Recovering Raven

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Having returned from the Tribule Karsts worse for wear, Raven came in from the cold, having changed into a light grey jacket with purple lining, black fur collar, and both a black skirt with shorts to match as well as tall fur lined boots with tights. Her face was bright red from the chill with her hair flaked with the snow that had fallen in the final stretch of her trek. She was nothing less than grateful that she’d made her way to the village without further interruption or misfortune prior to her pokemon finally getting some recovery time. The Karsts had proven more serious than she anticipated with her newly caught Aipom having given them more trouble than expected and her Salandit, nearly fainted. It was only by the skin of their teeth that the simian’s assault had ended with it’s capture. Thankfully however they now found themselves in Melka Village’s Pokemon Center. Immediately she got into a short line at the main desk of the center, waiting for her turn. She impatiently tapped her foot as she waited, though tried to do so as lightly as she could, knowing she was being impatient and not actually wanting to upset anyone. It was just something to take energy out of her nerves which were growing. She’d never had to have Laz healed like this before, so wondering how being in this condition over the journey back was eating at her.

Eventually though she was able to hand her pokeballs over to the nurse and was told that they’d be fine, and simply needed some time before she took them back. Simple fatigue was easy to recover but one of them was poisoned and the other with wounds from battling the first. Taking a moment to sit down at one of the benches near the entrance she allowed herself to warm up and decompress. She needed to figure out how she was going to approach their next venture, so long as the Aipom wasn’t too unwilling to cooperate it should at least be easier, if nothing else she was impressed how every hit was enough to dizzy Salazuli for a moment. That kind of firepower would at least help them stay safer than a few minutes walking into the area, but it wasn’t enough. The only reason they had to run back here so quickly was because she neglected to get supplies that would allow them to carry on without seeking a center every time they had a battle.

She really didn’t have that much Dian available to her though so she’d have to be pretty frugal when she actually did pick up healing items. Then it occurred to her, she’d found a strange rock containing some sort of fossil while she was out there, maybe she could figure out what to do with that while she waited for her pokemon to be healed as well. She’d heard that fossils sometimes could be restored to their prior forms though she in full disclosure had no idea how in the world it worked. As a kid she thought it was something like breaking the pokemon out of the rock they were trapped in and when she found out that wasn’t how it worked she thought it was some kind of de-petrification. Growing older though she considered it might be more like cloning, so it was less like bringing an old pokemon back than it was creating a new one from what remained of the older creature. It may have been less fanciful, they wouldn’t have the memories of a pokemon that existed millenia ago but it made more sense and it was still pretty cool.

WC: 614
TWC: 614

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She headed off to one of the PC’s in the building and took out a pen, and tapped it against her bottom lip as she thought about how to introduce herself and explain the situation. She wasn’t actually sure that the note would transfer alongside the fossil, but that was because she was fully ignorant of how the technology worked. Worst came to worst she imagined that she’d be billed for the ball, or requested via mail to send one of her’s over. But those professors were probably the generous sort, they gave out pokemon to people sometimes didn’t they? What was an empty ball compared to an entire living creature?

”Hello Professor(s), my name is Raven Stryne. I wasn’t sure how exactly to go about things but I found this fossil in the Tribule Karsts while I was journeying and was hoping you would know better what to do with it. I’ve heard that fossils can be restored back into living, breathing Pokemon but I’m afraid I don’t know the process and figured if you weren’t able to help me out you might at least know how to put me on the right path. Thanks for taking the time to check this out, I hope it’s not too much of a hassle.”

She placed the note on top of the fossil and fiddled with the machine until she was able to figure out how to actually send her delivery. Hopefully she’d hear back from them soon and have something to go off of. It wasn’t any trouble if she physically had to bring it to a location but it would be very convenient to come back to a PC that was storing whatever was locked away in stone. That or it’d be really funny if she mistook a weird stone for a fossil that either naturally ended up taking that shape or was carved by an artist who discarded it.

Best she could hope for was time to work things out, she had other things to attend to before she came back to the center. She slipped out of the doors and headed into the village, heading over to the stores and PokeMart nearby. On her way to the mart she walked by vendors selling the crafts she’d heard of, blue-copper beartic trinkets and stone carvings as well as tusks from Walrein, they were a lot pricier however than she was prepared to part with her Dian for. Not because they weren’t worth it but she needed enough to buy the necessities so when she next went out she would be able to take care of her pokemon herself.

She peeked her head inside to see a man tending the counter, dark skin with their hair braided and styled on one side, the store wasn’t particularly busy with maybe one or two people milling about that paid the ringing bell overhead no mind. The light buzz of the fluorescent lights hung above, droning mildly like a small blanket of white noise, which was probably great if you wanted to get some rest but probably wasn’t the best if you were trying to stay awake on a slow day working here. The cashier at the counter raised his hand with a wave, taking his nose out of a magazine he had laid out.

WC: 554

TWC: 1168

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“Welcome to the Melka Village PokeMart, what can I do for you today?”

Raven gave a small wave as she entered fully and walked up to the counter, ”Hey, I’m actually looking to buy some supplies in case I run into trouble while training. I kinda messed up the other day, what do you have for healing Pokemon?”

”That’s a shame but you have come to the right place, we have Regular, Super, and Hyper Potions for two hundred, seven hundred, and twelve hundred Dian respectively. If it's just smaller wounds a potion will do you well and if there’s something you need to close up a hyper potion is your best bet if you can’t make it to a center. If you’ve got the Dian for it revives will bring them back to consciousness. We also have Energy Powder for four hundred, a little specialty item here in Melka that you won’t find outside specialist Herbal Shops. Pokemon hate them though, they’re not exactly tasty. But if it’s status conditions, around these parts, Antidotes for poison, Burn Heals, and Ice Heals are your best bet. They’ll run you a hundred for the antidote and two fifty for the others.”

Raven’s head was swimming in the sea of information she was just flooded with, trying to take things one at a time. There were potions of progressively higher quality, and stuff for poisoning, burns, and freezing as well as some funny powders. She could either buy three regular potions with maybe an ice or burn heal depending on whether she wanted to try the karsts or wanted to head north and call it a day or perhaps she could grab two and some energy powder in case a more serious injury occurred. It was hard to choose when you weren’t certain of your plans but suddenly the thought occurred to her, fire types couldn’t be burned and poison types generally could not be poisoned which meant Laz was safe from two of the conditions and there was only one real choice. Until she stopped to consider for the very same reasons those items were necessary as they were the thing she’d inflict on other Pokémon.

”Alright, can I get three potions, an antidote, and a burn heal?”

It killed her to ask just a little because all together that would only leave her with the smallest scraps of Dian she could have possibly had left unless she ran herself broke.

”Of course, that will ring up to nine hundred and fifty Dian, Miss.”

She opened her bag and semi-regretfully pulled out all but fifty of her Dian and set it on the counter as it was then stowed away in the register and the case in front mod her was opened up to grab her purchases. She put each bottle on her bag with a sigh at the end and a weak smile as she looked up.

”Thanks. Hope to hell and back this is enough to tide me over til I have the funds to buy again.”

”Good luck?"

Raven, feeling the mild awkward tension in the air, took that as her queue to head on out and slipped back on out the door to slink her way back to the Pokemon Center. Unfortunately the supply run meant she wasn’t getting any souvenirs from the town today but it was a small price to pay to assure things went better this time around.

WC: 574
TWC: 1742

[Deleted]

The doors to the Pokemon Center slid open as she approached with that satisfying mechanical sliding noise they made and she sat down in the common area at one of the couches, head tilted back with her eyes closed. Now that she had everything she needed to do finished, it was time to fully decompress. It was only now that she was trying to relax that she noticed how tense her shoulders had been, they were sore and it felt good to let them droop to her sides. She had no idea that training pokemon could be this stressful in practice, it had a sort of sanitized feeling then people spoke about training. People didn’t as often bring up the less charitable aspects but she understood to a degree that it probably did seem pretty great upon reflection if you were focusing on the positive bits. When things were going well it was probably exhilarating, Raven just hoped that she could experience that herself soon lest her drive wane.

Failure, the truest motivation killer and one of the greatest plagues to her mind. There was a long history for her where failing to accomplish something, judgment from those around her, and periods of low self-esteem killed her passion when she tried something new. She was doing better since she moved out from home but conscious of her tendencies, it still was a concern lurking in her mind. Thankfully, there were far fewer people around to judge her these days while she got used to the whole training business. And on top of that her worse tendencies when people weren’t around were curbed by Laz’s presence. It was why the last few days were such a struggle, without Salazuli to keep her company, she’d struggled to sleep and her nerves had been set ablaze, any sudden noise at night startling her to full attention until she could calm herself once more.

”You’re doing fine, Rae. You are new to this and it’s expected of you to have an adjustment period. You can not base your viewpoint entirely on a first try, I’m Cherry and I have pretty hair. You might be hard on yourself but I know better.”

Raven prattled off in her head, remembering basic concepts that she’d been told a hundred times, as repetitive as it got, repeating this stuff brought Raven a level of comfort. Pretending to be Cherry was the next best thing to having her around. In hindsight maybe she could have called her but she didn’t want to bother her in the evening when she was trying to eat or relax. She was sure if she actually went through with it, Cherry would answer and talk however long she wanted but if Raven did that, she’d feel like she was making it a sort of obligation no matter how much she was assured otherwise.

The weird thing was she wouldn’t care if she didn’t know Cherry as well as she did, she had no qualms wasting a stranger’s time. There was something about the fact she valued her so much that fully prevented her from wanting to rely too much on the woman, ironically. But with Laz around she’d been doing alright since she left so once she was done healing these feelings would likely fade.

Her mind poured over which direction she wanted to go next, on one hand she could head east but she would be in the snow for much longer should she head towards Cascadia. She imagined wild pokemon that attacked would be more favorable as a match against Salazuli, the new one on the team being pretty neutral all around, and if Laz hid under her hair on her neck she’d have a heat source. But beyond that, she imagined the nights would be hard and she wasn’t set up to spend a lot of time in freezing temperatures. It was a miracle she made it here upon reflection but her travel took place mostly during the day when the sun was beating down.

On the other hand she could head back down south and give it another try there, the Aipom she caught there might be calmer if when he was let out of the ball, had a familiar territory surrounding him. It also didn’t sit right that she was just going to give up after that first try, it was kind of pathetic.

WC: 741
TWC: 2483

[Deleted]

In the end she came to the conclusion that maybe the choice would be best left to the one that was most affected by her previous choices, Laz. If she was the one that got all beat up, it should be up to her whether she went back now or gave something else a try. Raven lazily turned her head off to the side, looking at the screen displaying the status of her pokemon at the healing station, one of the two had finished healing but sadly not her longtime buddy. She wasn’t too keen on dealing with a potentially mean monkey pissed off it wasn’t still home just yet. It probably wouldn’t be too long before they were done but her impatience was getting the best of her at this point.

About ten minutes later, all the active slots went green and finally she popped off the couch and made her way to the station. The smile spread across her face now was uncontainable, she never realized how bad she’d miss her Salandit over such a short time and immediately upon taking her Pokeballs, let Laz back out who looked absolutely revitalized. She skittered in circles around Raven before crawling up her legs to her shoulder, rubbing her snout against Raven’s cheek. She pet Laz’s head in return, grinning as wide as possible,

”Hehe, I missed you too bud, you have no idea. I know you just had a long rest but it is getting late, so we should probably sleep through the night. But I wanted to get your opinion on what we should do next. I was thinking we could try one of two things, head east and train in a snowier area where things would be easier for you, or we could try again south now that we know what it’s like. But you were the one that got hurt so I thought leaving it to you was only fair.”

The lizard tilted her head to the side in confusion at the proposition, after a moment she lightly smacked Raven’s face with her tail and let out a puff of cinders into the air. She had her head held up high as if to say that she was strong and wouldn’t let any trivial issue get her down. Raven blinked, partially from the surprise of a scaly taily slap but more upon realizing she had been worrying for a pretty silly reason, she should have known Laz was too proud to give up because of a tough fight. Reaching up she scritched under the reptilian pokemon’s jaw.

”Fair enough, we’ll head back when the sun rises and melts some of this snow off the path back to Tribule then. And this time, we’ll be ready to kick it’s butt.”

Raven and Laz crawled up into one of the beds of the Hostel Area and the salandit did a little spin walking up on her stomach once she’d put on a blanket, getting comfortable and acting as a bit of a guard while she was still up for the very tired human below her. Once Raven fell asleep though, Laz started rooting through her bag, she had a very important personal mission to fulfill to make her trainer’s life a little easier in the next coming days. She fished out the other used pokeball and wandered just outside the room before tapping it against the ground for a red light to envelop the space in front of it.

WC:581
TWC: 3064

[Deleted]

As the Aipom formed, he immediately was tackled down from behind with his large tail hand pressed against the back of his head by two clawed scaly hands. He chattered a bit in discomfort but soon was shut up by the heat and light of flames sizzling by his ear before they slowly faded. His body’s tension gave out and he just slumped, annoyed but defeated and just waiting for what happened next. Some low hisses and growls hit his ears and slowly the scaly creature climbed off his back but when he picked his head up he could see Salazuli staring him down hard, just waiting for the first moment’s suspicious activity to strike.

Having had time to reflect on the last battle by now, he realized he’d entirely forgotten to make use of his greatest asset properly but in a human settlement maybe it wasn’t smart to cause trouble here. He sat up and laid back against the wall with an annoyed frown as the Salandit began speaking again, raising it’s hand and pointing back to the room with a momentary look of great care in her eyes before snapping back to an untrusting leer at the monkey.

So the human that was with this annoying lizard was in there, and judging from the fact he wasn’t poisoned, time had passed,he felt rejuvenated, and they were in this building, like others before him in the Karsts, he’d been caught by a trainer after picking a fight. It wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted things to shake out but he had to admit the pair got the best of him there. The lizard had pressured him into acting rashly, he’d not taken things serious enough from the beginning, and in his distracted moment when he was hit by an ember from the opponent he thought he downed, he was captured.

Sighing, the simian rolled his eyes and held a paw up, a bit more chattering from him to Salazuli before he picked up the pokeball he’d been let out of and tapped it against his head. The light enveloped him once more and the ball sat calmly on the floor. The lizard hadn’t expected him to cooperate so calmly but if he wasn’t going to make trouble, then she wouldn’t complain. She picked the ball back up and snuck back into the room, curling up to Raven’s side after placing the ball back into the bag.

The next morning, well, closer to noon, Raven woke up with an obnoxiously loud yawn, stretching her back and arms before popping out of bed. Beside her, the Salandit slowly picked her body off the ground and stretched out like a cat as well before quickly scampering up onto Raven’s shoulder. In only about three minutes they were out the door of the Center and began walking down the mountainside, warm again with the light of the sun beating down on the land and their backs.

”We’ve got it this time, I won’t let you get that hurt again, I promise. We have funny spray bottles full of feel good juice now.”

Salazuli looked at her incredulously but placed her trust in the trainer anyhow, she didn’t need to understand why she chose the words she did, she got the message either way. She was sure they would be fine.

WC: 557
TWC: 3621