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Autumn might have been approaching, but the Baltimore weather hid it well. Candela – who stood on the street by a housing complex – appreciated this fact. It meant Flareon could stay out of his Pokeball without getting uncomfortable. At that moment, Candela’s signature Pokemon was napping atop one of the three cardboard boxes that housed all of her possessions. Of these boxes, one - larger than the others - was labeled ‘training and battle equipment’ in an untidy scrawl. The others were filled with an assortment of items from clothing to toiletries to the tea kettle her aunt had given her last Christmas, and so went unlabeled. Candela wasn’t really too fussed with organization, so long as everyone knew which box contained the most important items and, as such, should be handled with the most care.
The woman shifted her weight from foot to foot as she waited for Spark and Blanche to come pick her up in Spark’s ancient pickup. Candela considered herself something of a car expert, and with the amount of money Spark had, she really thought he should have updated his ride by now. Sure, they wouldn’t have been able to handle moving everyone’s things on their own, but that would have been fine by her. They could have gotten the Machoke Moving Company to pick up their things and take them to Spark’s place. It was easy for Candela to interact with Pokemon, whereas the idea of squishing into the cabin of Spark’s pickup – even with her best friends – was not exactly appealing.
She pulled out her phone to check the time… It was exactly half-past seven, and while Spark being late was perfectly believable, the company of Blanche should have meant they’d arrived by now – and it was just as Candela was thinking that that her phone began to vibrate, the screen indicating that Spark was the caller.
“Where are you?”
“Uh, yeah, about that…” Spark laughed a bit, though it sounded off. “We’ve kind of got ourselves into a… Situation.”
“We?” Candela heard Blanche say in the background.
“What did you do, Spark?”
“I didn’t do anything.” A beat. “Wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, really, by definition, an accident is nobody’s fault, right?”
“Not really, no. Just – What happened?”
“Don’t worry about it! We’re fine, and so is the Sandshrew!”
“What.”
“Okay, that sounded bad. To clarify, I did not hit a Sandshrew! I did drive into its tunnel. So… Yeah. We’re kind of stuck here with one wheel in a hole. But Blanche called us a tow! We’ll get to you soon, okay?”
“Crap, Spark, I already handed in my keys.”
“Aw, sorry, dude! At least the weather’s nice!”
“I didn’t eat breakfast, though,” Candela sighed.
“I… Will buy you doughnuts. Jelly doughnuts,” Spark assured her. “And you can even eat them in the truck.”
“I better be able to eat in the truck. The truck is an old clunker.”
“Are we really going to do this again. Now?” Spark asked, but Candela knew him well, and she knew he was always more amused by this argument than anything else – much to Candela’s frustration, as she wished he’d just listen to her.
“I’m just saying that it’s an awful car, and since you’re the only one of us who has the money to buy one right now – ”
“Well, it’s not… Really my money. I inherited my parents’ company, but I’m really just a figurehead. I don’t do any work for the cut I get. Well, you know that. Anyway, my point is, this car is the first big thing I earned on my own.”
“That fact won’t do you any good when the engine catches fire one day,” Candela countered.
“Dude, that won’t – woah!”
“What?”
“Pokemon. Gotta catch,” Spark said, speaking even more choppily than usual. “Promise to be there soon! Bye!”
Candela shook her head as the line went dead. She was going to be out there for a while, but at least Spark was right about the nice weather.
“Did. You. See that?” Spark demanded of Blanche, who folded her arms over her chest and gave him a pointed look.
“You hang up on our friend? Yes.”
“Oh, like either of you are Miss Manners,” Spark said, with an amused eyeroll. Then, “Wait, but no! Did you see it? The Pokemon?”
Blanche looked around the stretch of dirt road they were stuck on, as well as the fields surrounding it. They had been so close to making it into the city that she could see the skyline clearly – but she didn’t see any Pokemon.
“Was it a Pikachu?”
“What? No.”
“A Psyduck?”
“…No.”
“An Electabuzz?”
“No, it – wait, why do you keep guessing yellow Pokemon?”
Blanche smirked. “Because you are very predictable, love.”
“No, I – whatever. Your loss, my friend!”
Blanche shook her head. Sometimes, Spark forgot to do things like, oh, make sense – and it was more than a little frustrating for someone who thought very logically, like herself. “Why is that?”
“Because! By choosing to mock me instead of listen to me, you – ” here, Spark jabbed a finger at the top of Blanche’s sternum, earning a dry ‘ow’ from the woman – “have forfeited the chance to rock-paper-scissors over who goes after the Pokemon! It is now mine to go and catch, by default, while you stay here. And wait for the tow. So ha!”
Blanche, who Spark often teased for being ‘science and sass’ more than ‘sugar and spice’, was weighing her options – on the one hand, a sarcastic remark was already on the tip of her tongue in response to Spark’s childishness, but on the other… This Pokemon was obviously a big deal to him. It might be a rare Pokemon she had not yet caught or hatched. Obtaining it now could, depending on the species, help her research.
It would also help her catch up to her friends in the field of Pokedex completion – because despite her best efforts, she had less Pokemon data entries than her two best friends. This was due in part to the amount of time she dedicated to working with Professor Willow in his lab, but she could also blame Spark’s dedication to hatching as many eggs as possible, as well as the fact that Candela had a dedication to catching Pokemon that was rivaled only by her dedication to training and battling them.
“What kind of Pokemon was it?” she asked, her own dedication – to her research – winning out in the end.
“I have no idea!” Spark declared. “Isn’t that exciting? It just sped by, and I didn’t get a good look!”
Blanche’s relaxed, internally sighing with relief. “I’m sure it was just a Ponyta or Doduo that you mistook for something else.”
“No way!” Spark called, running off into the fields and down a hill. “You just wait and see!” Blanche couldn’t help smiling. As infuriating as he could be, Spark had an exuberance that she sometimes found inspiring. Sometimes.
It didn’t change her firm belief that he whatever he had seen was something they’d already encountered, however, so Blanche allowed Spark to leave her behind. Then, she decided that if she was just waiting around, she’d make good use of her time – for a start, she walked towards the bed of the truck to make sure her boxes were still secured properly. Really, she still had some mixed feeling about this moving thing – she’d been staying in her makeshift apartment over Professor Willow’s lab for months, now, and while she was fine with the change if it meant better living quarters, (and boy, did it ever), she didn’t like the idea of being a few towns away from the lab. Professor Willow had assured her she could continue her personal research at her convenience, but science wasn’t about convenience. It was about putting in constant hard work – she couldn’t let the distance make her grow lazy. Being a Team Leader was already taking up a chunk of time that she would have previously spent on her work.
That said, Spark lived in a literal mansion. Not only was there plenty of room for herself and Candela; their Pokemon could be out of their Pokeballs at all times and things would still be completely comfortable. So of course there was a certain appeal – not that Blanche required luxury to be happy. But she’d have an actual oven; no more boiling her ramen in the microwave, or that one time, over a Bunsen burner.
Beyond going down the hill, Spark didn’t know where the mysterious Pokemon had gone, but that realization didn’t deter him in the slightest. He remained undaunted when he came to a long, winding river with no bridge nearby.
“Alright! So either it was a water-type, or…” Spark trailed off, and laughed. “Or I’m really lost,” he concluded. “I could always use an incense. Draw it out if its nearby. Or, you know, end up with a bunch of Pidgey visiting me. I am talking to myself again.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I guess that’s okay. There’s nobody else to talk to right now.”
Spark went on talking to himself as he decided against the use of an incense. He actually had quite a bit of fun with it, addressing and answering himself with nicknames like ‘Sparkmeister’. He kept his voice soft; it was increasingly difficult not to break into laughter at his own antics, but he didn’t want to scare away this mysterious Pokemon.
Nothing could be seen in the water, despite its relative clarity, and Spark also found nothing in the reeds that cropped up further along the river. He sighed and stretched. “Okay, Spark-a-doo, maybe it’s time to head back to the truck. If the tow is there before you, Blanche will be furious. And she’ll tell Candela. Who will also be furious – well, more furious. I better remember to pick up those jelly doughnuts for h – ”
A rustling in the reeds, just ahead, caught Spark’s attention. Distracted from his conversation with himself, he carefully moved forward, until he could hear something besides the rustling – a sort of low buzzing. Was that possibly the Pokemon’s call? As he often did when working with a Pokemon, Spark did his best to imitate the sound. Finally, he got close enough to part the reeds and reveal an orb.
Spark stared. The orb stared back.
And then it zoomed off.
“Woah! Okay, so… That was alive. That was a Pokemon! Shoot, I can’t believe I missed it, but – wow! So cool!”
When he rushed back to the truck, Blanche was still waiting by the truck, flipping through the notebook she always had on her person – she took down all sorts of observations in it. “Oh, there you are. Could have left me the keys, you know.” In response, Spark continued to grin near-manically, and grabbed the notebook from an unsuspecting Blanche. “Hey!” she protested.
“Shh-shh-shh! Pencil!”
Blanche seemed to realize there was no use trying to talk sense to him just then, so she sighed and said, “I only have pens.”
“That works!” Blanche handed over her pen, and Spark put it to a blank page. He drew a circle, then a line crossing through it, and showed the result to Blanche. “This is the Pokemon I saw!”
“That is a Pokeball,” Blanche responded.
“No, it – Oh, wait, I forgot!” Spark scribbled in some eyes. Blanche blinked.
“That is a Pokeball with eyes.”
“It was a Pokemon! It was just sitting there, and then – vroom! – it went off!”
Blanche looked at him wearily, but was quickly distracted by something over his shoulder. “Ah, the tow’s here.”
By the time they were back on the road, Spark had yet to convince Blanche that what he’d seen was truly a Pokemon, resulting in loud squabbling. Neither was particularly unhappy with the other, not really, but they knew Candela would have hated the noise. Best to get it out of their systems before they picked her up.
They took a break, however, to pick up the promised jelly doughnuts. Spark pulled into the coffee shop’s parking lot. “Blanche. Blanche, look at me.”
Blanche looked up from her notebook. “What, love?”
Spark held up the keys to the truck and shook them so they jingled. “I’m leaving you the keys this time.”
Blanche smirked. “Just hurry up; poor Candela’s been waiting forever. I’ll text her to let her know we’re almost there.”
“Aye aye!” Spark saluted and hopped down from the cab of the truck. There was, oddly, no line at the bakery counter inside, so Spark walked right up to the cash register and asked for a dozen jelly doughnuts.
“Sorry, we’re out,” the cashier informed him, not looking up. Spark faltered.
“Oh. Is that why nobody’s in line?” he whispered to himself, but it got the cashier’s attention.
“What?”
“Oh! It’s just... I was wondering. If that, you know, because you don’t have doughnuts – ”
“We do. We just don’t have jelly doughnuts.”
Spark rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s what I promised my friend, so you might as well not have any doughnuts. I mean, no, sorry! That was. Rude. I was only thinking out loud before, anyway. I’ll take twelve, um… Hmmm, maybe – Ooh, what’s a cronut?”
It was past eight in the morning when Candela saw Spark’s pickup truck driving down the road. As the vehicle pulled up to her, she gave a wave, which Spark and Blanche returned.
“Okay,” Spark said decisively. “You can get Candela’s stuff set in the truck.” He leaned out the truck window. “Candela, Blanche is going to get your stuff. You can just get in the cab.”
“Um, excuse me,” Blanche began, “why don’t I have a say in this?”
“Because when I tried to help you tie your stuff down, you said I clearly didn’t know how to tie a knot. Also, I went in for the doughnuts.”
Blanche scowled, but she got out of the truck and approached Candela and her boxes – one of which Flareon still slept upon. “How does that work?”
“What work?” Candela asked.
“How are the flames on Flareon not scorching the box?”
Candela shrugged. “Ponyta can carry people without scorching them,” she pointed out.
“But Flareon’s not a… Well, nevermind. It’s not important.”
Spark hopped down from the cabin of the truck, then. He stood on one leg, shaking the other in the air, and then did the same with the other side. “You know, Candela, if I ever do get a new car, it’ll be for the leg room.”
“I thought you weren’t going to help,” Blanche said. Spark smiled.
“I wasn’t serious. Besides, Fearow can lift these easily!” he explained, reaching for a Pokeball. He released his favorite flying-type Pokemon, and held out his arm for her to perch on. “Hey, girl, can you help us with these boxes?”
Fearow nodded happily, and set to work, letting out a cry in Flareon’s ear to awaken him. The Flame Pokemon growled once he got over his initial shock, but hopped down from the box all the same.
“Did you get the doughnuts?” Candela asked. Spark flinched.
“Well. Kind of?”
“Kind of.”
“Have you ever heard of cronuts? They’re, like, croissant-doughnut hybrids.”
“I know what they are,” Candela said. “What happened to jelly doughnuts?”
“They were out. Sorry, dude, but hey! According to the girl at the coffee shop, there’s a whole craze going on with these cronut things.” Spark reached up into the truck and grabbed the bag of cronuts. As he offered them to Candela, Fearow landed on his outstretched arm. “Oh, you’re done? Thanks, girl!”
Candela took the cronuts as Spark recalled Fearow to her Pokeball. She sampled one, and after a moment, gave a nod of approval. “No jelly doughnut, but pretty good,” she explained, and she held out the bag to Spark. “Well? I’m not going to eat all of these by myself.” Spark laughed and took one of the treats, only to make a face just after biting into it.
“I doughnut like this,” he said. Candela shook her head.
“That was a terrible joke.”
“And you’re surprised?” Blanche asked, heading back over to the others after finishing tying down Candela’s boxes. “All of Spark’s jokes are terrible.”
“You guys give me such a hard time,” Spark said. “Yet here I am, bringing you into my home. For shame, ladies.”
“Hey, you invited us,” Candela teased.
“Yeah, you sealed your own doom,” Blanche added. Spark beamed.
“Well, then, I accept my doom! Now, come on! Let’s go home.”