How to Train Your Pokémon

The Choice to Help

How to Train Your Pokémon

A/N: Here's Chapter 11! Roll it!

Bold italics- Pokémon speech

Chapter 11

The Choice to Help

That night, Gary had the recruits over at the observatory for some dinner. As they all ate some hot dogs and burgers, the Ketchum siblings were lost in thought. More specifically, Mari. Everyone else was listening to some of Gary's stories of past raids.

"With one Hyper Beam, that Rhyperior blasted that house to splinters." He said dramatically. "I saw the look on its face. It was complete delight in doing destruction."

The Newton girls exclaimed with awe, while Aiden was just listening intently. He kept sneaking quick glances over at Mari, who was in a daze while moving her finger in a circle around her empty plate, burger crumbs slightly falling off the edges. He still wondered how was it possible that she had actually created that much electricity and tried to zap him.

One time when he snuck a glance at her, she had stopped playing with her plate and focused a gaze at the fireplace, watching the orange and yellow flames flicker and dance in the hearth. He found his eyes taking in on how the firelight was making her olive skin glow, how the flames and embers seemed to come alive in her chocolate brown eyes, how her hair seemed to put the night sky to shame because of the sheer blackness that it possessed.

Aiden had to literally pinch himself hard on his arm from keeping his gaze on her before he got caught by someone. He can't get distracted now, especially not by a girl. And absolutely not the girl who he had known for his entire childhood, and who was entranced by her when he first saw her, and who had grown into such a beauty, and who had never ceased to amaze him with her skills, brains, feisty attitude, and now the strange ability of electrokinesis. Okay, now his messed up mind is betraying everything that he had been training for.

"Don't worry, Gary." Keira assured their mentor with an overconfident smile. "I'll capture every Pokémon I fight with ease."

"Not unless you get blasted into pieces in the first three seconds of the battle." Luke teased, shattering her confidence.

Evan and Jenna laughed at her insulted expression, while Mari and Aiden both tried to hide a smile at Luke's quip. Gary then stood up from his chair.

"Here's a little bit of advice: when you fight a Pokémon, you find its weakness in movement. If it can't run or fly, it can't get away." He said. "An immobile Pokémon is a trapped Pokémon."

That last statement he had said caused Mari to perk up.

Gary then stifled a yawn. "Okay, recruits. It's off to bed for all of us. Tomorrow, we will get to the tough ones, slowly but surely, making our way to Lucario." Half of the recruits began getting excited. "But who will win the honor of capturing it?"

As Keira began boasting that it will be her that will capture the Lucario, and while Jenna brought her sister down, Evan noticed that Mari had already slipped away. He nudged his brother, and Luke saw her empty place. The twins quietly left the observatory unnoticed, though Aiden did saw them leave. But, he didn't think much of it. Why should he care about what they're doing now?

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The twins soon found Mari back home in the kitchen, slicing some more Oran and Sitrus Berries, along with a couple of Pecha Berries. "Mari, what are you doing?" Luke asked, though he and Evan already knew the answer.