dead bodies and worked with her to bag all of them. Touching them felt gross, even if just by the tails, due to the blood. She had the irrational thought that they were faking it and would attack her. That wasn't the case, thankfully, and they were able to clean the area quickly. Ava let them know what Riley told her, and she headed back to the guardhouse with Oliver. They kept their pokemon out just in case they missed anything, and teddiursa even carried a bag. After his rest, Lucky used this chance to stretch his wings some more.

Lunch wasn't the most interesting affair. After throwing the bodies in the dumpster that would be disposed of by the end of the day, Ava quickly ate what she had brought in her backpack. A couple granola bars and chips. She didn't know the guardhouses had small mini fridges, so she didn't bring anything that would require refrigeration. Once she ate, she fed Lucky a mixture of seeds and nutritional pellets. They then replaced Lloyd and went back out to patrol. An alert must have been sent out that the area was now safe because Ava saw some people start to come back to the park.

There were no other disturbances for the rest of her shift. When she got back to the guardhouse, she was shown how to check out of the system and that the money would be automatically deposited to her account within 2-3 days.

She rode the magnet train back with Oliver. Despite it being busy, they had plenty of room to themselves. It was on the way back that Oliver asked his first question of the day, “Why didn’t you use your other pokemon?”

Slightly surprised he initiated the conversation, she responded, “Well, it turns out I used too much force when trying to catch it, and it didn’t survive.”

“That was stupid of you. You shouldn’t have tried to fight it.”

“Yeah, it was kinda stupid.”

Silence sat between them. “I’m sorry though. That can’t have been fun,” Oliver said awkwardly.

“It’s all good. I was sad at first, but it was more about what could have been, you know. I’m just glad I didn’t have to retake the Ordeal. It was probably for the best, though. Lucky took up most of my time trying to take care of him.”

“Still, though, sorry that happened.”

“Thanks,” Ava said softly. “Now we're starting out in the same boat. Trainers with one pokemon,” she joked, nudging him with her elbow.
“Shut up,” he said, pushing her away.
The rest of the ride went by in a comfortable quiet. While they didn’t start on the best terms, Ava felt better knowing there wasn’t total animosity between them.

Now that her first mission was over, she felt more confident about being able to fend for herself. While she definitely needed more training to be able to handle a situation like that on her own, her first step felt very sturdy so far.

Chapter Text

The next few shifts that Ava went on were on back to back days. For her third, and final, training shift, she had been put on gate guard duty. While it might be a good shift to have as the months get colder, right now it is extremely boring. Especially since she was shadowing and not doing it herself. This whole job was to keep track of people coming and leaving, let others know if there are any pokemon, and alert someone if people don’t return from their trip. The person who she shadowed took care of all of this. So in total, a long day of sitting and staring out a window. The only exciting thing was when a zigzagoon approached the gate, and she was told to take care of it, but after only one Gust, the zigzagoon ran back into the forest.

While she only made half of the normal pay due to training, she felt she deserved something nice and bought herself a cheap black belt to hold her poke balls. Now she was a true trainer.

It was only after her training shifts were over that Ava got the motivation to cash in the voucher she was given for Hidden Power. After getting the cheerful clerk to help her by using the machine behind the counter, she should now have a pidove that knows Hidden Power. Testing out the new move went much easier than Ava had been expecting. Lucky seemed to instinctively understand what she meant when she commanded him to use Hidden Power. TM’s really were amazing. He gathered dark black energy and shot it off at the dummy. The aim wasn’t perfect, as it clipped the side of the dummy instead of the center. Producing black energy must mean that his hidden power was a dark type. While it wasn’t a type that helped cover the pidoves weaknesses, Ava could appreciate the addition of another long-ranged move and the greater versatility it offered.

It was when she was testing this move that she was approached by Theo.

“Hey Ava, am I interrupting anything?” Theo asked as he walked up.

“Nope, just used the hidden power T M on him, so we were practicing,” Ava responded.

“Ooh what type did you get?”

“Dark, did you use yours?”

“Yeah, she has a bug type, which is actually pretty useful if I run into a grass pokemon!” Ava remembered he had a poliwag. Having a bug move was a great type coverage. “I actually wanted to ask you if you'd be down to spar with me. My pokemon has been struggling with hitting flying types, so I want to get more experience in that.”

This actually came at perfect timing. Her first shift really brought to light that Lucky struggled to hit moving targets. His lack of experience played a large role in that. She was going to ask Theo or Amiyra to practice with her, but now she won’t have to. “I'd love to spar. Would it be alright if today was just about using Hidden Power? I wanted to practice that move today, and your poliwag's water moves might be a little too powerful for him.”

“That's fine with me!” Theo cheerfully responded. Ava had been practicing close to an area that was often designated for battles. Since it was empty they set up in the area.

Lucky was already out of his poke ball and following her, and she explained the situation to him with two rules. He can only use Hidden power today, and he was not allowed to kill the other pokemon no matter what. Ava didn't think he would be able to yet, as he was still young and the poliwag had seemed strong from what she's seen so far. But if they were going to train together in the future, she wanted to make sure he learned the difference between fights with wild pokemon and spars.

Theo had released Savage the poliwag and seemed to be giving the same lecture. They moved to opposite ends of the field before a mutual nod indicated the start of the battle.

“Lucky hidden power,” Ava said a beat before Theo copied the order. The lack of experience using hidden power was noticeable, as despite being the first to order, the poliwag sent a light green-colored ball of energy first. Lucky panicked, and when he sent his own dark Hidden Power, it flew wildly, not getting close to its target.

The same could not be said for the opponent's move. Lucky tried to fly away but wasn't able to react in time after sending his own move and got hit. He seemed surprised at this and took a tumble from the sky before righting himself and flying back up. Ava was worried. He had never been hit before, and it definitely seemed to shock him.

“Focus on dodging for now. Don't worry about attacking,” she told him. Savage, on Theo's command, sent more hidden powers towards him. Lucky tried to dodge them and was almost successful each time, but he kept getting clipped.

“Fly behind him.” Lucky took her advice, and after getting hit by his fourth Hidden Power, he flew over the poliwag and behind it. “Hidden Power now.” He gathered the energy and shot it toward the poliwag. Now that he was closer, he was able to get a direct hit. Ava was excited; maybe she would be able to turn this around. Her excitement was short-lived. While the poliwag had taken a hit, she also took the time to prepare a strong hidden power. At this distance and how battered Lucky already was, there was no chance he could dodge it. Ava reached for his poke ball, but wasn't quick enough to withdraw him before he got hit. A line of red sucked Lucky’s prone body falling from the sky back into the poke ball before he hit the ground.

“Good match Ava!” Theo said as he jogged to meet her in the middle.

“Savage was really strong.” Ava commented, a little disappointed that she didn’t win her first trainer battle. She meant it though, taking down a flying type with only a bug move was impressive even if he was young.

Theo rubbed the back of his neck, obviously excited by the praise. “Thanks, she’s been a quick learner.”

“Would you want to start training together?” Ava asked. “Like actual training instead of matches. It might be easier to work on the things both of us want to achieve if we do.”

“I’d love that! It would be really helpful to have someone to work with.”

“I have a shift tomorrow night if you want to do an early morning practice.”

“That works for me. Did you want to grab some lunch?”

“Sure, let me heal Lucky first and then we can go.”

Over lunch, they talked about their plans for training the next day and how they wanted to go about it. After she ate her lunch’s Ava and Theo parted ways, and she went to feed her pokemon. She made sure to tell Lucky what a good job he did and go over the battle with him. This was while he was eating, so who knows how much got through to him, but the visualization was helpful for her.

The next hour or so was spent outside, letting Lucky take some time out of his poke ball. This was after triple checking that his bandana was affixed so no one misidentified him as a wild pokemon. She played solitaire with a deck of cards she got from the poke mart while she hung outside. She should really look into if there was a library around here; otherwise, she was going to get bored quickly.

After Lucky had enough time outside and tired himself out, she returned him and went back inside. While she had a shift tomorrow, her next shift after that wasn’t until Friday, so she had three days off in a row. While she didn’t plan on taking any missions, she wanted to get a glimpse at what the mission board looked like.

Only D-Rank missions were visible to her. If she wanted to go on a C-Rank mission, she would need to go with a C-Rank trainer, and they would have to be the ones to request her. Since she currently didn't know any C-Rank trainers, she was putting that possibility off to the side.

She saw the typical wall guards shifts, farm posts, private event guarding, and other shifts. One posting in particular for the first day of her break caught her attention.

Mission Rank: D

Reward: $15

Location: 812 Carver Hall, Room 2312

Summary: Pokemon needed to be used as a subject for a life drawing class. Shift will run from 9:30am–12am.

Unique Requirements: Need to have a pokemon small enough to fit in a normal-sized room and able to be out and around people without attacking. The pokemon must also be fine with staying still for periods of time.

She knew why no one had accepted it yet. It was very low pay for two and a half hours. Even those who didn't want to encounter wild pokemon wouldn't want to take it due to that. What drew Ava to it was the location of the mission. After checking on a map to make sure, she knew that the building that held it was only a few blocks away from what was now her old apartment. She had been meaning to visit home but hadn't been able to with the back-to-back missions after passing the D-Rank exam. Now she could visit home while still making a quick buck. She accepted the mission.

…

Training with Theo was showing a marked improvement of Lucky's skills. While this is mostly due to the fact that he is inexperienced, so any improvement looked good, it was great for Ava to see.

That morning, they had focused on dodging. Since Lucky wasn’t attacking, he was able to dodge better than during the battle, but they still had to start out slow, so he got the hang of things. After attempts, he was able to do hidden power moves without them having to indicate the move was going to be used. When Water Gun and Bubble were added to the mix, he got hit more often than not, but even that number was improving. Ava was glad they were testing it out here instead of having to deal with this for the first time with a wild pokemon.

They took a stab at trying to get Lucky to block the attacks with his own Hidden Power, but that just made him stop moving, leading to him getting hit. They abandoned that idea, and Ava focused on getting him better at dodging. Savage also took a stab at dodging practice as well. She wasn’t able to move very quickly a lot of the time, but was better at keeping her head if she did get hit. She also was able to slightly pick up blocking with her own moves.

Returning to the pokemon center, there was a slight crowd forming. “What's happening?” Ava asked Theo.

He craned his head, trying to see, “I’m not sure… Ah, it's Oliver.”

“What about him?”

“Well, he wants to go catch his second pokemon, and so he hired two guards to help protect him while they travel there since it’s going to take a couple of days to walk there. The reason for the crowd, though. We’ll, do you remember how I mentioned that his family are all pokemon trainers?”

“No,” Ava said, 100% certain he had never mentioned anything of the sort.

“Huh, really? Well, I meant to mention something. But that’s the reason he volunteered, and the guy standing next to him is his older brother. The A-Rank trainer, Luigi Bernardi. After he saved a group of young trainers a couple of years ago, he’s had a bit of a fan club among trainers. It doesn’t hurt that he’s strong, well-off, and handsome.”

Ava could see over the crowd, and he was right. Next to Oliver was a man in his mid-to-late 20s with dark brown hair, tan skin, strong features, a beaming smile, and an obviously fit body. Even she could tell he was attractive.

As they were talking to themselves. The group in front of them shifted as Oliver, Luigi, and one other trainer went to leave.

Theo's waving arms caught Oliver’s attention, and he gave him a smile and a small wave before heading out the door. It didn’t take long for the crowd to disperse after that as their object of attention disappeared.

“Do you know what pokemon he’s trying to get?” Ava asked.

“Nah he was pretty secretive about it.”

“Why’s he being so weird about it? He wouldn’t tell me when we had our shift earlier, too.”

“I think he doesn’t want to be embarrassed if he fails,” Theo shrugged. “This way, no matter what pokemon he brings back, he can just say that was the one he wanted. It’s got to be a pretty rare one though if he’s going to all this effort.”

After that debacle they ate lunch with Amirya who had just gotten off a shift while Ave prepped for her upcoming mission.

That night's shift was her first solo one. Anxious butterflies sat in her stomach for most of the shift. The main difference between this shift and her first couple of ones was that she had to check if people stayed in the park after it was closed and tell them to leave. That and the fact that she had to patrol while it was dark.

The normally relaxing park turned ominous when the sun was down. Since the park was closed, she kept Lucky out the whole time to keep her comfortable. His nervous chirps held the same sentiment about the night. Every shaking bush seemed to hold danger at every turn. It was an uneventful night except for a report of some murkrows towards the end of her shift. The other guard was able to handle them with his pachirisu before she got there.

If she ever had to do a night shift, it would be too soon. The dark made the threats that much more real. She just hoped she never got to be one of those poor souls who took over for her when her shift ended at 11.
…

Ava now stood in front of a group of students who were drawing Lucky while he rested in her hands.

Taking the train meant she was 30 minutes early to the start of her shift. The teacher was an older eccentric woman with bangles around her wrist, large earrings, and colorful clothes. She matched who Ava had thought would request a pokemon trainer not for protection but for studying. The teacher was kind enough to let her have some of the cookies that were laid out for the students while she explained what Ava would be doing.

For the most part, Ava was just going to be sitting on a chair holding her pokemon. Pictures were going to be taken in the beginning to be used for later, but the main purpose was to give the students a chance to sketch a live animal and all the complications that came with that, like anatomy they weren’t used to and a moving subject. Ava was glad that she didn’t have to try to keep Lucky in the same exact spot the whole time.

Once the students were done filtering in, and the teacher explained the situation, Ava was given permission to release her pokemon. Getting used to the way people treated her as a trainer took some getting used to, and she still wasn’t fully comfortable with it. Instead of the typical averted gaze and fearful looks, the students in this glass looked on with a morbid fascination.

Lucky was active for the first hour despite her best efforts, but the warm room must have gotten to him because he settled down and dozed off in her hands for the second half of the class. While she wasn’t the subject and not being drawn, Ava tried her best to stay still as well to not jostle Lucky.

After the class ended, she got the number of the professor with a promise to reach out if she ever got any other pokemon.

Ava was about to leave when she noticed a painting in particular. The rest of the painting was focused on Lucky and ranged from quick sketches to more completed pieces. The one that caught her attention included her in it. She was wearing her trainer uniform and holding Lucky in her hands. Seeing herself from someone else's perspective was an unusual experience. She looked strong.

Knocking on the door to her childhood apartment felt odd. Being used to just opening it, knocking made her feel like a stranger.

The door opened and there was her dad. There was no time for a reaction before she was scooped into a hug.

“Welcome home, Ava!” He said. She had gotten her height from her dad, who stood a couple of inches taller than her. The hug felt really nice. She had been so focused on everything else going on and busy with raising Lucky that she forgot how much she missed her family.

“Come in come in,” her dad said after finishing up their reunion. At the door closed, she heard scuffling from further in the apartment.

Turning the corner were her twin siblings. One boy and one girl, but still identical. They had ginger hair like Ava’s mom, unlike her and her dad, who had dark brown. “Avaaa” they excitedly shouted in tandem before jumping on her. She caught them both, lifting them up.

“Oof you guys are a lot heavier. Have you grown already?” Ava teased.

“We’ve grown so much. You’ve been gone for sooooo long.” Noah whined.

Olive grabbed Ava’s hand, and led her to their room. There she showed her all the things she had been doing since she was gone. Noah followed suit, both of them showing art they had made in school and new books they had made in school. They had also apparently gotten into racing tiny toy cars since she had been gone and made sure to show off their favorite ones.

They were interrupted by her dad calling them for lunch. He has made steak, Ava's favorite. “Dad, this tastes amazing.” She spoke around a mouthful of food. While eating, she was able to talk about a censored version of what she had been up to.

The only point of contention came up when Noah asked a question. “Could we see your…” he looked around, which she thought was quite dramatic since those were at home, before whispering “pokemon?”

“Yeah, let me grab him.” She made a move to reach for her belt when her dad cleared his throat, giving her a stern look. Catching on, she backtracked. “Shoot, I forgot we had a mission earlier today, so he’s probably tired and needs his rest.” Ava could tell Noah was about to throw a fit, so she added, “How about I make sure to send pictures as soon as I have the chance, okay?” He reluctantly accepted that idea.

The twins were running around the house while Ava and her dad were cleaning up in a comfortable silence. Her dad broke the silence while washing a pan in the sink. “How are things actually?” He asked.

“I wasn’t lying earlier. Things haven't been that bad so far.” Seeing his disbelieving glance, she continued on. “I’m not saying it’s not hard. It was really hard in the beginning and will probably be hard in the future.” Ava started drying the pan he handed to her. “I don’t know, though. So far, I haven't really had a chance to catch my breath. But everything is kind of straight forward. While it may not have been my choice, having just a straight path to walk down has kind of been refreshing. I can see a future here, and well, it's not like I have any choice anyway.”
He listened to all her rambling stoically before nodding. “I’m glad you seem to be taking to it. Now tell me what you couldn’t say in front of them.” He was more observant than she had thought. Ava talked about the more gruesome aspects of what’s happened so far. Her injury from an ariados, the dead meowth, the dead friend, and having to kill wild pokemon that came through the wall.

She finished her more complete recollection of the past couple of weeks. Keeping her eyes on the task of drying plates, she asked a question that had been bothering her. “Why can’t I show them my pokemon? He’s completely trained. He won’t attack them, I swear.”

He sighed, “They are just too young for that right now.”

“Do you not trust me? It will be safe despite them being young.”

“It’s not about how much I trust you, Ava.” He said exasperatedly, “Of course, I trust you. But there are parts of being a trainer they don’t understand yet. What if they think all pokemon are safe because yours are, and approach them? Or what if they try to imitate you by trying to catch a pokemon without the right tools? They don’t understand the danger yet, and I’m afraid if they get too comfortable with you doing these things, they will get hurt. I’m still trying to deal with the fact that you can get hurt at any time, or already have, I guess, and that I can’t be there for you. I have to make sure they stay safe as well.”

Ava had always considered her father to be the strongest person she knew. Not just physically, but no matter what happened, he was always helping others and making sure everything was taken care of. Even after her mom died, he didn’t fall apart but made sure to stay together for her and her siblings. But she could see something she had never seen in her dad before. Fear. He was afraid.

She set the towel down and wrapped him in a hug. He returned it after a second's pause. “Okay, dad, we can wait. And just so you know, you’ve already protected me. I wouldn’t have fought so hard if you didn’t teach me how to. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It was another minute before they pulled out of their hug. He roughly brushed what looked like slight tears from his eyes. “I know you don’t want them seeing him, but would you like to?” Ava asked. She could see him almost respond with a gut answer of no before closing his mouth and giving a slow nod. Making sure the twins were busy in their rooms, Ava released Lucky, who gave a few flaps of his wings before settling on the ground. Picking him up, she placed him on her arm.

“Dad, meet Lucky. Lucky, meet dad.” They both sized each other up. “Dad, you can try to pet him.”

“Oh no, I’m good just like this.”

“Don’t be a wuss, come on like this.” Ava showed him how to do it by gently scratching at the feathers on his chest. Following her example, he reached out tentatively. Lucky tensed for a second, and Ava’s dad paused in his approach. Lucky relaxed a little, and eventually he was being gently scratched by her dad. She could tell he was still nervous, but was glad he had made this step for her. They were taken out of the moment by a shout of her name from the twin's room. “I’m coming, I’m coming, hold on,” she shouted back before returning Lucky.

Getting on the train after the day with them felt bittersweet. She was glad to get the chance to talk with her family and settle some things. The rest of the day passed comfortably, and now she was returning with her pokegear, some extra clothes, brownies her dad had cooked, and a warm feeling in her chest.

Leaning against the window, Ava saw that the sun was beginning to set, casting the city in a perfect golden light. In the distance, dark clouds slowly moved in.

Chapter Text

The rain started sometime before 2am. Ava knew this because a large thunderclap that shook the building woke her and almost everyone else in the barracks. The only exceptions were the heaviest of sleepers. The rain was already in a downpour at this point.

The thunderstorm continued for the rest of the night, with bright lighting and rumbling thunder. Ava tried her best to go back to sleep, but it was a fitful rest. Some other trainers in her barracks gave up trying and ranged from playing a board game to reading a book.

When morning finally came, there was still no letup in the rain. The city hadn’t had a good rain in months. Ava always enjoyed the rain with the gloominess and fresh scent it brought. She liked it even more when she didn’t have to go out in the weather. Since she didn’t have a shift today, she took a day to rest.

Not everyone was as lucky, and Amiyra had to go out while it was still raining. She came back soaking wet and in a bad mood.

Ava’s next shift was a farm one. She was able to download the mission app on her poke gear at the perfect time, as she was given an alert yesterday that her shift had changed from a wall shift. She had talked to Gavin about this, and apparently from time to time, if no one signs up for the farm shifts, they pull in people from the normal guard shift to fill in the ranks. Farms were the lifeblood of the entire city. They provided most the food required to sustain life within the walls. From meat to vegetables, they cared for all that was needed. That’s why protecting them was a high priority for the local government and the League. Pokemon were attracted to the seemingly free food, which required a large force of trainers to prevent that.

From what she learned from Theo, usually D-Rank trainers were not used for these missions. For one, D-Rank trainers make up a majority of the wall guards, so when they are pulled from those shifts and put on the farm shifts, it can take away from people needed to protect the wall. The second reason is that the food can draw in stronger pokemon so trainers who have proved they can fight and have stronger teams are required. The only reason D-Ranks would be pulled in is due to a larger influx of pokemon for some reason or certain seasons that bring greater risk if anything goes wrong.

There were also other farms that produced things like cotton and wool necessary for clothes and the like. Those didn’t require the same level of protection from pokemon.

A quick magnet train ride took Ava to a bus stop where other trainers gathered and seemed to be headed to the same place. If public transport wasn’t free for trainers, the constant travel for missions would be brutal on her bank account.

She arrived at the barn her shift details designated and found five other people already there. As the time got closer, more people joined until there were 15 total. One of those people was one she recognized. It was the trainer who had sent her out for her ordeal. Upon seeing her, he smiled and did a quick walk over to her.

“Hey Twofer, glad to see you still kicking!” He said enthusiastically.

“Oh, hey…,” Ava started before realizing that she did not know his name and trailed off awkwardly. Picking up on that, he introduced himself, “The name's Danny. I'm surprised to see you here. I mean, you’re still a D-Rank, right?” At her nod of confirmation, he continued, “Huh, the storm must have done something. There usually aren't any new D-Ranks here.”

Ava was going to respond before a voice interrupted all conversation. “Good morning, trainers. My name is Jacob. I will be the trainer in charge today.” Ava was surprised to see that this Jacob was the same one that had taken the Ordeal with her. The surprising point wasn’t that he was here. She knew he had gone to a farm somewhere, The shocking part was that he was leading this group of mostly C and B-Rank trainers.

He caught her eye, and a glint of recognition flared before he spoke again. “We have two D-Rank trainers today. Will you raise your hands? Ava and a guy to her right raised their hands. “Your job will be to support the C-Rank trainers while patrolling and keeping your eyes out for wild pokemon.”

“C-Rank Trainers, raise your hands.” Ava saw three-fourths of the trainers raise their hands, including Danny. Jacob continued, “D-Rank trainers go to the nearest person with their hand up. You will be assisting them today.” Ava and the other D-Rank went to the person closest to them. Due to their previous conversation, Ava was right next to Danny, so she would be assisting him.

“Due to the recent thunderstorm yesterday, there is an increased amount of electric type pokemon being seen inside and outside the wall. While we may run into one or two of those today, the reason we need help is due to the disruptions they have caused outside the wall. The influx of electric pokemon has disrupted the habitats of a lot of flying pokemon causing them to look for new areas to go to for the time being. With our abundance of food, we seem like a good option, especially for the ones that are alone with no other flock. Your job will be to look out for any pokemon that come by and eliminate them as soon as possible. If you need any backup radio out, I will direct help.” He handed out radios to everyone besides Ava and the other D-Rank trainer.

Jacob gave some more directions to the group, including showing on a map where they were supposed to be patrolling. He sent sent them out to go to their posts. The land was filled with lush, low crop growth. Ava wasn’t entirely sure what kind of crops were being grown. Maybe it was soybeans; she wasn’t a farmer, though, so she couldn’t tell. What she could tell was how muddy it was. Amiyra’s mudbray would have been thrilled if he was here. Ava not so much, especially knowing she would have to do a deep clean of her shoes when she was done with this.

Once at their respective posts, Danny released his pokemon and advised her to do the same, directly going against the advice for a wall shift. “The only civilians here are farm hands, and while they may not like it, they are used to pokemon being out. It’s the best way to protect them and the farm.” He tossed two of his three poke balls. The first one released was a bunnelby that had an everstone on a collar around its neck. The second pokemon that materialized was a bird with dark feathers, a crooked yellow beak, and what looked to be a hat on its head. Ava had never seen it before but learned after asking that it was a murkrow.

Ava released Lucky, who settled on her shoulder before preening his feathers. Danny noticed she didn’t make a move to release another pokemon and commented, “You can release your second one, twofer.” He patted his belt, which contained a third poke ball. “This guy is pretty slow, so I’m only going to send him out when needed.”

Great, another person who knew that she had caught two pokemon during her ordeal. “Actually, I only have one pokemon now. It didn’t work out with the other.” She kept it vague, letting him draw his own conclusions. “So I guess technically not a twofer anymore.”

He shrugged, “Nah, you’re still a twofer. It doesn’t work out with every pokemon. If you win a basketball game but later break a leg, that doesn't change the fact that you won. You captured two pokemon during your ordeal. Therefore, twofer.”

His response made Ava feel a little better. It gave Ava the nerve to ask some questions that were burning inside of her, hoping he had some insight: “How is it that a D-Rank is in charge of you guys? Especially him. He did his Ordeal at the same time as me, so he’s only been a trainer for like a month.”

Danny responded as he kept his eyes on the crops and sky for any threats. “Trust me, I was just as shocked when I first worked with him.”

“You’ve worked with him before? What are the odds of that?”

“Actually pretty high. When you move up in ranks, they try to split out people between wall shifts and farm shifts during the crop seasons. That way those at the farm can get used to the specific needs here and respond quicker to wild pokemon. Having a D-Rank supervisor is definitely unusual, and I was wary of him at first, but he’s actually been really great. Usually, those in supervisory positions are also the backup in case of emergencies. Since he just started, obviously he can’t be the physical backup, which is why our farm has more B-Rank trainers than some others. But he knows this farm like the back of his hand. I think his dad owns the farm or something, and that combined with his effort have made a really good leader so far.”

“Huh, what a weird situation. I'm glad he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

“Yeah, he’s one of the good D-Rank trainers,” he glanced at her. “No offense; I think you're probably one of the good ones, too. Glad I got you instead of the other kid.”

“Do you know him or something?”

Danny sighed, “I’ve worked with him, and it’s just kind of depressing. He’s been a D-Rank trainer for four years at this point.”

This caught Ava by surprise. Four years and still a D-Rank? She voiced her confusion to Danny.

“Honestly, that’s what a majority of the D-Ranks are. This ain’t the dream career for most people, shockingly,” he said sarcastically. “But a lot of people simply do enough to get by, they don’t want to grow in their ranks, catch more than two pokemon, or anything. Most never end up going outside the wall again. I’m not one to diss one’s life choices, do what you gotta do, but it’s depressing as hell working with someone who obviously hates their job. Doesn’t help that we’re kind of ostracized from the rest of the city, too.”

“Dang, they kind of sound like losers,” Ava said. She didn’t know if she actually believed that. With how busy everything has been, she hasn’t really thought about what she wanted to do. Did she really want to raise her rank and encounter more dangerous situations? But she wasn’t going to say that in front of someone who obviously didn’t like trainers like that. His small laugh showed he agreed with her previous statement.

She wasn’t able to muse for long before a loud squawk came from Danny’s murkrow before she saw it dive to the ground. This disturbed a Pokémon she hadn’t even seen, and the spearow flew up out of the crops. Danny shot a yell at his murkrow “Victoria, I want you to lead it over here.” Turning towards Ava he told her, “you're going to take a stab at beating this one.”

The turn around to a battle was surprising for Ava, who was still an inexperienced trainer. She got herself together quickly though and sent out her pidove. Lucky started the aerial battle with a couple of hidden powers and pecks, which the wild pokemon retaliated with attacks of its own from its beak and claws. Lucky was close to beating the pokemon when the Murkrow swooped in at the last second and knocked it out with what looked to be a strong wing attack. When it hit the floor, the bunnelby quickly broke its neck with a strong couple hits from its ears.

Ava turned to Danny, who just finished reporting this over the walkie-talkie. “I thought you wanted me to handle that one?”

“It was about to use Gust which could have damaged the crops. Besides getting rid of pests, our other main goal is to prevent as much damage to them as possible. We want these battles to end as quickly. You did good, though. We will switch off, but if you see a chance to catch a pokemon off guard, take it.”

Ava nodded, realizing the farm shift required more consideration. In between pokemon fights, she learned more about the agricultural sector in general. There were lots of farms that held different crops as well as the livestock necessary for maintaining life in the city state.

There were herds of milktank and tauros used for milk and beef. Torchic, tepigs, magikarps, and other pokemon were being farmed for their meats as well.

Ava brought up the concern that how were there able to be this many pokemon without them escaping or attacking? Turns out, for the pokemon that could evolve, they were out in facilities that had large amounts of everstone in the walls and floors that prevented any of them from evolving. The pokemon were all also being fed food that was laced with a sedative mixture that contained Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, and other chemicals. Was it the most humane way to handle pokemon? No, but this was all done to provide a consistent food source while preventing damages. Even with all this security, though, sometimes pokemon developed immunities to the drug or to the everstone which caused damages in the past. That was the reason trainers had to patrol near those areas too, despite them not having many wild pokemon near there.

While learning all this, the pokemon continued to show up. Ava had been through a couple wall shifts where no pokemon showed up at all, and that seemed like it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Even though there was an increase due to the recent storm, the sheer amount of pokemon they were facing was more than she had ever faced before. She understood why this job was given to mainly C and B-Rank trainers. If she was alone, there was no way she would be able to deal with them with her current strength.

Every hour they had around three or four encounters of wild pokemon. Sometimes they were alone, and other times they came in groups of two or three. Most of them were flying types, like predicted, but there had been a couple of rattata that had snuck their way in. They even saw another pidove that had a lighter coloring and looked more mature than Lucky. Beating that one gave Lucky an ego boost if the proud trills and chords were any indication.

Ava and Danny’s pokemon worked fairly well together. They rotated who was taking charge to allow their pokemon to rest in between attacks. If they needed assistance, they supported each other in that effort. Ava could tell Lucky was getting exhausted. He had never come anywhere close to the amount of physical activity he was exerting today. She was able to give him a break when it was their time for lunch, and the food helped restore some of his energy. She also used one of the potions that onsite to get him some energy back and fix the scratches and bruises he got. There was nothing too serious, but a lot of little damage accumulated quickly.

The most dangerous encounter so far was when they were called for assistance helping another trainer. There had been two pidgeotto and the trainer wasn’t able to maintain control over both of them, with one flying away. They came over to help, or at least Danny came to help. Ava mostly stayed to the side while Lucky got in a shot or two or Hidden Power. Danny’s bunnelby was a strong opponent against these flying types. Despite not having aerial versatility, it had an electric Hidden Power and plenty of practice hitting flying targets. It was able to make quick work of a lot of the smaller pokemon and combined with his murkrow, they took down the pidgeotto with ease.

Checking the time, Ava saw they were around three-fourths the way through their shift. Farm shifts ranged from 8-10 hours, and they were doing the longer one. This was the longest shift she has done as a trainer and by far the one with the most activity. Being constantly alert really took the wind out of her. Lucky was patrolling the fields, and by the looks of it had found another pokemon. He gathered a dark ball of energy before shooting it somewhere in the crops. Ava was just thinking that it must have been another ratatta when electricity shot through the fields, hitting Lucky square on.

Ava had no time to react, and Lucky plummeted to the ground. Shaking herself free of the shock, she ran toward him with no care for the crops she crushed beneath her feet. The tiredness she had been feeling was replaced by pure adrenaline. She wasn’t able to get there in time before he landed on the ground with a sickening crash. She returned him soon after, just barely avoiding a second shock sent towards the prone bird.

Now that she was closer, she could see who hurt her starter. A small pokemon with large red ears and red marks on its cheeks that contained plus signs in them. A plusle. One that also seemed to be missing an arm. She remembered reading about them; the notes surrounding them had generally considered them weak pokemon with electric attacks. Whoever wrote that must have been drinking because what Ava saw was a threat that had injured and potentially killed her pokemon. One that she now faced with no way of fighting.

“Danny, I need help over here. An electric pokemon knocked out Lucky.” She yelled behind her while backpedaling as fast as she could. She could hear him running her way. The plusle was also running her way. The tiny rat oozed pure aggression. She hadn't seen any pokemon this angry before. Even the ariados which could have killed her, wasn't this ferocious.

She was keeping a good pace for going backwards and out speeding it before the small pokemon shot forward at high speed. If the ratatta she had faced the previous week had a weak example of Quick Attack, this plusle had it mastered. Ava’s instincts took over, and much like the previous time a pokemon rushed her, she whipped her leg towards it.

Right before her foot connected, the plusle’s body lit up with electricity, which then shot through her when she punted the animal. While it went flying, Ava was left worse for wear. The shock ran through her, causing her muscles to sharply contract and her to fall to her knees. Mud splashed all across her uniform. Obviously, she had never been electrocuted before, so it wasn’t surprising that she was a little dazed when it happened to her for the first time. This means that she only noticed the plusle attacking again when it was close enough to charge and send off another electric shock at her. With no time to dodge, all she could do was try to duck.

The electricity suddenly turned unnatural and veered off to her right. She looked up. Danny had come at just the right time. With him was his third pokemon, which was somehow the cause of the bolt changing directions. A ryhorn stood to the side where its horn had pulled the electricity towards.

“Bruce, come up,” Danny said. His bunnelby shot up from the ground, knocking the plusle off to the side, from which it quickly recovered. What ensued was a fast but brutal battle. With its electric shots unable to hit due to the rhyhorn, the main weapon of the wild plusle was disabled. This didn’t mean the fight got any easier. Utilizing quick movements while shooting stars of energy, it was able to dodge a lot of attacks, specifically the mud ones used by Bruce the bunnelby. But the few attacks that did land worked to slow down the plusle enough for it to change tactics and charge the bunny pokemon. This turned out to be the wrong move. Despite a genius use of Spark at the last moment before contact so it couldn’t be sucked away, getting close to Bruce was its downfall. Tanking the hit, bunnelby instantly slammed his ears down with full force, pushing the wild Pokémon into the ground. He continued pounding for a little until the plusle didn’t stand up.

Ava thought it was dead before Danny grabbed a ball from his belt and sucked the rat into it, which shook twice before dinging.

“You’re actually catching that thing. Did you see how aggressive it was?” Ava asked incredulously.

“Did you see how powerful it was? I’ve been looking for an electric pokemon for a while,” Danny shrugged. “I’m not going to turn down the chance to get a good pokemon.”

Ava thought he was crazy for trying to deal with that obvious monster but wasn’t going to push the topic further. Her main concern was what to do about Lucky. He was in his pokeball now, but he had taken a really strong hit. She knew all too well that the poke balls weren’t an end all be all for keeping pokemon safe.

“Do you think I can go to the barn? Lucky took a bad hit, and I want to heal him before something bad happens,” Ava asked.

“Of course,” Danny responded before relaying the situation over the walkie-talkie. Getting a response, he turned back to her, “Jacob will assist you once you get to the barn.”

Ava thanked him and then booked it towards the barn. She could get her peace of mind and breath back once she knew Lucky would be alright.

Chapter Text

Running into the barn, Ava was greeted with the sight of Jacob and his pokemon. There was a flying bug pokemon with black antennas, four arms, and a deep red shell that was open in the back to give space for wings that were lifting it off the ground. In the back of her mind, Ava noted that his ledyba must have evolved into a ledian.

He stood next to a table that had a couple of berries and a potion waiting for her. “I got the rundown from Danny. Release your pokemon on the table.”

Ava listened, and Lucky materialized. He was twitching slightly and had an expression that held as much pain as his bird face could express.

Jacob put on a pair of clean gloves while commentating to her, “Normally, just keeping him in his ball would be enough to keep him safe until you made it to a poke center. Since he is your only pokemon and still not very trained, I figured it would be best to give him a little treatment to start the healing process and give you some peace of mind.”

He gently reached out to slowly unfurl Lucky’s wing. How he knew where to start, Ava had no clue, but he turned out to be correct when they saw a large burn mark was seared on Lucky's body that was hidden by the wing. Ava gasped. She had gotten used to seeing dead and injured pokemon, even being the cause of them in most of those cases, but seeing her own pokemon injured was different. She had only been a trainer for a little over a month and already cared deeply for him.

Jacob made sure to relay what he was doing as he worked. Ava didn't have any experience in this, so she just watched. He let her know that he was using one dose of a potion to start the healing process and alleviate some of the pain. Despite Lucky’s jerks and uncomfortable noises, Jacob persisted. He cut a berry in half, a rawst berry, he clarified. Then mashed one up into a paste with a dose of potion. Using his gloved hands, he rubbed it onto Lucky’s wound using this first half.

The second half he gave to Ava and told her to slowly feed part of it to Lucky. He also gave her a second berry, which was supposed to help with any paralysis. Then he sat back and let her feed him slowly. Ava glanced over at Jacob as Lucky slowly chewed pieces of the berry. “Thanks for this. I appreciate it.”

“Just doing a part of my job, I'd rather not have a trainer's pokemon die on my watch,” he said, shrugging.

Ava let the silence ring a bit before continuing the conversation. “I haven't seen you since before our ordeals. How have you been doing?” It was only after she opened her mouth that she realized it might have been insensitive to mention the time when he watched someone die while almost dying himself. Too late to take it back.

“Well, besides almost dying, I'd say I've been doing great,” he said wryly. Embarrassment rushed through Ava as he called out her slip up.

“Not dying is always a good thing, I say. But since then, what have you been up to? I heard your dad got you a job, and obviously,” Ava pointed to the evolved bug pokemon who had settled down in one of the chairs in the room, “you've been doing enough to evolve your starter already.”

“I've been really busy. I was always going to work on the farm. Now it’s just in a different way than I had previously thought. Bugsy,” seeing her confused face, he clarified, “my ledian, only evolved this past weekend. You've seen what it was like here. I've been battling almost every single day, and when you combine that with the fact that she is a bug pokemon and that I caught her when she was older, boom, you get an early evolution. I also happened to catch another pokemon yesterday, a yamper.”

Ava didn’t know what a yamper was, so she just responded with a quick, “Hey, congratulations. Have you enjoyed working here?”
Lucky was looking a little better and had already started on his second berry as Jacob responded, “I always knew that I would work on the farm. Never had any doubts about that. Becoming a trainer wasn't a part of that, but I'm glad I'm still able to work here, even if in a different capacity.” He shrugged, “It's my home. I'm glad I can work to protect it.” He then returned her question to her, “What have you been up to?”

With how often she has had to retell her tales of the past month, she had her whole spiel down. Never before has she not only been asked about recent events, but she also had something interesting enough that she could respond with.

Once Lucky had gotten enough of his strength back that he wasn’t going to keel over from a small breeze, she returned him to his poke ball. Jacob was letting her leave her shift early. Without a pokemon she was more like a civilian than a trainer and wouldn't be of any help anyway.

She left, giving him her thanks and exchanging numbers so she could reach him if need be. Looking up directions, she headed to the closest pokemon center. There were six poke centers in the entire city. Two of them were in the trainer's district near the east gate. One closer to the outskirts and the other one deeper in where the residential areas of the trainer's district existed. Then there was one close to each other gate: North, West, and South. The final location was next to the League's headquarters in the heart of the city. Ava had been staying at the southern gate poke center, and the farms sat more north than the east gate. She wanted to get Lucky healed as quickly as she could. This may have just been her paranoia speaking, but the risk of losing him right now made her stomach sink. Better safe than sorry, so she went to the closer east gate poke center, which was only a short bus ride away.

After loading him in one of the thankfully empty machines, she had 20 minutes while it healed him. She took this time to take a shower and rinse off the mud that had gotten all over her from her shift. The stink eye the poke center manager gave her was all the hint that she needed that she was dirty. The hot shower and knowledge Lucky was healing helped her relax after such a long day.

Once Lucky was healed, Ava decided that she deserved a treat. When she had lived with her dad, there had been a cafe that had the best eclairs. It had been a staple, but ever since she became a trainer, she never had a chance to go there. All her food was from the cafeteria in the poke center and snacks she could buy from the nearby grocery store. The idea of relaxing in the cafe with an eclair and a hot chocolate sounded like a dream after the long day she had.

A quick train ride brought her to her familiar destination. She walked into the store which remained the same with its warm colors, comfortable seating, and plants that were nestled throughout the place. Walking up to the counter, she greets the cashier.

“Hi there,”

“Hello, what can I get for you toda-oh,” the barista interrupted.

“Could I get a large hot chocolate and two eclairs please?” Ava asked.

“Umm,” the cashier looked around nervously before saying, “Let me get my supervisor real quick,” and scuttled off to the back.

Ava was confused. Maybe there was something wrong with the system, so she just waited patiently. It didn’t take long for an older woman to come out of the back and come up to her. “Hello ma’am, I’m the manager of this cafe. Did you see the sign on our door?”

“Uh no, is there an event or discount or something?”

“Not quite,” the manager said, looking at the band on Ava’s arm. “In order to keep the rest of our customers comfortable and safe, we do not serve any pokemon trainers. We ask that you please leave the property.”

“Wait what? I’m a paying customer, and I’ve been coming here for years. It’s not like I’m going to send out my pokemon here. I just want to order my food.”

The manager raised her hands in front of her chest and said, “Ma'am, please don’t threaten us.”

Ava exploded a little, “Threaten? What are you talking about-,” but then was interrupted by the manager raising her voice.

“You have to leave now. You are disturbing our customers. Don’t make us call the league and the cops.”

“This is fucking bullshit!” Ava yelled before storming out of the cafe. She had been coming here almost every week since she was sixteen. One of the bartenders even knew her order whenever she came in, but now just because she was a trainer, she would never be able to go back there.

She fumed the entire way back to the poke center. When she got back to the barracks, Amiyra was already there, and took one look at her face before asking, “What’s wrong?”

Groaning, Ava responded, “I’ve just had the worst day.” Amiyra hopped down to Ava's bed so she could listen. She talked about her shift and how it was much harder than any previous one. She talked about Jacob and had to sidetrack a little to tell Amiyra how he had been doing. That was when she told her about the close call with Lucky and how he had gotten injured.

Amiyra had been listening intently for the entire conversation. It was only when she got to the last part of her day that a weird look appeared in her eyes.

Ava continued venting, “It’s so stupid. I didn’t think being a trainer would mean I couldn’t even go into a stupid cafe.”

“I know it stinks, but you know what civilians think about us. This can't be that shocking.”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s a place of commerce. I’m used to weird glances by now, but I guess I never thought it would get this bad.”

“Ava, no one in my family will even talk to me.” Looking up, Ava caught the serious, deep brown eyes of her friend as she continued. “Not my mom, not my dad, not my siblings, my cousins, my aunts, or anyone. Everyone I grew up with has cut me off.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I-,” Ava was cut off by Amiyra.

“No, I'm not looking for your pity. I’m saying that the people closest to me who should have been able to look past this couldn't. You are lucky that your family doesn’t mind, but you can’t assume everyone’s going to be like that. This isn’t entirely unfounded, either. There’s a big difference if someone you know and trust has something like a sword compared to if a random stranger walks into the place you work with a sword. That’s how they feel about us, and as much as I hate it, I really can’t blame the people who don’t know me for acting like that.”

“I know that, of course I know that; it’s just,” Ava took a chance to take a breath and collect her thoughts. “I went to that cafe for years, and I didn’t even have a clue that trainers weren’t allowed there. Now that I’m on the other side, everything's just so different. I used to be exactly like that. I used to get nervous when trainers entered the store I worked at. Now being on the other side is like crazy whiplash.”

Amiyra’s voice softened. “I know what you mean.” She nudged Ava’s side with her arm. “But I seem to remember a friend of mine saying something about how you have to play with the cards you're dealt.” Ava smiled slightly, remembering her own words she had said to Amiyra. “How about tomorrow we can try a cafe in the trainer's district to see if we can find an even better one?.”

Ava was glad she has a friend here. “I would like that very much.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a bit before Amiyra corralled her to get ready for bed. The second her head hit her pillow, she drifted out of consciousness.

…

The trainer district was a small section of the city carved out for trainers. While it is called the trainer district, most of the people that lived there were actually civilians. Same with all the restaurants and stores, all run by civilians as well.

The trainer district is the main place where pokemon trainers can live. It is also the only part of the city where it is legally required for businesses to serve pokemon trainers. There are a couple of reasons why non-trainers come to live in this zone, despite the inherent ‘risk’ of pokemon trainers. As a way to allow even D-Rank trainers to get their own apartment, the place has some of the strictest rent control in the entire city. A portion of all apartments has to be set aside for trainers. The rest is free to rent to whoever, trainer or civilian.

In order to get people to set up stores within the trainers district, the city set up tax incentive programs for business owners who set up shop there. To hit the new target audience, a lot of the stores are geared towards providing trainers with what they need. Grocery stores have all the normal products plus a section for food, toys, and training equipment for pokemon. This is one of the few places where retail stores sell pokemon merchandise.

The other large draw of this portion of the city is the pokemon. By law, as long as they are tamed, non-aggressive, clean, and not causing property or personal damage, pokemon are free to be out of their poke balls. While most people have a fear of pokemon, there are still those who are fascinated by them without wanting to be a trainer. The trainer district is the only place for civilians to experience less aggressive pokemon. Due to the large number of trainers, the safety from wild pokemon is unmatched. A pokemon wouldn't get 10 feet before running into a trainer.

This is where Ava and Amiyra found themselves the next morning. After looking online for a cafe they found one with good reviews in the trainer district. It was brighter than the cozy feel of Ava’s previous cafe, but the food was good, and she was able to get some nice hot chocolate, so she wasn’t complaining. She got a little treat for Lucky too, as she was able to actually release him, and he quickly went to work, eating it up. Amiya couldn’t release her mudbray due to a recent mud bath she gave him.

It was during this time that Amiyra mentioned something that happened a couple of days ago. “So I have something to tell you.” Before she reached towards her belt. She grabbed not one but two poke balls off of it and set them on the table in front of her.

It took Ava a second to register what she was trying to say, but once she understood, she glanced up to see a small smile on Amiyra’s face. “You caught another pokemon!”

She nodded. “Yeah, I caught her right before the storm.”

Ava waited, hoping she would continue, but not seeing any indicators, and asked, “Well, don’t leave me waiting. What did you get?”

“I caught a pidgey. Her name is Diana. I was waiting to tell you and Theo until I felt like I could tame her. I was going to do it yesterday, but you know,” Amiyra trailed off, doing a quick little gesture before continuing. “She's started to listen to some of my instructions now, so I think she will end up being a member. Now we both have a flying pokemon!”

“Well congrats! It will be great if they can get along. Let me know when you're ready for them to meet.” Amiyra nodded, and since Amiyra led the conversation here, Ava let out what had been on her mind. “I actually kind of want to catch another pokemon myself.”

“Is this because of yesterday's shift?” At the question, Ava nodded. This had been something on her mind for a while, but the farm shift really cemented that she needed another pokemon. Lucky definitely still had room to grow and still had the ability to evolve. But when they run into pokemon that are stronger, have a type advantage, or come in larger groups, just having one pokemon isn't going to cut it. If Lucky got tired or injured, then she was left as a sitting duck, and that was the last thing she wanted.

“Do you have any ideas of what I should try to catch next?”

Amiyra reached into the bag she had brought and pulled out a notebook and piece of paper. Clicking the pen, she smiled, “Let's figure it out together.”

Then spend the rest of the morning tossing ideas back and forth. The main goal of getting another pokemon for Ava was to cover her weaknesses, especially type wise. Her biggest threats right now were Ice, Electric, and Rock types. From her research, Ice types were really rare around the city. There are rare instances where some are seen in the winter, but that was months away. Electric types appear more than Ice, but are still uncommon to see, except for events like storms. The biggest threat is one she has not encountered yet: rock types. She hasn't had to patrol near the north gate yet, but it was only a matter of time, and that was an area where rock types were common.

The types Ava would be interested in are Water, Grass, Rock, Fighting, and Ground. Water is the first one eliminated for right now. Even though they are uncommon, her recent encounter with the plusle showed that she can, and will, run into Electric types. While Rock would be good against Electric types and able to fight against other Rock types, the issue is that it would be hard for her to catch one without risking both her and Lucky’s lives. For Fighting and Ground the majority lived in the mountain area, making it harder to catch them without running into Rock types.

If she happens to find a Fighting or Ground type outside the mountain, she would try her best to get it. But since that wasn’t as common, she will aim to get a grass type.

If she wanted, she could try and catch a pokemon from inside the walls, like Amiyra or Danny did. This is a safer approach, but there is no certainty that she would get a pokemon that she is looking for in a timely manner. Since she's trying to cover her weaknesses, another flying type would put her in the same situation. Those were some of the most common types she had seen so far, so she put this option as plan B if she lucked into finding one.

Plan A consisted of going outside the wall to try to find a pokemon. This is by far more dangerous, but if she is accompanied by other trainers like Amiyra and Theo, the risk goes down. Doing it this way provides more opportunity to catch a pokemon of her desired typing. Amiyra said she would help Ava outside the wall later in the week if she wanted. They decided that they would talk to Theo, and if he's down, they could explore outside the wall. Even if they didn't catch a pokemon, if they wanted to take on harder missions, they would have to get used to the wilds. Now she just needs to check with Theo to see if he wants to go.

…

Ava already had a planned training session with Theo and brought Amiyra with her. Walking up to the outdoor training grounds that Theo was already at, Ava gave a wave. “Hey Theo, I invited Amirya along if that's okay.”

If Theo was surprised at this, he hid it well. “The more, the merrier!”

“Awesome, thanks! Before we start, I have a question for you. I was talking with Amiyra and I want to catch another pokemon. Curious to see if you were interested in coming along? We could all go out together and watch the other's back while getting used to the wilds.”

Theo thought about that for a second. “I don’t hate that idea. It’s probably time to get another one to cover my bases. I don’t have any poke balls, though. I would have to buy one. I think I have enough saved to grab one,” he muttered, thinking out loud.

This wasn’t a concern Ava dealt with. She still had two poke balls left from her Ordeal. One of them was the reset ball from the meowth that she spent 25 poke to reset. With how expensive poke balls were at this time, it was best to save as many as she could, even if it was a little gross. Theo continued, “When were you guys thinking?”

They all pulled up their schedules. They seemed to work opposing schedules a lot of times. The best time to go would be either tomorrow morning or the next Friday, which was a whole week away. Ava wanted to go as soon as possible. After becoming more aware of her weakness, she wanted to do as much as she could to rectify it. Amiyra wanted to have more time to train her pidgey so they had another support in the wilds. Theo congratulated her upon hearing she had already caught a new pokemon.

Theo also leaned more towards the later date, wanting to get more money so he could buy the poke ball and another repel before heading out. Caving, Ava agreed with the game plan. They would iron out more details closer to the date and move on to that actual training session. They spent the first half having an awkward three-way battle. The pokemon and trainers weren't too sure who to attack. It ended up with the poliwag and mudbray battling it out on the ground, while Lucky sent shots from the sky.

Halfway through their practice session, Amiyra peeled off from the group. She wanted to spend some solo time training her new catch to listen to her commands and get it ready to take the exam required for it to join missions. Ava and Theo finished out their planned time, still working on dodging and attacking evasive units, before splitting off themselves once their session was over.

Since she had extra time, Ava wanted to try learning new moves. Lucky has obviously gotten stronger in the past couple of weeks, and opening up his move pool seemed possible. Over their training sessions and missions, Lucky seems to have gotten the hang of growl and leer while getting stronger control over peck and gust. Seeing Danny’s murkrow use wing attack so efficiently on her last shift, she wanted to see if Lucky could learn that. After looking it up, she found he could, but it was a more intermediate technique that pidove usually couldn't learn until they got more experience and were older.

Out of the pool of moves that Ava thinks Lucky could learn, quick attack was the most obvious answer. Having first-hand experience seeing it on the field, she knew how much that burst could surprise opponents and lead to an opening to use stronger moves. Hopefully it would also give him greater mobility to dodge some stronger attacks once they go outside the wall.

A quick look at her poke gear and she learned that a common way to get a pokemon to start learning this move was to do short sprints. That initial push off of a sprint was what the pokemon should focus on. Since Lucky couldn't really run, Ava shifted that to short bursts of flight. Jumping from casual flight to as fast as he could handle, as well as quick starts from a stationary position.

Progress on this move was slower than previous moves. He was getting faster at quick acceleration, which was the start she wanted, but there was no real change in it being a move he could utilize.

They had just finished a five-minute break when Ava picked back up, “Time to get back to work, Lucky. Let's do ten more quick takeoffs.” Lucky gave no response that he heard her, so she crouched next to where he sat and reached to give him a nudge. Lucky snapped his beak at her and glared. She yanked her arm back, surprised. He had never rebuked her touch except when she first caught him, but that was when he was really young.

Looking closer, she could tell that he was exhausted. He was still taking large breaths, and his eyes, while still glaring, looked weary. She had been pushing him too hard. Her mind was stuck on the future trip to the wilds; she hadn't noticed the signs. Not wanting to fully back off though, in case he learns that pecking at her got him what she wanted, she tries to compromise.

“Instead of ten, how about we do three more final ones, and as an award for all of your hard work, I can get some of those pumpkin seeds you love, okay?” Ava said softly. She had found out that he had an affinity for pumpkin seeds when she bought a pack for herself and let him try some. From his reaction, she could tell it was one of his favorite foods.

He perked up at that and despite being tired did three quick starts and stops. Ava let him rest on her arm while she gently petted his head and whispered words of praise to him. If this was any other pokemon overworking then like this might have ended up differently. She made a mental note to get better at understanding her pokemon’s limits to avoid this situation in the future.

Ava made good on her promise and bought Lucky a bag of pumpkin seeds and she combined some of it with his normal meal feed. He must have been hungry because he devoured it quickly. After she gave him a bowl of water that he used to clean himself off and preen his feathers. As he’s gotten older he’s become more picky about his cleanliness and if he got dirty would bug her until she got him a bowl to clean himself off. With pokemon not being allowed out in most parts of the poke center she had to buy a large bowl that she filled inside and brought out. Not having your own place with your own rules definitely made parts of her life more difficult. Once done she let him rest and play outside while she played music from her pokegear and watched.

…

The week passed slowly. As each day inched by, Ava got more nervous about leaving the wall and tried her best to make sure she was as prepared as possible. She still had a lot of supplies from her Ordeal including two leftover poke balls. She made sure to replace the antidote she had used and stock up on two repels. There was a strap on her poke belt that could also contain a bottle. One of the repels was for sure going to be situated there.

All her shifts for the week were front loaded at the beginning. She has been extra precautious during these shifts particularly. The amount of electric pokemon may have died down from the storm, but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t that exposed again. There was another reason she was so on guard. While she had already committed to heading outside the wall, if she was to encounter a pokemon she wanted to add to her team, she would snap it up. Sadly that never happened, her shifts were uneventful with only one battle against a wild starly.

Friday finally rolled around. They all met at the pokemon center and headed for the east gate. After talking, they decided that was the gate with the most opportunities as the lowest risk. Ava viewed the towering walls that looked the same as the ones she left from weeks ago. It was time to catch another pokemon.

Chapter Text

Their fighting force consisted of Theo and his poliwag, Amiyra with her mudbray and newly caught pidgey, and Ava and Lucky. Together, they made up a little more than one C-Ranks team.

If the forest view was shocking due to its density, the plains provoked a similar response, but due to the sheer openness. Before her spread large open plains, golden grass as far as the eye could see, gently swaying in the wind. The sharp contrast from city to nature took her breath away for the second time.

An unpaved road lay in front of her. It led from the gate out deeper into the grasslands. They were only a few steps on the road before a panicked looking dodou jumped out from the grass, both heads squawking at them. Ava’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest, and she was about to command an attack when the wild bird was hit with a water gun and two hidden powers at the same time. This knocked it back into the grass, and while Ava couldn’t see it get up, she saw the grass split apart as it scuttled away until eventually that too stopped moving.

None of them had been expecting that to happen right out of the gate. “Now we know to be extra careful,” Theo said with a weak smile.

Trekking forward, they stayed on the path. While this area may be considered the safest, Ava was starting to wish they had chosen to go to the forest. There she could actually see her surroundings a little. Here it was total randomness. The grass could contain any number of things, including a predator just lying in wait. 

Every shake of the grass had everyone instantly on guard. They dealt with the few sentrets and zigzagoon they saw. There was even an electrike that appeared, of which Amiyra promptly took the lead in battling.

The road slowly morphed into dirt and eventually turned into normal ground. Ava spotted a clearing with little to no grass and a short tree that they could rest by with shade and a clear view of the grasses if a pokemon was to come their way. Standing near the tree, Ava looked out across the plains. In the distance, she could see a flock of pidgey and its evolved forms taking to the sky, heading west.

Speaking of pidgey, the one Ava had caught, Diana, seemed interested in Lucky. She hadn’t noticed this when they were first introduced this morning, but now that they were resting for a minute, she could see Diana hop towards him curiously. Lucky, on the other hand, couldn't care less about her. Every step she took towards him, he took one step back. It got to the point where Lucky hid behind Amiyra’s mudbray who was laying silently.

Ava laughed. With only one pokemon she wasn’t used to seeing him interact with others. Hopefully he got along with whomever they caught next. 

Deciding to save him from the unwanted attention, she called for him while patting her arm. His relief was apparent as he flew toward her. He almost landed when sticky string shot from the tree, knocking him to the ground.

“Lucky!” Her cry got the attention of the others. She pointed to the tree before turning back to Lucky. He lay off the ground all tangled up in webbing, unable to do anything but squawk. She grabbed his poke ball and returned him, leaving behind some string. Her attention was pulled back toward the threat. 

They had identified the perpetrator; it was a metapod that had hidden in the tree. It was unusual to see one outside the forest, but one sat here nonetheless.

Before Amiyra could attack with her pidgey Theo shouted, “Dibs, dibs, I call dibs!” choosing to attack with Savage. Amiyra and Ava backed off, not wanting to interrupt. Their class taught them that it was a necessity to be able to catch a pokemon with your own strength to make them easier to train and prevent inexperienced trainers from getting a pokemon they couldn't handle.

The metapod put up a shockingly good fight for a literal cocoon. It shot webs to block or redirect moves like water gun and used it to disrupt the poliwag if it tried a hypnosis. When it couldn't block, it used the string to pull itself towards the tree in a surprisingly nimble manner.

However good it was, it simply was not suited for the battle. With no long distance damaging move, its only option was to capture Savage in its webs. Using the same tactics as the metapod Savage kept blowing away the dangerous string shots with its water gun. When its attack failed to get through, the metapod got sloppy, and a water gun hit it, knocking it over. It gave up on fighting, and Ava could see it tense up trying to harden its shell. Savage shot more water guns towards it to weaken it further, before Theo grabbed an empty ball off his belt and tossed it at the prone pokemon. It shook once, twice, before exploding open in a white light. The metapod remained motionless, still hardening, which allowed Theo to retrieve the spent ball. After a couple more attacks, he threw the ball again, and this time it wiggled a couple of times before falling still. Theo had caught his second pokemon.

Curious now that the action had ended, Ava asked, “What made you call dibs?” From what she had read, the caterpie line wasn't that rare or that strong. Their best benefit is how quickly they evolved, so a starter trainer could get a new pokemon faster. 

Theo walked over to the spot that held the leftovers of what knocked Lucky from the sky. “Do you see how this forms an actual net? That's unusual.” He moved to some string that had been shot during their battle. He touched one that was stuck on the ground and said, “This one is extremely sticky,” then grabbed another one and lifted it, “but this one isn't sticky at all and is much thicker and sturdier. This metapod seems to have expert control over its string shot and was able to change different aspects like stickiness and tensile strength to suit its purpose.” He turned with a little too wide grin on his face. “The metapod that I caught is a predator.”

…

Picking the string shot out of Lucky’s feathers proved more arduous than expected. After a lot of cussing, a couple pulled out feathers, and cuts on Ava's hands from Lucky’s flailing, he was finally rid of the last bit of the extremely sticky material. Ava was unable to get the residue fully off and resigned herself to having sticky hands until they got back from their excursion. She knows the metapod was Theo's new pokemon, but after 30 minutes of dealing with the mess it left, only a strong dislike remained.

Their break took longer than expected due to the battle, but eventually they picked back up where they left off. It was now up to Ava to decide how long they stayed outside the wall. While Amiyra could catch another pokemon, Ava was the one who truly needed it.

They ventured further into the plains. The ran into some individual pokemon and sneaked around larger groups. With each appearance and battle, though, there was not a single grass or ground type. She was starting to get frustrated and almost called it to turn back before she saw it. In the distance, a clearing with an unusual amount of trees for the area. In the center sat a sleeping weepingbell. It looks like there were multiple unusual pokemon in this area, first Theo's metapod and now this weepingbell. Both pokemon that usually reside within the forest.

Ava pondered if she should try to catch it. On one hand, it was the only grass type she has seen all day. On the other, it was an evolved form that could be dangerous. She glanced at Theo and Amiyra and made her decision.

“I'm going to try and catch it,” Ava quietly announced to the group.

Theo responded cautiously, “Are you sure? It looks strong.”

“This is the best shot I got, and if it doesn't work, I will call you guys in for backup. If you guys are against it and don't think it's safe, we can head back, no worries.”

Theo and Amiyra looked at each other quickly before giving a quick nod. “We're okay with you giving it a try. Let us know the second you feel it's dangerous,” Amiyra said.

“Cross my heart.” Ava said, making a cross gesture over her chest.

Before attempting to fight, she sprayed Lucky with a potion to make sure he was all healed up. Grabbing the repel off her belt, she crept towards the beast carefully. She couldn't fully conceal her steps as she headed towards the clearing. The grass was too noisy. That didn't seem to bother the sleeping pokemon though, just her beating heart. When they got close enough, she gave a thumbs up to Lucky, who had been flying above her waiting on the signal she had told him.

He flew closer and started preparing a gust. He gathered more energy than he normally would until he felt he couldn't control the aim and sent the larger than normal gust of wind towards the wild weepingbell. It was a direct hit and knocked the pokemon over, waking it up in the process, its sharp gaze locking on to the new threats it faced.

No one was prepared for the screech that came out of its mouth. Ava covered her ears. Who knew a plant could scream that loudly. 

“Lucky, stay cautious. Use Hidden Power or Gust when you see an opportunity.” The pidove started to create a ball of dark energy but got interrupted by a vine darting towards it. Lucky was able to cut his move short and awkwardly dodge the attack while squawking in protest.

He didn't get time to recover before another vine whipped towards him, and another after that. 

“Dodge Lucky,” Ava commanded, getting a little worried. He was able to dodge on and used peck to knock another to the side before it hit him. Their training at blocking moves with other moves seemed to be paying off. Before the next vine could be sent his way, Ava shouted, “Use a quick attack to dodge the vines.”

They had practiced that move over the past week. Even now, the move wasn't perfect and couldn't really be used as an attack. But the bursts of energy could be used to evade some quicker attacks. 

She settled down, as that seemed to work. He was evading the vines more easily now. He was even able to get a small reprieve that let him shoot off a gust, which hit the plant dead on. Despite a grunt, it didn't seem to be too damaged.

Ava looked closer at the weepinbell. The pseudo mouth almost looked like a smile. It didn't seem to be worked up from the battle; in fact, it seemed calm as could be. A sinking pit formed in her stomach. Then a razor-sharp leaf shot from the plant towards Lucky. Right before impact, Ava realized the most recent vines were not being used to attack the bird, but to corral it to a spot the weepinbell could easily shoot. She tried to shout to warn him, but the leaf was too quick and cut into Lucky’s chest. Blood splattered out, and Lucky cried out, having taken more damage than he should have. Ava realized she had miscalculated.

Deciding to give up on capture, she yelled “Help, I need help” behind her while she returned Lucky, who almost fell right into another leaf that was sent towards him. She released him instantly in the area opposite to where he had just been, so he had a chance to reorient himself. Her yelling must have caught the attention of the weepingbell because it sent a few sharp leaves in her direction. She quickly dropped to the ground and knocked the wind out of herself. There was no time to even think about the dirt that found its way in her mouth before she had to roll to her side to avoid a vine that slammed into the ground right where she had been. She kept rolling to get some distance and jumped up in time to see a dark hidden power knock into the side of the weepingbell bringing its attention back to Lucky.

The first to join the fray was Diana the pidgey. Ava was glad to see her, as the flying support was desperately needed. Amiyra arrived with her mudbray shouting commands to them, “Diana Gust, Abraxas Hidden Power.” Both followed orders. Lucky didn't need any additional orders and followed their lead, shooting a gust with them.  

The weepinbell tried to dodge by pushing against the ground with its vines, but its slow pace only let it avoid one of the gusts. It was now starting to look annoyed. The two birds stayed on their guard while dodging the mix of vines and leaves to the best of their abilities. Theo and Savage soon joined, using its own super effective hidden power. 

With the mudbray and poliwag hanging back as support and distracting the wild pokemon when they could, Lucky and Diana were able to maneuver better and attack more frequently. The weepinbell gave a screech and, instead of using its more sniper-like razor leafs, sent an indiscriminate barrage towards them. The flyers were able to dodge easily due to the lack of accuracy. Those on the ground weren't as lucky, including the humans. Ava got cuts across her arms and one on her left leg. The water and ground type really felt the damage, and Theo had to spray a potion.

The attack distracted everyone, including Ava, and when she looked back at the weepinbell she could see the leftovers of a poison powered drifting to the ground in front of the weepinbell. It only took a further second to figure out why it had done that. The previously green vines were now covered in a vibrant purple powder. Now, every hit had a chance to poison the pokemon, especially with all the small cuts they had.

The battle started anew, with the vines posing an even greater risk. It was almost stuck at a stalemate until a vine was able to grab onto Diana, knocking her to the ground and pulling her toward him. The bird was obviously panicking, and Amiyra returned her to prevent any further damage. It was almost guaranteed she was poisoned now, but they didn't have the luxury to take the time to heal her. A pokemon down, the tides seemed to be working against them.

Ava didn't see them having a chance of winning. While the weepinbell has definitely taken damage and was slowing down. It was at a much slower pace than their pokemon. They didn't have enough experience or pokemon that could deal with this threat. Running away seemed to be the only option. She grabbed an empty poke ball and a repel, ready to execute her plan, before noticing something. Her attention had been focused on the downing of the pidgey, and so had the weepinbell's, that neither of them noticed the poliwag sneaking up from behind.

Even with a sneak attack, Ava was not sure what the weaker water type could do. Glancing at Theo's determined face, Ava chose to trust whatever plan he had made. That plan became apparent as soon as she started to see the pattern on the poliwags stomach swirl. She had read that when poliwags use their psychic powers to hypnotize, their visible internal organs unintentionally move in response. 

The gamble worked, as the wild weepinbell movements started to falter as it became more drowsy. It seemed panicked now and fought against the forced sleep; it quickly turned, finding the source of the hypnosis next to it. It spat out a bunch of its internal acid at the poliwag. Savage shot a water gun to try to block the attack, but being in such close corners, it was only able to stop part of it. The rest splashed over the water type, who produced a hurt sound. 

The poliwag was at its limits, and even when at full strength, she wouldn't have been able to fend off the weepinbell's attacks from that close. “Lucky Peck! Support Savage,” Ava shouted, fearing they would lose the slight lead the poliwag had gotten them. He shot down with a glowing beak, slamming into the weepinbells side, causing it to scream again. 

This seemed to be the final straw for the weepingbell, and it shot a green powder all around itself before pushing itself out of the cloud.

That proved to be its fatal mistake. “Don't let it Lucky. Blow the sleep powder back at it.” With a gust, the cloud went right back to its source. This, combined with the previous hypnosis attempt, produced the desired result and temporarily knocked the weepinbell out.

“Finish it,” all three trainers shouted in tandem. Amiyra even sent out the poisoned Diana to assist. All of their pokemon with renewed vigor sent attack after attack until all that was left was a mangled corpse.

Ava could have cried with how relieved she was. While sad they had to kill the first pokemon she wanted to catch, there was no way she would have been able to beat it on her own, let alone tame it. She grabbed Theo, who was closest to her, in a tight hug, lifting him off the ground. “Holy shit, we did it! Great thinking with the hypnosis.” Theo's only response was joyous laughter. After giving a similar hug to Amiyra, she crouched down to where Lucky sat, cleaning blood out of his feathers. 

“You were amazing! I'm gonna give you so many treats when we get back.” She continued to heap on praises as she pulled out a potion and sprayed it over some of his wounds. Despite the stinging of the potion, he seems to be enjoying his win, trilling happily the whole time.

After the others had dealt with healing their pokemon, Amiyra walked over to Ava. “Hey, we got to head back; I know you haven't caught a pokemon-”

Ava cuts her off, “Trust me, I do not want to push our luck. I am ready to get the fuck out of here. I'll just catch the next non-flying pokemon I see in the walls.” Ava was speaking the truth. She needed backup right now, more than type advantage. That was obviously from what just happened. They got lucky today, but if one thing had gone wrong today, her miscalculation could have led to death.

They finished the wound care of their pokemon and themselves before getting ready to head out. Each of them had a repel in their hand, needing to be even more cautious on their way back due to their injured and exhausted pokemon.

Suddenly, Ava heard a rustling from behind her. Paranoid that the weepinbell could have revived, she turned quickly and barely had enough time to raise her arms in front of her face before vines lashed out across her arms. She really regretted wearing short sleeves instead of the long-sleeved trainer uniform, as the vines cut into her bare skin. The adrenaline helped her push the burning pain that erupted from her arms out of mind to take stock of her situation.

The source of the vines wasn't of the deceased weepinbell thankfully, but from a furious looking bellsprout that emerged from the tall grass near the grove where the battle took place. The bellsprout continued looking at her as if issuing a challenge.

If there was a god, they surely were shining on her right now. Keeping her eye on the wild pokemon Ava asked Lucky, “Do you think you have it in you to win one more match?” The high of the recent win and healing must have still been running through his veins as he quickly took to the sky. Ava signaled to the others that she had this before turning back to the fight at hand. 

Lucky took the initiative; she didn't have to direct him before he sent a wave of wind towards the grass pokemon. The limber vine-like limbs let the bellsprout dodge, sending retaliatory vines towards Lucky. He agilely flew out of the way. His recent experience with faster and stronger attacks made the current vines not hold much of a challenge. 

It seemed the only range move the bellsprout was its vines. With Lucky being able to dodge, the wild pokemon had no real way to take him down. Despite the bellsprout's nimbleness, it seemed to get tired quickly dodging the wider ranged gusts. It started to get hit by a couple as the battle progressed. In a move that impressed Ava, instead of attacking with the vines, it used a nearby tree to pull its light body airborne, getting close to Lucky. It then started to produce similar purple spores as its predecessor did. This threw him off for a second, but with a gust command from Ava, he sent off a weak wind at the pokemon, blowing away the poison and stopping the plants' momentum. The knock to the ground combined with the gust Lucky followed up with damaging the bellsprout enough that it struggled to get up. Ava took the chance to throw a poke ball towards it.

It shook once before popping open to an angry bellsprout who smashed the ball with its vines. Obviously, it wasn't weak enough. The results of the battle didn't change though, and after a couple more hits, the final one kept the bellsprout on the ground. Ava tossed her final ball, tense and ready to grab it if the bellsprout broke out. Thankfully, it was an unfounded worry as the ball gave a pleasing ding, indicating a successful catch. 

…

The travel back to the city went as quick as possible. Abraxas, Amiyras mudbray, took the lead on the few wild pokemon that showed up. This was due to him having taken the least amount of damage when fighting.

Once they returned to the city, Ava felt she could finally let her guard down. Exhaustion warred on her. Being so focused on her surroundings constantly took all the energy out of her. Returning to the poke center, they shared a healing machine that perfectly fit all six of their poke balls. The larger amount of injuries made the waiting time an hour.

 It wasn't just the pokemon's injuries they had to take care of. All of them had cuts of some kind, with Ava having the largest ones across her arms where she took the brute hit from the bellsprout. She used a potion on her arms to help stop the bleeding. She learned after the ordeal that using potions on humans helped stop bleeding and reduce pain, but since they weren't made for humans, when used, it can lead to a greater chance of scarring.

Potions were only supposed to be used on serious wounds. The ones on her arm were not quite at that level, but she made the decision to use a potion anyway since they had to hike a while back to the city. She didn't want to risk bleeding more and getting faint while in such a dangerous area; she also didn't want to be tracking blood all throughout the plains that a predator could follow.

They all left the rest of their cuts alone, but now they went to the nurse on duty. The poke center always had one that could provide basic first aid and wound dressing. Anything that needed stitches would require a visit to the hospital. It took the entire hour to get everything cleaned and wrapped in a bandage. The nurse told Ava that since she had already used a potion, all she had to do was clean the wound and then dress it. No need for stitches this time.

Everyone got patched up in the time it took for their pokemon to heal. Ava was glad to have Lucky's poke ball back. Without it, she felt almost naked. The healing machine also alerted her that her bellsprout had a fungal infection and recommended another healing session in 6 hours to fully remove it.

Amiyra split from the group after that, wanting to take some time to rest. Ava and Theo went to the computer room to register their new pokemon to their accounts. It took Ava a minute to remember how Cunningham had done it, but soon she placed the poke ball in the slot.

Species: Bellsprout - The Flower Pokemon

Type: Grass/Poison

Gender: Male

Age: ≈1 year

Moves: N/A

Ava took the time to log the two moves she had seen the bellsprout use already. From what she read, since it already knew poison powder, there was a good chance it knew the other powders as well. 

She wrapped up in the computer room and left to grab dinner. She also made sure to feed and give Lucky a good bath as a reward for all his hard work today before laying down in her barrack bed and promptly passing out.

…

Training the bellsprout proved more difficult than expected. She sat staring at the bellsprout who was lazily sunbathing, while she sat on a bench with Lucky perched on her shoulder.

Utilizing a similar technique she suggested to Amiyra, where she returned the pokemon every time it attacked, Ava was able to get him to stop shooting vines or powders at her whenever he got released. The real struggle was trying to get him to listen to her.

Every time she tried to get him to follow commands or use moves, he ignored her. The thought of  using Lucky to beat him up so he would listen to her was tempting. After consulting with Gavin and his expertise as a poke center manager, she decided that wasn't the best way to get the pokemon to listen to her in the long term. She limited the use of Lucky to defend her when he attacked.

Since he didn't listen to her, most of his time out of his ball was spent sitting in the sun or eating the meat she provided. That was another thing she had to get used to, watching the bellsprout eat. It was mainly a carnivore that put the chopped up pieces of meat she gave him in his mouth, then angled his head back, letting the food fall into the acid stored there. She could hear the bubbling of acid in his mouth when he put food in there and digested it. She was glad she wasn't squeamish and found it pretty interesting how the pseudo mouth worked.

It was during bellsprout's training period that Ava learned Oliver and his crew made it back from their trek in the wilds. This was a fact she learned secondhand from Theo during lunch.

When prompted, he told her how the three of them had all caught charmander. This sparked a bit of jealousy in the pit of Ava’s stomach. The topic of those types of pokemon was mentioned briefly in the intensive classes before her Ordeal. Afterward, she had looked into them a little more. There were a certain sub-sect of pokemon that, before the cataclysm, were highly sought after ‘starter’ pokemon. They were given out by elite professors to a select few, and only three pokemon were chosen in every region. They were selected for their easygoing natures, loyalty, and their ability to grow into absolute power houses. 

They were extremely hard to get back then and doubly as hard now. The majority of the species are extremely social and pack oriented, making it hard to catch one on their own. Even if you found one wandering alone, you would risk angering a group of angry, powerful beasts.

It turns out that there was a hoard of the charmander line, a little more than a week's hike away. Deep in the mountains, a clearing contained a large group of them, ranging from ferocious charizards to newborn charmanders. Ava questioned how they were to come back in exactly two weeks if it was a week there and a week back. She didn't think this large group of flame-breathing dragons would give up their newborns with ease in a day. Apparently it only took a week if they were to hike it. Oliver’s brother Luigi had a psychic type that was able to teleport them to somewhere only a day's walk away. They had spent the two weeks learning the group's behavior, seeing what charmanders would venture further than their protections allowed, and fighting off wild pokemon.

Eventually they each were able to catch one without incurring the hoards' wrath. Part of the time was briefly spent making sure the new pokemon would follow orders to a certain extent. It would have been a waste of the risk if they went that far to bring back a pokemon that doesn’t listen to them. Luigi, Oliver's brother, had to catch a second one as the first was stubborn and didn’t want to listen. By catching two, he could work to train one or both of them.

While Ava was glad she was able to catch a bellsprout, she knew that some of the strongest pokemon resided in that classification of starters. If she had found one of those, it would have boosted her team up significantly. However, taking time off to get one wasn’t in the wheelhouse for her financially. That’s even without the cost of hiring two bodyguards to protect her. That larvitar Theo sold must have earned him a pretty penny. Even if she had found one, with her current team, the risk of trying to catch one was too high, so she put the idea of getting one to rest.

Ava sat in a rut watching the bellsprout. A week had passed, and he didn't even pretend to listen to a single command of hers. As she contemplated what to do, her poke gear rang. It was probably her dad, but since she was trying to train with a pokemon she didn't trust, she wasn't going to take a call and distract herself.

She let it ring, and that was when something interesting occurred. The previously lazy bellsprout was now standing up and wiggling his body. It almost looked as if he was dancing. She glanced at her poke gear, which was playing Trap of Love by The Ghost Girls. It wasn't that he seemed like he was dancing; he actually was. Ava jumped to her feet, inspiration striking as she saw the joyous look on the bellsprout's face. She might have a way to train him now. 

Chapter Text

Evolution. It is a mysterious phenomenon that occurs with a combination of age and experience, causing pokemon to take on new forms that boast greater strength. It also seemed to be infectious amongst everyone but Ava.

Theo's poliwag was the first to be affected. It was only a week and a half after their fight with the weepinbell that one of their morning training sessions was interrupted by a bright glow. It was unlike anything Ava had ever seen before. Savage grew taller, lost her tail, and sprouted arms. The light soon faded away, and what was left was a whole new pokemon. The sheer possibility was astounding, and Ava fell into a fever looking up the evolutions for her pokemon and when they could expect it. Ava was a little frustrated to realize her bellsprout, Snappy, wouldn't be able to evolve to his final form without a leaf stone. She would need to start saving now if she had a chance at getting one of those. 

Soon another pokemon evolved, and it came from the same team in the form of Theo’s metapod. While it passed the D-Rank exam, it was limited in what it could do in shifts besides trap pokemon. Ava wasn't there to see it, but after trapping some wild pokemon the metapod shone, and a butterfree escaped from the shell. Ava wasn't sure why this evolution left behind a hard shell, but the first one she witnessed didn't leave anything behind. Theo's excited showings of the hard carapace didn't improve her feelings towards the seemingly lifeless remains.

It was a slight frustration when Amiyra’s pidgey evolved. She had Diana for a much shorter time frame than Ava had Lucky, and despite the similar growth efforts, it didn't take long until she became a pidgeotto. Ava wasn't the only one this annoyed, as Diana's weird fixation on Lucky only increased as she got bigger.

It was absolutely aggravating when she was on a guard mission and the fellow trainer on her shift had his electrike evolve after beating a group of ledyba.

After talking with Mary in the poke center, Ava started to take photos of her pokemon daily. She wanted to know when her pokemon could evolve, and while the main physical transformation happened instantly, there were some small signs that a pokemon was preparing to evolve. Theo had mentioned how his poliwhirl had developed little nubs that grew to be arms during evolution, and Amirya told her about a red color appearing in Diana's head feathers. By taking a photo, she could track any physical changes they were going through easily.

Progress was made, mainly with Lucky. He grew taller, his feathers lengthened, and his beak started to turn yellow. Confirming with the poke center these are the changes she wanted to be seeing, Ava knew he was getting close to evolution. Bellsprout has grown slightly darker but remained mostly the same, indicating it would be a while before he evolved.

Change was not limited to just the pokemon. Soon, the hot summer days transitioned to cool fall ones. The once overwhelmingly hot uniform now kept Ava warm as the temperatures fell.

In time with the seasons is the yearly harvest festival. At the end of the crop season, there would be a festival held that let the people know if this year's harvest was a success. When there was a bad year, the festival was smaller, where the hopes and prayers of the citizens of Taluda were the only parts of it. In good years it became an actual festival with events, food stalls, and even the rare guest from other cities.

This year was a good year. After a couple average harvests in previous years, new plots of land being turned into farms have led to greater boons. That success is apparent as the streets start to get shut down to prepare for the long weekend of festivities.

The festival will start on a Thursday afternoon and go well into Sunday night. Ava was preparing differently from most of the people by putting on her trainers uniform and strapping on her belt containing two poke balls. She had signed up earlier in the month to assist. While Ava had always enjoyed the festivals when she had gone, the desire for the holiday pay drew her in. Her future expenses loomed over her, she would eventually have to buy a leaf stone for Snappy, additional food once Lucky evolved, and more immediately her and Amiyra have been talking about renting an apartment together. So she wanted to get a head start of payment for that. 

Signing up was a little different from usual, where you just accept a mission. There was a faux interview component where she had to show off what her Pokémon could do and how well she could get them to listen to orders. It was a more grueling version of the D-Rank exam that she was told existed to make sure the pokemon were ready to potentially be near large groups of people. For three times the pay of a normal shift, she put up with it while smiling.

Ava didn’t get to choose what shifts she wanted. Every trainer who was working the harvest festival would work for three days with one day off. This would also count for their weekly mandatory shifts. Ava’s day off was on Sunday, which would be saved to hang out with her family.

Amiyra had also applied to work at the festival but was rejected. Apparently it was a highly coveted job, especially amongst D-Rankers. Ava doesn’t know why she was chosen over others and Amiyra wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to take it for granted. Even Amiyra’s midnight mumbling about not getting the job wouldn’t dampen her spirit. With the extra precautions there were rarely many issues and the job let them walk around the festival and enjoy many of the offerings available.

Seeing the festival get set up was a wonderful experience. She helped people set up stands and even used Snappy to lift a sign of an archway. The streets started getting crowded with people and stalls opened up. In addition to a wide variety of foods, there were people selling handmade jewelry, clothes, wood figurines, and trinkets of all kinds. There were even spots of unexpected pokemon memorabilia.

Ava was dragged through the thick of it all by her assigned partner. Estelle was a bubbly girl whose large curly hair and pink highlights matched her larger personality. Talking a thousand miles a minute, Estelle pulled Ava into the crowd before she was able to protest. 

It was only after they had visited three stalls and listened to someone strumming and guitar and singing in the corner that Ava was able to catch her breath. “We're still on duty. I'm not sure if we should actually be taking part in the festival.”

Estelle barely finished chewing the food she just bought. “Chillax, newbie! We're still technically patrolling. Let's just say we are checking some suspicious activity near some stalls.” Ava didn't need to see the quotes Estelle’s fingers made to know she was being facetious. “Besides, what better way to protect people by being where the action is?” That was all the response she gave before taking off to explore another booth.

Ava would never describe herself as someone who goes above and beyond. She's never been a go-getter at jobs or in school. However, she prides herself on keeping her word. That meant if she had a job, she would do what needed to be done. She might try to find easier ways to do the work, but no matter what, the work gets done as expected. So it was frustration working with Estelle, who right now seemed to be the exact opposite of her. She deviated from the patrol route and doesn't seem to have any inclination of coming back. Ava would have been fine with taking a stop at a stall or two, but Estelle kept moving towards every single one. When Estelle disappeared into the large crowd, Ava chose not to bother following and course corrected to the patrol paths. Even though they were supposed to travel in pairs, she wouldn't let herself get in trouble for not doing her job.

She did start to understand why Estelle left as she went on. The festival was very enticing, and being adjacent to it with no action proved for a very boring shift. Still, she remained focused on sticking to her route and keeping her eye out for danger. 

She maintained this course until the end of the night, when the parade started rolling through. The first days of the festival are nights of joy and partying to celebrate the successful season. The last day focuses on reflection and hope for continued blessings throughout the coming months. The parade consists of floats and performances that signal the true kick-off of celebration, which usually leads to a night of debauchery and drinking. Ava herself spent last year's festival with her friends, and they played a game where they took a drink for every float they enjoyed. Ava ended that night vomiting in a trashcan. Her friends may not be in contact with her anymore, but she still looks on that night with fond memories. 

Seeing the parade from the outskirts of the crowd, she slowed her pace to gaze upon the traveling floats. The one that was passing by was circus themed, with beautiful men and women doing acrobatics across the stage. The one behind it was an unusual one, consisting of only one person. One of the eight S-Rank trainers in the city, Isabelle Addams. While Ava had never been into pokemon trainers that much, even she knew about the strongest trainers in their city. Isabelle became an S-Rank when Ava was a little girl and has maintained a stronghold on her spot for the past 15 years. That combined with the advertisements with her face on it made her easily recognizable.

The woman on the float has strawberry blond hair, of average height with a slightly stocky build. While she would never win beauty pageants, she was by no means unattractive, and she carried herself with the confidence of someone who earned her title of protector of the city. The float also stood out because it was one of the few that had living pokemon. Currently on the stage were a pachirisu, a vivillion, and a snorunt. They seemed to be performing moves that had a stunning effect. The snorunt produced daggers of ice which the pachirisu shocked apart into a glittering dust fall which rained across the audience. Then the vivillion used psychic power to pick up the leftover shaved ice to create an image of a smiling piece of corn. 

Ava was deeply engaged in the performance until a voice over her shoulder shocked her, “Aww, was a cute facade!”

“Holy fuck,” Ava twirled around heart pounding before realizing it was just Estelle, “Why did you do that? And where have you been?” Ava hissed.

Estelle looked confused, “What do you mean I've been here the whole time?”

“What? No you haven't, you ditched me go too…” seeing the small smirk on her face, Ava realized she was being messed with and took a deep breath, “Whatever. What do you mean facade?”

Estelle moved on in the conversation with her, “I mean, obviously those aren't pokemon on her real team. Look how weak they are.” Now that she mentioned it, Ava could see what she meant, but hadn't really thought much off it. The woman on the float continued to call out commands, crafting stunning visuals as the float moved further away before disappearing from sight. Three pokemon from one of the strongest trainers in their city, and two of them were not evolved and only performed basic moves? It was a little suspicious.

“How can she have pokemon that aren't hers, though? I was told that even S-Rank trainers are limited to six pokemon?”

“Yeah, that's usually the case, but they do something like this every once in a while where the S Rankers come out to try to show people that pokemon are actually pretty cool and can do pretty things too. I'm guessing they are given certain leniencies for that.” Estelle shrugged, “Idk though, I think it's just a marketing tactic to get more people to sign up and to get people to move past the murders.”

Having the bubbly girl next to her start casually talking about murders threw Ava for a loop, and she must have misheard, so she asked for a little clarity into that.

It was Estelle's turn to look confused, “you don't know about the murders, seriously?” Ava in fact did not know about the murders. “Okay, wow backstory time. Well, 30ish years ago there were a bunch of murders. Like, think over 70. And it all seemed to be coming from one person, as they all had something carved in their forehead. I think it was a circle with a P in it,” Estelle mused before getting back on track, “But whatever. Eventually they find out how was doing it, and it is this trainer dude who was using his pokemon to kill people and hide his tracks. When they tried to catch him, he sent his pokemon on a rampage across the city, killing a bunch of people in the process. The big kicker is that he was only a C-Rank trainer.”

“So pretty large scandal at the time and ever since then people have been totally freaked out about trainers. Now, whenever a trainer kills a civilian, the league tries to do something to get people to move past it. It's wild, though, I heard civilians used to actually respect us before.” Estelle continued to ramble on, talking about how she wished people still treated them like that.

Ava was too shocked to say anything for a little bit as she was trying to comprehend the murders she had no idea existed that now played such a big part into how she's treated. “Wait, how have I never heard of this before? And were they able to eventually catch the guy?” she questioned.

“Well, they try to keep it hush hush by not allowing it to be talked about on tv, but it's basically a non-secret secret. My mom told me when I was younger, her best friend was actually one of the people that got killed. Officially he's dead, apparently he exploded his own electrode, destroying a poke center and dying in the process.” She conspiratorially looked around before whispering, “Although my mom thinks he faked his death, escaped, and is one day going to come back to finish what he started.” She wiggled her fingers spookily before saying in her normal voice, “But she's crazy, so I wouldn't trust her on that”.

The tail of the parade had moved past them while Estelle explained what she knew, and the people had followed along, leaving behind those going around the stalls. The rest of the night for them would be drinking and partying till dawn breaks, while Ava spent it picking up on her patrol and pondering what her unusual partner had told her. So far, being a trainer has come with the weight that death existed right around the corner of one bad step. But that has always come from the natural threat of pokemon. The idea of the ferociousness of nature coming from a person with the intent to kill did little to provide comfort as the night darkened upon the streets, she wandered alone once again.

…

After some rest and food, Ava was back to work at the festival. The afternoon was filled with families and the sun inched closer to night. Every day had a larger event that people could attend in addition to the general merriment and shopping. The first day was the parade kicking off the festival. Today’s main attraction was a large corn maze set up near the festival grounds. It was a normal maze throughout the day, and at night it became a haunted corn maze. 

Once night fell, there were multiple false claims that Ava heard over the radio. They came from people who thought they saw pokemon floating in the grass. After the third claim, Ava just thought that people were scared and imagining things. Either way, she was told to patrol the maze and be on the lookout for anything suspicious and report back. Estelle was supposed to be with her but within the first hour Ava had lost track of her so she was alone.

Even if the reports were fake, Ava was starting to understand how they came to be. In the dark, with the moon casting little light, there was a creepiness that hung in the air. The bustle and sounds of the festival faded away as she made her way through the maze. The only sounds were her footsteps and the occasional screams from people going through the maze. She briefly saw workers of the maze, who knew that she was not taking part in the attraction because she had her pokemon out. With a report of a pokemon being seen, she had been given permission to have her pokemon out just in case.

Lucky stayed close to her not flying too high above her head while he scouted and Snappy remained near Ava's walking on his thin feet, occasionally using his vines to propel himself when he got too far behind.

Moving deeper in the maze, Ava started to feel the night air get colder, causing goosebumps to pop up on her arms. It really was fall if the nights were starting to get this cold. It was only when she saw her breath in front of her that Ava realized it wasn't just a normal cold. She stopped moving and looked around, trying to find the source.

“Be on your guard,” Ava whispered to her team.

A pregnant silence hung in the air before being broken by a heavy thump from right behind her. Ava twisted around ready to fight, only to find nothing behind her. Confused, she looked around. The only thing that stood out from the corn stalks around her was a large wooden cross. At its base lay a scarecrow that seems to have fallen down. Ava relaxed a little at finding the source of the sound. She moved closer to the fallen scarecrow made of hay with a pumpkin head. She looked past it trying to see into the maze if there was anything that would have caused it to fall when the prone bodies head snapped to look right out her

She cursed, jumping back from the now shaking scarecrow. Its unstable body stood up in an obviously non-human way, and the smiling pumpkin head lit up from the inside with a sinister pale blue flame. A cackling sound started to emanate from the body, but Ava wasn't going to let it go further without taking action.

“Hidden power,” she commanded, of which both her pokemon listened, shooting a black and green ball of energy towards the scarecrow. It had taken over two weeks of dedicated attention for Lucky to teach Snappy how to use hidden power. It was tempting to just buy the TM to save time, but she wanted Lucky to practice teaching it to make the process easier in the future. Ava was also a little disappointed once Snappy got the hang of the move since it was a grass type. However, she eventually came to be grateful for the long distance grass move when they had to face an aggressive geodude during a wall shift. 

An unholy shriek came from the scarecrow as it was hit, causing something to be pushed out of the back. The scarecrow crumbled to the ground, and what was left behind was obviously a pokemon. Its body floated, moving like a sheet in the wind. Its piercing eyes stood out against its dark body with a horn. 

It was a shuppet. Ava had seen this while conducting her research, so she knew what it was, but didn't know much about its attack patterns and moves. It must have been possessing the scarecrow but got knocked free once hit by Lucky’s dark move.

Ava pulled out her walkie talkie. “Ava Stanton D-Rank. I am engaging with a ghost pokemon in the corn maze that I believe is a shuppet,” and then commanded her pokemon to repeat their moves.

“Affirmative, we will work on evacuating the civilians, can you two hold them off until then?” An unfamiliar male voice sounded.

Ava winced, this is why she had wanted to stick to the patrol route and not get sidetracked, “It’s just me at the moment I don’t know where my partner is.”

“What?” His voice sounded sharper. “Never mind how many shuppet there are.” Ava relayed that there was just one. “Be careful they usually appear in groups, so I doubt there will be just one, we will send someone over to help you, can you give a signal?”

“Yes, I will send a green Hidden Power into the sky.” Ava waited until Snappy shot his recent attack toward the pokemon before telling him to send the next one to the sky.

“Confirmed we saw that. Someone should be on their way over, keep us updated if the situation changes.”

Shoving the device back on her waist, she focused on the battle in front of her. The shuppet had used the relief from Snappy to fade into its own shadow before popping up behind Lucky to hit him with a sneak attack. It seemed surprised that Lucky didn’t appear to take any damage. Ava was glad for his normal type right about now. A retaliatory peck from the bird made the shuppet retreat back to get some distance, shooting light balls of flames out as it moved out. Lucky was able to evade with ease, but Snappy was looking at her for an order, not seeing the flames before it was too late to dodge.

Snappy screeched as his head took the flame and got burnt. Ava felt bad, but her focus got caught by the residual flames that hit the ground. She stomped out any flames that were starting to catch fire. After little rain recently, The corn was dry, and the entire field could easily catch fire, and then she would be in a far worse situation than a couple of burns.

Knowing she had no time to spare, she said “Lucky be aggressive, don't let up, focus on using those hidden powers.” She also directed Snappy to support him from behind. He had learned all the powder moves, but the semi aerial battle and lack of things to grab onto with vines made it harder for the plant to get close. So Ava had him focus on shooting hidden powers when possible.

The aggressive stance was the right call because after a quick sky battle and a little Snappy support, the rags that made up the ghost lay on the floor as dead as a ghost could be. 

“Good job guys!” Ava praised while using her potion on her belt to spray Snappy, she didn’t have a burn heal, but this should tide him over. Once finished, she grabbed her walkie talkie to report the situation when a cackle came from the corn. Her guard instantly got back up as three more ghosts appeared from between the stalls. Their eerie floating caused goosebumps to rise on her skin.

Her walkie talkie flared to life in her hands, causing her to jump. She hadn’t pressed a button. “Multiple groups of ghost pokemon have been reported at the corn maze, all trainers on duty report to the field for assistance. Report to the ticket tent for further instruction” That wasn’t a private channel between her and the person she had talked to, there seemed to be more going on than the one incident she was experiencing. 

More than likely she wasn’t getting any help for a little bit. She was on her own. Multiple other remarks came from her wallow talkie, but she had to ignore them as the battle in front of her took off. Dealing with three wild shuppet was a much harder experience. Lucky kept the battle in the air, so their attacks fizzed in the sky. The annoying thing is they seemed to realize that their will o wisps were one of the few moves that could affect Lucky, besides a body tackle of dark energy she thinks is a knock off. That meant Ava had to keep busy stopping any embers that fell down from turning into a full-fledged flame. She had to rip a couple stalks that had gone up in flames and smother them with her jacket.

Occasionally some wild ghosts tried to come directly for her, but Snappy was able to keep them busy until Lucky could re-engage them.  He used his hidden power to shoot three energy balls at once. Splitting them cost him in both power and accuracy, but was enough to keep the attention back on him. One by one the ghosts fell to a mix of air cutters and hidden powers until the third and final one turned to rags.

Ava could see the toll this has taken on Lucky. He was taking deep breaths and had burns all over his body. This was the first battle that he was outnumbered while in the sky. Dodging was much easier when the opponent was on the ground. This was also Ava's first aerial battle where they were outnumbered, and she made some bad calls. Lucky rested against the ground once the last one fell, trying to catch his breath. Ava ran over and used the second dose of the potion. This definitely seemed to help and alleviated some pain, but Ava knew it wasn’t a final solution.

Exhilaration filled Ava’s veins when she once again heard a cackle from the corn. They really were not ready for more to come out, but that didn't stop the shuppet from appearing. One, two, crap. This time there were five shuppet.

Despite his exhaustion, Lucky threw himself back into the fray. His tenacity kept him going, but Ava knew that wouldn’t last forever. She racked her brain, trying to find the best path forward. She had one more trick up her sleeve. 

“Snappy use sleep power then coat your vines in it.” He quickly worked to follow her order. She had taken inspiration from her fight with the weepingbell all those months ago. The only option they had was to knock out the shuppet so Lucky could deliver the final blow.

Ava made sure to be more cautious though, she hadn’t wanted to do this before because she had unfortunately found out that the powder when interacting with fire burned so quickly it was almost a mini explosion. If they burnt Snappy’s vines, it would be enough to seriously injure him. So she waited until she saw one of the ones Lucky was battling get fully distracted before siccing Snappy on it. The vines quickly pulled the ghost to the ground and shoved their way into its mouth to make the powder act quickly. 

One temporarily down they moved on to their next target which was almost able to dodge out of the way but Snappy quickly re-adjusted his aim making this one fall asleep as well. It was when they were prepping for the third that something went wrong. Lucky shot off a hidden power that one of the shuppet dodged, and she saw him rear back to fire another, but nothing came out. Confusion spread across his face, and the momentary lapse in focus gave the three shuppet enough time to launch three large will o wisps at him. 

Ava made eye contact with him right before all three hit. Alone these attacks shouldn’t have been able to do much damage, however, all three at the same time combined with his previous exhaustion did enough to cause him to fall from the sky. Ava threw caution to the wind, yelling at Snappy to try to put the rest of them to sleep. 

The pidove continued to fall, and Ava reached for her belt to grab Lucky’s poke ball. Snappy had just caught the attention of the ghost and Ava’s was about to return when he caught the air and glided right above the corn. Ava almost couldn't believe what had happened. From what she saw, it almost looked like he had juked them out. But if that was the case, he must have known that they would get distracted instead of finishing the attack on him. Ava remembered their brief eye contact, realizing that no, he didn’t know that they wouldn't attack him. He trusted that she would protect him if he were to fall.

Snappy was able to put one to sleep, but the other two had dodged and seared burning flames into his vines. A loud screech came from the grass type and Ava quickly returned him. But that was all the distraction that Lucky needed, and he popped up behind the final two and sent a barrage of air cutters that brought them to the ground. Landing on his downed opponents, Lucky puffed out his wings and shrieked before being engulfed in a blinding light.

Ava couldn’t believe the sight before her. From the light her starter started to grow, doubling in size, gaining a neck and thick talons. A spread of his newly larger wings dispersed the light and before her stood her first pokemon, now a tranquil. In a field of corn and bodies, Ava saw beauty beyond compare.

Ava went towards Lucky with a beaming smile on her face. That quickly dropped as a deeper, more sinister laugh came from the corn. Following the voice from the dark emerged a doll like pokemon with a metal zipper where it’s mouthy should be. Ava couldn’t remember this pokemon, but her educated guess was that it was the evolved form of the Shuppet.

Again? Ava knew that she couldn’t fight another group of shuppet, let alone the stronger evolved one, but she was going to try. The corners of her mouth twitched. A command was on the tip of her tongue when another beast wrapped in bones emerged from the corn and tore into the wild pokemon with fangs alternating between flames and darkness. 

Estelle popped out from behind the beast, eyes twinkling, and said, “Didya miss me!” If asked, Ava would deny it, but she was grateful to see her.

…

It turns out Estelle had been not as far away as Ava had thought. She was nearby when she heard the radio and was making her way over when she got ganged up by more shuppet and a couple banette. 

Estelle’s houndoom was the one who helped Ava. The dead pokemon was in its mouth and Estelle grabbed it. The dog growled menacingly, a deep rumbling sound from the back of his throat. “Awwww he loves me. What a cutie!” Estelle said while wrestling her pokemon who keept baring his teeth and growling. Ava didn't know what pokemon she was talking about but chose not to say anything to the stronger trainer.

Ava wished she had a poke ball. Getting another flyer that wasn’t a flying type would have been helpful, despite the supposed difficulty of training a ghost type. Estelle didn’t have any either, so they ended up killing all the shuppet put to sleep by Snappy. The houndoom wasn't the only helper, Estelle had a wooper that put out the remaining flames.

Along the way back, Ava saw what looked like remains of a battle, and that's when she learned Estelle had been fighting against wild pokemon too. From the corpses, it looked like well over 20 shuppet were killed by her alone. Ava gained a newfound respect for the seemingly ditzy girl.

After finding the exit they walked into a busy scene with people yelling and pokemon all around. There were more trainers mobilized than Ava had ever seen, some were in uniform while others looked like they had come from the festival, their only identifier being their arm bands and poke belts. While she was able to stomp out at flames, during her fight it doesn’t look like everyone was able to do the same and parts of the corn field were consumed by a growing flame that lit up the night sky. There were shouts from multiple head trainers giving directions. Estelle led the way to one with a blue arm band indicating he was B-Rank,

“C-Rank reporting for duty”, Estelle said, more serious than Ava has ever seen her. 

“Pokemon,” the trainer barked.

“Houndoom, wooper, and pidgeotto”

Ava followed her lead, “and injured p-tranquil and bellsprout,” almost stumbling over the change of her starter.

“You go speak to her, tell her you have a water type and dark type attacker” he told Estelle and pointed to another head trainer. He looked at Ava next, “are both injured or just the tranquil?”

“Both”

“Head to the medical tent and get them checked out, then help out there.”

He moved to leave, but Ava reached out before he left, “I had asked for assistance while being attacked, and they said they sent someone. Can you let them know I’m safe so they don’t waste your time looking for me?”

“Name?”

“Ava Stanton”

“Done.” Ava didn’t get a chance to respond before he walked away, already speaking into his wallow talkie.

She split from Estelle and headed to the medical tent, where both a human and pokemon nurse were working to treat the patients. There were wounded pokemon with their trainers hovering nearby, and a couple of wounded people that the nurse was working to patch up. 

She caught the eye of the poke nurse who asked her while spraying a potion on a pidgey  “What you got?”

“Um two injured pokemon, a tranquil and a bellsprout, I was told to get them checked out and then assist you.” 

“Oh perfect, we need another set up hands” he said before returning the pidgey and passing it back to its trainer. “What injuries do they have?”

“The bellsprout has some bad burns, and same with the tranquil.”

The nurse indicated to release them one at a time. She released Snappy. That’s when she noticed an oddish that was at the side of the nurse. Once snappy appeared, it sprinkled some sleep powder over him. Ava reacted quickly, returning Snappy. “Wild Pokémon watch out!” While pointing next to him. 

“Calm down, that's my pokemon, look it has a sash” he said pointing towards the band with a pink cross wrapped around its dark stomach.

“Oh, sorry,” Ava felt herself flush red. It’s not often she’s embarrassed, but this was one of those moments. She hadn’t been quiet either and could feel other people in the tent shift away from looking over at her. She returned the now sleeping bellsprout to the table, where the nurse did a quick look and feel over. 

In no time he had classified the wounds as manageable, applied a burn heal and a potion, and recommended keeping him in his ball till she could reach a healing machine. With his go ahead, she returned Snappy and repeated the same process with Lucky. This time he explained that he would be the one identifying the issues and if superficial like Snappy’s she would be the one applying the drugs he prescribed.

Lucky also had some superficial burns that had started to heal, according to the nurse. Ava wasn’t sure if this was due to the evolution and asked which he replied it has probably helped as evolution can heal a lot of previous injuries. He sprayed a potion on him to be safe, and she recalled him. 

Stepping into the roll was more difficult than expected. Apparently she had come in during a lull because no sooner than he had finished a new wave of trainers came in with injured pokemon or injuries themselves who were treated by the other nurse. 

It was mainly a churn and burn. The nurse diagnosed if they needed any potions, super potions, antidotes, ethers, etc. and she got them and applied them, so the trainer could go back out and fight. Occasionally he told trainers to bench a certain pokemon as they were in no condition to fight. She quickly got into a groove of him quickly putting the pokemon to sleep and telling her what was needed.  

The seriously injured pokemon either had to be immediately returned or the nurse had to do some emergency work to get them stable before returning them to the semi stasis of the poke balls. Bones were reset, deep gashes were given quick stitches, and Ava even helped lift a rhyhorns dislocated arm while he popped it back in place.

Ava briefly marvels at the fact she hasn’t seen any dead ones yet but then sobered up once remembering they wouldn't be able to be returned to their poke ball if dead and were probably littered within the corn. 

There were less injured trainers, but when they came, their wounds were worse than the quick fix a lot of pokemon needed. Long gashes across chests, trainers who have been mentally attacked, and large burns. One trainer had boiled skin across the left side of his face. From what they could tell, a mental attack had caused him to pass out right on top of some burning corn husks. In situations like these, both nurses had to be there while Ava was left on her own at the station for pokemon.

She had no training for this and was wildly out of her depth, during the first time left alone she had tried to fill in the role of the nurse and applied a potion and other medications when needed. After he got back, Ava got chewed out because she was just supposed to sort trainers by general need while their pokemon remained in the balls. She didn’t have the expertise to diagnose whether a wound simply required a potion or should be put to rest until they could be seen at an actual poke center. 

So she simply listened to what situations the trainers described that led to the injury and organized them by high, medium, and low priority to the best of her ability.   

The rush started to slow down. There were fewer injuries to deal with and wounded people were being carted off to the hospital. Three stretchers with bodies covered by a white cloth left the tent. Ava had only seen one of them. A civilian who had been caught up in the initial attack had been swarmed by ghost types and fed on until she had a heart attack. Ava didn’t know what happened to the other two.

The nurse came back and dismissed her. They received word that an S-Rank had arrived to stop the flames and the incident had been moved from a level three down to a level two. 

Once everyone had become D-Rank trainers, they were all required to take a class to learn about emergency systems and the basic ranking’s of pokemon incidents. There was more nuance that went into that class, but generally it went in order of danger to people and infrastructure. A level 1 was what appeared on most of Ava’s shifts, a solitary or small group of pokemon that somehow made it across the wall. These are easily resolved by 1-2 trainers without issue. A level two is a larger mob or more dangerous single pokemon but could be dealt with by multiple trainers on duty, like some instances of the farm shift she had covered. A level three left unattended could cause loss of multiple lives and damage to multiple buildings or existing infrastructure, and required assistance from more or higher rank trainers not on duty. This incident had both the risk of damage to people and the city due to the fire. A level 4 is when there is a capacity of damage to a large part of the city. This would be if a wall is breached, leading swarms of pokemon to enter. Loss of life is guaranteed at this level and high rank trainers are required to resolve the issue. A level five is when there is a risk of total city destruction. There has never been an incident of this level in the last 100 years. Only the strongest of trainers stand a chance against this threat. All everyone else can do is help civilians and pray.

Leaving the tent, Ava saw a localized storm over the entire area. Rain combined with efforts of water pokemon on the ground beat back the flames until only smoke filled the air. Ava could vaguely see a figure in the sky but didn’t know who or what it could be. Her walk is talkie led her to a location near the medical tent, where the trainers not able to assist with the final aspects were gathered for a debrief.

From a head trainer's description, there was an attack by a multitude of ghost type pokemon. Wild shuppet, vastly, duskull and their respective lines had attacked. There were the occasional other pokemon that were stirred up by the commotion and added to the wave. The running theory was that they have been building up in the city for years. Ghost pokemon not only are much rarer, their ability to turn intangible and eat emotions makes it harder to know when one has breached the wall. They can hide and grow their number without a single clue besides the occasional scare of a passerby.

The haunted corn maze was what brought them out. With fear in abundance, they couldn’t stay away and descended with a vengeance. One of the head trainers said an A or S-Rank will probably be dispatched after tonight to make sure there are no other large collections of ghosts nestled within the city. Ava and those still physically capable were tasked with clean up of the dead bodies of both wild and trained pokemon. Extrapolating the amount from the few she had killed, Ava knew she was in for a long night. 

When Ava returned, she stopped by a poke center, dragged herself into the shower, and tossed herself onto her bed. As she wanted to see Lucky in his new form, she was exhausted, and quickly passed out from the eventful day.

She made sure to wake up early enough before her second shift to feed them and pamper Lucky with all of his favorite food. She let him out of his ball for as long as she could before her shift as he tried to get acclimated to his bigger body. It was weird to see her starter so drastically different, and this helped her get more used to it as well. 

Civilians were a bit more wary this day and there were fewer people who showed up, but the day passed without a hitch and no other pokemon sightings. 

On Sunday, she met up with her dad and her younger siblings to take advantage of the last day of the festivals. Despite the muted tone of the rest of the festival-goers, Ava felt no shame in chasing her siblings around to hear the sound of their laughter. 

As the sun fell below the horizon, the lighting of the floating lanterns commenced. Ava was able to get a spot on a hill overlooking the edge of the city. After working with her dad to help the twins write their wish, Ava wrote her own. Looking around at her family, she smiled and all together they gently sent their lanterns toward the heavens. A wave of the city's wishes followed, and the night sky was lit with purpose. 

It wasn't until the last lantern faded in the distance that the Stanton’s made their way home. Ava carried the sleeping Noah while her dad carried Olive. It almost felt like nothing had changed as they gently tucked them in. 

The night only ended when she got on the train back to her place, alone.

Chapter Text

Getting Lucky used to his new form took more effort than expected. Ava had seen how he had moved right after the evolution; with a natural ease and fluidity. But when they picked back up training, he was gangly and unsure of himself.

He got tired from flying faster, but was able to move quicker on the ground with the development of his legs. His attacks seemed to have gained power, but he took a while to get used to the output and rely on it consistently.

After a couple of weeks of training alone and with her friends, Lucky was moving around with no problem, and the boost he got from evolving was noticeable. His previous form was much less durable and relied mostly on long distance attacks while evading. With the extra weight, he could now be more physically aggressive and fend off close combat attacks.

While still relying on seeds and berries, Lucky has been eating double of what he used to. That combined with her recent move in with Amiyra meant she was more strapped for cash. While it was sustainable right now, Ava knew there would be more expenses in the future and didn't want to rely on such a shoe string budget. There was only one way to gain more money as a trainer, and that was to move up in ranks.

C-Rank missions where you could start making consistently good money. The additional risk of being able to take on missions outside the wall had a much higher profit. The majority of these additional missions were pokemon catching missions. Ava was surprised to hear this at first. She thought trainers would be the only ones who needed extra pokemon, but despite being dangerous, the city still has such a strong dependence on them.

Pokemon were caught to be used for meat and in other industries like textiles, healthcare, research, and more. That made pokemon catching extremely lucrative. Ava learned that it all worked at economies of scale. Businesses were able to buy poke balls for cheaper in bulk, and trainers were able to make money from catching a lot of pokemon. If a D-Rank tried to catch a pokemon unless they were rare they wouldn’t be able to recoup the cost of a poke ball, let alone if it took multiple poke balls to catch.

That is of course with the exception of rare pokemon, of which Ava was aiming to capture. Before taking the C-Rank exam, Ava wanted to practice doing what the missions would entail by trying to catch a target pokemon. Making some extra money is just the added bonus of it.

She hasn’t been the most comfortable leaving the walls yet. Her only two experiences being the ordeal and traveling in a group of three. She needed to get experience being out there on her own and efficiently catching pokemon.

Her goal this time was to catch an ice type. Winter has officially fallen on the city, and that meant two things. A lot of pokemon have moved into hibernation or migrated to warmer weather making the wild areas slightly safer. The other is that there was a chance that ice type pokemon have come down from the mountain top. It has been consistently snowing for the past two weeks, and she figured this was as good a time as any.

The pokemon that came down from the mountain were usually weak and were driven from their habitat by stronger predators. So despite her entire team being weak to ice, Ava wasn’t too worried about being injured. Still wanting to make sure her team was at their peak, she joined a training session with Theo and Oliver, so her team was limber before heading out.

She hasn’t seen Oliver in months since her first mission. Even with Theo as a common denominator, they ran in different circles. It took all her will power to not respond in kind when Oliver gave her an annoyed glare and badly whispered to Theo asking why she was there.

She responded before Theo could, “I am warming up my team with my friend, you should try to not hog him.”

Ava could tell he was about to respond with sass before a jab in his side by Theo’s elbow changed his tune. With a strained smile he said, “It’s great to see you again, I’m excited to train with you.”

Ava rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry, I’m only here to get my team loose. I won’t interrupt you two love birds too much.”

Theo flipped her off subtly with his hand below his belt, but then they moved to release their pokemon. Theo released his butterfree and poliwhirl while Oliver sent out his teddiursa and charmander. After her evolution stint she learned to look for hints in other pokemon, and she saw some signs from the charmander including a bump on its head for a horn to grow. While she’s looked at photos, seeing a living creature casually on fire was an interesting sight. She hasn’t run into any wild fire types yet.

After asking to practice against Oliver, the newer opponent, they both chose their starters for the first battle. Battle was a strong word, though, and it was more trading blows. Ava was surprised with how quick the little bear was. It seems like it wouldn’t be able to move that fast, but after faking being cute it sent a barrage of hidden powers at Lucky who was only able to dodge a couple.

Lucky sent to do a retaliatory aerial ace when Oliver said “Honey protect” and the teddiursa formed a barrier of translucent energy around itself that Lucky ran into with a squawk. Ava called him back to her, signaling the bad of their faux fight with these pokemon as she didn’t want them to get too tired or injured before heading out. She was about to move on before it clicked what he had said.

“I’m sorry, but you named your teddiursa Honey?” Ava asked, not even trying to hold on her laugh.

Oliver blushed, “Shut up! That’s the only name he responded to, stop being distracting and fight me!.” He sent out his other pokemon.

“Awww what’s this one’s name, Daisy?” Ava teased the orange reptile.

“Her name is Killer,” he said with a confident grin.

Ava stared at him incredulously as she sent out Snappy. “I can’t believe you're making me say that Honey is the best name on your team.”

His middle finger matched Theo's previous one and their second tussle commenced. It was very much a ranged fight with Snappy shooting hidden powers and Killer sending a bunch of embers. Ava knew she was in a much more disadvantaged position and was going to call it off as soon as he got hit.

Surprising even her, he remained nimble and dodged all the attacks, even a more powerful purple flame that got shot towards them. Snappy was able to get a few hits in, which distracted the charmander enough for him to get wrapped up in vines that Snappy had been sending on the ground. Snappy was smart enough to wrap his vines around the charmanders mouth, but forgot about the flames tail, which worked to set the reptile free by burning the vines.

Ava called it at that point and after a little more structured warm up with Theo went to leave. Theo gave her a hug, “Make sure you stay safe, okay?”

Ava returned the hug and when released gave an exaggerated flex of her arms. “Don’t worry, and big and strong enough to fight off an ursaring,” she said before leaving the two to their devices.

After a quick stop at the poke center for a quick heal and to grab some poke balls, she was on her way.

The north gate was her target this time. The base of the mountains was wheere she would be mostly likely to find an Ice type. There was a slight snowfall but no wind, which led to a peaceful if slightly cold start to the day.

Ava could see her breath in front of her, and the only sound around was her own feet crunching in the snow and the flap of Lucky’s wings in the air. His goal was to get an aerial view and take them to any movement he saw. Snappy was out besides her as well. She had bought little booties for him to wear to protect his feet from the snow. It might have made him slower, but she couldn’t deny that he looked adorable in them. She made sure to sneak a few photos of it.

Lucky circled over her, giving a chirp that meant he found something and led her to their prey. Ava was disappointed to find a geodude. Definitely not the pokemon she wanted to see. Getting noticed she fought it off with Snappy and a few hidden powers from Lucky. There was a close moment where Snappy tripped on his own shoes right in the path of a flying rock, but he toughed it out and a few vine whips later and the geodude was down.

They keep it looking around for their desired ice type. The snow had really driven the pokemon away or inside the mountain because she didn’t run into anything else until lunchtime. She packed a sandwich for herself and some quick poke pellets for her Lucky and Snappy.

Both of them showed obvious distaste against the meals. “I know you guys don’t like this, but it’s specifically made to keep up your guy's energy while out here, so put up with it, and you’ll get a big dinner, okay?”

They reluctantly ate the offered food. Ava let them rest a little longer, with Snappy sitting on her shoulder to get off the snowy ground. Once ready, she set him down and packed the little she took out into her pack. She turned back to her team ready to go, but then in the distance she saw something vaguely humanoid against the white backdrop. She raised her hands and squinted to get a better look before her eyes widened in shock. Was that who she thought it was?

The sharp turn of Lucky's head was the only warning before a large mass slammed into the ground right next to her from the sky. In its mouth, Snappy was captured. There wasn’t even a moment for him to screech before being engulfed in flames spewing from the beast's mouth. It only took a second to do.

Ava prided herself on being a fighter. She was never one to shy away from conflict and was ready to face off against unknown foes like in her Ordeal. That's why, when in a situation where common sense has failed and there was no time to react, Ava unconsciously responded to her gut instinct.

She ran.

There were no thoughts driving decisions, fear and adrenaline laced her veins and made her legs push past their limit to get away from the monster behind them. If she could think, she would have wondered what a charizard was so close to the city.

A roar filled the air behind her, but she didn’t have the luxury to look back. The direction she took was thankfully the right one as she saw a small cave opening. The mountain was all clearings. If she had any chance of survival, she needed to get out of the open.

Remembering she had another pokemon, she grabbed Lucky’s poke balls and spared a glance towards the sky. She could only hope Lucky had followed and not gotten caught by the charizard. Ava got some relief upon seeing him near her in the sky and quickly returned him thanking any god at all that he was within the poke balls range. In that quick glance though she also saw the orange fire breathing lizard close behind her.

She reached the cave and threw herself in. It was a smaller opening and in her rush she was sure she scraped her arms across the rocks, but she couldn’t slow down. The tighter opening would make it so the charizard couldn’t come though.

She saw a parallel opening that was a tighter fit and squeezed herself through it, but was a little too late as flames rocketed through the cave and burned the leg that still hadn’t made it into the crevice.

Ava screamed before biting the insides of her cheeks, drawing blood. She didn't want to make any noise and give away her position. Her leg hurt badly and while she knew it was a good sign that she could still feel it, all she wished was for the pain to stop.

She stayed where she was frozen in place. Another burst of flame whizzed past her hiding place. She could feel the searing flames fly past her, but that was all. In her spot, it couldn’t get her. The sounds of frustration from the outside gave her a little comfort, and from the scratches against the cave entrance; it seemed like the wild charizard couldn’t come in.

Keeping hold of Lucky’s poke ball was all she could do as time passed. Snappy’s empty ball sat on her waist. The place she had shoved herself into was too small to release Lucky, so she sat alone in a dimly lit cave.

Breath in, breathe out. Forcing herself to keep her breathing deep and steady helped fight against the panic and claustrophobia. The only light was from the entrance of the cave, and the wall in front and behind her pressed her tight. With no room to sit, all she could do was stand.

There was an occasional blast of fire sent through the cave, letting her know the Charizard was still there. While it was just another reminder that she was still trapped, a small part of her was almost grateful for the fire. It chased away the cold bite creeping into her and lit up the surrounding area briefly.

Ava could tell time was passing from the light getting dimmer. Now there was barely enough to tell the direction that the entrance lay. She was able to get more space by squirming her backpack from behind her onto her side. This helped with the claustrophobia a little, even if she still couldn’t sit.

Her arms could move more though and Lucky now sat on her belt and she pulled out a Burn Heal and potion to spray against her leg. In the time it’s taken to get it, her adrenaline has started to wear off and a deep throbbing pain emanated from her right leg. A gentle tug trying to lift her pants told her that that wasn’t going to happen. She couldn’t tell if the fabric had melted onto her skin or if she was really sensitive, but being so alone she couldn’t risk ripping it off. It would have to be fine with her fumbling attempts to spray up the opening at the bottom of her pants. She’s sure she wasn’t able to get it all but there was enough to take the edge of her pain.

When focused, Ava had been counting the time between blasts. The charizard certainly was a persistent bastard. Initially it was only a few minutes between the blasts that slowly extended until it was ten minutes, fifteen, thirty, and now it has almost been an hour since the last attempt. Ava hoped this meant it had left. If possible, she wanted to get out before nightfall. She had never been in the mountain area before and didn’t enjoy the thought of traveling through it at night with a beast hunting her.

Thirty more minutes. She would wait that long and then try her luck at escaping. Time seemed to slow down and inch by. Around the 20 minute mark, right when she was getting antsy she heard a noise coming from in the cave. From the depths, a geodude emerged and headed for the cave entrance. As it passed her hiding spot, Ava held her breath doing everything in her power to not be discovered. It worked, and the rock moved towards the entrance. She peeked her head out as it got closer. With barely a hand out of the cave, sharp talons slammed on the head from above.

Ava quickly brought her head back. It was baiting her. Waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to leave so it could attack her. The thirty minute mark was a moot point now, there was nothing she could do. She was trapped. For the first time since she had been chosen to become a trainer, Ava wept, and she made sure to do it silently.

…

The cold was the worst part. With no end in sight, it seeped into her bones and made everything seem pointless. After night fell the only light she had was her poke gear which wouldn’t be able to send calls or messages outside the city. It did help her to keep her mind off things, even if just for a little while. She played one of the games downloaded on it and in her more morbid moments wrote a last will and testament, leaving most of her things to her dad and the rest to whoever was able to kill that damned charizard.

Once she hit 10 percent though she decided to save the rest of the battery for when she desperately needed it. So she was left to sit with her thoughts and slowly numbing body.

Her training taught her there would be no rescue team. All trainers outside the wall were responsible for themselves. Part of the guard shift at the gates was notating if there was anyone who didn’t make it back to the wall before sundown who was supposed to. This then flagged their account and after 48 hours of no return they were assumed to be dead. She wasn’t a part of an important mission or a valuable asset to the city. As a D-Rank trainer it would be considered an unfortunate but realistic part of their world. The most to be done for her would be showing trainers who left the wall tomorrow her picture so they could be on the lookout for a body.

The night passed harshly. Ava couldn’t sleep any longer than ten minute increments. The cold began to seep deeper into her body. With her fingers and toes feeling thick. She was well dressed for the cold, however, that didn’t stop the constant shiver that ran through her body. She stood on her bag to add another layer between her and the cold ground.

She was able to eat the leftover food she had packed. There wasn’t another meal but enough jerky to hold her over and a bar that helped sate her hunger. She also made use of one Ice Heal she had. By spraying it on her skin and sipping it she was able to raise her core temp to fight against the cold.

Ava was starting to get confused. It’s as if her mind was fighting against her. When she tried to think of game plans they fled from her grasp like she was trying to scoop a river into her hands. More slipped through the cracks of her mind than she could hold. It was during this that she saw the slightest signs of light creep through the cave.

She couldn’t continue to stay like this. It was either die here in this cave for sure or have a small chance of survival in leaving. At this point even if she died by fire at least she would be warm.

Stepping out of her hiding spot she grabbed a rock and threw it deeper into the cave. The sound echoed before falling silent. She continued throwing what she could grab her hands on until there was a rumbling noise in response. Quickly shunting herself back in the crevice she froze.

The pokemon she bothered had its whole top half covered in metal. The lairon seemed annoyed, her plan to wake something up worked. It slowly made its way to the front of the cave past where she lay hidden.

Ava held her breath as it left and didn’t get attacked. As the pokemon continued to act like there was no large flaming reptile out there, a small smile graced her face. She might be able to get out of here after all.

The issue now was that the lairon didn’t seem to have any intention of going further or backtracking in the cave. Preparing one of the empty poke balls she had bought for this excursion, she jumped up and ran towards the lairon who had its back turned towards her.

She tried to get as close as she could but once she made eye contact with the wild pokemon Ava threw the ball which sucked the pokemon in with a red light. Not waiting Ava continued her run and got to the poke ball on its first bounce. She quickly kicked it as hard as she could toward the depths of the cave and sprinted out.

Fresh air and an open sky awaited her, with no charizard in her immediate sight. The sound of a roar from the cave made sure she didn’t slow down despite her brief relief. Sharp pains were shooting up her feet and legs after not moving them for so long and from the burn she had received. Every step was like walking on nails, but she couldn’t falter. This pain was nothing compared to dying, so she pushed through.

Ava released her only pokemon left. “Lucky take me home.”

With a flap of his wings, he shot forward, understanding the urgency. Ava doesn’t remember much of her journey back, just her one singular desire was to keep going. The only way she would stop before she reached the city was if she passed out or was killed.

The sight of imposing walls comforted her like never before and gave her renewed vigor to keep moving. She slammed her hands against the door when she got there. Teeth chattering she yelled “Please open the doors. My name is Ava Stanton, I was trapped overnight by a pokemon please let me in.”

The lack of response seemed to take ages. Ava was paranoid she would get snatched away right when she was so close to freedom. Then the walls opened, and she basically fell from trying to shove herself in.

Standing there panting, she was finally safe.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: Is It Montage Time?

When Ava mentioned the wild charizard while getting emergency treatment in the guard break room, the tension in the air noticeable picked up.

Further questions were asked of her, and multiple people were speaking quickly into their walkie-talkies. Ava answered as best as she could, but now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the weight of the night rested in her eyelids and she struggled to keep herself awake.

She was wrapped in multiple blankets, but so far they have done little to fight against the chills settled into her bones. The bustle of the guards couldn’t distract her enough, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

A steady beep met her when she woke up, assuredly in a hospital room.

The drawn curtain around her bed were pushed open by nurse, “Ah, Mrs. Stanton, good to see you awake, how are you feeling?”

Ava cleared her throat which suddenly felt raspy, “I feel better but kind of thirsty, can I have some water.”

The nurse filled a paper cup up a couple of times as Ava downed them. Once she was satisfied, the nurse spoke, “It seems you’ve had a long night. You came in with a moderate case of hypothermia. Be glad you got here when you did, it could have been deadly if you stayed out for much longer. There doesn’t seem to be any long term effects. We want to monitor you for a couple more hours to make sure. However, you also came in with some burns to your leg,” Ava nodded along looking at her banded up right leg. “For the most part, you have second degree burns. We found that your pants were partially melted against the burn, but we were able to remove it. Unfortunately, this area of your leg will scar. Proper care will help it heal better. We will make sure to show you how to properly change your dressings and clean your wounds before you leave. How are you doing with all of this, any questions?

“Will I need a cream or some pills for infection?” Ava had been worried about that while trapped in the cave.

“We have cleaned out your wound and have given you antibiotics, as long as you take care of the wound it should stay clean. If you even notice leaking puss, come back in, and we will help you.” The nurse then showed her how to change her wound's dressing. Ava wishes she could have recorded it, but her poke gear was dead, and it doesn't seem like anyone plugged it in.

As the nurse wrapped up, there was a knock on the door and another nurse brought in Captain Cunningham. Ava had not seen her since taking her initial D-Rank exam for Lucky.

At a glance from the captain, the nurses bustled out, understanding the next conversation was one between trainers.

Pulling up a chair, Captain Cunningham set a recording device on the bed stand. “Ava, I am here in official capacity from the league. For the protection of the city, walk me through what happened while you were outside the walls so we may properly assess the threat.”

Ava recanted her story from the wild graveler to Snappy dying and then getting trapped in a cave for the night. At the end, she paused for a moment, contemplating if she should speak on what else she saw.

Cunningham caught on to this. “Is there anything else you need to tell us? If it is found that you withheld information that could be pertinent to this investigation, you could be held liable for any damages or deaths that happen as a consequence.”

“It's kind of hard to explain, and I'm not sure if I even saw correctly so I don't want to spread potentially untrue information, but I did see something else. Right before the charizard attacked, I saw someone that it shouldn't be possible to see. Do you remember the person who passed during his order? Philip I think. I'm pretty sure that I saw him, but it sounds crazy to say out loud.”
Captain Cunningham has been taking notes on a pad, but her pen stilled upon hearing this. “How certain are you that this is who you saw?”

Ava had hemmed and hawed just a second ago, but she knew what she saw “95% sure.”

Cunningham stood up, “Thank you, Ms. Stanton, this was very informative. The league sends its well-wishes, and I wish you a fast recovery. I am glad you made it back.”

“Wait, do you have any information about Philip? That not possible, right? Do you think there might have been another pokemon that causes hallucinations.”

“I'm afraid I cannot speak about ongoing investigations to those without clearance. I will be unable to answer any questions but will let you know if we are able to remove the charizard who threatened you.” Cunningham continued, “I also have something for you.”

From her pad of paper, she pulled out a flyer with bright colors and an image of a beach. At the top read The Alola Exchange Program.

“Read this over, it could be a good opportunity for you. If you want to apply, I can put in a good word for you. I think you have potential.” The compliment sounded awkward from the strict woman. She quickly left, telling Ava to get better soon.

…

It wasn't long before she was released. The nurse made sure to give her care instructions to change the bandages and when to start applying burn ointment on her wound. Since she was walking out on crutches, they wanted to have someone lick her up. Ava had almost called her dad, but at the last second dialed up Amiyra.

With a click she picked up, “Is that you Ava, are you okay?”

Ava fidgeted, “Yeah I'm okay, I made it back and got checked up at the doctors, so I'm good.”

“What a relief, I was so worried about you! You didn't come home last night and I know you left the wall, what happened?”

“I can, but could you pick me up from the hospital pick? They want someone to, and figured you could just help me get home.”

“Of course, are you at the southwest one?” After affirming, Amiyra continued, “I can pick you up in fifteen.”

Ava waited, somehow still tired even though she had recently woken up. She used the time to grab her items and change into her cloths. Her uniform pants were past saving, having had to be cut off at the leg and down the seam to get her out of them. That's gonna cost some money to replace. If only she had remembered she had no pants when calling Amiyra, she would have asked for a change of cloths. Since she didn't she hobbled out of her room towards the nurse’s console in the center of the area. After telling them what she wanted, a nurse gave her a stapler that she used to connect the side of her pants where they cut it.

It wasn't ideal, with the staples sometime poking her and her right side looked more like shorts than pants, but it was better than walking out only wearing the gown they gave her. She gathered the rest of her things and went to the waiting room after signing some discharge papers.

Ava was a little more emotional than she had liked to admit when she saw Amiyra and hugged her tightly. She hadn't known if she would ever feel the touch of someone she cared about again so it brought a tear or two out that she quickly wiped away. It was cold waiting for the train with her faux shorts but telling Amiyra about her night helped keep her mind off of the cold.

Getting on the rail, Ava realized it had only been a couple of months since she had felt frustrated by the treatment she faced as a trainer, but now being able to sit down without any strangers directly near her was exactly what she needed. Her messy appearance and full uniform created a wide berth of citizens who snuck glances when they thought she wasn't looking.

This followed then until they got to the trainer district. It became for common to see other people with a band on their arm. On a good day, their walk was 10 minutes away from their stop. However, with crutches and snow it took longer. Ava was really hating the cold, and the thought of resting under ten blankets sounded extremely appealing. It was only with Amiyra’s assistance that she was able to get back without eating concrete.

They entered their small shared apartment, brushing off the cold. Amiyra walked her over to the bed in the living room.

The apartment they had moved into was a small one bedroom. Since there was only one room, someone had to sleep in the living room. Ava had put herself up for that. While she had a little less privacy and space, there wasn't a window in the bedroom, and Ava thinks she would go insane if she had to live in a room without one. A curtain was set up to give her some privacy if needed, which is more than she could say for the pokemon center.

Pulling the blankets over herself was exhilarating. The comfort after her horrid day hit her strong. She clumsily ripped off her pants so she wouldn't be poked by staples anymore. Sounds could be heard from their kitchen, but Ava didn't care, she just laid there resting her eyes.

“Sit up,” Amiyra said. Ava opened her eyes to find her roommate standing at the edge of her bed with a cup of hot chocolate steaming.

Sitting up against the back board, she grabbed the cup, warming her hands and blowing on it before proffering her thanks.

“Are you going to be good for a little bit? I have a shift scheduled soon that I have to get soon.”

Ava waved her off, “I'm fine, I'm fine. I'll probably just sleep the whole day anyway. Go do your thing”

“Alright, ill make dinner tonight for us, so just focus on getting better.” With that, Amiyra took her leave, getting changed before leaving their apartment.

Ava was halfway through her cup when she left. Letting herself enjoy this moment of peace, Ava thought about what she should do now that she was more awake. Her family doesn't know what happened yet, as becoming a trainer made her a legal independent adult and the hospital didn't call her dad. She didn't want to have that conversation so she thought of the next one she dreaded a little less.

The last thing Lucky experienced was being chased by a charizard. Her nurse told her they healed him, and he had no injuries as she expected, but he was mentally still in the middle of running so she would have to calm him down. That also left the part of telling him about Snappy. There was so much she still didn't know about him, and that included trying to convey the ideas of death to a creature that has a good chance of not fully understanding what she's saying.

When Snappy was alive, Ava wasn't under some grand pretense that they were really engaged with each other. For the most part they left the other alone and connected with her, so if there was any grief there, she was hoping it was minimal.

She released him into an open area, and he materialized battle ready, flapping his wings and screeching. Upon seeing the familiar environment of their apartment, he relaxed a little, still looking around for the charizard.

Ava went to scratch his head, murmuring affirmations that they were safe. It was only when he relaxed more that he hopped on to his perch. She put a meal out for him since it's been over a day since he had been feed. Once he had his fill, she let him know that Snappy would no longer be a part of their team and has passed. He was struggling to understand, and it took a combination of showing a photo of him and the empty poke ball for Lucky to understand that he was no longer so them. Tranquil can’t cry, but Ava heard him mourn in his own way, with a sad cry and the nestling of his beak into his wing.

Ava spoke some quick words, wishing Snappy the best of wherever he was now. She doesn’t really believe in an afterlife, but on the off chance he could hear her, she hoped he had peace.

While she was a little sad, it was surprising to find that she was feeling a lot of frustration. All the effort of the last three months to train him and get him on Lucky’s level feels like a waste. He didn’t even get the chance to fight back, just like that, months of work and his life gone in a second.

She set his empty poke ball on her cheap nightstand. Ever since she woke up in the hospital, she’s been awash in a sense of clarity. The adrenaline has left her veins and left behind clear understanding.

This entire city was only able to exist because people had the power to protect it. Without it, wild pokemon would destroy everything she has ever known. Ava didn't believe it to be malicious. That’s simply what wild pokemon do. Fight to survive.

Every real battle she's faced as a trainer, she's never lost. When the cards were down, even when others assisted, she was able to push back and win. It was exhilarating. With enough wit, and determination, Ava and her team could push through anything. Then they ran into a wall she couldn’t overcome.

She had been naive. The power she had accumulated was stripped away with ease by a random pokemon. It was a pure chance that she was able to survive. She wasn’t skilled, she was just lucky. Lucky she found a baby pidove after killing the meowth, lucky he viewed her as a parent, therefore following her commands, and lucky that none of her excursions have led to disaster.

While luck can be just as important as any strong plan, Ava knows now that she has been relying on it too much and at some point it will fail. The more she can rely on herself, the more power she gets, the more likely she will not only survive but thrive.

Knowing it was time to make a change, she grabbed the flyer Captain Cunningham had given her. After reading it, she pulled out her poke gear and started filling out an application.

…

Ava rang a bell on the elegant home in front of her. Its elegant brick exterior intimidated her, but she remained firm and waited for someone to answer.

The previous night had been a restless one. Thoughts kept roaming her mind, and she slept in fits despite her exhaustion. She felt vulnerable and couldn’t wait to hear back from her application, she needed to do something soon.

Her first thought was her best one, despite how much she didn’t like it. There was one person that she had an in with who took training seriously and had connections to other high level trainers.

The door answered and a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair answered, “Can I help you?”

“Hi there, I’m a friend of Oliver’s, I was wondering if I could speak to him?”

He turned his head back inside and yelled, “OLIVER!”

“WHAT,” was the just as loud response.

“YOU HAVE A FRIEND AT THE DOOR, GET DOWN HERE.”

“I’M BUSY DAD.”

“GET DOWN HERE NOW.”

Ava imagined she could hear the groan of frustration she assumed Oliver was doing. His dad turned back to her and in a much gentler tone said, “he’ll be right down.”

It wasn’t long before she could hear the heavy thuds of him stomping down the stairs. He was scowling when he first saw her, “What are you doing here? How did you even find my address, creep?” His dad hit him over his head at the comment.

Ava held back a smile, not wanting to get him more angry since she needed something from him. “I was wondering if I could talk to you. I am curious about your training methods and was wondering if you would lend me a hand.”

“Why would I help-“ he interrupted himself with silence and took a longer look at her, eyes squinting. “Come in.” He held the door open for her and she stepped in.

After realizing that she wasn’t a total stranger Oliver’s dad left to do whatever he was doing before answering the door. That wasn’t before he made an innuendo at Oliver's expense causing him to flush red.

“Ignore him, he thinks he’s funny.” Oliver turned to look at her as they sat down on some bar stools on an island. “Why the sudden interest in how I train? I thought you and Theo trained together.

“Theo’s great and training with him has really helped. But I have recently realized that it might not be the most efficient way to get stronger, and since your whole family are trainers I figured you might have some greater insight.”

“Hmmm,” he hummed, not answering right away. He poured himself a glass of water while looking off into the distance. Ava thinks he was trying to look cool, but the polka dot pajama pants he still wore got rid of any chance of that happening. “You get it now don’t you.”

Ava was a little thrown, “I’m not quite sure what you mean,” she said trailing off at the end.

“A little pidgey told be that you were missing for a night outside the wall. Must have been dangerous, but you made it back in one piece.” He looked at the bandage that was poking out of the bottom of her pants. “Mostly one piece.”

This pidgey was obviously Theo, she didn't know he was aware she was missing, she should reach out to him. Ava took some time to look at his face, trying to understand his point in that statement. In his eyes there was a certain understanding. “Yeah, It's pretty dangerous out there. Lots of powerful pokemon.”

Oliver got to the point, “Unless you came to vent I think you want something else.”

Ava did want something, “I want to train with you.”

“Do you want to train with me or do you want me to train you?” Oliver countered.

“Is there a difference?” Ava said, a little frustrated again. He really knew how to get a reaction out of her.

“Well I’ve trained with Theo before, technically you were there too, so is that what you want? Time when we occasionally do some mock battles and get used to attacks from other pokemon?”

Ava took a second to organize her thoughts and words, because that sounded like exactly what she was looking for, but his wording made her pause. “No, I don’t want to train with you. I want to learn how to be strong and be a powerful trainer. I think you can show me what I am missing.”

“I think that’s something I can help with.” His grin betrayed the casual tone in which he said that. “What are you going to give me in return?”

Ava hadn’t expected this question. “I can’t pay you anything, and I don’t think you really need it,” she said, looking around the house. “Is having a training partner not enough.”

“Like you just said, you wouldn’t be a training partner I would be teaching you, and you're too weak right now to actually be a good training partner for me.”

Thinking more on the spot, Ava said, “what if I was to help your pokemon learn flying moves? So instead of getting a TM, Lucky could teach one of your pokemon. I know charizard’s a flyer, so maybe charmander can learn a move early.”

“She can’t learn anything before she fully evolves, and that won't be for a while, so kind of not as useful.” Ava internally groaned and starting thinking of something else when he continued, “But I have been looking for ways to make Honey a little more versatile, and he can learn a flying move. Alright, I accept that part, what else.”

“What else? Isn’t that enough? That’s gonna take like two weeks already, and it's an open invitation for you if you need help with it in the future for other moves.”

“That’s a lot of ifs. I am also giving up my precious time I could have spent training or making money, and will take longer than two weeks. You’re not trying to extort a child are you” He said in a fake scandalous tone.

“Ugh, fine, but only one more thing, I can find someone else to do this if you’re gonna be an asshole.” He raised his hands as if saying fair. “What if I help you find or catch a pokemon you want.”

“I mean, genuine question? Do you really think there’s a pokemon I would need your help to catch?”

He had a good point. With a family of trainers, he had experts who knew where pokemon were and who had teams that could protect him to get to dangerous areas. A thought started to form, “What if I was able to get you one that can’t be found near here.”

“How ‘not near here’ are walking talking about.”

“A whole other region. There’s this Alola exchange program I applied for. Technically it might not happen, but Captain Cunningham said she would put in a good word for me, so there might be a chance.”

“Done.”

Ava blinked, “That easily? It might not even happen.”

“Cunningham has more sway than you realize. If she voices for you, then you will go. We can work out the details later but let’s plan on that and if for some reason you don’t get picked or can’t catch a pokemon then let’s just say, oh I don’t know, that you owe me one big favor that I can cash in at any time.” The deep smile was back.

“Nothing sexual, illegal, or that would hurt people,” Ava amended and held out her hand.

He clasped it in his own smaller one, “Deal,” he said then hopped off the stool and walked towards a door at the back of the house, “you coming?”

Ava followed.

…

As it turns out, Oliver’s family is rich. Not only did they have a nice home, but they had enough land to have a training area in their own backyard. Different sections that had a small pool, dummies made of various materials, and a shed with weights and other training equipment. Whether there was another fire type pokemon or Oliver used his charmander, the grounds were clear of the snow that covered the rest of the city.

Ava still wore her coat and was glad for it. While there was no wind, it was still cold.

“So, how do you usually train?”

“Usually I work on training with Theo. We focus on mock battles and trying out new moves in a combat environment. I also train alone if I'm trying to teach them a new move.” Ava still used a plural before realizing it was just Lucky now.

“Oh so we have to start close to the beginning, okay,” Oliver muttered. Even when not intentional, he really knew how to push Ava’s buttons. She thought she had been doing decent for being suddenly pushed into this world only a couple of months ago.

“There are two main things that are important if you are trying to improve your team, the physical training part and then your knowledge. Part of the physical aspect is about the moves themselves. Release your starter, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Ava sent Lucky out. He didn’t like the cold, so shot her a slight dirty look.

“What was the first attacking move you taught him”

“It was peck.”

Oliver walked to a wooden dummy. “Did you remember what happened when he used it on one of these without flying into it?”

“It shook a little and maybe cracked the wood a bit.”

“Have him use peck against this one,” he said before backing up from it.

Ava commanded Lucky to do what was asked, and he got in front of it and with a flap or two to get height he drove his glowing beak into the dummy then backed off.

Both Ava and Oliver went to look at the damage. There was a slight chip where the top of his beak went in, and then a slight crack that followed the grain of the wood up. A little stronger, but Ava was kind of disappointed that it was more powerful.

“Do you see how it is only a little stronger? A perfectly mastered peck performed by an elite pokemon could blow a hole straight through these dummies. While he has learned probably more powerful moves without training the moves themselves, they don’t just magically get stronger. They are still physical abilities and without working on them, they aren't going to improve. It’s the same concept of using your fist to throw a punch compared to learning how to use your whole body to throw it and practicing to make it stronger.”

Ava wish she had a piece of paper to take notes on.

“You also need to be doing basic conditioning for your pokemon. Things like cardio and strength. This will help their moves hit harder as well, even less physical ones. This is something I recommend you take part of as well.”

“I’m pretty athletic already, so I really need to be doing that?” Ava asked.

“It’s up to you, but not only is it helpful so you can protect yourself better in the wild, it also can help bond you and your pokemon. If you are working just as hard as them, it can help prevent any resentment some pokemon might get for being the only ones who have to train.”

Ava saw his point and nodded.

“Knowledge is the other important factor. Obviously this includes your pokemon strengths and weaknesses, what other pokemon are, and any special things to watch out for in the wild. But you need to dive deeper into that and measure things like how long can your tranquil stay flying? How quick can he turn a corner to dodge attacks? If he gets poisoned, how long can he stay out of his poke ball before you need to withdraw him? Obviously there is a lot more, but the more you know about your pokemon and your opponent, the easier it is to craft a plan that won’t get you or your team killed.”

He turned to her, “There’s more to it than just those two things, but that is where we are going to start. You ready?”

Ava nodded, and with that they went back and inside and started going over logistic and planning. While working, her poketch lit up with a message that would wait for her until she checked it again.

Dear Ava Stanton,

Your application for the Alola exchange program has been reviewed, we would like to schedule an interview at your convenience. Follow the instructions below to sign up for a time slot.

…

From,

The Pokemon League - Taluda Branch