Chapter 8 & 9
"Hey, J.C?" J.C., who was already almost asleep, let out a sigh, then replied: "Yeah?" Nicholas, who had asked the question, knew that everyone else was also listening, but he couldn't wait, he had to know, it had been bothering him for quite a while. "Was I your first Pokémon?" Surprised at the question, after all, he and Nicholas had been battle partners for over five years, over the course of which they had been kidnapped by Team Magma, and survived a radioactive explosion, J.C. returned Nicholas' question with another: "What makes you think you aren't?" Nicholas had already anticipated the response, and replied: "When we met, you already had those bracelets that you have with you now, not one, but two...so..."
By now, all the members of the group were wide awake and listening in. J.C. knew this, but knew that he had to answer anyways. After letting out a long sigh, he replied with a simple "No". Slightly surprised, Nicholas then asked, "What kind of Pokémon were they? And why didn't they come with you when you caught me?" Thinking back to before he had captured Nicholas, J.C. smiled, then answered: "Well, I decided on that day that I would catch a Pokémon without their help, but sadly, we were kidnapped on our way back to my house, remember?" Nicholas nodded. "Well, do you think they transformed as well? After all, all the pokemon you catch transform, so why not?" Smiling, J.C. simply said, "It's been five years, so I'm not sure what they look like now."
The next day, Mark and Sean approached J.C. "You had two other Pokémon?"
J.C. simply nodded. Sean looked to see if there was anyone around. "Well, how strong are they?" J.C. smiled. "Pretty strong." Mark gave J.C. a smirk. "Well, could you call your butler to fly them here by helicopter?" J.C. was shocked. "How did you know I had a butler and helicopter?!" Mark started to raise his voice a little as well. "I was joking! You really have those things?!" J.C. nodded quickly. Sean butted in. "Well, then call them to come here!" Strangely, J.C. had never thought of that. He rushed off to the nearest Pokémon center to use the phone, leaving Mark and Sean shaking their heads in disbelief that he had never done that before.
An hour later, while the group was having lunch, a loud sound startled them, causing them to look up. There, in the sky, was a large helicopter, and when it landed, two girls came out, one wearing a green yukata, strangely with spikes protruding out from the sash, while the other had the bottom half of a spider, making her a rather strange sight to behold. The girls approached J.C., and J.C. looked puzzled for a while, then realized. "Everyone, these are my two Pokémon: Arachne, the one with the silver hair, and the other one with the green hair and clothes is Spyke." Sean thought for awhile. "Isn't Spyke a guy's name?" J.C. nodded. "Yes, but she seemed to like the name when I gave it to her, so we just went with that." Nicholas wasted no time in challenging Arachne, but she didn't seem interested, until J.C. told her that Nicholas was his current Pokémon.
Before the fight, De'voir and Kimberly tried to introduce themselves to Spyke, but she simply ignored them. "This will be a one on one battle! The first one to become unable to fight loses!" Sean was the referee for the match. J.C. was fighting on his own, while J.C. was giving commands to Arachne. Nicholas started off the fight with a powerful Petal Dance, but Arachne simply jumped out of the way. "Psychic!" Nicholas was shocked. "What?! Arachne's an Ariados, she can't-" Arachne's eyes started glowing purple, and then Nicholas levitated into the air. "Sunny Day!" Nicholas started shouting. "This is ridiculous! She can't-" Raising one hand, Arachne yet again dumbfounded Nicholas by using a perfect Sunny Day move, then she put both her hands in front of her, and a yellow-green orb started to appear. Nicholas knew what it meant. "Oh sh-" Nicholas smirked. "Solarbeam." Arachne closed her eyes, then loosed an extremely strong Solarbeam on Nicholas.
Sean gave his verdict. "Nicholas is unable to fight! Arachne is the winner!" Arachne walked over to the defeated Nicholas. "You're not that bad, you just didn't know that I could do those moves. You might beat me next time." Helping him up, Nicholas smiled. "Now I see why you were J.C.'s Pokémon, you're really strong."
After a whole day of introductions and swapping of stories, the group decide to go to sleep. Everyone went to J.C.'s room to check on him, because he had left the discussion early. When they entered, none of them had expected what they saw: J.C. was tied to the floor using Spider Web bare-chested, and Arachne was on top of him, eyes closed, running her tongue all over his chest. De'voir looked away, Nicholas and Spyke covered their eyes, and Kimberly and Sean continued to look, while smiling to themselves.
Meanwhile, outside the city, a silhouette put away a pair of binoculars. "Heh, looks like your getting stronger with more friends, huh, little brother?" He turned to another silhouette behind him. "Abigail, let's go, we'll meet them eventually, but for now, they're not strong enough." The other silhouette smiled. "Whatever you say...M.C."
"Verdanturf Town..." Sean let out a long sigh as the group entered the peaceful town. Kimberly closed her eyes and put her hand on his shoulder, knowing what was bothering him. "This...is where you left her, right?" "Yeah..." Sean gave a weak smile, and nodded slightly. "Who?" Sean turned around to see the rest of the group staring at him, wondering who Kimberly was talking about. Seeing that he didn't want to talk about it, Kimberly answered instead. "Aegis...one of Sean's four Pokémon, or at least she was." Before anyone could ask, Sean spoke up. "I knew that Team Magma was going to capture me. Or rather, I knew someone was going to capture me. Thus, I went all over the world releasing my four Pokémon in various regions, to keep them safe from my pursuers. I got caught trying to release Kimberly" Mark and J.C. were both shocked that Sean had tried to release Kimberly, let alone other Pokémon, but shook it off and instead asked, "So, why not try to get them back?" Sean shook his head sadly. "I released them, why should they want me back? Anyway, it's been five years, I doubt that they're still where I left them." Giving a light smile, he said, "Either way, shall we go eat?" Not wanting to cause their friend to recall more sorrowful memories, Mark and J.C. decided to simply leave it be, and, like Sean said, went to eat.
Later that day, after checking into a hotel, the group decided to go to visit this lady whom people said could tell how a Pokémon felt about its trainer. "D-Do we really have to, Master?" J.C. gave Spyke a huge grin. "Well, it's just for fun." "B-But..." Before Spyke could say anything, J.C. ran off towards Mark and Sean, who were ahead of the group. Once the Pokémon were out of their trainer's range of hearing, De'voir turned to Spyke and asked her why she didn't want to go. "Well...I...err..." Arachne was there too, so she answered, much to Spyke's chagrin. "Don't worry, she's just afraid that the lady will find out about her secret." Puzzled, De'voir asked, "Secret?" Arachne grinned. "Oh, you'll find out eventually." Spyke blushed slightly, and the Pokémon ran ahead, to their trainers.
While they were walking, Sean accidentally bumped into a lady carrying a bag, making her drop the bag. Sean picked up the bag, handed the bag back to the lady and apologized to her. As the group waved to the lady, Sean heard a voice behind him. "Sean...?" Sean turned around to see a girl staring at him. Well, as much as Sean could "see", anyway. "Who..." before Sean could finish, the girl ran up to Sean, wrapped her arms around his neck, and much to everyone's surprise, kissed him. When the GIRL broke the kiss, Sean held the girl in his arms and whispered to her. "Aegis..." Sean walked back to the group, with the girl in tow, and introduced the girl to everyone as Aegis, one of his original Pokémon. After introducing herself, she immediately turned to Sean. "I hope you don't mind the... kiss from earlier. It's just that..." Sean continued to face her. "Just that?" Gathering up her courage, Aegis confessed her feelings to the human she had been in love with for the past SEVEN years. When she had finished, she realized that the rest of the group had just heard what she had said as well, and she looked away, turning a bright shade of red. Just as she was about to run away from embarrassment, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, and much to her surprise, Sean pressed his lips against hers. They kissed deeply for a few minutes, Aegis letting Sean's tongue into her mouth, caressing it with her own, letting her hands undo Sean's eyeband from behind, and when the kiss was broken, Aegis looked into Sean's eyes and whispered the words she had been waiting five years to tell him. "I love you." Sean bent forward, and whispered something into her ear. Aegis felt shocked for a moment. She had been hoping all her life he'd say that, and yet, when he said it, she could not help but let her tears fall as she smiled.
As they walked back to the group, Mark asked what was on everyone's mind. "You proposed?" Sean was taken aback a bit, then laughed slightly. "No, I didn't. But maybe someday..." Upon hearing this, Aegis embraced Sean happily. "Well, when that time comes, you know what my answer is."
The next day, the group decided to go for breakfast at a restaurant in Verdanturf Town, then go to the battle tent to train for their upcoming gym battle at Lavaridge Town. However, when they read the rules for the Battle Tent, they were slightly disappointed.
"Three Pokémon...looks like only J.C. can participate." Mark shook his head sadly. Aegis and Kimberly also looked a bit sad, as it had been awhile since they had a good fight, and especially Aegis, who wanted to battle for Sean as soon as possible. As they walked towards the building so that J.C. could sign up, J.C. suddenly got an idea. Turning to Sean, he asked, "Wait, you can participate!" Sean looked puzzled, so J.C. explained. "Just tell me where you left your other Pokémon, and I can ask my butler to go get them, remember?" Sean thought for a while and said to J.C., "Are you sure? They're quite far." J.C. shook his head. "You underestimate me." Sean smiled slightly, and told J.C. "Well, I'm not sure if they're still there, but, I released my third Pokémon at the Lake Acuity in Sinnoh, and my fourth in Lake Verity."
Later on, Sean was to go first, and after that J.C. would battle. The Battle Tent of Verdanturf Town allowed trainers to use teams of three, and try to defeat three trainers in a row, the twist being that no commands can be given to the Pokémon.
Sean's first opponent sent out a Forretress, causing the Group to laugh to themselves, much to the opponent's annoyance. Mark and J.C. had no idea what Pokémon Sean would use, as Sean was passed his Pokémon in their new Pokéballs, and only he knew what they were. They knew that since Kimberly was sitting next to them, he had to be using his other three Pokémon, but they didn't even know what species Aegis was, let alone the other two.
Sean took off his eyeband and closed his eyes. Smiling, he provoked his opponent with a simple, "Your Pokémon are going to burn."
By now, all the members of the group were wide awake and listening in. J.C. knew this, but knew that he had to answer anyways. After letting out a long sigh, he replied with a simple "No". Slightly surprised, Nicholas then asked, "What kind of Pokémon were they? And why didn't they come with you when you caught me?" Thinking back to before he had captured Nicholas, J.C. smiled, then answered: "Well, I decided on that day that I would catch a Pokémon without their help, but sadly, we were kidnapped on our way back to my house, remember?" Nicholas nodded. "Well, do you think they transformed as well? After all, all the pokemon you catch transform, so why not?" Smiling, J.C. simply said, "It's been five years, so I'm not sure what they look like now."
The next day, Mark and Sean approached J.C. "You had two other Pokémon?"
J.C. simply nodded. Sean looked to see if there was anyone around. "Well, how strong are they?" J.C. smiled. "Pretty strong." Mark gave J.C. a smirk. "Well, could you call your butler to fly them here by helicopter?" J.C. was shocked. "How did you know I had a butler and helicopter?!" Mark started to raise his voice a little as well. "I was joking! You really have those things?!" J.C. nodded quickly. Sean butted in. "Well, then call them to come here!" Strangely, J.C. had never thought of that. He rushed off to the nearest Pokémon center to use the phone, leaving Mark and Sean shaking their heads in disbelief that he had never done that before.
An hour later, while the group was having lunch, a loud sound startled them, causing them to look up. There, in the sky, was a large helicopter, and when it landed, two girls came out, one wearing a green yukata, strangely with spikes protruding out from the sash, while the other had the bottom half of a spider, making her a rather strange sight to behold. The girls approached J.C., and J.C. looked puzzled for a while, then realized. "Everyone, these are my two Pokémon: Arachne, the one with the silver hair, and the other one with the green hair and clothes is Spyke." Sean thought for awhile. "Isn't Spyke a guy's name?" J.C. nodded. "Yes, but she seemed to like the name when I gave it to her, so we just went with that." Nicholas wasted no time in challenging Arachne, but she didn't seem interested, until J.C. told her that Nicholas was his current Pokémon.
Before the fight, De'voir and Kimberly tried to introduce themselves to Spyke, but she simply ignored them. "This will be a one on one battle! The first one to become unable to fight loses!" Sean was the referee for the match. J.C. was fighting on his own, while J.C. was giving commands to Arachne. Nicholas started off the fight with a powerful Petal Dance, but Arachne simply jumped out of the way. "Psychic!" Nicholas was shocked. "What?! Arachne's an Ariados, she can't-" Arachne's eyes started glowing purple, and then Nicholas levitated into the air. "Sunny Day!" Nicholas started shouting. "This is ridiculous! She can't-" Raising one hand, Arachne yet again dumbfounded Nicholas by using a perfect Sunny Day move, then she put both her hands in front of her, and a yellow-green orb started to appear. Nicholas knew what it meant. "Oh sh-" Nicholas smirked. "Solarbeam." Arachne closed her eyes, then loosed an extremely strong Solarbeam on Nicholas.
Sean gave his verdict. "Nicholas is unable to fight! Arachne is the winner!" Arachne walked over to the defeated Nicholas. "You're not that bad, you just didn't know that I could do those moves. You might beat me next time." Helping him up, Nicholas smiled. "Now I see why you were J.C.'s Pokémon, you're really strong."
After a whole day of introductions and swapping of stories, the group decide to go to sleep. Everyone went to J.C.'s room to check on him, because he had left the discussion early. When they entered, none of them had expected what they saw: J.C. was tied to the floor using Spider Web bare-chested, and Arachne was on top of him, eyes closed, running her tongue all over his chest. De'voir looked away, Nicholas and Spyke covered their eyes, and Kimberly and Sean continued to look, while smiling to themselves.
Meanwhile, outside the city, a silhouette put away a pair of binoculars. "Heh, looks like your getting stronger with more friends, huh, little brother?" He turned to another silhouette behind him. "Abigail, let's go, we'll meet them eventually, but for now, they're not strong enough." The other silhouette smiled. "Whatever you say...M.C."
"Verdanturf Town..." Sean let out a long sigh as the group entered the peaceful town. Kimberly closed her eyes and put her hand on his shoulder, knowing what was bothering him. "This...is where you left her, right?" "Yeah..." Sean gave a weak smile, and nodded slightly. "Who?" Sean turned around to see the rest of the group staring at him, wondering who Kimberly was talking about. Seeing that he didn't want to talk about it, Kimberly answered instead. "Aegis...one of Sean's four Pokémon, or at least she was." Before anyone could ask, Sean spoke up. "I knew that Team Magma was going to capture me. Or rather, I knew someone was going to capture me. Thus, I went all over the world releasing my four Pokémon in various regions, to keep them safe from my pursuers. I got caught trying to release Kimberly" Mark and J.C. were both shocked that Sean had tried to release Kimberly, let alone other Pokémon, but shook it off and instead asked, "So, why not try to get them back?" Sean shook his head sadly. "I released them, why should they want me back? Anyway, it's been five years, I doubt that they're still where I left them." Giving a light smile, he said, "Either way, shall we go eat?" Not wanting to cause their friend to recall more sorrowful memories, Mark and J.C. decided to simply leave it be, and, like Sean said, went to eat.
Later that day, after checking into a hotel, the group decided to go to visit this lady whom people said could tell how a Pokémon felt about its trainer. "D-Do we really have to, Master?" J.C. gave Spyke a huge grin. "Well, it's just for fun." "B-But..." Before Spyke could say anything, J.C. ran off towards Mark and Sean, who were ahead of the group. Once the Pokémon were out of their trainer's range of hearing, De'voir turned to Spyke and asked her why she didn't want to go. "Well...I...err..." Arachne was there too, so she answered, much to Spyke's chagrin. "Don't worry, she's just afraid that the lady will find out about her secret." Puzzled, De'voir asked, "Secret?" Arachne grinned. "Oh, you'll find out eventually." Spyke blushed slightly, and the Pokémon ran ahead, to their trainers.
While they were walking, Sean accidentally bumped into a lady carrying a bag, making her drop the bag. Sean picked up the bag, handed the bag back to the lady and apologized to her. As the group waved to the lady, Sean heard a voice behind him. "Sean...?" Sean turned around to see a girl staring at him. Well, as much as Sean could "see", anyway. "Who..." before Sean could finish, the girl ran up to Sean, wrapped her arms around his neck, and much to everyone's surprise, kissed him. When the GIRL broke the kiss, Sean held the girl in his arms and whispered to her. "Aegis..." Sean walked back to the group, with the girl in tow, and introduced the girl to everyone as Aegis, one of his original Pokémon. After introducing herself, she immediately turned to Sean. "I hope you don't mind the... kiss from earlier. It's just that..." Sean continued to face her. "Just that?" Gathering up her courage, Aegis confessed her feelings to the human she had been in love with for the past SEVEN years. When she had finished, she realized that the rest of the group had just heard what she had said as well, and she looked away, turning a bright shade of red. Just as she was about to run away from embarrassment, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, and much to her surprise, Sean pressed his lips against hers. They kissed deeply for a few minutes, Aegis letting Sean's tongue into her mouth, caressing it with her own, letting her hands undo Sean's eyeband from behind, and when the kiss was broken, Aegis looked into Sean's eyes and whispered the words she had been waiting five years to tell him. "I love you." Sean bent forward, and whispered something into her ear. Aegis felt shocked for a moment. She had been hoping all her life he'd say that, and yet, when he said it, she could not help but let her tears fall as she smiled.
As they walked back to the group, Mark asked what was on everyone's mind. "You proposed?" Sean was taken aback a bit, then laughed slightly. "No, I didn't. But maybe someday..." Upon hearing this, Aegis embraced Sean happily. "Well, when that time comes, you know what my answer is."
The next day, the group decided to go for breakfast at a restaurant in Verdanturf Town, then go to the battle tent to train for their upcoming gym battle at Lavaridge Town. However, when they read the rules for the Battle Tent, they were slightly disappointed.
"Three Pokémon...looks like only J.C. can participate." Mark shook his head sadly. Aegis and Kimberly also looked a bit sad, as it had been awhile since they had a good fight, and especially Aegis, who wanted to battle for Sean as soon as possible. As they walked towards the building so that J.C. could sign up, J.C. suddenly got an idea. Turning to Sean, he asked, "Wait, you can participate!" Sean looked puzzled, so J.C. explained. "Just tell me where you left your other Pokémon, and I can ask my butler to go get them, remember?" Sean thought for a while and said to J.C., "Are you sure? They're quite far." J.C. shook his head. "You underestimate me." Sean smiled slightly, and told J.C. "Well, I'm not sure if they're still there, but, I released my third Pokémon at the Lake Acuity in Sinnoh, and my fourth in Lake Verity."
Later on, Sean was to go first, and after that J.C. would battle. The Battle Tent of Verdanturf Town allowed trainers to use teams of three, and try to defeat three trainers in a row, the twist being that no commands can be given to the Pokémon.
Sean's first opponent sent out a Forretress, causing the Group to laugh to themselves, much to the opponent's annoyance. Mark and J.C. had no idea what Pokémon Sean would use, as Sean was passed his Pokémon in their new Pokéballs, and only he knew what they were. They knew that since Kimberly was sitting next to them, he had to be using his other three Pokémon, but they didn't even know what species Aegis was, let alone the other two.
Sean took off his eyeband and closed his eyes. Smiling, he provoked his opponent with a simple, "Your Pokémon are going to burn."