Chapter Text
“Shauna! Wake up!” Her mother shook Shauna awake. Groggily, she opened her eyes and looked at her mom. “Your aunt is back from Paldea and brought you a pokemon.” Her mother told her before she could mutter a ‘five more minutes’. This made Shauna more alert. She’d been wanting a pokemon, but her mom had insisted she wait until she was 16. Even after her birthday, however, she still hadn’t gotten a pokemon of her own.
“You’re lying.” Shauna mumbled. Her mom smiled, sighed and told her to come down stairs. Still halfway convinced her mom was lying, Shauna got dressed, brushed her teeth, and went downstairs. Sitting on the couch next to her mom was Shauna’s aunt, Diantha. She’d been away filming a movie in Paldea. Shauna wanted to be a star, too, but without a Pokemon, she was stuck in Aquacorde Town and its neighboring town of Vaniville. At first, Shauna didn’t really realize that what her mom said must have been true, but when she saw her aunt holding a love ball, it clicked. “Auntie!” She rushed over to Diantha and hugged her.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Sapling?” Diantha reciprocated the hug and Shauna giggled. She hadn’t been called ‘Sapling’ since she was a kid, but it didn’t feel like a tease. It was more like one last acknowledgement of Shauna’s childhood before the next chapter opened. “I got you a few gifts from Paldea. I think you’ll like this one, especially.” Diantha winked and handed over the love ball. “You know how to open it, right?”
“Press the button and throw, right?”
“That’s right. But when releasing a pokemon from its pokeball, you don’t have to throw the ball if you don’t want to.” Shauna pressed the button on the love ball and threw it on the ground. In a glow of energy, a pokemon she’d never seen before appeared. It was a little hound-like pokemon that seemed to be made of bread dough. It kind of smelled like bread, too.
“That’s fidough. It’s a common partner Pokemon in Paldea.” Shauna pet the fidough and found it to be moist and squishy like a bread dough, though not as sticky. “The pokedex describes it as having a breath that can ferment bread dough or be used to make sourdough.” Shauna giggled as the Pokemon licked her. Its breath really did smell like a good sourdough.
“Can I name it?” Shauna asked.
“Go ahead. She’s your Pokemon now, Shauna.”
“I’m gonna call you…” Shauna thought for a moment before she made up her mind, “...Minnie! ‘Cuz you’re so small and cute!” The fidough let out a cheerful bark and ran in a circle around Shauna, showing its appreciation.
“You press the button on the pokeball again and hold it out to retrieve a pokemon.” Diantha reminded Shauna.
The rest of the morning was spent playing with Minnie. When the afternoon rolled around, Diantha left and soon after, a knock sounded through the living room. Shauna’s mother opened the door, spoke to someone, then called out to her daughter.
“Shauna! Your friends from Lumiose are here!” Shauna instantly ran to the door, Minnie on her tail. Tierno and Trevor were waiting at the door.
“Shauna! Professor Sycamore wanted us to give a pokemon to Calem and the new girl in Vaniville Town. You wanna join?” Tierno explained. Shauna enthusiastically agreed, before telling the boys to wait. She ran to the coffee table, grabbed Minnie’s pokeball, and returned the fidough to it. She then grabbed her bag from upstairs and went back to the door.
“Alright, I’m ready now!” Shauna and the two boys walked through town and towards the path to Vaniville. Trevor was one year younger than Shauna and Tierno at 15, but he was turning 16 in two months. “My aunt came by with a Pokemon for me!”
“I saw! What is it?” Tierno asked.
“She said it’s a fidough! It makes bread with its breath.”
“Ew.” Trevor commented. Shauna giggled before Tierno changed the topic to his own Pokemon.
“We got some Pokemon from Professor Sycamore yesterday. He wanted us to give the pokemon to Calem and the new girl yesterday, but it was pouring rain and we didn’t want to walk in the rain. Well, Trev’s mom didn’t want him walking in the rain and I wasn’t about to leave my best friend behind on such an important mission!”
“Ooh! What Pokemon did you two get?” Shauna asked.
“I got a corphish— I named him Rusty— and Trev got a pikachu.”
“Cute! I bet you two are gonna get along great with your pokemon!” Shauna cheered. They arrived at Calem’s house and Shauna knocked on the door. Calem answered quickly and Shauna deduced that he’d gotten a holo clip from Tierno or Trevor.
“So, we gonna meet the new girl?” Tierno asked rhetorically.
“She’s my neighbor across the main road there.” Calem pointed to a house and the group walked over to it. Outside was a Pokemon resting under a tree.
“Oh, they own a rhyhorn!” Trevor said, surprised.
“You haven’t heard? The famous rhyhorn racer, Grace, is my neighbor.” Calem explained. Shauna ran to the door and knocked. The door opened and sure enough, the rhyhorn racer, Grace, opened the door. Shauna managed to keep herself composed— well as composed as she usually was— and introduced herself. The rest of the group followed suit. “We’re here because the professor wanted to give your daughter a Pokemon. Is she home?” Calem asked.
“She is. I’ll go get her, why don’t you wait inside?”
“Oh no, we couldn’t intrude like that.” Trevor insisted. Grace insisted that they should at least wait in the house’s small sunroom or a porch instead of outside as the weather was turning gloomy. They agreed and Grace went back inside.
“What Pokemon do you think she’ll choose?” Shauna wondered aloud.
“We’ve got a Fennekin, Froakie, and Chespin, so she’ll have to choose between one of them. Hey, Calem, do you want to choose now?” Tierno said.
“I’ll let her choose first.” After a few minutes of waiting, a cute girl with long brown hair and blue eyes left the house. The group introduced themselves and she smiled politely.
“I’m Serena. It’s nice to meet you all.”
“There’s a café in Aquacorde next door to Vaniville if you want to go there.” Shauna suggested.
“Sure. Let me grab my wallet.”
“Oh, while you do, give this to your mom.” Tierno said, handing over a letter. “It's from Professor Sycamore and it’s supposed to explain that you’re going on a journey across Kalos, but we kind of already spoiled that part.”
“Alright.” Serena took the letter and went inside. She returned swiftly, no longer with the letter and now with a pink purse. The group went over to Aquacorde and Shauna led them to the café she often got breakfast at on weekends. She was homeschooled, so she didn’t have to worry about running late on weekdays, but it felt more like a treat if she only went on weekends. They ordered their drinks and sat down to wait.
“It’s time for you to choose your first Pokemon! Calem already said he wanted you to choose first, Serena.” Tierno said, pulling out a case of Pokeballs. “You can let the Pokemon out of their pokeballs to look at them.” Serena nodded before releasing all three Pokemon and looking at them. She settled on fennekin. Calem took froakie.
“Who gets chespin?” Serena asked.
“We all have Pokemon now, so I guess we’ll return it to the Professor?” Tierno said, sounding a little unsure.
“Why doesn’t Shauna take it?” Serena suggested.
“I like that idea.” Calem agreed. Shauna was shocked. They were suggesting she get a second Pokemon, but she barely had gotten her first. It was a cute Pokemon, though. As Trevor said something about the pokedex and passed them around, Shauna thought about if it was even fair.
“Are you sure I can have him?” Shauna asked. The whole group, save for Trevor, who was also hesitant, agreed that Shauna should get the chespin. “Alright then… I’ll name him Chessie! Welcome to the team!” They got their drinks and chatted about the journey ahead of them.
“Hey, Serena, have you heard of fairy types?” Trevor asked in the middle of the conversation.
“No, are they a new type?”
“Yeah.” Trevor confirmed. “Professor Sycamore got them classified officially last year. A lot of Pokemon people thought were other types, like normal, turned out to be fairy types instead. The pokedex says that Shauna’s fidough is a fairy type.” Shauna looked over upon hearing her name. She had been feeding poffins to her Pokemon.
“Wait, Minnie’s a fairy type?! I thought she was a normal type!” Shauna exclaimed.
“Yeah, I scanned her with my pokedex and it told me her type.”
“That’s so cool!” Shauna’s eyes twinkled in excitement as the reality of being a trainer once again hit her. Eventually, evening came and Serena and Calem went back home. “Are you two going to be able to make it back to Lumiose City before night?”
“Probably not.” Trevor admitted. “It took us until noon just to get from there to here, and we set out first thing.”
“Sleepover time!” Shauna announced, startling Trevor.
“We can’t stay over, we’re boys!” He countered. Shauna stared at him blankly, making it very clear she wasn’t going to let them go home in the dark. “We’ll stay in the hotel here.”
“No way! That place is shadier than a dark type!” Shauna interjected. It took some bickering, but Trevor eventually relented and they went to Shauna’s house. While Shauna was getting permission from her mom, she could hear Trevor send a holo clip to his parents. Tierno’s parents never seemed to care if he didn’t come home by nightfall.
—•—
The next morning, they met up with Serena and Calem and headed out of town and into Santalune forest. Calem taught Serena and Shauna how to catch new Pokemon and gave them each a few pokeballs. As they stepped into the forest, Serena made a request. “Can we have a Pokemon battle before we go any further?”
“A Pokemon battle? Sure!” Shauna had never even considered throwing her team into a battle, but she had filled her bag with potions and revives, so she was confident that she had a chance. Serena had caught a bunnelby while they were on their way to the forest, and had also fought a young trainer, so Shauna healed her Pokemon for her.
“Ready?” Serena asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Shauna let Chessie out of his Pokeball and opened her pokedex to check its moves. Serena did the same with her Fennekin. “You go first.”
“Oh, okay.” Serena seemed a little taken aback, but complied. “Alright, Fennekin, use ember!” The pokemon’s ears started to smoke and its mouth filled with fire before it shot a small blast at Chessie. It seemed like a small amount of fire, but the pokedex said that it did a lot of damage.
“Chessie, use tackle!” Shauna ordered. Chessie rammed its whole body into the opposing Fennekin and bounced off, though it seemed to have had some effect. “Good job!” Shauna cheered on her Pokemon. Serena had her fennekin use ember again and this blast almost took Chessie out entirely. Shauna, worried, returned her chespin to its Pokeball and threw Minnie onto the field. She looked through the pokedex’s move set and almost missed seeing Serena’s fennekin scratch Minnie. Shauna squeaked as if she’d been tackled instead. “Um, Minnie, use lick!” The fidough rushed forwards and licked Fennekin with its yeasty tongue and Fennekin shivered.
“Fennekin, ember!” The pokemon hit Minnie with a small blast of fire, and Shauna swore she could smell baked bread for a moment.
“Use lick again!” Shauna instructed. Minnie slobbered on the opposing fennekin again, and when it tried to retaliate, its muscles locked up and it almost tripped. After another tackle, Fennekin fainted and Shauna cheered. Serena sent out her Bunnelby and instructed it to tackle Minnie. It packed a punch against the doughy dog, but Minnie remained standing. Lick seemed to have been working well, so Shauna instructed Minnie to lick bunnelby. The move seemed to do nothing, and Shauna, confused, looked to the Pokedex.
“Lick is a ghost type move, Shauna, it doesn’t affect normal types.” Serena explained. Shauna blushed in embarrassment. After another tackle from the Bunnelby, the two sides started to exchange tackles. After a few rounds, Minnie successfully knocked out Serena’s bunnelby. “Good job, Shauna!” Serena congratulated her.
“You did really well, too!” Shauna said while reviving and healing Serena’s Pokemon. She then healed her own Pokemon and gave them both a hug. The two girls pressed on through the forest together, following paths and trying to avoid tall grass when they weren’t hoping for a fight. Serena was more likely to rush into the tall grass looking for hidden Pokemon than Shauna was. Serena ended up catching several Pokemon— a panpour, scatterbug, and pikachu. The pikachu she caught just before they left the forest. Shauna had only fought pokemon, rather than catching any. None of them caught her eye aside from Serena’s pikachu, which Shauna had not found her own version of. Serena seemed fine catching any Pokemon, but Shauna would rather have ones she liked best.