[X] My Assistant

[Living Arrow]

Travelling back to Port Barley after the events at the Petropolis Grand Invitational had been a long and gruelling affair for Lori. Well, it had involved public transport which inevitably meant sharing elbow room with all manner of undesirable and social reprobates. If she was not worrying about her bag being stolen from off of her shoulder, the young Trainer was replaying the events of the tournament again and again to find the moment that had made her act so foolishly.

*Who really thinks they can play the hero and go down some stupid hole to save random people they’ve never even met before!?* She demanded of herself for the fiftieth time as the stench of body odour from her latest ravel companion drifted her way. Holding back a gag, she politely turned her head the other way and cried inwardly. *At least Cesc smelled good!*

*Hey! Stop thinking about him, dammit!* Lori blushed in spite of herself, heat rising in her cheeks to decorate her skin with blotches of ruby embarrassment.

The coach pulled up to a stop at the edge of the town in the later hours of the sunny morning, a couple of miles from her final destination, and freedom announced itself as the coach doors clunked open.

*Close enough!* Lori told herself, springing up from her seat without a backward glance for the stinking hobo next to the window. Cuddling her bag close to her chest with one hand while squeezing the length of her intensely red hair in the other, she hurried to the front of the vehicle.

“Thanks!” She smiled and bowed her head politely to the driver (a sweet old man who she doubted spoke any English) and skipped down the steps to the sidewalk. The coach pulled away with the hiss of its brakes releasing to leave her drinking in the fresh air of the coast. It had been a while since she had been in Barley, and the town hadn’t changed a bit, but she felt like a different person to the rookie that had picked fights with bullies on her first day in the town.

*Never again, Lor.* She reminded herself of the boys that had threatened to cut off her hair when she’d defended another beginner trainer at the bus station. She shuddered at the memory, pushing those thoughts down to her toes where they couldn’t plague her thoughts anymore.

“Pipster,” Lori clicked open the green-capped Pokeball of her Piplup and grinned as he materialised in front of her, “we’re back in Barley.”

“Lup, Piplup!” His cheery reply was a welcome change to the dismal mutterings of the ‘people’ on the coach.

“And you know what that means, right?” She prompted him. A blank expression was her response. She rolled her eyes and pumped her fists energetically, the infectious enthusiasm of her naturally bold demeanour finding its way back to the front of her otherwise woolly teenage brain. “It means we get back on a ferry and go to Fidona! That Gym badge won’t win itself, y’know?!”

“Lup!”

“So, let’s go!” Lori cheered, breaking into a run down the final slope into the town with her Penguin Pokemon close on her heels.

[Huntress Wizard]

Kino disappeared after trading one of Lori’s pokeballs for another and hissing something about Tag to the younger girl. Lori was left standing there with a somewhat dazed expression on her face. Roxxy frowned, but only briefly; she would have liked to talk to that Kino some more, or indeed at all. Had she had a working cellphone, maybe she could’ve asked for her number. Ah, well; she had larger matters to attend to, namely that Zeta hadn’t given a peep since riding out on Mutt, not even for echolocation. Roxxy stroked a few fingers down the Zubat’s head and back, and Zeta huddled closer but was still silent.

Roxxy hummed, continuing her petting. From the moment her Zubat had hatched, not long before – before that incident happened that forced Roxxy out of Hoenn, Zeta was small. Smaller than average for Zubats, as far as she could tell, and even a little smaller than Roxxy remembered Epsilon being at this age. Zeta was timid too, scared of her own wings, and Roxxy did not know how to help her realize her potential. Finally, Zeta let out a tiny squeak and resumed her echolocations, albeit softened to an extraordinary degree.

“You can’t let this get to you,” Roxxy muttered. She shook her head and dropped her hand, sticking both hands back into her pockets. Marwan, once he realized she wasn’t going to say anything else to him, had wandered off to introduce himself to Tag. Tag, who was currently scratching Mutt behind his ears with a strange expression. Somewhere halfway between gentleness and sorrow. Wonder what happened, she thought, then called to her wayward Poochyena.

“Mutt! C’mon, we’re going.” Mutt was in no hurry to leave the nice scratchies given by this intimidating man, and so didn’t move an inch. But when she repeated the command, he obeyed, pulling himself out of Tag’s grasp and trotting mournfully back to Roxxy, where he threw himself down at her feet with a howl. And a yelp, as howling set off the pouches in his mouth and lightly shocked him. He whined, covering his snout with his front paws.

“Such drama,” Roxxy laughed. She bent down to scoop him up behind his front legs, and he quickly forgot his temper tantrum. With the wriggling Poochyena in her hand and the Zubat on her shoulder, she headed out the door, following the others’ example. Roxxy hung at the back of the group, content to mull over Tag’s newly revealed history and try and work out what was fact and what was fiction.