Ƞєғαʀious

 “My, my, what’s with that face, Falkner?”

“Don’t tell me that you actually want to get wrinkles at a younger age.”

 “Shouldn’t you be happy to see me? I was just about to get lonely without seeing anyone, you know.”

Why did it not surprise him that Morty wasn’t all upset about being in this strange field? Knowing him he was probably cracking jokes with Gastly and making a pick list of what he would say to the next random bystander he ran into. At least, he botched up that list because they were old childhood friends even in Morty was considerably a few years older than him. Perhaps he should proceed with caution,  he didn’t want to be tempted into any sort of trouble in a place like this. Not like that charm had any sort of affect on him.

"Looks like you'll be stuck with me for a few more hours -- days, months, even. I myself am not quite sure." His eyes strayed over to look back up the direction he had come from, blinking. "I didn't see any sorts of living things while I was trekking across these plains; it's almost as if we've been thrown into a completely other dimension." A small smile crept across his lips. "I'm sure Eusine would've wished to have come along for the ride down here. Or is it up, somewhere in heaven? No, no, this place looks much too dreary for a heaven..." Through with his own guesswork, he swung around to face Falkner once more, canting his head slightly to the right. "So...I suppose you could say that is my roundabout answer of telling you: no, I don't know where we are."

Though while his friend might seem stressed at the idea of being stranded in a No Man's Land, Morty quite liked the idea; being Fourth Gym Leader in line, he had to wait more often for seasoned Trainers to show up at his doorstep than Falkner had, who was probably rushed with Trainers on a day-to-day basis.

A silent breeze swept past the boy’s feet, he sat in a wide-eyed trance overlooking a hilly region. Where were the small, rural streets littered with newbie trainers and their starter Pokémon trailing behind their feet? The neon signs of the Poké Center reading ‘ALL DAY EVERY DAY’? The small opening leading to route 32 with various chatty trainers…

This was not Violet City. He didn’t even see any bushes shaking with critters. His hand pat at his side, feeling that the capsules containing his companions were still very present. This was the only factor that seemed real to him. But there was no need to sit around and wait for more of those black monsters. They were what drug him to this place unmarked on his Pokégear map. The tiny digital screen was fuzzy, the gray image overlapped with a small black question mark. 

Now here he was with Gastly in tow, scoping the endless plains and plateaus that might lead to nowhere. "But nowhere is nice," he mused aloud to his ghostly friend, turning to look at the gaseous form with a catty grin. "Besides, I was quite tired of being cooped up and waiting for something interesting to happen." And as he and his Pokemon trekked the weeds and twirls of grass they had eventually came to a small slope, where a very familiar figure stood in his usual cold air. The boy seemed to sense their presence and had immediately turned their way as he carefully came down the little hill.

Lyra adjusted the strap of her bag upon her shoulder, an eager smile on her features. Zipping it tight, she dug her heels onto the tiled floor of the pokemon center, as if to fit her shoes. For the trainer, it was one of those days where she couldn’t wait to get out and train with her pokémon. When everything seemed to be in order, she looked down to her Marill.

“Ready to go?” she asked, in which the pokémon gave out a happy cry in response.

Lyra and Marill both advanced toward the door with a slight hop in their step. However, as she approached the door, it proved difficult to see outside. Maybe the doors need to be cleaned, or something, she thought, slightly scrunching her eyebrows. As the automatic sliding doors opened, the two were immediately soaked with a onslaught of rain. Marill seemed to be enjoying it, but Lyra, on the other hand, emitted a light squeak. The trainer scooped her pokémon into her arms and ran back inside.

Letting out a disappointed sigh, Lyra set Marill back down at her feet. She attempted to squeeze a bit of rain out of her pigtails, hoping that her hair wouldn’t look too bad later on.

“Come on, Marill. Let’s wait ‘til it slows down a bit.”

As Lyra approached the small seating area, she noticed that an array of people were crammed onto the couches and chairs. Eyes scanning the area for a seat, she eventually noticed a spot on a couch. Lyra noticed that another person occupied the couch, so she allowed Marill to jump into her arms as they approached.

Sighing, the Ghost Gym Leader looked down at his umbrella, surprised to find that it was still drenched in droplets even after waiting forty minutes. "Goodness me," he sighed to himself, straightening the pages of his magazine once more. "I don't suppose the storm has let up, has it..." And when he heard the electric doors of the center open up and reveal a drenched brunette and her Pokemon, Morty's question had certainly been answered. The girl's Water Pokemon, however, might have enjoyed the little shower.

Better yet, he found said girl stutter out an question towards him. Perhaps she was a new Trainer? It was nice coming across those that had just started off their journey. He gave the girl a curt smile back, nodding in reply.

"Why of course you may," he said. "I won't be going in quite a while, anyway. So please, why don't you keep me company." Morty immediately flipped the glossy magazine's pages shut and shuffled to put it back onto the rack beside him. After all, he would much more prefer human conversation over a couple of boring tabloid topics -- he did enough reading at home, anyway.

The brunette was surprised to see all this people, she was used to be alone, after all, Leaf had been travelling for a long time. At first, she was unsure if she was supposed to answer them, or at least give acknowledge them. After a moment of hesitation, the girl smiled and waved for a bit. Even if she didn’t know who they were, manners were manners, right? 

“Hello guys! Nice to meet you all!” Her grin started to fade after a few seconds, and the girl let out a little sigh, quickly looking around once more to make sure she didn’t see a familiar face. Trying to hide her disappointment, Leaf put on her best friendly face, waiting for the strangers to do something. 

But, after making the chance decision to answer her call and turn he way, he was pleased to see a rather cheery brunette wave at him. “Oh my, my, what a vibrant little girl we have on our hands,” he replied back with a small, impish smile. “Yes, I don’t believe I have ever seen you around these parts. Are you perhaps a tourist in Ecruteak?” Come to think of it, it was the season for the high tides of tourists to sift through his city.

“Look who it is.. I wasn’t expecting to see you around this side of town.” The pinkette smiled as she approached her long time colleague and friend. It had been a while since the two had last saw each other, was it possibly when they all gathered over at Kanto? No.. Maybe they did meet sometime after that. Her memory was a bit off. But then again training and trying to maintain somewhat of a social life did seem to mess up her schedule.

“… What is it, Pidgeot?” 

Pidgeot continued to stare. 

Falkner took a look at himself and realised he was still in his police uniform. He let out an embarrassed laugh and scratched the back of his head.

“Oh, that’s right…” he said, looking down at his uniform. Falkner took a look at the time on his PokeGear and already saw that he was a couple minutes late. Lucky and smart for Falkner, he already wore his swim trunks and tank-top underneath the uniform - the discomfort he felt all day would be worth it after he met up with his friends. “I can just remove it on the way there. Is that okay with you?”

Pidgeot nodded and let out a cry of approval. ”Alright, then.” Falkner climbed onto Pidgeot’s back and and up they flew towards their destination. 

Fast forward, Pidgeot and Falkner spotted Morty, Whitney and Bugsy down below. He ordered Pidgeot to lower the altitude for safer landing on Falkner’s part. He’d already removed his police jacket and the police hat and placed them into his bag, but his trousers were going to be a tad difficult on air. He figured he’d just remove them after he landed. Falkner handed his bag to Pidgeot’s beak for holding and gave him a pat on the head. “I’ll meet you down there,” Falkner reassured him. 

The flying-specialist jumped off of his Pidgeot and aimed his feet to the ground, landing safely in front of his fellow Gym Leaders; Pidgeot following after.

“Well, if you say so,” Eusine replied.  ”But if it gets too uncomfortable, speak up, okay?”  The Hypno nodded and Eusine immediately began to speed-walk towards the beach once more. It was unfortunately almost past the time he had promised Morty that he would meet him.  Eusine had woken up on time, indeed he had been able to sleep most of the night from sheer excitement at meeting Morty’s other friends, but, as usual, he had taken his sweet time preparing to leave.  He hadn’t even done that much, but somehow the time escaped him.  And so it was that he had rushed from Ecruteak on the back of his Pidgeot and landed near the beach.  

Eusine could feel the sweat rolling down his face, caking his hair and skin.  Hopefully Morty wasn’t too worried.  He wouldn’t want the blonde to think that he had simply abandoned the beach trip!  This encouraged his feet to move even faster and soon he came upon the familiar form of Morty.  A smile slide across Eusine’s face and he waved.  

The girl turned slightly at the sound of Morty’s voice, he was as cheery as always. “Of course, on days like today.. It would be sad if we were last.. You guys would probably hold it against me.” Her eyes wandered to his attire, noticing that he had zipped it up. It was.. As if he knew she would say something.. Just because of that she probably would not hold back today. “Hm.. Nice outfit Morty. I see you’ve been.. Working out.” She simply said, placing a finger on her lip, giving him a quick wink.

“Hmm?” She turned again at the sound of the flying-type specialist. Everyone was arriving around the same time. “Don’t worry. We’ve just arrived. Nothing much has happened.. Yet. We’ve still got loads of fun games to play and whatnot. Oh-! And we’re also gonna drag Morty in for a little swim.” She teased the older male slightly, she was not going to force him to go in.. Maybe trick him. At the sound of another person approaching them, she was a bit surprised. A new face? Wait.. He was a bit.. Familiar.

At the suggestion to get going, Bugsy reached into his satchel and plucked a pokeball. Bugsy was lucky— because of the extensive training, Marcy hadn’t lost the capability of flight when she evolved.

“Scizor!” the scizor announced, her thick, metallic exoskeleton gleaming in the sun.

Bugsy held his arms high above his head, turning to the large pokemon and grinning. “Can you give me a lift, Marcy?” he asked, and in turn the pincer pokemon nodded. She crossed over to Bugsy and picked him up, pressing the purplenette close to her torso and holding him tight.

His jesting soon stopped, however, when he heard Whitney pipe up about his exercise. The blonde quickly turned his head to turn to look at her, failing to whip up a confident smirk this time.

"Oh why yes. Of course I've been...exercising. Can't you tell?" He felt his stomach tighten, quite nervous. Whitney was always very witty when it came to these things. "A-Ah, I don't think I'll be swimming today. I'd rather...stay in the shade under our parasols, if you'll please." Suddenly, he brightened. "Why, I'll personally volunteer to take my time away from fun. I'll see to it that everyone's things are looked after for while everyone goes into the water. It is a sacrifice...I am willing to make."

And if things couldn't go even better for him, Morty heard a familiar voice not too far from where the four were standing. "Ah, Eusine!" He quickly made his way over to his friend's side, clacking away on his flip flops. "So you did come after all. I was wondering where you'd run off to."

Now it was time to throw a monkeywrench into Falkner's original plans. Oh, well. Bugsy and Whitney didn't seem to mind, did they? It was still a three to one vote, should the Bird Trainer get testy. "I hope you all don't mind if Eusine came along. He just recently came back from his journey to other regions." He turned to look at the brunette with a small smile. "I'm sure he has many tales for us to tell -- especially for a story-fanatic like you, Bugsy...~"