A.N: A shorter feel good chapter and a good break from all the on-goings. I hope you're prepare for Ethan's new year. :)------------------------------------------------------------Although there weren’t a lot of trainers in Eterna City, people still called it home. Considering that tonight was December 31st, the city was lively as it sprung to life to celebrate the passing of the year. Ethan threw on his freshly washed clothes and left the pokemon center after spending an hour or so talking with Looker about the happenings of the cave. Beside him, all of his pokemon strolled along.
Children and small pokemon ran about the streets with sparklers in their hands, waving them about so that their glow traveled through the air, creating circles and lines as they laughed. The more business focused residents lined up carts filled with small fireworks and New Year gifts for the masses. Well, masses might have been a bit of a stretch, but Eterna was indeed a city, housing several thousand people.
Snorlax and Ursaring, being the largest of his pokemon, garnered a lot of attention. Snorlax readily accepted all the oohs and ahhs, happy that his second foray into the city was much better than his first. Ursaring was standoffish, more so than normal. Whatever happened to spark the conflict between them and Steelix, who had been treated and resealed into his temporary pokeball, had been troubling her.
“Allright, we won’t be staying until midnight, but we can have some fun before we go back home. I miss the others.” Ethan said, earning some grumbling and understanding. “I’m not made of money,” He pointedly looked at Smeargle, who was eyeing a very large finale firework they passed. “So we won’t go crazy. Everyone can have some snacks and treats, and have fun with some of the smaller fireworks, but nothing big. Understand?”
“♪ Chatooooot! ♫ Yes! I fly?” Chatot questioned.
“Yes, you can fly. Stay near and don’t stray too far. Stay low so people see you and don’t shoot you with fireworks by accident.” Ethan had barely finished speaking as Chatot launched from her perch—his shoulder—in haste.
Peeking over toward Snorlax, Ethan saw him smiling and waving at a bundled up group of kids. The parents smiled at their excitement, but firmly told them not to bother the big pokemon. “Snorlax, you can play with the kids if their parents say it’s okay. If anyone gives you food, you can eat it. Okay?”
“Snoooooore!” Snorlax, contrary to his size, swiftly ran across the jam packed street towards the bunch of now squealing children. Some were mildly frightened, but most were just happy and borderline frantic with energy and excitement. Nearly every single parent around instantly looked to Ethan, who gave them a smile and a nod. Hands left the pokeballs stationed by their sides as understanding passed. Soon enough, Snorlax became a jungle gym as children crawled over his fur. He even tossed one up to sit on his head!
Ethan took off his magic fanny back bag and handed it to Smeargle. “You have some paint supplies inside. Feel free to paint people or pokemon. We’re going to stay around here for a bit.” Ethan sat on a nearby bench, still in sight of Snorlax and still in view of all the fireworks and festivities happening about. Ursaring moved to stand behind him like a bodyguard and Smeargle fished out his paints.
“Pachi—” Ethan started, then swiveled his head. “Where’s Pachirisu?”
“Pa-Pachi!” Pachirisu’s voice chittered from above. Tilting his head, he found Pachirisu on a nearby roof!
“Why are you up there?” Ethan raised his voice so it carried, but he wasn’t stern… just exasperated.
He only got a shrug in return.
“Stay close. If I call, you better answer. Do you understand me?” Now, he was stern.
“Pa!” Pachirisu’s head disappeared over the rim of the roof, off to go do… whatever he was going to do up there. He probably missed trees? Ethan wasn’t sure.
Leaning back on the bench, Ethan’s back pules with the dull pain of pressing against a bruise. Following Looker’s advice, he got himself checked out, but there wasn’t too much they could do for a bunch of bruises. They did offer to call someone with the move Heal Pulse, but he hadn’t wanted to be a bother. Bruises weren’t life threatening and they served as a good reminder for his idiotic mistake.
He should have never tempted fate. He’d known that Ash was there, and he still entered the cave on a silly little whim. Of course, he knew why he did it… Experiencing something new was often fun and exciting—but he wasn’t a damn kid, he was a grown ass man who had responsibilities and little to no training. Never would he ever live out the little nagging dream of going on a pokemon journey. Never would he travel across the lands and find pokemon and friends along the way. He’d known this from the first five minutes after he realized where he was… but the tiniest sliver of want existed.
What he could do was gain experience. Battling, whether he liked it or not, wasn’t something he could continue to ignore. His first true battle with a wild pokemon, not counting the spar with Machoke, almost ended in disaster. Those battles would be few and far between if he had anything to say about it, but they would happen whether he liked it or not.
Although he told himself that he was terrible, that was for videogames. Real life was vastly different from taking turns in double battles on a screen… and he could see where he failed, his pokemon failed, and how to correct it. Ursaring, for all her experience, used her strongest moves against Steelix… yet those moves were resisted by Steelix’s typings. If only he’d spoken up and told her to use different moves.
Ethan looked back to Ursaring, who watched the kids climb over Snorlax with a bland expression. With a pat, he gestured to the empty seat by his side. “Ursaring, sit down. Let’s talk.”
Ursaring closed her eyes in what looked like acceptance of her fate, then released a heavy breath. A moment later, she sat down beside him. Ethan placed a hand on her forearm gently. “Let’s talk about the battle.”
He didn’t need to explain what battle. They both knew which one. “Do you know what type Steelix is?”
Seemingly having expected a different conversation all together, Ursaring was caught a little off guard. She shook her head. “Steelix is a Steel and Ground type pokemon. How well do you remember type matchups?” He’d used ‘remember’ because he was sure her old trainer would have drilled that information into her mind.
Knowing that she couldn’t really respond without Chatot about, he carried on as she stayed silent. “With those two types, Steelix is immune to poison and electric moves. Also, it resists normal, flying, bug, steel, psychic, dragon, and fairy—quadruple resistance to rock type as well. It’s weak against fighting, ground, fire, and water.”
Voices hollered in jubilation as people and pokemon passed them by, contrasting to their little lesson here on the bench. Ethan even made out Snorlax’s squeal of glee at being fed a snack and Chatot saying ‘Hello!’ to loads of people as they passed her perch on a lamp post. “Hyperbeam, Stone Edge, what I assume was Giga-Impact…” Ursaring flicked her eyes towards him at the moves name. “All resisted. In my panic and fear, I didn’t say a goddamn word. I let you down as your trainer, and for that I am sorry.”
Ursaring’s other hand came across her body and rested on his own. “As an Ursaring, you’re more physically capable than specially. This means, moves like Hyper Beam, while strong, are not your best bet. Giga-Impact, if that is indeed the move you used, is just as strong and more suited to you.”
“And…” Ethan hesitated, then pushed on. “And, when you evolve, that gap between physical and special will widen. Your Hyper Beam will become even weaker and your physical moves will grow even stronger. You’d be about as fast as you are now, be able to take more hits, and deal more in return.”
“I am not a good trainer, Ursaring. I know that, but I told myself that I need to fix that.” He wiggled, trying to make his back not bother him. “The start was with this little lesson. Now, although highly unlikely, there is a very miniscule chance that you evolve into a Bloodmoon Ursaluna.”
That earned him a full-on look of focus. “I don’t know much about it, but you’d still be bi-pedal. It’s kind of the opposite from normal Ursaluna, where all your physical attacks will lose strength and your special ones get a boost. I think you can only become a Bloodmoon Ursaluna during a blood moon, but I have never heard or seen that happen around here.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s about all I know. When we get back home, over these next few weeks, I am going to be teaching all my pokemon moves they need to be able to defend themselves. That includes you and your kids.”
“Now,” Ethan wrested his hand free and stood up glad to have his back not pressing against the bench.. “Let’s have some fun. We all deserve it. Fireworks can’t be that expensive…”
As it turned out, fireworks—at least the smaller variety—were not expensive! It was a great thing to know that he didn’t speak disaster into existence, because it often felt that way. The next hour passed with ice cream, sparklers, bottlerockets, and joy. But alas, all good things have to come to an end.
After picking up his Gloom from their room at the Pokemon Center, Ethan recalled all but Smeargle and held his painter's hand. “Time to go home.”
Smeargle gave him a yip and a nod, then moments later, Ethan felt the crunching of snow under his boots and the blast of cold from leaving the warm center. With one large breath, Ethan screamed out into the night. “I’M HOME!!!”