Chapter Text
“You can’t.”
“But mom!”
“I already said no.”
And with that calm tone, the discussion was finished.
It was a nice day in Akala island, through the window it can be see a good weather that encouraged people to go out and have fun, but for Lana, this day it had become frustrating after failing to convince her mother to accept her petition.
“I know the competition is important for you, but I can’t let you go alone so far from Alola.”
“And if I find someone that accompanies me, can I go?
“I guess so ...” Answered his mother still doubting.
“Ok! See ya later!”
Lana ran out of his house quickly, not giving her mother time to change her mind. As she ran to his destination, she called her friends for a quick reunion, this was an urgent matter.
...
“Well, why do you called all of us here?”
Kiawe’s question was, without doubt, the same question everyone else had.
After an emergency call from the Water type Captain, they had gathered as quickly as possible in the restaurant of Mallow’s family.
“Yes Lana, tell us why you called everyone here” Questioned the owner of the place after seeing that her friend was watching like if she was analyzing them.
“Mmmmm, not everyone ...” She answered after some seconds.
They were in one of the tables from the place. Mallow, Kiawe, Sun, Hau, Moon, Lillie and a very annoyed Gladion, were sitting around the Water Captain; it seemed that the young man from the Aether foundation had been forced to attend the meeting by his sister.
“I called Mina like you wanted, but she never answered, you know she's always lost in her ideas.” Mallow smiled nervously after sensing Lana’s stare on her.
“Ilima was busy too! He wanted me to apologies in his place.” Said Hau quickly when Lana's glare turned toward him.
“Same with Sophocles, he is busy helping in the Space Center and Acerola is taking care of the children from the Aether’s house.” Added Kiawe before receiving Lana’s death glare.
Lana signed defeated. “Is only us then”
“But seriously, why are we here?” Asked Sun without real interest.
“Do you remember the fishing competition I won some months ago?” Lana watched as everyone, except Gladion who looked confused, nodded positively. “Since I won that one, I received a new invitation for an important competition in Kanto.”
“Lana that's great!” Exclaimed Mallow with a smile.
“But my mom doesn’t let me go...”
“She can’t go with you?” Asked Kiawe instantly as he started to understand the situation.
“She doesn’t want to leave my sisters alone, and they can’t miss school.”
“Well, it's a tragedy; there is nothing we can do then” Commented Sun without giving more importance to the conversation.
“Courier, your tactless continues to surprise me even after these years.” Said Moon before taking a sip from the cup of tea she was holding, ignoring the hurt glance of the boy.
Mallow stared at her friend with an understanding look “You are searching for someone that can go with you, right?”
“She said that I can go if I find someone that goes with me.”
Lana watched at her friends, hoping that someone offered their company, but everyone seemed busier looking around. Again, the only exception was still Gladion that was too busy drinking slowly from the can in his hand, everyone started to think that he was just pretending to drink from it in order to keep ignoring them.
After some seconds of silence, Mallor finally decided to speak. “I'm sorry Lana, but I can’t leave my father alone with the restaurant for too long.”
“And I can’t take free days in my job, I really need the money ...” Kiawe was almost crying while talking, even if some years had passed, the poor boy was still struggling to get money to pay for his studies.
“I understand! One just can’t leave their work so easy!” And after said that, Sun and Kiawe joined in a very exaggerated embrace, crying about the possibility of losing a day's pay.
“Courier, you don’t need a lot of money anymore...”
“Money is always necessary! Miss, why you don’t accompany her?”
“I would, if I didn’t need to return to Sinnoh in 2 days.”
“You’re leaving already?” Asked Lilie with a mix of surprise and sadness.
“I need to finish something, but is not going to take more than two weeks. We can continue with the project when I return. Lilie, I think you can take care of it for a while.”
Lillie nodded happily. The help of the Poison type specialist had become very important for the Aether foundation over the last years. Now she devoted herself in traveling between Sinnoh and Alola, working in both laboratories and assisting as much as possible, allowing her to work alongside the Aether’s siblings in new researches projects for the foundation.
“Huh?” Hau quickly looked around after noticing that Lana’s accusatory gaze was on him again.
“Your excuse?”
Hau started to move his hands quickly “Uh ... no excuse but ... My grandfather wants me to accompany him to a Fighter specialist meeting in Hoenn, is like a convention or something.”
Lana got closer to him, with a creepy glare. “Sounds fishy.”
“I swear is the truth! You can ask my grandfather!”
“Then, no one can go…” Said Lana with a tone of disappointment as she sat back down in her chair.
“But Gladion still hasn’t said anything.” Commented Sun with a weird smile.
“Is true! My brother has nothing to d-“
The conversation was interrupted at the time Gladion started coughing after choking on his drink, which to everyone surprise, resulted to not be empty. Moon instantly patted his back, trying to help him to recover.
Kiawe started to laugh at the sigh. “And I thought he was pretending to drink of the can just to stay silent.”
“Brother, you don’t need to react like that!”
“Stop ... deciding... what to do with my free…time …” Gladion finally answered, still recovering air.
“You are not going to have too much to do if Moon isn’t around to help us.”
“But we still have other issues to do!”
Lillie smiled at him “I can take care of everything, don’t worry!”
Mallow clapped her hands, attracting everyone attention to her. “Actually is a good idea for Gladion to go! If your mother is concerned about your safety, is better if a boy go with you.”
“WHAT?!” Gladion jumped up instantly, hitting the table with both hands. “Is nobody thinking about the problem in this?!”
A silence took over the place again, while everyone seemed to think about his words, Gladion wishing for them to realize the bigger problem in going in a travel, alone, with a girl. However, Lillie stared at him with a smile.
“Gladion, we trust you.”
“W ... Y ... B ...” The young man stared at his sister with the clear intention to scream something, but it was obvious that he was unable to finish what he wanted to say.
Hau laughed at him before he started to talk. “And I’m sure Lana's mother would not object, she already know you enough to trust in you.”
An embarrassed Gladion stood alone listening as everyone started to go against him, listing all the good reasons for him to take the trip. He really wanted to say something and make them understand his concern, after all, it was easy to misinterpret the idea of a boy and a girl traveling alone; however, for some reason he couldn’t think in a good counter attack that didn’t leave him even more ashamed of what he already was.
The only person not involved in the attack against him was precisely the cause of their situation. Lana was silent thinking in what to do, not paying attention to what the others were talking. After a few seconds, she looked up to him, capturing his attention.
“You don’t like the idea, right?” She said softly, in a way the others couldn’t hear her.
Gladion dropped into his chair again with a tired expression. “I'm just saying that is not right.”
“I guess… I have to forget it.”
The tone of defeat in Lana’s voice made him feel bad instantly. Gladion was not a fan of fishing, at the contrary, he found it boring to death, but he knew that the Water Captain loved the sport, and watching her sad affected him a lot.
And that was something he could not deny.
Since they met four years ago after the invasion of the Ultra Beast, courtesy of his mother, in Alola, for some strange reason the Water type captain developed a weird friendship with him.
Even if their first meeting had not gone very well, when Alola began to return to normal, the captains of the 4 islands had shown interest in creating a friendship with him and Lillie. At first it was hard to get used to all of them trying to spend time with him and his sister, but the tension started to disappear gradually, for him was a bit slower than Lillie, but with the help of Ilima, everything changed for the best. The Captain of Mele Mele made for him an itinerary of training involving all the captains, and in Ilima’s own words, his best way to communicate with others was over fighting, training with the others helped him to get along better with them.
But it was one day, when they were taking a rest, that in the middle of a conversation he said something that caused the Water Captain to start spending more time with him.
"I will keep training and become stronger!"
"Well, if you want to become stronger, I can help!"
He didn’t need more than a day to realize that Lana had misinterpreted his words.
His training sessions stopped being just pokémon battles, to incorporate an arduous physical training imposed by the Captain of Akala. It looked like if Lana hears the word “Stronger” and ran with it, in the wrong way.
At first he didn’t cared that much, some physical training was actually good, but over time he began to find it entertaining and even curious, causing his relationship with Lana to increase quickly, until he started to spend more time with her than with the others.
In a way their newfound friendship had changed both of them, he had become more open to socialize with others and Lana had left behind his shy side. What it never changed was the aggressive and competitive side that Lana only displays in a battle, but that was something he wished to never change.
However, with the passage of time, it was normal than the others began to joke about the relationship that had arisen between them; the first times he couldn’t help but react with anger and annoyance, always leaving someone with a punch in their face in the case it was a boy (Sun holding the record), or something broken in the case of the girls; in the end, he has to accept that his friends were incorrigible and it was better to ignore them.
But it was not always easy to ignore. In the 4 years of their weird friendship, his friends changed their childish teasing to actual insinuations that his friendship with Lana was more than just a normal friendship.
In some way, it was true. She became like his best friend, but nothing more. The way they acted around each other never changed to indicate something more. But if there was something he couldn’t deny, was that he cared about her in a similar way he cared for Lillie; if someone dared to try to do something to her, he will make them paid and if something or someone made her feel sad, he tried to fix the problem.
And here he was now, with his so called friends and even his own sister, trying to make him feel bad for denying Lana the possibility to go to her wishes competition.
If he was the reason for her sadness, he would need to punch himself.
He released a big sigh of resignation, calling Lana’s attention. “Something tells me that I’m going to regret this… Ok, I’ll go with you.”
“But you don’t nee-“
“HE ACCEPTED!”
The sudden cry of Sun made him jump off the chair immediately, wasn't them too busy to pay attention to both of them?
“Perfect! Then, Lana can go to her competition without problem!”
“And my brother can take a break!”
“And they can bring us some cookies from afar!”
“Bring something that can be sold at a good price!”
“Make that double!”
“Why ... Did this look like if was planned?” Asked Gladion while looking at them angry.
Moon patted him on his back, catching his attention. “See the bright side, at least the trip is not with them.”
Realizing that her friend was uncomfortable with the whole idea, Lana called for him nervously. “Gladion, really you don’t ne- ”
“Is fine I guess...” He interrupted her, and sighed again. “What could go wrong? And Moon is right, I better go with you than with them... But anyway, the last decision belongs to your mother, not mine.”
“You’re right!”
What Gladion obviously didn’t count, is that Lana's mother accepted the idea of let her daughter go with him to the distant region of Kanto without a single problem.
When Lana sent him a message to inform him of the approval of his mother, Gladion realized that his last hope to save themselves, from this obvious bad idea, had been vanished and now he was forced to make the trip.
But he couldn’t stop thinking that everything had been planned by the others; after all, what were the odds that everyone got busy at the same time?
It was definitely weird, and his only consolation was wishing that nothing go wrong in this unexpected trip.