Eudora kept a tight grip on her pokeball as she and Lauren stepped outside the lab a few minutes later. It somehow felt alive in her hand but that had to be her imagination, just like the slight twitching she felt. Unaware of her misgivings, Lauren walked them to the side of the building and an empty patch of grass. "Alright, girl. Let's get this introduction over with, I've got a primavera calling my name." She fixed Eudora with an expectant look; under her watchful gaze, the new trainer tossed the ball a foot away. It hit the ground with a muffled thud, the grass cushioning its fall.
"Pffff!" Lauren bit her lip in vain to hold back a laugh but gave in entirely when the two women locked eyes and saw the same amusement. Eudora cracked a smile and then giggled; tried to suppress her laugh (because this was a serious moment) and then burst out into a full guffaw with her friend quick to join in. "Y-yo-you're supposed to–" Lauren tried explaining as her sides shook. "Pr-press the button before you throw it. Girl, have you never used a pokeball before?" She hadn't, and if her first attempt wasn't obvious enough her pointed attempts to avoid eye contact made it crystal clear.
"Momma always handles that kind of stuff," Eudora admitted, now eyeing the discarded capsule. Although still amused, she'd stopped laughing.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
? ? ? the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy: A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
"Let's try this again," Lauren suggested, but this time she grabbed the pokeball. That was fair, Eudora thought. She was using her free time to help her out, after all. This time, when the ball was tossed an audible ping went with it and from its half-opened mouth a startlingly bright light poured out onto the ground, took a solid, round form, and then fizzled out to reveal a blue and white penguin. "Isn't he just the cutest?!" the lab assistant gushed. "They call these little guys Piplup, and if you couldn't tell he's a water-type."
Eudora, who'd instinctively taken a step back, now casually adjusted her glasses as she looked down at the pokemon. At her pokemon. "He's..."'Less terrifying than I expected.'"Definitely cute," she agreed. Lauren nodded her head enthusiastically. "Right? Look at those flippers! And–ugh!–don't get me started on those tiny little feet! If I had a hundred of them it still wouldn't be enough!" While the women (more Lauren than Eudora) cooed over him, Piplup was still getting his bearings: twisting his body back and forth so that he could look between the two humans before he took in his environment, particularly the grass underneath its feet. Eudora, noticing this, gestured to the pokemon. "Is he... alright?"
Lauren stopped mid-rave to watch Piplup as he stomped down blades of grass until they laid down flat. "Yeah, probably. I mean, definitely. He's just a little weird." Piplup shot her a glare, grass domination forgotten. "Sorry, sorry! You're quirky, how's that?" After a few seconds of unwavering eye contact, his chest swelled up, he gave a firm nod, and then went back to trampling the grass; either he preferred that description, or he didn't know what the word meant. After, she gave Eudora a "see what I have to deal with" look and a wry smirk.
'He's a card, alright,' she communicated back with a raised eyebrow and a laugh that she artfully turned into a cough when Piplup looked at her.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
? ? ? the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy: A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
She hadn't even introduced herself and already Eudora could tell that her pokemon held himself in high regard, so keeping that in mind she held her tongue until Piplup was good and ready to listen. And he wasn't ready to do that until after he'd flattened out a full circle and plopped down in the midst of it. Only then did he raise his flippers to them as if to say, "you may speak". Lauren opened her mouth to oblige him but Eudora was quick to take the lead: she was the one the little penguin would have to listen to.
"I'm your trainer, Eudora." It was... weird introducing herself to a pokemon, but so far she still had Piplup's attention. "We're going to start traveling together." .....Silence. "So, let's get along?" She'd meant for her final statement to be that: a firm declaration, but Piplup's unabashed stare had sown unease so the statement had been turned into a suggestion. Afterward, and still, underneath his unblinking gaze, Eudora huffed and then clicked her tongue. "Great," she thought bitterly. "He hates me already."
But, as usual, her negative thoughts were far from reality, and soon after her speech Piplup stood to his feet and slapped one flipper to his chest. "Pip!" he exclaimed, and Eudora took that as his declaration of acceptance. A quarter of her relief spilled out into the smile the young woman shone down on her new partner while she tamped down the rest with mental assurances.
"See? You always want to see the worst in a situation."
Then again, this was only the first trial. And, as the law of the world dictated: a smooth beginning just meant... No, a smooth start-up meant rough sailing? The expression had been more elegant as a pre-thought.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
? ? ? the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy - A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
Eudora and Lauren parted ways a few minutes later, each woman wishing the other good fortune in their future endeavors. But, before she slipped back inside the laboratory—its door propped against her shoulder and revealing the busy world of pokemon assistants—Lauren gave her a bit of food for thought:
"Think of a nickname to give him!" she shouted, oblivious to the few feet that separated them. "It'll help you two bond."
And then there were two.
With the closing of the door, the background noise of busywork and workings of various machines went with it and in the silence, Eudora awkwardly shuffled her feet. It was her first day of Kindergarten all over again. "Pip?" He was the first to break the silence and the trainer felt something cool touch her ankle. "Right!" Eudora clapped her hands together and looked down at Piplup. "I guess we can't stand out here all day, so let's walk and talk." Her suggestion was met with a blank expression, but before she could start second-guessing herself Piplup began waddling away from the lab and towards the town's edge.
...Wasn't she supposed to be leading them? Eudora sucked her top lip and then fell in line behind Piplup, thought it over, and extended her stride so that she could walk beside the penguin. She'd think about a name as they moved, and it'd be one worthy of a little leader.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
? ? ? the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy - A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
Even though Piplup was leading the charge Eudora had a decent idea of where they were going, on the train ride over she'd poured over Sinnoh's map. "Prince?" she spoke up before immediately wrinkling her nose; that was too on the nose. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, chest puffed out as he marched. "Philup? It'll be like Phillip but we'd add the -lup from your..." Eudora stopped then and there: if you had to explain a joke, it wasn't funny, and the same went for names. The young woman reached a hand up to idly tug and unfurl one of her curls while dark brown eyes swept over the passing houses.
"Piplup!" Piplup declared, suddenly and confidently. Eudora let her curl spring back into shape. "What is it?" The penguin opened his beak to respond, and she was poising herself to interpret, but as he took another step forward he stumbled over a rock—one his eyes ever forward missed—and immediately plummeted to the ground as a felled tree would. Eudora blinked. It had happened so... fast she wasn't even sure it'd really happened. "Are you.." she reached a cautious hand out to Piplup's backside; yup, she really had witnessed her partner eat pavement— dirt.
Before she could play doctor and misdiagnosis, Piplup shoved himself off the ground and rocked into a confident pose: head held high and one flipper cocked at his hip. He was poise and regality incarnate. So, Eudora pretended not to see the way his body trembled or how his face scrunched with the effort of fighting back the tears already welling in his eyes. But, she couldn't ignore the bright red rash that lit up the light blue space between his eyes, she was his trainer after all: tasked with his care and wellbeing.
"I think I've figured out your name," Eudora mentioned nonchalantly as she reached into her bookbag for her med kit—for bumps and bruises on the road!—and after only a bit of fiddling popped the lid open. Piplup, cautiously curious, shuffled so that he could watch her from the side. "Okay, so it's a pretty common enough name. But, it's still a good name and only the truly great can make it stand out." The sound of tearing paper, faint but audible, filled in the spaces between breaths. "So, ready to hear it? I think it would fit you perfectly." At this point, Piplup shuffled himself another 45° and was looking at her straight on. He nodded eagerly.
The young woman smoothed the extra large bandaid hot-dog style across Piplup's bruise. He winced but didn't complain: the fish could only see the worm— not that she was maliciously baiting him! "Henry. It's Henry," Eudora revealed and took a step back. "Whaddyuh think? It's got a nice ring to it, right?"
Piplup was quiet for an uncomfortably long time, longer than Eudora thought any pokemon had the patience for. And her darker thoughts had a field day.
"Piplup!" One flipper shot into the air like a rocket and Piplup, now officially Henry nodded his head firmly.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
Henry the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy - A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
Eudora fought hard against her smile and in the end, managed to pass off a cool smile as she packed her med kit away. The rest of her giddiness—all 98.9% of it—she released in the frantic wiggling of her fingers, once her hands were free to do so. "Let's keep going then," she encouraged, and, as expected, Henry took the lead.
She was starting to get an idea of Henry's personality, and it wasn't what she expected. None of this was going as expected. But... Eudora was slowly starting to realize that wasn't a bad thing. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, of course, but she was starting to enjoy herself. "Maybe I will last a month," the young woman spoke under her breath.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
Henry the Piplup ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: O5 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Defiant - Raises user's ATK by 2 stages each time any of their stats are lowered. It does not activate for self-inflicted status lowering moves. ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Sassy - A child who knows he'll be an emperor, someday. He's more immature than he cares to admit.
The walk from Sandgem to Twinleaf was uncharacteristically quiet, at least for Eudora; silence seemed to be Sam's natural state. Her mind was filled with building blocks of ideas that she had to sort out, mostly negative and unhelpful. She had about two weeks until her new cards were mailed to her house in Undella, so she had two weeks to think of a convincing story to tell her mom. Eudora tried a few: "A wild pokemon stole my wallet, and I couldn't get it back without having both my arms ripped off." Mm, no, that was a tad too dramatic, even for her. "I dropped my wallet in a deep lake." Maybe, but then she'd have to explain how she, a water safety expert, had failed to secure her valuables properly. "I lost my wallet." It was a bit uninspired but the simpler a lie was, the easier it was to follow.
Eudora didn't feel. . . great about lying to her mom, but what other alternative did she have? Tell the truth? Bah. That was worse than one teensy little lie.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
Sam the Snom ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: 10 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Ice Scales - The Pokémon is protected by ice scales, which halve the total damage taken from special moves ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Quiet - A stoic individual, no one ever knows what he's thinking.
As she neared the train station, Eudora began to shift gears as she simultaneously realized a flaw in her plan: her parents wouldn't wait for two weeks to call her. In fact, one or both of them would try and call her tonight and then start to worry when she didn't call them back the next day. If they didn't hear from her after two days, they'd. . . what? Call the police? Come out to find her themselves? Neither was a good option. Eudora would have to call them, preferably tonight but tomorrow at the latest. She puffed out her cheeks at the looming deadline, an exasperated groan leaking out. "Figure this out later," she muttered, letting the procrastinator shine through. She'd have more than enough time to devise a plan on the train.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
Sam the Snom ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: 10 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Ice Scales - The Pokémon is protected by ice scales, which halve the total damage taken from special moves ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Quiet - A stoic individual, no one ever knows what he's thinking.
Eudora stopped before the station's billboard, reading and mumbling aloud the times and destinations. After a full minute of investigating, she nodded to herself, mind made up, but held back from approaching the counter. She looked down at Sam. "You're an ice type, right?" she said rhetorically, taking in the literal ice spikes jutting from his body. Sam, as expected, kept quiet. Eudora bobbed her head and began approaching the ticket stand at a slow, conversational pace. "The region we're going to is hot – like, unnecessarily and uncomfortably hot. But, I've got some family there, so I'm kinda familiar with the layout," she explained. Sam blinked. "I'm just telling you ahead of time so you aren't surprised or anything. And, if it gets unbearable, I won't keep you out. One ticket to Alola, please." Now, at the stand, Eudora unzipped her bag to pay the woman behind the counter, trading the bills for a slip of paper. She pocketed it and her change before sitting on a nearby bench to wait for her train. Obviously, it wouldn't be a direct trip; you couldn't ride a train to an island. But, this would get them to the port nearest to Alola, and they'd take a boat from there.
"How many years has it been?" Eudora thought idly as a sharp whistle pierced the air, and a train pulled into the station. "Four, almost five years? I hope Auntie won't mind the surprise visit." She stood with a few other waiting passengers but waited until a line for boarding assembled, assuring that she was at the tail-end of it. When asked, the young woman produced her ticket, not bothering to look back at the town she'd arrived in just this morning. Eudora made her way quietly through the cars, eyeing the seats and other passengers before settling in the second-to-last car, near empty save for one older woman and her young daughter. They looked harmless enough, but Eudora gave the two a wide berth, setting Sam on the outside seat before sitting down. She sighed and resisted the urge to lean against the window and close her eyes as she'd done on her ride from Unova. Not everything was different, however: the creeping sense of dread in the pit of her stomach and a dash of anxiety were still there. Absently, she reached out to brush her fingers over the top of Sam's head, his soft body and accompanying chill helping to soothe away her anxiety. The dread was still there, though.
Eudora's body rocked gently with the train as it began to move, and she removed her glasses with a sigh, wiping them with the hem of her shirt. No, that dread would probably never go away—not without strong substances or therapy, maybe both—it was a new tree in the dark forest of her mind.
ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ:
Sam the Snom ♂ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ: 10 ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ: Ice Scales - The Pokémon is protected by ice scales, which halve the total damage taken from special moves ʜᴇʟᴅ ɪᴛᴇᴍ: None
ɴᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ: Quiet - A stoic individual, no one ever knows what he's thinking.
