Title: Wings of a Butterfly, Eye of the Tiger (Part 1)
Ship: Nemona x Juliana (Julinemo/Terajules)
Summary: Nemona and Juliana just can't resist returning to Area Zero once more. They find new places to explore, new pokemon to discover, and a new things to learn . . . about pokemon battling, but also about each other.
Notes: Okay guys, so there's a story I started on but I got a lot going on in life atm, so I may not finish this story anytime soon (or at all). Burned out on writing and got IRL stuff to deal with, you know how it goes.
That said! I decided I want to post the first chapter anyway, because it was fun to do and I thought folks might enjoy it on its own. So here you go. :D This is meant as a sequel to my story Picnic in Paradise.
You were in the middle of history class and you were so bored. Professor Raifort was on a tangent about some musty old ruins she’d studied in Kalos, and you could tell she wasn’t going to get back on track anytime soon. It wouldn’t be so bad if you were sitting next to Nemona, but Raifort assigned seats to students specifically to prevent friends from chatting during class. It was ruthless, cruel. You didn’t dare pull your phone out either, Raifort went into a rage if she saw any student fiddling with their “damned technology” in the middle of her class. You heaved a sad sigh, drooped over with your chin resting on your desk, gazing at Nemona’s ponytail and wishing you could talk to her. If only you could text her without Raifort noticing . . . ugh . . .
A silly idea popped into your head. You sat up and looked down at your notebook, then glanced up at Raifort. Hmm . . .
You picked up your pencil and scribbled out help me nemona my brain is going to melt into goop if I have to listen to her talk about excavation units for any longer
Slowly, you tore the piece of paper out of your notebook, so as not to make any noise, then folded it up. Nemona was sitting two rows ahead of you, but you knew the student sitting between you fairly well, they liked to talk to you about bug types sometimes. You tapped their arm gently and showed them the note, giving your head a little nod in Nemona’s direction and flicking your eyes back to them, trying to broadcast your intent. They seemed briefly confused but then quickly got the idea, taking the note and passing it without question. You watched Nemona accept the note with a puzzled look and unfold the paper, reading it. Then she cast a quick glance behind her, catching your eye. You grinned at her and she stifled a giggle.
After about a minute, you saw Nemona slide a note onto your classmate’s desk with a nervous expression, and they passed it along to you. You unfolded the paper.
there’s only 20 minutes left girl, you can survive. we can have a battle after class :)
That did sound nice, but 20 minutes felt like an eternity in this classroom. You wrote out another note.
okay sounds good. btw I can’t wait to go back to our secret place, think we can do that anytime soon? been thinking a lot about what we’re gonna do there next.
Then you spent some time doodling some pokemon, a large tiger with sabre teeth and angry eyes and a Pawmot facing off against it, punching it with an Ice Punch. You added a Rockruff behind the Pawmot, wagging its little tail and panting. You wrote out ‘You’ next to the Pawmot with an arrow and wrote ‘Me’ next to the Rockruff. Then you folded up the note and passed it forward.
You couldn’t see Nemona’s reaction, but eventually she passed another note back to you.
jules if the teacher catches us we’re gonna get in so much trouble. we’re champion rank trainers we’re supposed to set an example and stuff!
also I can’t wait to go back too, maybe this weekend?
You snorted, amused at the mixed messages she was sending. She even included a little drawing too, it looked like her Pawmot and your Gengar holding hands and smiling, under a little rainbow. The word Us was scrawled above them.
Nemona was not good at drawing. You still loved it more than any other piece of art on earth. You folded it up carefully and tucked it away in your pocket to keep. Then you wrote out another note.
if you can do it this weekend then heck yeah I’m in. can’t wait <3 <3 I love your drawing.
You handed it to your classmate to pass forward. They accepted it with a sigh, looking a little weary by now with being used as a messenger, but passed it on anyway. Raifort had finally finished with her tangent and was writing stuff out on the chalkboard, but you couldn’t be bothered to care. You were too busy watching Nemona drawing something in her notebook, apparently concentrating very hard. It took her a good five minutes, but she finally finished, folding it up and turning to pass it back.
Except she didn’t manage to get that far. Professor Raifort had finally caught wise to the funny business and grabbed hold of Nemona’s wrist before she could pass the note. Nemona gasped, her eyes growing wide.
“Ms. Sanchez, I’ll be checking that, if you don’t mind.”
The teacher snatched the sheet of paper from her hand and released Nemona, unfolding the note. She scrutinized it a moment, scowling. Folding the sheet of paper back up, she spoke in a stern tone,
“Ms. Sanchez, in case you have forgotten, art class is at 3:00 on Thursdays with Mr. Hassel. We are currently in history class, and I ask that you keep your focus on the subject for the duration of my class. Understood?”
“Y-yes Ms. Raifort,” Nemona stammered, shrinking a little in her seat, while a few people in class giggled. Raifort sighed wearily, pacing away and depositing the note upon her lectern.
“Now where were we . . . ah, yes. So there were a number of factors that contributed to the decline and eventual collapse of the empire . . .”
It was a mercy when the bell finally rang, students packing up as quickly as possible so they could escape. By the time you’d made your way to the front of the class to Nemona, most of the classroom had already emptied. Nemona had slung her bag over her shoulder and was looking very anxious. You leaned in to mutter,
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you think she’s still mad?”
You shook your head,
“She’s probably forgot about it already.”
“I-I dunno . . . I think I’m gonna go apologize.”
“Nemona, you don’t have to–”
She’d already gone to the front of the classroom, though.
“M-Ms. Raifort? I’m sorry about before, drawing in class I mean. It won’t happen again.”
The instructor glanced up from clearing the chalkboard. She had a disapproving look in her sharp eyes as she sighed,
“I certainly hope not. I expected better from you, Ms. Sanchez–”
You hastened to the front of the room, interrupting her,
“Don’t blame Nemona, Ms. Raifort, I’m the one who started it.”
The teacher’s shrewd gaze switched to you, her eyes narrowing.
“I see. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. You may still be a new student, but know that I hold you to the same exact standards of behavior as your peers.”
You nodded and answered quickly,
“Of course, and I’m really sorry. But um, would it be possible to get Nemona’s picture back? It would really mean a lot.”
Nemona’s eyes flicked to you, looking as though she thought you were crazy and she expected Raifort to bite your head clean off. Raifort looked briefly thrown off by the request
but then she just turned back to cleaning the blackboard, sighing,
“Take it and leave.”
You went up to the lectern and snatched the sheet of paper up, saying cheerfully,
“Thanks Ms. Raifort! See you next week!”
As you and Nemona rushed out of the classroom, Raifort muttered gravely,
“If the youth are our future, I fear for the future.”
Passing through the halls, you unfolded the sheet of paper to find a large, slightly asymmetrical heart. It had a lot of lines drawn through it at random angles, which confused you a little. You said,
“Oh, I like the . . . heart?”
Nemona looked down at the drawing and clarified brightly,
“That’s my heart! When I met you.”
You studied it, your brow furrowing.
“It, um . . . broke?”
“What? No! It’s not broken, it . . .”
Suddenly looking very self-conscious, she glanced away. She mumbled,
“It’s supposed to be terastallized . . .”
Your eyes widened as you finally recognized the rough lines as facets to a jem. You squeaked out,
“Oh.”
What were you supposed to do with this revelation? Did your best friend and crush just casually drop this bombshell on you like it was nothing?
“I-I-I, uhm, I– N-nemona, that’s– that’s–”
You were trying to get out, Meeting me terastallized your heart? but your face was heating up fast and you couldn’t manage to utter something so sappy and wonderful, in part out of fear you were misunderstanding somehow.
Nemona seemed a little antsy and uncomfortable, and she cut in, quickly switching subjects.
“Hey, you wanted to battle after class, right? C’mon, let’s go to the Schoolyard!”
“Oh– uh– r-right–sure!”
She grabbed your hand and headed towards the stairs eagerly. You made sure to carefully tuck the note away into your pocket.
By the time you both reached the Schoolyard and took your positions, students were already crowding round to watch. It was pretty much a guarantee that when two Champion-rank students were having a battle, it was going to draw some attention, even if it was spur-of-the-moment. It used to make you feel uneasy, being under the spotlight like that. But it didn’t bother you any more, because these days your sole focus was on the battle and Nemona’s infectious energy– everything else just seemed to fall away.
“You ready?”
She held out her first pokeball and her eyes were glinting with that familiar thrill. You nodded, grinning.
“All right!” she said, throwing the ball.
“Orthworm, let’s go!”
You threw your own pokeball, sending out Krookodile.
“Krookodile, Stealth Rock!”
“Orthworm, Shed Tail!”
Both of your teams had seen a lot of action over the past few months, and you’d faced off against each other many, many times. As a result, there was a lot of familiarity, but things were hardly what you’d call predictable. You’d both made changes to your teams continuously as you learned and adapted and tried new things. For example, Nemona switched up her leads a fair bit. Starting with Orthworm’s Shed Tail was a relatively new development. She’d been using it very effectively as a way of setting up in the early game.
You were on the watch for that possibly now, as Nemona switched into her Palafin next. You quickly swapped in your Bellibolt, which easily tanked the Jet Punch. Then you ordered Bellibolt to Thunderbolt, eager to break the Substitute before her Palafin got up to any funny business with Bulk Ups. But Nemona opted instead to just order Flip Turn, and then sent out Pawmot to eat up the attack. The bolt of electricity struck her Pawmot, charging it with power, and the audience gave an excited little ‘oooh’ in response.
You narrowed your eyes, thinking; you were considering staying in to use a Mud Shot, but you knew Nemona’s Pawmot hit like a truck. Instead you decided to switch in Gengar.
You watched as Pawmot’s furious punches phased harmlessly through Gengar, the ghost giggling when Pawmot passed through him and flopped onto the ground. The Close Combat was an easy prediction, honestly, but the audience cheered anyway, loving the spectacle.
Nemona called,
“It’s all right Pawmot, we got this! Get ready!”
The energetic pokemon leapt back to his feet, fists raised, facing off against your ghost with a glare.
You smirked a little, thinking to yourself that Nemona shouldn’t be so quick to assume Pawmot had this. You pointed and issued your order,
“Gengar, Dazzling Gleam!”
Nemona looked surprised, but she still took it in stride, quickly ordering,
“Double Shock!”
The two pokemon charged at each other, meeting in the middle of the battle court in an explosion of dazzling lights and crackling electricity. Your vision was bleached out from the brightness and when you could see again, Gengar had fallen, Pawmot panting and very weak but still standing. The audience gasped while Nemona cheered,
“Good work, Pawmot!”
Gengar returned to his ball; you were honestly shocked that the Dazzling Gleam hadn’t been enough to take Pawmot out. Though by the looks of it, he’d been very close. You sent out your Tauros Aqua Breed. Nemona eagerly ordered Pawmot to Volt Switch, but you called out,
“Aqua Jet!”
The shot of water struck Pawmot first, knocking the weakened pokemon out. Nemona laughed,
“Darn. Didn’t think you’d mess up there but was hoping anyway.”
You smiled and shrugged,
“You’d be disappointed if I did something that silly.”
“True, haha. Okay Meowscarada, go!”
You considered things for a moment. Nemona probably didn’t expect you to do something so silly as to keep Tauros in on her Meowscarada, either– she’d probably expect you to swap to your Volcarona. You knew she loved swapping to Palafin for that, so you decided to switch to Bellibolt.
Unfortunately, it seemed you ended up over-predicting her. The Flower Trick that landed on Bellibolt hit hard, weakening it far too much, well past the point of recovery. With a sigh, you decided to leave him in, letting him faint to the next Flower Trick.
You swapped to Volcarona then– you wanted a clean switch for her anyway. This was also a beautiful opportunity. As Nemona recalled Meowscarada, you ordered,
“Quiver Dance!”
“Palafin, you’re in charge!”
The dolphin that materialized on the battle court was now in his fully-powered state, rippling muscles and tall, proud stance. He was a menace for your team and had often been the one responsible for your losses against Nemona. With your best counter already fainted, Nemona was looking pretty smug.
“Becha you wished you didn’t throw away Bellibolt so soon.”
You shrugged,
“Eh, easy come, easy go. I’ll manage.”
Nemona turned to her pokemon.
“Well, there won’t be any more Quiver Dances on my watch. Palafin, you know what to do!”
You pulled a small, glittering orb from your pocket. God, you’d waited for this moment for weeks. You’d laid in bed at night giggling about it as you imagined your silly plan, and you’d spent hours and hours painstakingly gathering the tera shards, bit by bit.
Now it was finally time.
Settling your nerves, you carefully threw the tera orb, the energy crashing into your Volcarona.
You called:
“Volcarona, Solar Beam!”
The audience gasped at the mid-battle terastallization, the tera energy gathering around Volcarona and the crystals spreading rapidly across its body, finishing at the top with a glittering crown, her tera jewel: a bouquet of flowers. Then Volcarona glittered and shone even brighter as she gathered up sunlight for her Solar Beam, the Power Herb gripped in her little legs melding into the light as she charged, brighter and brighter, until it was almost painful to look.
You could see Nemona’s eyes were wide, the light of your pokemon reflected in them.
Palafin’s Jet Punch struck your pokemon, but the move hardly even phased it.
Then Volcarona unleashed its attack in return, the blast of energy engulfing the dolphin entirely.
Palafin didn’t stand a chance, fainting immediately, and the students around you let loose some wild cheers. However, Nemona looked more excited than any of them by far. She leapt and cackled,
“Oh my god, Jules! That was incredible!!”
You grinned proudly, giggling,
“Thanks.”
“Seriously, I had no idea, when did you change her tera typing?!”
“Just last week.”
“Oh my god. That was so cool, and the Power Herb too!– it was genius, gahh! I can’t believe you– grhh, okay, we still have a battle to finish, but we’ll talk later, okay?”
You laughed,
“Okay.”
While your mid-battle victory over Palafin filled you with giddy energy (if you were honest, though, it had more to do with Nemona’s unrestrained glee than your victory), it was hardly a decided match. After Nemona had finished gushing over the cool moment, she got her head back in the game and sent out her Talonflame. You weren’t gonna sacrifice your Volcarona recklessly, so you swapped to your Krookodile. Nemona took advantage of the moment to get a Swords Dance off. She then ordered a Brave Bird, seriously weakening your Krookodile. Staying calm, you ordered,
“Stone Edge!”
“What?!”
The move fortunately connected with the bird, dropping the pokemon instantly.
“I thought you were gonna Taunt! Since when are you packing Stone Edge?!”
You shrugged again, smiling.
“Told ya I made a few changes.”
Nemona groaned.
“You’re turning into a downright terror. Looks like I gotta get serious here.”
She tossed a ball, calling,
“Dragapult, time to get to work! Draco Meteor!”
After Krookodile fainted, you sent out your Tauros. Unfortunately, Nemona correctly predicted the Outrage, swapping into Orthworm on the hit, who took the attack easily. While your Tauros was still in a frenzy, she got up some late-game Stealth Rocks. Luckily Tauros calmed down soon after that, although he now was dizzy from the overpowered attack. You knew he needed a chance to rest, so you switched to your Corviknight, while at the same time Nemona brought Dragapult back in.
You thought carefully about your next move. You only had Corviknight, Tauros and Volcarona left– she had Meowscarada, Dragapult, and Orthworm. It was a little awkward dealing with Dragapult, though. You decided to just go all out. Corviknight would live a Thunderbolt and get an attack off and Tauros would have to finish it off– he could do it, he had an Assault Vest– and you’d save Volcarona for the other two.
“Corviknight, Brave Bird!”
Your pokemon flapped her wings, rising higher and higher into the air, then fell into a swoop. From the other side of the battle court, Nemona shouted,
“Dragapult, Fire Blast!”
Your heart skipped a beat, not expecting that move at all. You watched as the bird dove directly into a massive fireball, the pokemon crying out in shock.
Corviknight never even reached Dragapult. The fainted pokemon returned to your ball.
“Fire Blast?”
Nemona smiled, hands on hips.
“I made a few changes too.”
“Mnnn . . .”
You sent your Tauros out. You ordered Outrage, desperately needing to take care of this Dragapult. Unfortunately, Nemona didn’t want to give you that chance, and swapped back into Orthworm once more, using Earthquake. The big Steel-type worm had been worn down enough by now that the Outrages managed to finish it off, but at what cost?
Nemona sent her Meowscarada back out once Tauros’ rage had quelled. You were pretty sure it was over, but maybe you still had a chance with Volcarona. You ordered Tauros to Aqua Jet for some extra damage, waiting for the Flower Trick to finish him off.
But Nemona hesitated. She seemed to think a moment, and then instead of Flower Trick, she commanded,
“Play Rough!”
You watched as Meowscarada’s cape shifted colors from green to light pink, and then the cat leapt forward, striking your Tauros down on the spot. You stared for a few moments in disbelief.
Then you looked up to Nemona.
“Your Meowscarada has Protean now?”
She looked so psyched, immediately answering,
“I’ve been waiting so long to show it off, I found an Ability Patch in a tera den!! It’s so great to finally tell you, I also equipped her with a– oh, whoops, probably shouldn’t blab that part yet. You’ll see, heheh!”
You chuckled, saying,
“That’s honestly awesome, but I think it’s gonna be a GG for me.”
You released your final pokemon, the Volcarona still sparkling with its crown of flowers.
“C’mon Jules, you know what I always tell you, never call it early–”
“Yeah, yeah, it isn’t over ‘til it’s over. I know.”
Still, you knew that Protean sealed the deal. You could have taken out a grass-type Meowscarada in one hit, but not a Fairy-type Meowscarada. There was Dragapult waiting in the wings anyway.
Releasing a little sigh, you smiled gently. You issued your command to Volcarona.
“Ok, Volcarona. Quiver Dance!”
Nemona shouted,
“Go, Meowscarada, Play Rough!”
The nimble feline charged as your Volcarona fluttered her wings and began her graceful dance. Meowscarada leapt into the air, claws extended, teeth bared . . .
But she missed. Your Volcarona swooped out of the way just in the nick of time. The gathered students uttered a collective ‘oooh!’ and Nemona gasped before yelling,
“Quick, Meowscarada, again, Play Rough!”
“Volcarona, Flamethrower!”
Volcarona was a lot faster now, and Meowscarada went down in flames before she could get her attack off. And suddenly the match was down to one-on-one. Nemona released her Dragapult while the crowd murmured.
Even though misses were always a part of matches, you still felt bad, saying,
“Dang. Play Rough almost never misses, it should have been a safe bet . . .”
“Hey, no worries. Like I said, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over!”
She grinned, pulling her tera orb from her pocket. Right, hers was still charged. And her Drapagult had Choice Specs. Crap.
“Wait, your Dragapult’s still Tera Dragon, right?”
You knew she’d been toying with the idea of changing it to Tera Ghost, but you had no clue if she actually did.
Nemona just winked at you. She replied sneakily,
“Not telling.”
You groaned, then shook your head.
“O-okay, that’s fine, I don’t need you to! Let’s finish this.”
She took aim with her Tera Orb, and you made your choice.
Nemona flung the Tera Orb.
“Volcarona, Flamethrower!”
“Dragapult, Draco Meteor!”
Nemona’s pokemon transformed into its splendid, terastallized state, and your heart sank when you saw it still was crowned with a Dragon Tera Jewel. The Flamethrower struck the dragon but didn’t take it out. Oh boy. The massive meteors roared in the air, crashing into your Volcarona with a flurry of purple sparkles . . .
But once the dust settled, Volcarona was still flapping, tired but conscious! Not wasting another moment, you triumphantly shouted,
“Volcarona, Bug Buzz!!”
The final attack struck Dragapult down for good, to the jubilation of the crowds.
Afterwards, you both headed to the cafeteria for lunch, Nemona ranting and raving about the match the whole way there. When you spotted Arven and Penny already eating, Nemona hurried over to their table to excitedly recount the story for them. You ate lunch and watched her with a silly smile, because few things in life were as wonderful as listening to Nemona talk about pokemon battling. She was so incredibly animated, putting her whole body into the story and acting out the key moments, her eyes crackling with a fiery spirit and her energy so overflowing that she kept squeezing her hands into fists and giving happy little jumps.
It was so adorable and joyful that you could hardly stand it.
“And then, then!” She swung her arms wide, making explosion noises,
“Blammgmmgmgm! Solar Beam blows Palafin straight outta the water, she had a Power Herb!! Not even a second to react, he’s already gone, my jaw hit the floor! You guys you have no idea how awesome it was, I’ve been telling people forever now that Terastalizing can give us these ridiculously cool game-changing moments but all the Gym leaders are always like ‘Bla bla bla, we can’t Tera into anything other than our chosen monotype, bla bla bla’ like c’mon!! How are we supposed to get trainers excited for battle with terastallization if it’s always like that! Jules did exactly what I’ve been wanting people to do for so long, it felt like, like, something I’m gonna remember forever, you know?”
There was a moment’s pause when Nemona stopped to catch her breath.
“So I’m getting the impression Nemona liked the battle,” Arven said dryly, sipping his drink. Penny chuckled.
“I’m not even finished yet, wait ‘til you guys hear the rest!!”
You somehow managed to make it through lunch without perishing from either Nemona’s praise or her adorable antics, but when you made it back to your dorm, you flung yourself onto the bed with a huge sigh. It was getting harder all the time to keep a lid on your feelings. It was gonna start affecting your battles soon at this rate, and Nemona was sure to notice that . . .
You felt a lump in your pockets and pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Oh, god, right.”
You unfolded the scribbly heart Nemona had drawn for you during class. You stared at it for a long time, and the other note you’d saved of the two of you as pokemon holding hands under a rainbow. It certainly felt like solid, undeniable proof that she returned your feelings, but at this point you second-guessed everything. Nemona had the habit of making some incredibly strong statements of affection about you. After you beat the E4 and had your first battle together as equals, she asked if you wanted to be rivals for life, and it practically felt like a marriage proposal. She’d only doubled down since then, casually telling you stuff like ‘I’ve relished every single day since you’d moved here’ or done stuff like rearrange her classes and delay her graduation just so she could graduate at the same time as you. You know, simple things like shift all her life plans just for you.
You hopped off your bed, a determined look in your eye. You were gonna stop waffling. It was time to finally tell her.
You had to do it right, though. Nemona was doing stuff like proclaiming that meeting you terastallized her heart. So you had to be big and bold too. You wanted to match her energy, and you wanted it to be unmistakable. You picked up some of your pokeballs, then headed back out to the Schoolyard.
Once you’d stepped out into the open-air solarium, you immediately headed over to the garden area and found a quiet corner to work on your little project. You let your Frosmoth out of her ball.
“Okay, Frosmoth. Let’s get back to work. Ice Beam. Nice and slow, just like we practiced.”
Your plan was pretty simple. It was something you saw on social media a few weeks ago: somebody had trained their Glaceon to create ice sculptures with its Ice Beam, and one of them was a big heart. It had seemed perfect to you, because what better time to confess to Nemona then in the middle of a pokemon battle? You’d envisioned it then, sending Frosmoth out and creating the sculpture, the look of Nemona’s surprised delight, and then you’d finally come clean to her, tell her everything. You’d tried to confess to her a ton of times already, true, but something always happened. Either it was misunderstood or you chickened out or your plans got derailed somehow. Most recently, you had planned to take her to Cortondo for those little lemon cakes she loved so much and tell her then. That had been right after you’d returned from your Area Zero picnic. But you’d both gotten so busy with exams after that, so it hadn’t happened.
But it was fine. You had a better plan now and you were going to follow through this time. Frosmoth just had to perfect her technique and produce something other than lumpy ice blobs. It was rough going but you believed in her, you knew she’d get the hang of it. Eventually.
Probably.
“Okay, Frosmoth, good effort! Let’s try again, I think if you slowed down a bit more and made sure to go back and forth, it won’t end up so lumpy . . .”
You glanced down at your phone, re-reading the blog post about teaching your pokemon to make ice sculptures. Nobody had ever tried to teach a Frosmoth before. You wondered if that mattered. Slowglobe had very different eyes from Glaceons, it might affect things. Hm.
You eventually looked up again from your reading.
“Oh my gosh, Frosmoth! That’s so good!”
It was hardly as impressive as the photo in the blog, but it was way closer to a heart than she’d ever gotten before. Very lumpy and asymmetrical still, but if you squinted, it was almost recognizable!
While you were examining the ice sculpture and thinking about how to improve things, a familiar voice rang out from across the Schoolyard.
“Hey! Juliana, there you are!”
Your heart leapt in a panic. Oh, crap, crap, no– she couldn’t see this now, it wasn’t ready! You glanced around for a few moments trying to think of what to do, until some quick thinking saved you. You chucked a ball and said,
“Volcarona, u-uh, Flamethrower, right there! Quick!”
The large insect obediently released a fireball, melting the ice sculpture down. A few moments later Nemona had finished jogging over, saying,
“Oh, sorry, didn’t know you were training!”
You spun around, the pair of moths hovering behind you.
“Ahaha, i-it’s fine! We’re mostly just fooling around . . .”
Nemona nodded, crossing her arms and grinning.
“Great! ‘Cause I wanted to ask you about this weekend, when we go to Area Z– er–”
She suddenly stopped and glanced around furtively, then stepped closer, dropping her voice.
“I mean, our secret place. What time were you thinking?”
You blinked. Oh, right. You’d forgotten about that already.
“Um . . . is Saturday morning okay? Early?”
You toed the gravel under your shoe and repressed the urge to say ‘as soon as possible for as long as possible.’
“Yeah, that’s fine! Like 8:00? We could go right after breakfast!”
You looked up at her and smiled,
“Sure!”
Nemona seemed very pleased.
“Awesome. Man, it’s gonna be so great to finally head back again. Poor Hellcat’s been waiting in their ball, I haven’t even been able to heal them since the nurses at the Pokecenters would notice something weird’s up . . .”
You nodded.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, we’ll bring lots of potions and food for them. And we can work on training them.”
Enthusiastically, she agreed,
“Yeah! Plus we can look for Roaring Moo–”
You held up a finger to your lips to hush her and she quickly stopped, giggling,
“Whoops, sorry.”
She stepped even closer to you and leaned in, whispering,
“We can look for Roaring Moon. And maybe whatever other exciting things we can find, heheh.”
Having Nemona this close and whispering sweet nothings to you– well, all right, they weren’t sweet nothings, but at this proximity they may as well be– was a lot to handle. You felt your cheeks warming and the world felt just slightly off-balance.
“Y-yeah! Okay, yeah! That sounds, um, good!”
Smiling, she said to you quietly,
“Perfect. See you then.”
She gave you a wink for the second time today, and you knew it made sense in context but man, she had better stop doing that. It was too dangerous for your heart.
Once she’d departed, you turned back to inspect the slushy puddle that had been your ice sculpture. You sighed.
“Guess we gotta put this plan on hold ‘til after our trip.”
You returned your pokemon to their balls so you could start making preparations for your journey back to Area Zero.
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