Re: Into the New World

[Avaritia]

Venonat nodded his head when Alice lifted her hand, and accepted the parting touch. "Nat~," he hummed for a moment before shifting backwards and turning toward the forest. For a brief moment, a glean of amusement almost lit his large, compound eyes. Before long, the Pokemon was gone, into the shadows of the trees.

Upon hearing her name called, Laura turned and waved enthusiastically, recognizing Alice's voice. The motion was almost enough to catch her Shellder off balance if it weren't for him already being braced for sudden movement. He did hobble, but steadied himself. The girl's eyes widened as she took in Alice's bruised and scratched appearance. "Oh geese," she said, "that must have been an adventure." She then held out her hand and offered up one of the ferry tickets. "You're just in time, though. We missed the first outgoing ship, but the next one is boarding right now. If we hurry, we may be able to make it!" She waited for Alice to take the lead after noticing her dragging gait. It was better to make sure both of them got on board, lest she rush to the ship herself only to watch her companion fade away still on shore.

[Alice Hope]

Alice laughed breathlessly, "Yeah, it was a bit. The Venonat we had healed up at the Pokemon Centre last night came and found us, showed us where the Pineco were resting in this glade-clearing-place," She explained, forcing herself to take on a brisk pace despite how tired she was. Gael had since greeted the Shellder from his human's embrace, smiling sweetly, "I told him that we needed to find the port so he showed us where it was, but he took the fast and messy route. Not my first choice, but obviously the best." She admitted, clutching the ferry ticket tightly. A glance back proved that Venonat was gone. It was kind of sad, but he obviously enjoyed his freedom, so that was his choice. She kept an eye on the dock numbers, aiming for the one that they needed. "It's good I carry Heal Balls. Gael totally wrecked that Pineco."

[Felix Leonis]

A large ship loomed at one of the docks, with its colorful design it was obvious that this was the ferry Laura and Alice were supposed to catch. On a bench near the stairs to board the ship, a man in an obvious sailor uniform was carefully watching the time on his wristwatch, when suddenly the ferry's whistle announced that the ship was ready to take off.

"Oh no, if we don't hurry we might miss this one as well," Laura yelped, though as she looked at her friend, the young woman knew that pushing Alice to be running as fast as she could was probably not a good idea. "I'll go and ask that attendant to hold on for just a few minutes, okay,"

Without waiting for an answer, she ran towards the sailor, waving at him and calling out to wait for just a moment longer. The sailor, slightly surprised, looked at Laura and also seemed to notice Alice a bit further. With just the simplest of signs: a thumbs up, the sailor seemed to understand their plight and used a walkie talkie hanging from his belt to have the ferry wait a bit longer. "Come on girls, I can only hold it up for a minute or so!!"

[Alice Hope]

"I'm so sorry, I'm coming!" Alice shouted at pathetically, bursting into the best sprint that she could. It very much resembled a hapless, spasming Piplup-- a tragic and comedic sight to be sure. She was supposed to be fitter than this, but the forest trip had taken it out of her and besides that, she really had no idea what her body was going through at that moment. At least her sugars would be decent, she supposed, probably enough to indulge in ice cream? "I'm so sorry-- thank you." The blonde panted again to the staff as she handed over her boarding pass and stumbled on. Gael laughed, but also sympathised, giving her a pitying nuzzle as she found a sunbed on deck and collapsed upon it. "Fuck everything... At least we have a whole day to rest before Ivy... Arceus alive..."

[Felix Leonis]

Alice was indeed just in time, as not even ten seconds had passed after she had let the member of the ferry's crew check her boarding pass, the boat started to move away from the dock, letting out the high pitched noise of the onboard whistle, followed by the loud horn to signify their departure.

"You know, you look like you really need some rest...and maybe something to drink," Laura chuckled a bit, barely maintaining a straight face after having watched Alice as she did her best to get to the ferry as fast as she could. "I'll get something to drink from the cafeteria, that way I can snoop around for a bit...despite everything, that feeling just doesn't go away."

With the sun shining down on the deck, Alice might've been quite glad that the very sunbed she collapsed upon, was one gracefully sheltered by a parasol. With Laura leaving her to her own devices, maybe Alice could have a look around as well...

[Alice Hope]

"What kind of drink?" Alice challenged jokingly, but she let Laura go. Hoping they hadn't warmed too much in her bag, she plucked one of the drinks she'd taken from the Centre and took a swig of the juice, offering it to Shellos who sipped some gratefully after. Between the hot weather and that mad rush, keeping her condition stable was likely going to be a fun game. "Gosh, never again. Life is hard." She laughed, giving the creature a little cuddle as she tried to recover. After a moment of thought, Alice decided to release Farren as well, the Pineco looking back at full health once the mint light faded away from him. He rested to attention on the end of the bed.

"Hi, Farren. I hope you don't mind the name... I'm Alice, and this is Gael. We were hoping you'd be part of the team now." She greeted the Pokemon tentatively. "I'm going with a friend to meet a Pokemon professor on another island for some guidance, but before we go there, we thought we'd look around the ship and chill and stuff. If you want to stay out...?"
"Pine. Pineco." The little monster agreed with a nod of its round body. Alice beamed and sighed with relief, reaching over to pick him up. Shellos looked a little miffed to be sidelined.
"Thanks, then I'm glad! Welcome to the family, Farren!" She offered the two a bit more of the bottle before finishing the juice for herself, and then Alice picked up Gael again. They were only ambling, so it was easy enough for Farren to hop alongside the duo.

A forlorn gaze to an outdoor pool, and her next sigh was envious disappointment, "I wish I had a bikini or some sort of swimsuit for the pool... I feel like they might throw me overboard if I just dive in in my lingerie..."

[Felix Leonis]

At the cafeteria, Laura was asking the barkeeper if he could give her two iced teas, all the while carefully looking around, just to make sure that her suspicions, her dreams were not connected to the ferry at all. However, unbeknownst to her, she was not the only one snooping around, as a middle aged man was sitting at a corner table of the cafeteria, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper, though he seemed to simply gloss over the articles and kept an eye out for the young woman at the bar.

...

On the sundeck however, Alice was suddenly approached by a woman in a white summer dress, with a small balloon-like pokemon in her hands. she walked straight towards the exhausted young woman on the sunbed and leaned over a bit. "Hey that's quite a cute pokemon, I love pink pokemon, but I haven't seen anything like that before...what is it?"

[Alice Hope]

Alice was taken aback, peering up at the taller woman. She was short, after all. "Oh, this is a Shellos. They're native to Sinnoh. Ones closest to the west sea are pink and ones closer to the east are blue and green." She explained, Gael offering a proud smile, his skin shimmering in the sunlight. "I love pink, too-- is that an Igglybuff?"

[Felix Leonis]

The woman smiled, glancing at the cute little pink shellos with sparkles of admiration in her eyes, she was almost completely bedazzled by the little pokemon, before she could actually respond to Alice's own question.

"Y-yes, yes you're right," The woman seemed to stutter a bit, probably due to suddenly having to change the object of her attention. Holding up her own cute little baby-pokemon, she smiled gleefully. "This is Iggy, I've also got a jigglypuff and a clefairy...all pink little cute pokemon."

Putting the Igglybuff on the ground, Iggy seemed to wobble a bit, leaning against the blonde-haired woman's legs and looking at both gael and Alice with quite some interest. The woman however took a small card out of the purse she was carrying and handed it over to Alice with a smile. "i'm Claire, I'm a member of the Kanto pokemon fanclub."

The card was ofcourse colored in all shades of pink, with a clefable on it, it simply read:

Claire Hopkins, Pokemon Fan

...

As Laura had managed to empty her drink, she asked the barkeeper to give her another Iced tea to go, so she could give it to Alice. After all, with Shellder still in her arm, it was quite impossible to carry more than one drink at a time, though she hoped that her new friend wouldn't mind the wait. In the meantime though, the man with the newspaper was using his cellphone and seemed to be quite bussy with an important phonecall.

[Alice Hope]

Alice beamed and cooed, "Aww, Iggy's super cute! I love the Igglybuff line. Wigglytuff seem so super squishy!" She declared delightfully. At Gael's apparent envy and Farren's bewilderment, Alice scooped the two up and hugged them close. Pineco was not a Pokemon she would deem of the cuddly category, but he seemed quite taken with the affection anyhow, if not mildly surprised."Oh, wow, that's super cool. Are you out here on holiday or something?" The trainer asked, "I only became a trainer yesterday, actually... If you've got some tips for me about raising my Pokemon or anything, that'd be really sweet!"

[Felix Leonis]

"Oh you became one yesterday?" Claire seemed slightly confused, given the fact she had been one ever since she was about sixteen years old and couldn't remember herself to have the luck of finding a pokemon beyond her first one in the first day. "Well...you know, we could have some fun on the upper deck. It's been a while since I've used my Clefairy or even my jigglypuff, so if you'd like...we could have a pokemon battle."

...

Just when Claire had just proposed a match, Laura appeared back from the cafeteria, holding a single iced tea in her hand. While she held it in front of Alice, obviously waiting for her friend to take the ice-cold glass out of her grip, she gave a glance at Claire and smiled. "Well, I seem to have missed something interesting...or is something interesting about to happen?"

[Alice Hope]

"Sure, yeah, that'd be amazing!" Alice replied excitedly, jumping a bit as Laura suddenly reappeared. She thanked her companion for the drink, exchanging it for the card Clara gave her, "Laura, this is Clara from the Pokemon Fan Club. She spotted Gael and seemed impressed. We were chatting and now we're going to have a battle on the upper deck!" The blonde beamed, letting her Pokemon have their sips before doing the same. "I had my first battle with a wild Pokemon yesterday, a Venonat that Gael beat before we found Farren this morning. So we're not totally new, but close enough, you know?"

[Felix Leonis]

Laura was taken aback by the sudden developments that had happened during her absence, but she could only smile and pat Alice on the shoulder, wishing her the best of luck. "Well, I don't think there's any better way to get acquainted with pokémon and the strength they have...I guess."

Claire could only give a blissful smile, glad that Alice accepted and never averse of meeting new people. With a swift wave of her hand, she motioned the two young women to follow her to the upper deck, all the while quickly taking her igglybuff into her arms, where it yawned and enjoyed the cuddling.

When they would finally reach the upper deck, it was obvious that the company which designed the ferry had gone through great lengths of making sure that the passengers didn't feel bored during the trip, resulting in the entire upper deck featuring a large pokémon battlefield, for the sake of trainers that wanted to have some fun.

"Oh even the captain's here," Claire exclaimed, while waving at the man wearing a typical captain's uniform, his old and leathery face still cracking into a smile when he noticed that there was some entertainment to be had. "You have to stand on the other side, after that I'll start by choosing my first pokémon, that way you can have the advantage of choice."

Laura with her shellder walked to the center and decided to be the referee in this match. "Since Alice has two pokémon, this'll be a two versus two, the first to have two pokémon defeated, has lost the match."

With a rather playful throw, Claire called for her clefairy, which sprung out of its pokéball in a flash filled with sparkles, dancing a bit around before awaiting the pokémon Alice would choose.

In the meantime, leaning over one of the rails guarding the upper deck, a middle aged man in a white suite was looking at this unexpected entertainment with glee in his eyes.

[Alice Hope]

Alice knew how the battlefield was to be laid out at least, and she briskly walked to the other side, turning and facing her opponent. The Clefairy that appeared was super cute and a wonder to behold, but Alice thought it was the most of a risk for her team, so she sent her starter forth first, "You're up, Gael! Start by hardening your shell!" The trainer added, and when her shiny reached his spot on the field, he began the match by buffing his defenses.

[Felix Leonis]

Without a doubt the clefairy shone unlike any pokemon when it entered the field, little did Alice know that it was because of a seal placed on the pokéball, something which was generally used in another field of specialization in the world of pokémon: the contests for coordinators.

However, when it came to the part of being a trainer in battle, Alice actually surprised Claire AND Laura with her quick thinking, opting to instantly create an extra layer of defense for Gael, who in quick respond to the budding trainer's command had its entire skin glimmer for a second, after which it had a rather tougher appearance thanks to the extra layer of coating.

In rapid response to this though, Claire chuckled and asked her pretty clefairy to show the shellos how it's done, after which the small, pink pokemon let out a surprisingly ferocious growl in an effort to hamper the oppositions offense.

"We can prepare as much as you'd like. However, in the end it'll be the one striking first that wins." With a simple command, the clefairy rushed over towards Gael, attempting to give it a decent pounding.

Spoiler:

[Alice Hope]

"Of course it is, but just because I happened to prepare doesn't mean we're not going to strike!" Alice pointed out. This reminded her of fighting the Venonat, although a trained Clefairy was going to be too smart for cheap tricks. She waited for the Pokemon to draw in close enough, hoping that her light body would make it hard for her to dodge close combat, "Now, use toxic and then punt her away with ice beam!" The two moves hadn't been totally honed yet - ice beam had more than toxic - but now was the time to get the practice in, right?

[Felix Leonis]

Alicen being the least experienced of the two, surprised Claire and by extension everyone else watching the pokémon battle, with her quick wits and the obvious bond she shared with the Shellos she owned.

Alas, what might've worked on other pokémon, did not work so well on the clefairy. When the splash of toxic fluid hit the pink pokemon, it seemed hardly stunted by it, as if the poison itself had virtually no effect, thus resulting in it being fast enough to avoid the icebeam for the most of it.

"That's magic guard, Clefairy's ability," Claire explained, chuckling at what would be without a doubt quite a surprise for Alice. "Though my darling IS poisoned, she takes no damage from it thanks to Magic Guard, leaving a nice opening after all for this: Clefairy, use disarming voice!!"

Right after hearing this, the pink pokemon shrugged off the slight hit of the icebeam and let out a rather compelling cry at a rather high pitch frequency, that at quite a close distance to the Shellos.

Spoiler:

[Alice Hope]

color=mediumvioletred]"Oh no, gosh, Gael!"[/color] Alice cried, watching as her Shellos cowered against the blistering of his eardrums. It was even more annoying that the toxic wasn't effective. "Harden up those ears of yours and use water pulse!" Her Pokemon tried to toughen up, and then unleashed powerful and dizzying waves of water towards the Clefairy.

[Felix Leonis]

Even though Clefairy's cry did have some effect, with Alice helping out her shellos to toughen through the ordeal by hardening yet again, the battle was swaying back into the water pokemon's favor, as Claire's clefairy couldn't react in time, being hit by the water pulse released by Gael full frontal.

Bouncing back over the floor of the deck, the pink pokemon tried its best to get back upon its feet, but was visibly hurt.

"Oh no, Clefairy don't give up sweetie!!" Claire tried to give her clefairy some courage, but she knew that her pokemon with its fairy and normal typing was in a bind against the Shellos which seemed to have more diversity. However, while it seemed that Alice had already showed Claire most of her best moves, she had not yet shown clefairy's full capacity and was now ready to do so. "Clefairy, it's time to bedazzle that shellos, use dazzling gleam!!"

Instantly, the Clefairy seemed to tremble a bit, releasing an immensely bright flash of white light.

Spoiler:

[Alice Hope]

For both Alice and Gael, the attack was blinding, both of them ducking their heads away. That didn't stop the poor Pokemon taking some pain, though. "We can't let them get even! Confuse it with water pulse!" The trainer ordered, but then an idea came to mind. The deck was already wet, although the hot sun would be rapidly drying it. "Freeze up the deck with ice beam, Gael! Make sure it hasn't got a chance to get away!" If they could freeze its paws and even freeze the Pokemon over, that'd give them an advantage to bash away a bit - as brutal as the plan might've been. It'd give Gael a movement advantage, too, with such a slippery and cool surface.

[Felix Leonis]

The shellos seemed relatively fine after the bright light from Clefairy's dazzling gleam, which must've been thanks to the pokemon's strong defenses which had been set in place during the course of the battle. Claire noticed this as well and was obviously in a bind, becoming more and more impressed with Alice's strategies and cunning thinking.

When the water pulse happened though, the pokéfan quickly asked clefairy to jump up, avoiding a clear hit from the offensive water pulse to use pound upon shellos, yet during the jump the shellos made the deck all slippery and frosty with a good use of it's ice beam, making it hard to make any strategy for Claire.

"Clefairy, use your pound move to hit it and then use Dazzling gleam again!!"

Spoiler:

[Alice Hope]

While the Clefairy was slowly being weakened, the lack of toxic working was a frustration and Alice was perhaps hasty to finish it off. "Wait until it gets close enough, and then use water pulse and mud slap!" She was hoping to rebuff if not repel it away using powerful jets of water before it crash landed onto Gael. And then, perhaps dim its accuracy and gleaming light with some spit bombs of sticky mud. That'd probably dim its cuteness a bit, too!

[Felix Leonis]

Just when the pink pokemon wanted to land itself upon the shellos, it got hit directly by the jets of water, which threw it backwards and with the field frozen solid, it was hard for the clefairy to gain any sure footing, leaving it open for a slab of mud to hit it in the face and lessen it's eyesight quite a bit.

"Oh...that's not good," The woman sighed with sadness in her voice. It was obvious that claire was now struggling with a decision. "Clefairy...I know it's much to ask, but use growl and another of your wondrous dazzling gleams, don't let up dear!!"

With the field's ice slowly melting and the battle far from over, it seemed this was making many people's hearts race. However, only one man seemed to actually observe the fight from a more professional perspective and only Laura, who was acting as the referee seemed to notice this.

Spoiler:

[Alice Hope]

Alice had no time to pay attention to the crowd, as tempted as she was to look around at the increasing number of them. They had a good lead, but both Pokemon were close in their power and she knew it would only take one bad decision for the tables to turn. "Ice beam, Gael, and don't let yourself get dazzled! Cover that deck and cover the Clefairy!" With its accuracy down, that would help some, but she wanted to prevent the fairy from catching up to them as best as possible.

[MegaAbsol]

Though the Clefairy's eyesight was hindered, out of pure instinct it jumped out of the way as the Shellos fired an Ice Beam where it had been standing a second ago. Landing on the iced over deck, the female skidded for a moment before balancing with a ballerina-like grace. "Careful, Clefairy!" The woman called, with fair reason to caution. The Fairy type had been balancing on her toes, and fell over, feet numbing from the freezing ice.

The Shellos was new to the technique of creating ice, and the deck was rapidly defrosting, but with sufficient perseverance, Gael could keep up the layer, strengthening it further each time. The Clefairy's trainer smiled, acknowledging the younger girl. "Your pokemon are wonderfully trained, dear. We're gonna have to fight extra hard to match up, won't we, Clefairy?" The adoration and support in the lady's voice spurred the Clefairy to practical inspiration. Immediately its morale rose, and it gave a cheery cry. "That's the spirit! Now, Disarming Voice, sweetie." Immediately, The Clefairy squalled out a resonating sound, unavoidable, aiming to inflict emotional damage on the Shellos.

(I kid you not; Pokedex says Disarming Voice inflicts emotional damage xP Well, Pokemon are sentient beings, so why not~)
(Also, as Disarming Voice is unavoidable, I took the liberty of adding the damage to Shellos; hope you don't mind!)

Level 7

83%
+2 Defense
-2 Attack

Level 8

40%
PSN
-1 Accuracy

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