Chapter Text
The sun shone on the beautiful lush scenery of the forests located on route five of the Kalos Region map . The sounds of Pokemon chirping and running around could be heard.
Amidst this forest, a blonde-haired girl emerged from a white coloured tent. She wore a white shirt with a pastel yellow cardigan over top and beige cargo pants with two gorgeously placed white mixed with blue flowers in her hair, as well as a bracelet with a glowing stone in the middle. The girl began to stretch, seemingly having just awoken from her slumber. The girl was silent, only letting a few grunts and sighs escape from her lips as she stretched.
Once she seemed to have finished, she picked up a bag placed leaning against the tent. She began to dig through it, a frustrated look on her face became more evident the longer she searched. Luckily however, after a few seconds of rummaging through the bag, her expression brightened as she whipped out two tightly sealed containers. One slightly bigger than the other.
She knelt down and placed the containers down on the ground, the grass brushing against her soft hands, causing the girl to giggle. She went back to searching through her bag, this time, finding whatever she needed much faster. She took out five pokeballs before throwing them up into the air as she exclaimed a sharp, “Come on out all of you,”
Appearing in front of the girl was an Eevee, Ditto, Meowstic, Dragonite and Gardevoir with a necklace with a stone on it hanging around its neck. She glanced at the Pokemon giving them a small smile, which seemed to excite them, before turning to face the Gardevoir.
“Gardevoir, can you help grab the bowls out of my bag, please?” She asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Vior.” It replied with a nod as it made its way over to where the bag was placed and began searching for the bowls.
The girl then knelt back down to pick up the containers and when she stood back up, she saw that Gardevoir held to bowls she had asked for. She smiled and made a motion with her hand which told Gardevoir to place the bowls onto the ground.
The other Pokemon who were playing amongst themselves noticed Gardevoir placing them on the ground and rushed over to their respective bowls. Once the Pokemon were all at their bowls, the girl walked over and began filling the bowls up with Pokemon food. The second she moved onto the next bowl, the Pokemon whose bowl was previously filled, began wolfing it down, the only exceptions being Gardevoir and Meowstic, who ate gracefully.
Once the girl finished filling her Pokemon’s bowls, she grabbed the second container which she had previously taken and opened it up, revealing a nicely made sandwich. Taking a seat on the grass, she grinned as she picked up the sandwich, already hearing her stomach rumbling. However, just as she brought the sandwich to her mouth, she suddenly felt the sandwich be grabbed out of her hand.
She gasped and looked up, jumping to her feet, attempting to find the culprit. When she looked up, she found out that said culprit was a random Pidgeot.
“H-hey! Give that back! Gardevoir use-” By the time she turned to shout the move to Gardevoir, the Pidgeot had already flown away. The girl sighed as her stomach continued to grumble. She picked her bag back up from the ground and dug through it, only to find that she had run out of the materials to make more food.
“...What a way to start the day,” The girl slumped to the ground, letting out exaggerated groans.
“Garde-vior?” The girl turned to face the sound. Gardevoir and the other Pokemon were looking at her with a confused look in their eyes. She spotted their now empty food bowls and smiled, “At least you guys had something to eat… Gardevoir, could you please help put the bowls back in the bag? Thank you,” Gardevoir instantly got to work.
The girl pushed herself off the floor, dusting off her shirt and pants as she stood up. “Alright, all of you, return!” She exclaimed lifting up each of the Pokemon’s pokeballs, the Pokemon returned back into their Pokeballs one by one, leaving only Gardevoir out.
“You stay out here and help me, Gardevoir. I’m already so tired, and the fact that I can’t have my breakfast, makes this situation even worse… ah, it’s alright, no use whining over it now!” The girl cheerfully spoke. Gardevoir smiled in return as it began helping its trainer clear up their campsite.
Once the two were done packing up, the girl slung her bag over her shoulder and walked over to where Gardevoir was standing. “Hm… since we’ve run out of food, I say we take a stop at Camphrier Town and buy some stuff.”
“Vior!” Gardevoir exclaimed, agreeing with its trainer.
“Alright then! Let’s go!” The girl’s short blonde hair blew in the wind as she dashed off, the girl’s Gardevoir following closely behind.
“Gardevoir! Let’s stop here for a bit! I want to check how much longer it will be until we reach Camphrier town!” The girl sighed as she leaned back against a random tree.
She sighed as she maneuvered the bag from slung over her shoulders to her front. She pulled out a guidebook from the side pocket of her bag. “Hmm… it seems like Camphrier town is only a few more miles away! It should only take another hour or so!”
Quickly shoving the guidebook back into the side pocket of the bag and pushing herself off the tree, quickly slinging her bag back over her shoulder she motioned for Gardevoir to follow her, “Let’s go!”
Gardevoir was quick to follow, quickly finding itself next to its trainer.
“You know Gardevoir I was thinkin-” Just before the girl could finish her sentence, a loud shout interrupted her,
“Hey you!” A loud shout came from her left side. In a flash of blue, a gingered-hair man and a Wartortle, which she assumed was his, appeared in front of her. “Let’s have a battle!”
The girl was confused as well as a little surprised from the sudden appearance of the man. “I apologise but-” All the sudden, just before she could decline the battle invitation, the man had already shouted a move to Wartortle, “Use Water Pulse!”
Following its trainer's command, the Wartortle formed a ball of water in its hand and flung it to Gardevoir with a loud cry, “War- tortle!”
Instantly the girl panicked, “Huh! Wait! Gardevoir use protect!” She shouted, without much thought, not expecting the sudden attack.
The Wartortles Water Pulse collided with the shield created by Gardevoir. “What the hell? Don’t attack me so suddenly!” The girl scolded, but it seemed that the ginger haired man was too focused on battling that he completely missed her words.
“Wartortle! Use Rain Dance!” As the command was told, a large rain cloud suddenly formed in the sky. In seconds, rain began pouring down over their “battlefield’ which was actually just in the middle of the road the man had ambushed her on.
As it began to rain, Wartortle and its trainer grinned, not caring if they got wet. However, the opposite could be said for the girl. “...WHAT THE HELL?” She was drenched from head to toe and was dripping with water from the rain.
The man just laughed at the girl's shout, before shouting another attack, “Use Hydro Pump!” Instantly Wartortle spat out a large stream of water.
Seeing that there was no way of getting through to the man, the girl decided that she would just beat the man in battle and scold him afterwards, “Gardevoir! Counter using Psybeam!” A glow of bright colours came from Gardevoirs hands before it shot them out in a stream towards Wartortle.
Luckily, Gardevoirs Psybeam was more powerful than the Hydro Pump and broke through the stream of water, hitting Wartortle. “Wartortle! Are you alright?” The man shouted. Despite taking the hit, Wartortle got up, not looking to be in a too rough state. “Wartortle!” The Wartortle trilled, turning to face its trainer before turning back to face Gardevoir.
“Alright! Use Water Pulse again!” He grinned and pointed to Gardevoir in an exaggerated manner before bringing his fist to his chest and clenching it tightly. Wartortle did as it was asked and formed another ball of water, which was slightly bigger than the previous one, in its hand before chucking it towards Gardevoir.
“Dodge it!” The girl spoke calmly, having calmed down from her previous shock, seeming as if the attacks being thrown at her Gardevoir were nothing too strong.
Effortlessly, Gardevoir moved with grace and speed as it dodged the Water Pulse.
“Woah… So quick! Heh, but that won’t stop me from beating you!” The man announced with confidence that would make it seem like he was completely sure he would win. “Use Aqua Tail! And don’t stop!” He yelled, grinning widely. As if this was the most fun he’s ever had.
“Tortle!” Wartortle trilled as its tail was then encased in water. The look on Wartortles face was the same as its trainers.
Well, they do say, ‘Trainer like Pokemon,’ The girl thought to herself upon her observation.
“Dodge it!” As Wartortle ran over to Gardevoir and jumped up to slam its tail down on it, again, Gardevoir avoided it effortlessly. Not wanting to give up, Wartortle chased after Gardevoir and tried slamming its tail down onto it but everytime Wartortle seemed to catch up to Gardevior, it would miss Gardevoir by just a second before Gardevoir was already somewhere else.
“Hm… seems like close up attacks won’t work. Wartortle! Stop!” The man suddenly demanded. Despite being confused, Wartortle listened to what it was asked of.
Seeing that Wartortle had stopped, the girl took this as her chance to strike. “Gardevoir! Use Psychic!” At her command, the man seemed surprised, not expecting her to command an attack.
“Garde-VOIR!” Gardevoir’s eyes glowed a bright light blue colour. Suddenly, as Gardevoir raised its hands, Wartortle began to levitate.
Wartortle began to panic, attempting to get back onto the ground, to no avail.
“A-ah! Wartortle! Calm down!” The man tried to calm his Pokemon down, but before he could come up with a plan for his Wartortle to escape the current situation, another attack was commanded,
“Slam Wartortle to the ground!” The girl shouted, raising and hand in the air dramatically and quickly bringing it down. As if she were slamming something onto a table.
Doing as its trainer requested, Gardevoir, still using Psychic, slammed Wartortle down onto the ground. The impact caused dust and dirt to surround the area Wartortle was slammed into.
“Wartortle! Can you get up?” The man yelled, hoping to get a response back from his partner.
When the dust dissipated, due to the rain from Rain Dance, with a groan like noise, Wartortle pushed itself off the ground slowly, getting back onto its feet.
Wartortle turned to face its trainer and flashed him a smile. Its trainer grinned back at it. “Alright! Let’s wrap this battle up, shall we?” He exclaimed excitedly. Despite him clearly being on the losing end, he was still determined to not give up and see this battle to the very end.
“Use Hydro Pump one last time to finish this battle!” The man pumped his fist up into the air. Following its trainer's enthusiasm, Wartortle quickly spat out a large stream of water, even bigger from the one before.
A Hydro Pump as powerful as the one Wartortle let out would have been a cause of concern for any other trainer. However, when faced with the oncoming Hydro Pump, the girl hadn’t even bat an eye. “Use Psybeam!”
Just as the Hydro Pump came hurling towards Gardevoir, a bright light suddenly collided with it. It was Gardevoir’s Psybeam!
The collision of both powerful moves caused both attacks to be canceled out.
“Shadow Ball! Now!” Without a second to waste, the command was issued. Instantly, a dark purple and black ball formed in Gardevoir’s hands.
“Gar-de-voir!” With a loud cry, the Shadow Ball was flung at Wartortle.
Without any command being made from its trainer, Wartortle didn’t know what to do.
BAM!
With a loud crashing sound, the Shadow Ball had a direct hit to Wartortle.
When all the dust was gone, along with the rain clouds from rain dance, revealed was a knocked out Wartortle.
“I-I lost…” The girl heard the boy mumble to himself.
“Good job Gardevoir. You did well.” The girl praised her Gardevoir as she walked forward, pulling a Pokeball out of her pocket, pointing it at Gardevoir and allowing Gardevoir to return back into it. After praising her Pokemon and giving it a light pat on the head, she then began walking over to the man who now was knelt down to pick up his Wartortle.
“Wartortle, you fought well… get some rest,” The man whispered to Wartortle as he pulled out a Pokeball which opened, Wartortle began to glow red before returning back into the Pokeball.
When he stood back up, he was face to face with the girl he had just battled. Well not really cause he had to look down to meet her eyes as he was decently taller than the girl when it came to height.
“Is something wron-”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?” She suddenly shouted, dramatically opening her arms before dropping them to her side. The sound of her shouting caused him to wince.
“WHO GOES UP TO RANDOM STRANGERS AND WITHOUT ASKING THEM, BEGINS TO BATTLE THEM?”
“Well technically, I did ask-”
“AND YOU DIDN’T LET ME RESPOND!”
The man sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, “Well, yeah… that was kind of my fault…”
It seems like the girl wasn’t done however, as she instantly began shouting at him again, “BECAUSE OF YOU, LOOK AT ME, I’M ALL DRENCHED! THAT STUPID RAIN DANCE-”
“Okay! Okay! Calm down! I’m sorry!’ He attempted to calm the girl down, his hands making motions of those that one would do when calming a person down.
“Look, I think we got of on the wrong foot-”
“You think?”
Ignoring the girl’s remark, the man continued, “My name's Childe! May I know yours?”
The girl glared at the man- well, now known as Childe, debating on whether or not she should tell him her name. In the end, she couldn’t find a reason not to, “My name’s… Lumine.”
“Nice to meet you, Lumine!” Childe spoke with an outgoing tone.
Lumine just glared at Childe, crossing her arms across her chest, causing a wet sound from pressing against the wet material of her shirt and cardigan. At the sound, Childe smiled awkwardly, aware that he was the cause of this.
“Look, how about I do something for you as an apology for battling you all the sudden?” Childe said hopefully, giving Lumine a small smile.
‘I’ll… uhh…”
“Look I don’t need an apology from you, I just want you to leave me alo-”
“I’ll buy you lunch.”
Shit. He got her there. At the mention of food, Lumine’s stomach started to grumble. At the sound of that, Childe’s smile grew wider. “Alright then! The next town should be… ah, Camphrier Town! I’ll buy you lunch there!”
Without waiting for an answer, Childe grabbed onto Lumine’s hand without waiting for her answer and began dragging her towards the direction of Camphrier Town.
“Seems like he has a habit of not waiting for others to answer him,” Lumine thought to herself whilst shaking her head, but not showing any signs of refusal to Childe’s offer and continued to follow him. She was going to Camphrier Town either way, so why not get some free lunch, and hopefully by then, she would have dried off.
Soft moans of pleasure could be heard as Lumine stuffed her face with the dessert Childe had bought for them after their meal, which was most likely more expensive than anything she had on her at the moment. The dessert in question was one she had never heard of before, if she remembered correctly, the dessert was called, ‘La Lettre a Focalors’.
The dessert had a chocolatey taste with hints of almond. The cake itself was shaped into a long rectangle. On top of the dessert, was a few bits of almond and the most impressive addition to the cake, was the piece of circular shaped chocolate covered in 24 karat gold foil leaf and a few flakes of the gold foil leaf scattered on the plate and dessert itself.
This dessert was something Lumine could only dream of having, but now, here she was.
“Is it good?” Lumine heard a voice from the chair across from her. She had hoped to ignore Childe for the entirety of their meal, but she knew she couldn’t as he was in fact, the one paying for their meal. So she had to be nice.
Lumine let out a hum of satisfaction as she put another piece of the cake into her mouth. “Mhm, it’s really good!” She said with a closed eye smile.
When Lumine opened her eyes, she noticed that Childe hadn’t even taken a bite of the cake and was just looking down at it, playing around with it, using his fork to do so.
“Is everything alright? Why haven’t you eaten your dessert?” Lumine questioned, tilting her head to the side. Childe looked up to meet her gaze. “Ah, well…” he started awkwardly looking around. He seemed as if he was questioning if he should continue talking.
“I- well, look, after our battle today, I was really surprised. You’re the first trainer I’ve come across that has beaten me in a Pokemon battle in a long time. So I was… uh, well, I was wondering if you, uh, wanted to… accompany me on my journey..?” He spoke awkwardly, stumbling over his words, not truly knowing what to say.
Lumine stared wide eyed at the sudden question.
“Look, I know that we just met today but after battling you, I really feel like with you around, i could really improve in my battling skills and-” Childe spoke quickly, practically just spitting out the words at this point, but with a raised finger to his mouth, Lumine shushed him.
Lumine didn’t give an answer right away, she looked down to her hands, ‘Traveling with him doesn’t sound… too bad, but… am I sure I want to travel again with another person? Remember what happened with…” Lumine stopped her train of thoughts there, not wanting to mention past memories even to herself.
She looked up to face Childe, he had a hopeful expression on his face, eagerly waiting for her answer. She sighed softly, “Why should I travel with someone who challenged me to a battle randomly out of nowhere? Hm? What’s in it for me if I travel with you?”
Childe stared at her for a moment before coming up with an answer, not a very good one, but better than nothing. “I could… provide for you? Buy you food and all that? Help take care of your Pokemon? I’m also really great company, at least that’s what I’m told.’ He said that last part with a wink, causing Lumine to roll her eyes.
“Tell me why you’re on your journey first, then I’ll give you my answer.” Lumine crossed her arms and leaned back into the chair she was sitting on as she said those words.
Without having to think, Childe replied, “I want to win the Kalos League with my Pokemon! And show the world the power of water and fighting types!” He spoke with a grin.
Lumine’s eyes widened slightly. ‘Quite an ambitious goal’ she thought to herself. She sighed before leaning forward and placing her elbow on the table and leaning into her hand. “I guess I could… it’s not like I have anything better to do…” The second those words left her mouth, Childe looked as if that day was the best day in his entire life.
“Thank you! Thank you! You won’t regret this decision!” Childe spoke cheerfully. He quickly pushed himself off his chair and rushed over to Lumine’s side of the table, embracing her in a tight hug.
“H-hey, stop! People are staring…” Lumine’s face turned red as she noticed other’s gazes on them. Holding her tight for a few more seconds, Childe finally let go of her and returned to his seat.
Lumine fixed her cardigan's position on her which got messy from Childe’s hug. “So, have you already registered yourself for the Kalos League?” Lumine asked, crossing her arms across her chest and placing them onto the table.
“Yep! And I’ve already gotten my first gym badge! Take a look!” Childe stuffed his hand into his bag which was placed leaning against his chair and from the front pouch, pulled out a ‘Kalos Region badge case’. Inside the case was the Bug badge, given to those who have already beaten the Santalune City Gym.
“That’s nice. That means you only need seven more gym badges right?”
Childe nodded to answer her question.
“So, how did your gym battle at the Santalune Gym go? Tell me?” Childe instantly seemed to stiffen. He chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, “Well you see…”
“Wartortle is unable to battle! Vivillon wins, which means the victor is Viola, the Gym Leader.”
“Greninja is unable to battle! Vivillon wins, which means the victor is Viola, the Gym Leader.”
“Wartortle is unable to battle! Surskit wins, which means the victor is Viola, the Gym Leader.”
“Are you serious..? It took you four tries until you finally won?” Lumine let out a huff and began shaking her head in disappointment. Childe didn’t respond and instead just forced out a chuckle.
Lumine stopped shaking her head and spoke again, “So, I can suspect that we’re headed off to the Cyllage City Gym now? Considering it’s the closest Gym from where we’re located?”
“Spot on!” Childe smiled, finally starting to eat his dessert, which had most likely gotten warm and less tasty.
“Hm… alright then… we’re going to have to go on route seven for that…” Lumine continued to speak for a bit on how they would get to Cyllage City, and by the time she looked up, Childe had finished his dessert.
“Alright then, since you’re done, let’s head off?”
“Yep!” Childe wasted no time at all, pushing himself off his seat, picked up his bag and dashed out of the restaurant, luckily having already paid for their food.
“H-hey wait! Slow down!” Lumine followed suit, grabbing her bag and chasing after him.
“Can’t keep up?” Childe teased, shouting back at her, and then began running even faster.
Lumine rolled her eyes. She was already starting to regret her decision to travel with him.