The Pokemon Center walls were a warm orange. There were colorful paintings of Pokemon and people together. A Delphox with a bright red bow twisted fire into a bright red trunk and azure leaves. Two children were painted next to it, mesmerized by the flames. One of them, a young girl with a trainer cap, had an Emolga with wide eyes laying down flat on top of her head.
The Nurse had been just as kind as Nurse Joy in the hospital. While both the Pokemon Center and the Hospital could handle both kinds of patients, generally you went to the Hospital for human injuries and the Center for pokemon injuries.
The rock in Azula's shoulder had pierced in about half an inch. The Nurse had easily removed it. After doing additional scans to check for smaller rock shards that could have broken off into the wound, the Nurse applied a potion to get Azula all fixed up.
With Zuko completely unharmed, we were ready to go.
As I walked outside, a voice stopped me from back in the center.
"Hey wait up!"
I turned my head to see the other trainer from my battle rushing to catch up to me. His belt had two great balls and a pokeball.
"I'm Barry." The trainer extended his hand.
"Red."
I kept walking back towards the battle tower. Barry apparently elected to follow me.
"Hey so what the hell was your second Pokemon. I've never seen anything like it." Barry enunciated every word way more than he had to. He gestured with his hands and wide eyes like he was miming for an audience.
I guess I had no reason to lie here. "Starfallen Charmander. I can't say anything more than that. It's classified." Damn. I wish I'd come up with the classified thing before I'd started. It had come to me a half second late, and now I had to deal with Barry's very audible gasp. I'm surprised he didn't go into a coughing fit after sucking in that much air.
"STARFALLEN CHARMANDER?! Oh my god. I've heard about Starfallen Charizard all my life. They rule the Sky Jungle after all. Oh my god where did you get one? Can I get one? They're such efficient hunters in the wild! Even untrained Starfallen Charizard can contend with veteran rangers. I've never heard of someone training one before. I heard they're too aggressive." My eyes began to roll into the back of my head. "Wait but I did hear the Draconids train them. But the Draconids are crazy! I've never actually seen one before. Maybe they aren't so crazy. Or maybe you're just crazy too." Barry giggled. "And you're Charmander! What a brilliant move! You didn't even give it that complex of instructions. Was it that smart to begin with? Or did you train it to be that smart? Oh my god my Pokemon are dumb as rocks. Well maybe only Rhyhorn." Barry giggled again.
I tried to quicken my pace, but Barry quickly matched it without even noticing.
"Do you think I can train my pokemon to be that smart? I think Kadabra could. He's gotten a lot better at controlling multiple things at once. Which by the way is why he lost to you. Well I guess he might have lost to your Starfallen Charmander anyway. But your Charmander wouldn't have lasted so long if I let Kadabra give it his all from the get go. You looked like a rookie trainer so I figured I could use you for extra practice. Boy was I wrong. How long have you been training anyways. I feel like it must have been a year already. Dragons do age and evolve pretty slow. But wait you were only on the first floor. Was that your first time? I feel like your Starfallen Charmander alone could get you to level 3 easily. And your Charmander…"
"Oh my god shut the fuck up!" I snapped. I had wanted to shut him up earlier, but there hadn't been enough space between any of his words. I finally just decided to stop him mid sentence. Huh. As soon as I said that, the anger left me. There had been a rush, making my head buzz. That was weird. That was really weird. Even if the kid was annoying, I didn't need to yell at him like that. My head cooled.
I flashed my researchers license. "Look Barry. I can't really talk about my pokemon or my training strategies. Special orders from Oak. Now I'm headed back to the tower, so…"
Barry didn't let me finish. "Oh my god Oak?! As in the Professor Oak? The undefeated Champion? The Traveler. Hero of Kanto. Inventor of the Pokedex. I've always wanted to meet him. He's one of my heroes. He even trained Ash Ketchum himself! Isn't that crazy!"
I froze in place. My feet refused to budge. Woah woah woah hold on. That name rang a bell. A big one.
"Hey wait. Who's Ash Ketchum?"
Barry's face lit up with enthusiasm. This might have been a mistake. "YOU DONT KNOW ASH KETCHUM?! Youngest Elite Four member in history! Champion of Indigo! Winner of the World Tournament! Pokemon Master! He's caught and trained pokemon from every region. The world's strongest Generalist! Even stronger than Cynthia!"
What? Somehow everything he said there felt wrong. For some reason everything in me was screaming that Ash Ketchum was nowhere near the strongest… generalist was it? That likely meant he trained all types of pokemon. Cynthia also rang a bell. Garchomp. Spiritomb. Togekiss. Lucario. All solid pokemon. That name was etched in strength. In confidence. A terrifying steel wall that was nearly impossible to defeat. But Ash Ketchum? There was no strength there. There wasn't even mild competence. So what was going on here?
"So Ash Ketchum is the Champion of Indigo? Did he beat out Lance?" I asked.
Barry laughed. "How do you not know this?! This was a classic story of one of the most hilarious upsets in history! Lance Wataru. Strong Dragon Master. Head of the Elite Four. Gets bumped up to Champion after Oak retires right? Twenty years, nobody can beat him. The only person that comes close is some random dude named Giovanni. Then this kid comes along. Big name. Gary Oak. Grandson of the esteemed Professor Oak. Hands Lance's ass to him, becomes the Champion of the entire Indigo League. Lance's reign lasted 20 years! Guess how long Gary's did. Guess. Guess."
Barry poked me with each word. He looked in his later teenage years, but he acted like a twelve year old.
I sighed. He would only make this big of a deal of it if the number was extraordinarily low or high. And with everything else he said, it didn't seem like it was gonna be the high end. "I don't know. Two weeks?"
Barry laughed. "ONE DAY! Can you believe that?! He signed all the paperwork. He just began moving into the Indigo Plateau. And then his childhood rival comes and ousts him a day later. HA! Imagine that." Barry's shoulders shook with fits of laughter.
Well that would suck.
Barry continued. "And so Gary has been asking for a rematch every single year since then. And guess what? Ketchum has beaten him every single time. Not bad eh?" He nudged me with his elbow.
I looked up to the sky. First Oak. Ranger Will. Now Barry. How did I keep attracting the crazy vibrant types? It's like my natural brooding was a magnet.
Jon Snow.
Woah. The name popped into my head out of nowhere. I tried to track how it popped into my head. I think it must have happened when I thought of the word brood. It was like a whisper on a windy day. I swear if I never get an explanation for them, these nonsensical thoughts I have are going to drive me crazy someday.
"Well Barry, it was nice talking to you but I've got to get back to the towe…"
Barry immediately barged in. This kid could not take a hint. "Oh yeah I forgot to talk about the whole reason I wanted to talk to you." He slapped himself on the forehead. "So my uncle is one of the top rangers on the wall, and he invited me to go on this expedition in the forest. It's kind of a good interactive introduction to the wild, the kind they give to rookie Rangers. He said it'd be good experience for me, since I want to be a Ranger someday. It's gonna be a small group. But he said there's gonna be a couple other rookies there, and I can bring some people with me too." Barry got kind of skittish as he continued. "And uh I don't really have many friends. And the ones that I do aren't that strong. Or at least they don't plan on being rangers. So I was wondering if you wanted to come out with me and the rangers…"
I stopped listening to him as I processed. His words faded to background noise. Outside the walls. I wouldn't have many opportunities to do that. Generally only rangers were allowed to go outside, but this could be a golden opportunity. Zuko still hadn't seen the outside world. Azula had only gotten a glimpse. Plus I hadn't actually seen any of the forest. When I'd asked Will during our training sessions, he had mentioned Kommo-o and his clan, but nothing else. This was an expedition supervised by veteran Rangers. I wouldn't get many chances like this.
"I'm in."
Barry had continued to babble on, but stopped to brightly smile at my response. He immediately broke out into more rambling, talking about how he was preparing.
Somehow I was already regretting this.