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“Ugh, it stinks.”
While Hugh followed Rosa, he had his arm covering his nose, unable to bear the smell of the sewers. “Guess it’s only natural that those rats from Team Plasma came here. It’s their natural habitat.”
Rosa had also covered her nose and mouth with her hand. She didn’t expect to be exploring a sewer only a few days after she made her debut in a PokéStar Studios film. But her journey to collect all the Gym Badges went on, and anytime Rosa met Hugh on the way, she would help him with whatever he needed. He was her childhood friend, after all — on top of that, she couldn’t let Team Plasma steal people’s Pokémon as they pleased.
The wild Pokémon in the sewer didn’t seem to appreciate their visit too much, as both Hugh and Rosa were attacked by Zubat and Rattata left and right. It gave Rosa the heebie-jeebies, seeing the dirty fur of those Pokémon, not wanting to know what kind of strange bacteria crawled over their bodies.
Unfortunately, the Pokémon weren’t the only inhabitants of the sewer. There were plenty of Pokémon Trainers residing in this slump as well. Rosa thought that ignoring them and leaving them in their peace was the right way to go, but these people insisted on ‘defending’ their home. Hugh was always prepared to fight, but Rosa handled it this time — she was afraid Hugh wouldn’t hold back his Pokémon’s punches, and that the people living here would only be left with an unconscious partner, losing their merit.
“You handled that pretty well,” Hugh mumbled, almost incoherently so, pointing at the Trainer behind them after Rosa beat them in battle. It kind of surprised him. Hugh never saw Rosa as a capable Pokémon Trainer, because, well, she never had a Pokémon of her own when they were children. And when she got her very first Pokémon, Hugh never thought that she’d be beating him in battle so soon. He always saw her as somebody he had to protect since she had no means to do so herself, but seeing her now, it really made him realise that they weren’t those children playing in Aspertia City anymore.
“I learned from the best after all,” Rosa replied, giving him a smile. The two had already stopped covering their noses as they got used to the smell.
“Heh, of course,” Hugh smirked. “I’ve always been the best Trainer that Aspertia has ever seen!” He remembered the times he showed Rosa his Oshawott’s moves, and how perfectly he hit the training dummy he got for his birthday. Rosa always seemed so interested and excited whenever she came over to see Oshawott.
“I actually meant Hilda, but okay.” Upon seeing Hugh’s pout, Rosa chuckled. The two of them had always been Hilda’s biggest fans. They had all the CDs that had Hilda’s training regime on it, and while Rosa didn’t have any Pokémon to practise with, she watched Hugh follow the steps to the T. She guessed that Hugh had a hand in teaching her the ropes, too, but admitting that would only get to his head!
That was Rosa’s biggest concern — Hugh’s emotions. They could get out of hand and transform into anger and he would never really tell anyone directly what was bothering him. He had always been a pretty active boy, but ever since that incident, Hugh simply always directed his anger towards Team Plasma. And while Team Plasma was disbanded by Hilda, Hugh still blamed them for everything. For that reason, Rosa was slightly happy that Team Plasma had made a comeback, now as Neo Team Plasma, because Hugh had a real target this time. If they had stayed silent and disbanded, Hugh would probably never get the vengeance he desired. Rosa wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not, but as long as her best friend wasn’t suffering, it was okay.
“What will you do when you find your sister’s Purrloin?” The question came out softly, as Rosa didn’t want to hurt Hugh with the past, but she wanted to make sure. “Will you feel better?”
As they walked, Hugh didn’t say anything for a bit. He was lost in thought. The question stumped him — what would he do? It was his only goal, the only thing he really needed to achieve on this journey. Anything else didn’t matter, as long as he found his sister’s Purrloin again. Rosa didn’t push for answers.
Eventually, they ended up in a little square with a big tree surrounded by grass and flowers. There was a man watering the plants, telling them this was the very spot where Castelia City started. He left when he was done with his job, and Hugh took that as his cue to finally sit down on the bench and rest for a minute. He leaned back, letting out a groan, complaining about his feet hurting.
“I don’t know what I would do if I’d get Purrloin back,” he said, his head still leaned back over the back of the bench, not looking at Rosa. Rosa sat next to him, crossing her legs, staying quiet in hopes he would continue his story.
And he did. “It’s been two years since it happened and I feel like it’s the only thing I can think about. I just want to crush them all for stealing people’s precious Pokémon!” Hugh sat up, his fists balled up, like he was going to hit somebody. Rosa placed her hand on his fists.
“We’ll follow in Hilda’s footsteps,” she said, squeezing Hugh’s hand, causing him to let go of the tension in his fists and just massage Rosa’s hand as if it was a stress ball. “We’re going to disband Team Plasma, and this time they won’t dare to come back.”
Hugh didn’t look at her, but he nodded. “Yeah,” he said, zoned out. “We’ll return all the Pokémon they stole back to their original owners. And we’ll send them to jail, all of them.”
They stayed like this for a few minutes, not saying anything to each other. Hugh needed the time to recollect himself. As they waited, an Eevee popped out of the tall grass and attacked Rosa. She sent out her Herdier, who bit the Eevee in defense. Hugh wanted to join the battle, but Rosa stopped him, saying that she wanted to catch this Eevee. After Eevee escaped the Poké Ball a few times, the ball finally clicked after Rosa’s seventh attempt! She seemed out of breath, but with a smile of triumph on her face. Hugh couldn’t help but feel happy for her, too.
“Did you see how stubborn this Eevee was?! Oh, I’m so happy!” Rosa held out the Poké Ball that Eevee was in and Hugh nodded in approval. Then he noticed that a few other wild Pokémon had appeared behind Rosa, and they did not seem as happy as her. Hugh grabbed Rosa’s wrist and pulled her back into the sewers before the Pokémon’s attacks could hit them. Herdier ran after them swiftly, dodging all of the attacks.
They ran and ran until they bumped into somebody in their haste. Rosa wanted to apologise, but before she could, Hugh was already at their heads — they bumped into two members of Team Plasma.
“So you were hiding here!” Hugh said, letting go of Rosa’s hand and pointing at them. “Get ready for battle, you’re not getting away!”
Herdier was already staring down the Plasma members, while Hugh sent out Dewott to join the battle. Team Plasma’s Sandile and Scraggy were no match for them and were knocked out quickly. The two Plasma grunts fled the sewers right after their defeat, and Hugh wanted to go further in, but he was stopped by none other than Castelia’s Gym Leader Burgh. There were no more Plasma members further inside, so it was best to rest for now.
Hugh turned to Rosa. “I’m going to train my Pokémon a bit more,” he said. “I’ll need to get stronger if I want to beat this guy.” He glanced at Burgh as if he couldn’t hear him. “Anyway, you should do that too! If we want to beat Team Plasma together, we need to get stronger. Okay?”
He didn’t even wait for her response — Hugh ran off back to that square with the tree where they got attacked, and Rosa wanted to run after him, but decided to let him do what he wanted.
“You seem very levelheaded,” Burgh noticed. “I can tell your battle style is much more than just fighting things head on with the hardest hitting move, unlike your friend there.” He smiled, nodding. “Yes, I enjoy battling Trainers who see Pokémon battles as something more than just a showcase of strength. Some may say it’s a strategy, others say it’s art. I think it can be all of those things. We need balance in this world, after all.”
He said his goodbye, and Rosa was left with a confused look on her face after hearing Burgh’s very random, but insightful monologue. She really did balance Hugh’s reckless fighting method out with calmness. Knowing that, Rosa left the sewers, readying herself to face the Castelia City Gym to get her third badge.