Project: Titans -- A Pokemon Story (OC x Piers)

Chapter 11

We walked back to the hotel, Meowsie once again sitting contentedly on my shoulder once again, recounting her adventures when we were separated.

"Then, I met these crazy people from Spikemuth. The little girl looked relatively normal, but her brother was like a freak! He had these eyes that seemed to stare through your soul, and he was so pale he was basically a corpse! And his hair, God...it was like he killed a Zigzagoon, skinned it, and made a wig out of it!"

"And his name was Piers?"
"Yep."
"Meowsie, I think you have just had our first encounter with the Dark type gym leader and his little sister."
"How do you know?"

"I make sure to thoroughly stalk everyone of importance in each region I've been to. Gym leaders are certainly no exception. Plus, I happened to have a run-in with Mr. Piers and his sister, and trust me. It was him."

"I'll say it again; How do you know?"
"Do you know anybody with two colors of hair? Or a guy with hair long enough to have three ponytails?"
"Touché."

We came up on the hotel, a Gothic-Victorian style building with grey slate roofs and old windows with yellowed panes, made entirely of rusty red bricks. We entered through the double doors, made of dark wood and encrusted with golden details.

Swinging open, they revealed a huge waiting room with forest green plush couches, two fireplaces to the left and right side, and emerald wallpaper with jade green silhouettes of evergreens and wild Pokemon running around. The front desk was made entirely of dark wood, along with the walls in the back and was manned by three women and two men in crisp, emerald suits that camouflaged perfectly with the room's decor.

"Welcome to the Rose of The Rondelands hotel," a woman in black with an Eastern accent greets me with a blinding smile. "Are you checking in?"
"No, I already have a room," I said, taking on a French accent this time. "Though I am afraid I cannot stay long. The gym challenge calls me to Motostoke."

"Such a shame," the woman pouts, sticking her out her bottom lip. She had a lip piercing, the back of a diamond stud embedded in her flesh, which was scarred around the entry part. "I do hope you enjoy your stay, love, even though it's short."

"Thank you." With a curt nod, I leave her behind. Entering the elevator, I drown myself in plots and Barry White as the ground rises to my floor. I make two stops; One to let on a businessman typing furiously on a Rotom Phone, and another to let him out and a busy mother with five little boys get on.

"Georgie, don't pull your brother's hair! Gideon, Gray, stop poking each other in the eyes! Gerald, that is disgusting! Stop it, Geoffrey!" Her futile attempts to calm the storm of toddler energy was slightly amusing, but incredibly annoying. Especially when one kid stepped on my foot and another pulled Meowsie's tail, resulting in a horrible yowling and chaotic attempt to reign in her anger.

Eventually, the elevator doors opened, relieving the growing feeling of claustrophobia, and freeing us. Leaving the anxious mother to her stampede of children, we walked down the hall to our room.

"Could you imagine being the mother of that," Meowsie gasped as soon as we were out of earshot. "I mean, really. Having to deal with that, 24/7, possibly by yourself..."
"That is why I don't plan on having kids any time soon," I remarked as I opened the door to our hotel room. "Now, come on. We have work to do."

**********

Two hours, lots of red string and many pictures and maps of important buildings later, and I was at a complete loss. "That's it," I groaned, flopping onto the softer-than-down bed and sinking into the velvety sheets. "I give up. The gyms are too secure, too perfectly guarded. Too...Gym-ish!"

"Mhm," Meowsie mumbled, her mouth full of popcorn from the mini snack bar under the television. In front of her sat a ginormous bowl larger than her whole body that almost completely blocked my view of her. Espeon was tangled up in a pile of red string, Shelgon and Salazzle were trying to nap on the couch with a bunch of newspapers, and Skrelp was floating in an inflatable kiddie pool I keep handy for him and other Water types.

"Gia, I think you're overthinking this just a teensy, weensy bit. Come sit, have some popcorn. Maybe you should just take a break and clean up a bit. The room's starting to look like the inside of a paper shredder mixed with Sidney's knitting basket." Sidney was another special operative that worked for Team Rocket. We were fairly close, and had even been paired together for several missions.

"Ugh, fine," I groaned, sitting up and tossing aside my pencil. "But I'll need some help. I can't put seventy pounds worth of newspaper on one shelf." We all banded together and heaved the stacks onto the shelf in the back of the room. After we double checked the shelf wouldn't collapse, everyone went back to taking a nap, and I kept at it with the plotting and scheming.

"The Gym Challenge opening ceremony is in two weeks. Then, it starts immediately the day afterwards. Then, the final competition is about three months afterwards." I kept drawing, adding notes to photos of the gyms and towns I would be visiting, doodling little escape route arrows marking the fastest way out of a gym, and fastening red yarn to some safety pins marked on a map of Galar to outline my planned route I was to take for the Gym Challenge.

"So, I have about three and a half months before I battle Leon for the title of Champion. That means I then have about six and a half months afterwards to hunt for Wishing Stars, excluding the special events I'll have to attend to, and exhibition matches outside of Wyndon. So, if I subtract busy time from the time I'll have after the finals...all in all, I'd say I have about five months of free time to catch Pokemon and collect Wishing Stars out in the wild before I'm due to return to Rocket HQ."

"Jesus, even your vacations are busy," Meowsie groaned, the bucket of popcorn empty and lying on its side. She herself looked like an overstuffed plush toy. "You might want to take a break from the snack bar," I said, trying in vain to stifle my giggles. "You look like a Purugly after Thanksgiving dinner."

"I feel more like the stuffed turkey," she growled, stomach gurgling unhappily. Shooting up, she covered her mouth with a paw and ran to the bathroom. I tried to focus on my music playing in the background, and not the retching noises coming from the back.

Humming along to Bon Jovi and AC/DC, I tried to look at my plans at a new angle. Maybe I'm just looking at this all wrong, I thought, pondering my strings and rough sketches. Maybe I'm over-complicating things. Let's see...

I went along, simplifying my complex and thorough plans into something perhaps X would use, if he ever used his head instead of his fists. When I was finished, I had an extremely basic plan of action. "I start in Turrfield, go around to Hulbury, then finish the first trio in Motostoke. Then, I would catch a Flying Taxi to Hammerlocke, then proceed to Stow-on-Side, and then Ballonlea. Then, I head back through Hammerlocke to hit Circhester, across the bay to Spikemuth, and then round it off with Raihan. Easy!"

"Yep. Simple is best, to quote Ilima," Meowsie mumbled, now curled up on the foot of my bed. "What's with the Ilima quotes?" I asked. "I thought you hated him."
"Of course I do!" She said, shooting up with a start. "No self-respecting man has pastel pink hair!"
"I'm pretty sure he called it salmon."
"Mmm, salmon..."

My stomach growled at the mention of food. I hadn't eaten in about eight hours. "We'll order room service now," I said, picking up the phone to call the front desk. "Then, when we're done, we can pack up and take a flight to Motostoke for the opening ceremony. I'm sure we can call that girl to fly us to Turffield. What was her name...?"

"Maddie?" Meowsie offered.
"Yes, Maddie. Thank you." I started to pull together my stuff, cramming it into my suitcase and grabbing a thick stack of dollar bills out of the smaller pockets. "Wow," Meowsie whistled. "You've been holding out on me, Gia!"

"Ha ha," I said sarcastically. "This isn't for us. It's the money we can use to stay in hotels around Galar. Camping is an option, but I'd like to stay in comfort as much as I can."
"Amen to that," she purred, snuggling into my pillows. 

I smiled at her sleeping form, her little whiskers and ears twitching slightly. "Okay, Gia, back to work," I reminded myself, forcing myself to stand and work all through the rest of the day.