Chapter Text
Vi has never once liked Route 4. Too hot, too much sand, too many Pokemon that think it’s absolutely fucking hilarious to randomly hop out of said sand and scare the everloving shit out of you, no—if she didn’t ever need to step foot on Route 4 again, she wouldn’t, but Route 4 is unfortunately the easiest, cheapest, and only way to Castelia City from Nimbasa if you’re a pedestrian and don’t have a Flying-Type to carry you. So here she is, making the trip once again. At this rate she’s pretty sure there’s going to be sand stuck in her sneakers forever.
If they’d hurry up and finish the road that everyone promised would be done months ago then this wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue, but then again—if they actually finished the damn thing there wouldn’t be as much cash up for grabs. Forcing all pedestrians to take the same route between two cities known for their tourist traps means that there’s a lot of trainers all in one place ready to battle, and winning battles means winning cash. Vi likes cash. Vi needs cash. And not to toot her own horn, but she’s pretty damn good at winning battles.
All she has to do now is wait. Wait in the dry desert heat until another trainer shows up, she can get the last bit of prize money she needs for the day, and then go home to sweet, sweet, mostly-working air conditioning. She honestly should have brought a bigger water bottle, but she hadn’t anticipated having to wait this long. Usually when the weather’s nice, there’s more people out and about. The sandstorm yesterday must have scared people off or something. Who knows. What she does know is that she’s pretty sure she’s going to lose it if someone doesn’t show up soon.
Luckily, whatever god had shit in her cornflakes today had apparently decided to pour her a brand new bowl and put some cherries on top, because about thirty minutes after Vi starts debating whether or not to cut her losses and head home, she catches sight of someone headed her way. Someone and a Pokemon. Jackpot.
As they get closer, Vi notices a few things. The first is that the Pokemon following close behind her next payout is a Lucario. That could mean one of two things; either this person is a local with a rare Pokemon (doubtful), or they’re a tourist (far more likely). The second thing Vi notices is that the person rapidly approaching is a woman, and a tall one, too. The kind of chick with arms for days and legs for miles. She’s pretty, Vi will admit, and with what looks like a designer bag slung over her shoulders, she’s definitely loaded. Perfect.
Getting up from the rock she had been using as a makeshift bench, Vi stretches her shoulders, cracks her neck, and readies herself for a battle as her next opponent grows closer by the second. It won’t be long now ‘til she walks right in front of her. Then the real fun can start.
The woman turns to look Vi’s way as she makes her way over. Blue eyes meet Vi’s own, bright and curious and Vi instantly snaps to attention, reaching for the first Pokeball on her belt. This is it. It’s showtime. Their eyes had met. Everyone knows what that means.
Or everyone but this woman, apparently. Just as quickly as she’d looked over, she turns her gaze back towards the path and simply… keeps on walking. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just walked past someone with a Pokeball in their hands. Pretty much the only thing Vi hadn’t done was straight up say she wanted a battle.
“Oi! Lucario Chick!” Vi calls. The woman stops, turning to look her way. “Yeah, you! You and me, let’s battle—right here, right now!”
The woman exchanges a look with her Lucario before she gives it a small nod, turns back to Vi, and offers an answer drenched in an accent that’s definitely not local with a small, polite smile. “No thank you. Perhaps another time.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” Vi almost chokes on her own spit. “You can’t just—you can’t just say no to a battle, that’s not how this works.”
Because really, it isn’t. Things like this are simple. Things like this are supposed to be simple; challenge someone to a battle, walk away with some prize money, and then buy herself and her Pokemon something nice for dinner to celebrate. Getting told no hadn’t been part of the plan, because people with Pokemon—especially ones like that, ones that stand tall with neatly-groomed fur that shines in a way that says it’s clearly fed some expensive custom formulated Pokemon food—don’t say no to battles. And yet this woman had done just that and didn’t even think twice. What the hell.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite get what you mean?” It’s a question accompanied by an arch of an eyebrow that feels almost mocking. “You asked me for a battle, I said no. I find it to be quite simple, really.”
“Listen, lady,” Vi starts, “I don’t know how you normally do things, but around here—”
Princess Lucario the Third cuts her off before she can finish. “I apologize, but unless there’s some sort of emergency, I’m going to have to cut our chat short.”
“Oh, my mistake. In that case, I’ll try to keep it brief.” Vi offers her a smile, toothy and a little too wide to be completely friendly, before starting over. “I don’t know how you normally do things, but around here, if you’re out and about on the routes with Pokemon in fighting shape, you don’t exactly get to say no to a challenge.” Her smile widens and she gives a nonchalant shrug. “Unless you want to forfeit by default, that is. If you wanna do that, that’s fine with me—you can hand me my prize money and be on your merry way again in no time.”
Vi is pretty sure that she sees this chick twitch. “I’m afraid I’m in a rush.”
“Cool. Nice to meet you, ‘in a rush.’ I’m Vi. You can go ahead and give me my prize money now, since refusing to battle’s a forfeit.” Vi holds out her free hand, palm open and waiting. “If you don’t have cash, I also accept Pokepay.”
“I can’t just—” Lucario Chick starts to protest before she pauses to check her watch, purses her lips, and lets out a sigh of defeat. “You know what? Fine. If it’s a battle you want, we can battle. One-on-one, one Pokemon each. I don’t have time for anything more.”
There we go.
“Sounds good to me,” Vi agrees.
Monferno can curbstomp a Lucario any day. Steel-Types? Easy peasy. A couple of Mach Punches and a Flame Wheel or two should make quick work of things.
Gently throwing the Pokeball in her hand to the ground out in front of her, Monferno is released in a flash of blue energy and Vi is pretty sure this woman’s eyes all but light up at the sight of him.
“You have a Monferno?” She asks, perking up in a way that almost seems… excited?
“Yup.” Vi says. She doesn’t offer more than that. She’s here to battle, not to socialize. Pretty or not, she’s not exactly looking for serious conversations with some tourist girl right now.
“Interesting. Yours has particularly bright facial markings. Did you catch it locally, or was it traded to you?” She pauses for a moment before realizing she had made a mistake and promptly corrects herself. “Oh. Right. Silly me, of course it’s not local, we’re in Unova, the Chimchar family is almost exclusively found in the Sinnoh Region, and even if there were to be a group of them here, it would likely be in one of the areas surrounding—”
Holy shit, this woman talks like she’s narrating a fucking nature documentary.
“Hey, Professor, not trying to interrupt your lecture on Chimcharology or anything, but I thought we were going to battle. Hurry it up a little and send out a Pokemon, will you?”
Professor Lucario fumbles for words for a moment before settling on, “My apologies. You’re right. One moment.”
And then this woman does the damnedest thing: instead of sending out the Lucario standing by her side, she recalls it into its Pokeball, reaches into her bag, pulls out a blue Pokeball covered in stickers, and moments later, in an explosion of hearts and sparkles, out pops a Glaceon.
Vi almost doesn’t believe her eyes at first, but after blinking a few times, there’s still a Glaceon there delicately licking at one of its paws. It even has a little purple bandanna tied around its neck and everything. Little Miss Lucario had actually, honestly chosen an Ice-Type Pokemon to fight a Monferno—a Fire and Fighting-Type—in the middle of the fucking desert. Sure, type advantages aren’t everything, but to be willingly putting herself at a disadvantage in terms of their environment as well, this girl either has to be overconfident, just plain stupid, or a combination of both.
But no way in hell is Vi going to look a gift Ponyta in the mouth and risk messing up getting her hands on the easiest chunk of free cash she’s ever seen dangled in front of her face before. No siree. She knows better than to question an easy battle. Questioning shit that’s going well is a surefire way to end up with things suddenly taking a turn for the worse.
Monferno looks back for a moment and gives Vi a knowing look. There’s a glint in his eyes that says he had likely come to the same conclusion Vi did: they’re gonna be getting the expensive takeout tonight.
“Ready whenever you are,” Vi tells her, as Monferno raises his fists and starts to bounce slightly on the balls of his feet. “I’m feeling generous today, so you can have the first move.”
A hum. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Vi confirms. “All yours. Go ahead.” You’re gonna need it, goes unsaid.
“Alright then.” With a slight nod, the woman takes Vi’s offer without further protest. “Mochi,” she says, turning to look down at her Glaceon, “let’s cool things down a bit. Start us off with some hail, would you?”
Glaceon smirks—not smiles, but full on smirks—and Vi suddenly has a sinking feeling that she may have fucked up spectacularly.
It takes all of fifteen minutes for this woman’s Glaceon to run Monferno into the ground and Vi doesn’t think she’s ever been more thoroughly humiliated in her life. This was supposed to be an easy win. They were fighting an Ice-Type. An Ice-Type in the middle of the desert. They had the advantage—they had multiple advantages, and none of it made a difference because type advantages apparently don’t matter if you can barely land an attack on your opponent.
Blizzards, as it turns out, are apparently great for obscuring vision. And when you combine that with rapid Quick Attacks in succession and mountains of fake Double Team clones, it’s honestly a miracle Monferno had been able to get a hit in at all. She’d known she needed to work on their speed training a bit more and that she sometimes tends to over rely on brute force for a quick win, but that was just plain embarrassing.
Monferno’s going to be huffy about this for weeks. Understandably so, but still. With heavy hands, a heavier heart, and the even heavier feeling in her stomach resulting from the knowledge her wallet is soon going to be much lighter, Vi recalls Monferno into his Pokeball with a sigh.
“How much do I owe you?” she asks.
Girafarig Legs doesn’t so much as look up from the little annoying icy bastard in her arms, only answering with a small hum.
“How much do I owe you?” Vi repeats, insistent.
This time, she actually manages to catch Glaceon Girl’s attention. “Oh,” she says. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“You won fair and square.” Using bullshit tactics, but still fair and square nonetheless. So Vi isn’t budging. She’s many things, but a sore loser is not going to be one of them. Not today. “How much do I owe you?”
Once again, Vi’s question is quickly waved off.
“I don’t need anything.” Allowing her Glaceon to hop out of her arms, she reaches for that sticker-covered blue Pokeball once more and quickly recalls her Pokemon. “Keep it.”
“I don’t care if you need it or not. You won, so I pay. That’s how it works.” Really, Vi didn’t think she’d be having to explain how Pokemon battles work to a tourist today, but here she is. “So I’ll ask you again: how much?”
“I don’t care if you want to pay me or not.” Shoving her Glaceon’s Pokeball back into her bag, she lets out a huff. “I won, and I’m telling you I don’t want your money.”
Why do tourists always have to make everything so damn difficult? “Lady, for fuck’s sake, please just shut up and take my—”
“Caitlyn.”
Vi loses her train of thought all at once. “What?”
“My name,” she clarifies, amused. “It’s Caitlyn. I’d rather that over ‘lady’, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay. Caitlyn, then, will you just shut up and take my goddamn money so we can both be on our way?”
Caitlyn smiles, wide and teasing, and Vi has just enough time to note the slight gap between her two front teeth before she says, “No.”
If that’s how she wants to play it, Vi’s just going to decide for her.
“Alright then. Five hundred it is,” Vi says, reaching for her wallet and starting to count out bills. It doesn’t take long to find a small wad of five hundred Pokedollars she had won off another trainer earlier that day and Vi holds it out. “Here. Take it.”
Caitlyn frowns slightly before she suddenly perks up, reaches into her bag, digs through one of the front pockets to pull out a business card, and holds it out. “How about this,” she says. “I’ll trade you.”
Vi takes the offered business card with raised eyebrows and reads it over as Caitlyn shoves the money in one of the pockets of her bag. There, printed in loopy, black lettering, is a name: Caitlyn Kiramman. And right underneath the name, in a slightly less loopy, vastly more readable font is an Xtranceiver number.
“If you ever fancy a rematch sometime,” Caitlyn explains, “give me a buzz. I’ll likely be back in the area next month.”
Vi does not own an Xtranceiver. Vi has never once needed an Xtranceiver, wanted an Xtranceiver, or required anything other than her good old-fashioned Pokegear, but as she watches a woman with an ass thicker than a Snorlax fly off on the back of a giant dark bird Pokemon she’s never seen before in her life, she suddenly really, really wants one.
If this is what heatstroke is like, she’ll definitely need to start bringing a bigger water bottle.