purplekitte (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
purplekitte) wrote2011-08-31 11:02 am
purplekitte) wrote2011-08-31 11:02 am
Pokemon BW fic
Chapter Nine: Distance
Victory Road, the way to the Elite Four, was a place of ceremony. Grandiose, but fittingly so and necessarily so. Few got this far and fewer still went further.
Yet hers was an awe without fear. All her life she had imagined how hard it would be to challenge for the title of Pokémon Master. Now she saw that the title was simply a formality, a sign for those just meeting her. Her dreams no longer stopped at that point. Being awarded the title meant being strong enough for everything that would come after, all those responsibilities.
She had traveled Unova from south to north, seen sights familiar to many and those hidden for millennia. She had stood in the presence of the legendary Dragon and had its split-twin in her own bag. So a little ceremony and some architecture wasn’t going to impress her too much.
Her memories were enough to humble her, though. The people she’d met were amazing. Cilan, Chili, and Cress, refined, arrogant, and clever. Lenora, someone she could admire as feisty and brilliant but never be. Burgh, surprisingly competent for someone so camp. Elesa, someone she didn’t understand in the least but Bianca did. Clay, caustic and leather-tough. She had stepped into the abyss and been caught by the winds before she’d even considered if that was what she was supposed to do because Skyla would never let her fall (completely separately from letting her get fired face-first into a wall from a cannon). Brycen, who could hold off dozens of guys at once and pwn ninjas. Drayden and Iris, who told her she’d gotten involved in a war without end, fought in every generation, but that they believed in her.
She’d already had a private sendoff from Bianca and Cheren. They were older, stronger, wiser. Bianca could still smile. She’s always admired that about her. Oddly, she had long since realized that it wasn’t that Bianca’s Pokémon were weaker than hers. Bianca simply lacked the proper disposition: she didn’t want to see her Pokémon or any others hurt and she had no desire to prove her superiority to another trainer. Cheren’s too were as strong as hers, but in her mind he taught them all the wrong moves, had them fight in the ways he thought was the empirically-proved best from his training manuals without matching his strategies to the strengths and weaknesses to his particular Pokémon or those of the opponent he was facing.
If she had worried about coming down with a mentor crush on Alder, Cheren had it worse, having just found someone he considered worthy of admiration for the first time. There had been, from Bianca, many hugs and tears, and a kiss that didn’t mean commitment but did mean she had places to go back to, possibilities that did exist. Cheren had looked awkward and clasped her shoulder and she knew meant by it about the same thing. She’d seen enough signs of the apocalypse without him giving in to Bianca’s urgings to do more than kiss her on both cheeks like his mother did to everyone.
Yet she was set apart. Touko didn’t believe in destiny, just accidents, but the fact remained that while she was part of the-three-of-them, she was also part of her-and-N, Team Plasma and the stuff of legends. She wasn’t better or stronger in any way that mattered, but she could go where they couldn’t, because that was the path of her dream.
Gears turned and another door open, wind ruffling her hair from the movement of the colossal moments many times her height. She was dwarfed by the scale of it, Gulliver in Brobdingnag. This was the might of the Pokémon League: we have very good hydraulics. If she hadn’t had to sit through one of Cheren’s research papers on the subject back in school, Touko might have thought moving anything that heavy would take a miracle.
She’s since seen miracles. She walked forward.
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Victory Road, the way to the Elite Four, was a place of ceremony. Grandiose, but fittingly so and necessarily so. Few got this far and fewer still went further.
Yet hers was an awe without fear. All her life she had imagined how hard it would be to challenge for the title of Pokémon Master. Now she saw that the title was simply a formality, a sign for those just meeting her. Her dreams no longer stopped at that point. Being awarded the title meant being strong enough for everything that would come after, all those responsibilities.
She had traveled Unova from south to north, seen sights familiar to many and those hidden for millennia. She had stood in the presence of the legendary Dragon and had its split-twin in her own bag. So a little ceremony and some architecture wasn’t going to impress her too much.
Her memories were enough to humble her, though. The people she’d met were amazing. Cilan, Chili, and Cress, refined, arrogant, and clever. Lenora, someone she could admire as feisty and brilliant but never be. Burgh, surprisingly competent for someone so camp. Elesa, someone she didn’t understand in the least but Bianca did. Clay, caustic and leather-tough. She had stepped into the abyss and been caught by the winds before she’d even considered if that was what she was supposed to do because Skyla would never let her fall (completely separately from letting her get fired face-first into a wall from a cannon). Brycen, who could hold off dozens of guys at once and pwn ninjas. Drayden and Iris, who told her she’d gotten involved in a war without end, fought in every generation, but that they believed in her.
She’d already had a private sendoff from Bianca and Cheren. They were older, stronger, wiser. Bianca could still smile. She’s always admired that about her. Oddly, she had long since realized that it wasn’t that Bianca’s Pokémon were weaker than hers. Bianca simply lacked the proper disposition: she didn’t want to see her Pokémon or any others hurt and she had no desire to prove her superiority to another trainer. Cheren’s too were as strong as hers, but in her mind he taught them all the wrong moves, had them fight in the ways he thought was the empirically-proved best from his training manuals without matching his strategies to the strengths and weaknesses to his particular Pokémon or those of the opponent he was facing.
If she had worried about coming down with a mentor crush on Alder, Cheren had it worse, having just found someone he considered worthy of admiration for the first time. There had been, from Bianca, many hugs and tears, and a kiss that didn’t mean commitment but did mean she had places to go back to, possibilities that did exist. Cheren had looked awkward and clasped her shoulder and she knew meant by it about the same thing. She’d seen enough signs of the apocalypse without him giving in to Bianca’s urgings to do more than kiss her on both cheeks like his mother did to everyone.
Yet she was set apart. Touko didn’t believe in destiny, just accidents, but the fact remained that while she was part of the-three-of-them, she was also part of her-and-N, Team Plasma and the stuff of legends. She wasn’t better or stronger in any way that mattered, but she could go where they couldn’t, because that was the path of her dream.
Gears turned and another door open, wind ruffling her hair from the movement of the colossal moments many times her height. She was dwarfed by the scale of it, Gulliver in Brobdingnag. This was the might of the Pokémon League: we have very good hydraulics. If she hadn’t had to sit through one of Cheren’s research papers on the subject back in school, Touko might have thought moving anything that heavy would take a miracle.
She’s since seen miracles. She walked forward.
Back to main page