It was the 12th of August, 6:56am, on a not-so-clear day on the island. Everything seemed to drag on overcast days like this. Even Nana slept in whenever the nimbus grey of clouds painted the morning skies.
Not Luvia and certainly not today. With a monotony that still somehow felt novel, she showered cold in thirty seconds, fitted herself into her wetsuit, and looked at herself in the mirror as she tied her hair in a bun.
She tried her hardest to feel confident, but now that the day had come, she was sure there was no chance they’d give a job like that to a girl like her.
Five thousand pokédollar’s worth League Credits for four days of work.
Forget the fact she had no license to redeem credits, if she was bluntly honest with herself, she only met a single one of the job’s criteria, and even that one felt like a tall order now. She was familiar with some of the areas of her side of the island, but for the rest, she’d be almost as much a tourist as a mainlander.
She gave a quick shake of her head. Not the time for doubts.
At the very least, she’d have to see what kind of people would turn up and what kind of work this League-issued job entailed. After all, when was the last time she had seen a League job posted on the island? Uhm, like how about never?
She slid her rain jacket on and went for her white sneakers instead of crocs. They were slightly more serious looking.
Here we go, Mida… She held Mida’s white-on-white pokéball snugly in her hand. They had both been exhausted the previous day, drilling every move Mida knew for two hours in the morning, and using the harness to swim as a pair in one of the bigger lagoons from the afternoon until sunset.
Swimming with Mida was incredibly fun, especially after she bought herself a pair of swimming goggles.
Sitting on a speeding raft was still awesome, but being underwater with Mida was just special.
She could hold her breath for over a minute during a dive. A minute where she could appreciate the way Mida flicked and moved her little body around more gracefully than she ever did on land. Everything looked more regal inside the water.
The world beneath the surface was enchanting and Luvia had fallen completely in love with it. Harness diving with Mida became her favorite thing to do, though there was still a slight problem.
When they dove a little too deep, a shooting pain would press against her eardrums. The first time it happened, she got scared and didn’t dive for the rest of that day.
During a phone call with her father, she found out how divers got rid of the problem.
“Pinch your nose and blow some air into your ears – but not too strong, Luvy. That should help.”
The day after, she did so, and it did! But it wasn’t a one-and-done hack as she had hoped. It was something she needed to keep doing whenever she descended deeper at any given moment. It was somewhat annoying that the human body didn’t take care of such issues automatically.
Luiva stuffed Mida’s ball in her jacket and made for the beach where the mainlanders had set up their marquees and tents.
When she got there, she spotted several people around a pair of wide, foldable desks wearing rain jackets of their own and holding travel mugs as they talked casually and pored over what Luvia could only guess were maps.
She hadn’t applied for the job, since, well, she couldn’t, so she made for the shore some generous distance away from them, pretending to be an early morning admirer of the sea. Just there for a stroll.
*glance* …
*peek* …
*stare*…
She kept stealing looks away at them, hoping someone or something would give her the cue to approach.
After ten whole minutes and an entire stadium-length away along the beach, she spotted a different group of people approach the marquee and felt a sudden pang of fear. Fomo to be precise.
Where those guys there for the job?
That was her cue. She began powerwalking along the shore, sneakers digging into the sand, with the most confident air she could muster.
Yes, she was practically a trainer, thank you very much.
Yes, she could surf on a raft and even dive and “equalize” her ears. Could they?
Yes, she could handle wild pokémon if it came down to it, ask any of Mida’s victims.
Halfway there, she slowed down to a less alarming pace.
20 yards out, she inhaled deeply and felt the anxiety crawl mercilessly into her mind.
5 yards out, she was already blushing.
“Good morning.”
The group looked up from their table and sent a quick and curt volley of greetings back at her.
Luvia’s ears warmed when she saw that the second group that joined were in fact the trainer variety of teens. Two boys and two girls, maybe slightly older than her, each with that glint in the eye that reminded her of Andrea and Joney and Ruby. A trainer’s glint. She could have sworn she had seen one of the boys around the island, but she wasn’t certain.
Anyhow, their presence made her feel more inadequate than she hoped. She had no idea which of the adults to address, so she made eye contact with the bespectacled man with a short, scraggly beard, and picked him.
“I saw the flyer in town…” Everyone present stared quietly. “Assistants needed?”
To her relief, the man nodded and the tension in the air cleared up if only slightly.
“You didn’t apply through your pokégear?” the man said, approaching, and thankfully for Luvia, the rest of the group carried on with their chatter.
It didn’t help matters though.
“Uhm, I don’t have my own pokégear,” she said in a voice ridiculously close to a whisper. “I wanted to volunteer in person.”
The man folded his arms and wore an expression that Luvia didn’t like. It said: Elaborate.
“You are a trainer, right?”
Luvia produced Mida’s pokéball and said, “I am…” She was!
She and Mida hadn’t been training for almost two months to betray themselves now.
The man nodded. “Well, alright, I suppose we can process an application here then.”
Luvia’s heart soared in a second, and plummeted the next. Things were getting real... and fast.
She cursed internally, picturing the faces that these people would make when they saw that her “mountable flying or surfing pokémon” was a baby-sized mudkip.
Oh god…
She followed the man to one of the desks where the other four teens were gathered around, pens in hand and going through paper forms.
“Fill this out and you’re good to go.” He slid a form over to her and provided the pen.
“Thanks,” Luvia murmured.
As she went through the form, her heart squeezed and begged for her to quietly duck under the table and low crawl herself all the way back home to save herself the embarrassment.
Pokémon declaration and Trainer Rank declaration. Busted.
She eyed the other trainers like a starving pickpocket. Someone help.
One by one, they squiggled their signatures on the forms and handed them over the man, who was now sat and talking to a woman with the hood of her rain jacket cinched snugly around her face. It was an overcast morning, but it wasn’t that cold.
The guy collected the forms and told them they could sit in the spare chairs inside the marquee, leaving Luvia alone with her form.
…
A minute went by, then two, then the man spoke some passing comment to his colleague and approached Luvia.
“Are you having trouble there?”
Tired of the crippling pressure, Luvia went for broke.
“Sir, I don’t have a license, but I can do this job.”
…
Plain old blankness was the only way to describe his expression. Then he pushed up the rim of his glasses and frowned. “Wha– Well– … How will you receive payment?”
…
That was his concern? Honestly nowhere near as bad as she expected. Her heart thumped with hope. Even if she wouldn’t be paid for it, going on a League-issued job was bound to be great experience going forward.
Too bad she wasn’t done with the bad news.
“My pokémon’s a mudkip…” Heat was rushing to her face. “Sh-she can drag me around in the water, but I can’t… you know… mount her.”
At that, he broke into a grin and whirled around to his colleagues. The cinch-hooded woman was gazing back at him with a serene and perky, what-is-it? look. He turned back to Luvia, smiling.
“Is this like one of those pranks kids are playing these days?”
I wish it was.
“No, sir.”
He peered at her face, and when it became obvious that she wasn’t kidding, his smile dropped and he glanced once more at his colleagues. More specifically the woman.
“What’s the matter, Robert?” the woman said in a clear and crisp voice. It took Luvia by surprise and instantly made the lady the new focus of her attention.
“I think I’m getting pranked,” he told her.
Luvia vehemently shook her head. “No! I’m not lying.”
“Wait, so why are you here again?”
“I need this job to get my trainer license!”
She had everyone’s eyes now. Even the other teens poked out of the marquee to have a look. Whatever. She’d never see them again after their stint on the island.
“No, you have it backwards – you need a trainer license to get paid!”
She had known that, but it didn’t mean she had an answer to it.
“Ohoho!” the woman laughed, putting hand over her mouth. She stood from her chair and paced over to them, taking a sip from her travel mug.
She was on the tallish side, with heavy-lidded pale blue eyes, and sharp, noble angles to her face. She was a blonde. Her entire head, save her face, was in the hood, but her eyebrows hinted at it.
“You need this job to get your license?” she asked Luvia with a thin-lipped smirk that managed to come off as charming. “Pardon me, how old are you, my dear?”
Luvia was getting up and flustered by the attention. Neela would have handled this better. Neela would have probably taken charge.
“Fourteen…”
A few whispers went around the teens, and a couple of little chuckles around the other adults.
“How refreshing!” said the woman. “Give her the job, Robert.”
!!!
Luvia blinked in shock, then looked at “Robert,” awaiting his reaction.
Robert chuckled. It was a chuckle-to-oneself type of chuckle. “Ha Ha.” He shook his head.
“Can’t do that, Glacia. We have limited equipment, and more trainers will be coming – be patient.”
The other teens were now whispering frantically to each other. They stepped out of the marquee.
“You’re Glacia?” asked one of the boys. “As in the Glacia?”
The woman scoffed and rolled her eyes, lifting her mug in exasperation and immediately switched up and smiled. “There you go again, Rob. Can’t enjoy a normal day around you can I.”
Robert smiled sheepishly.
Wait. Was she someone famous? Luvia stared hard at her, and the woman caught her looking and tilted her head in a smile.
“I am,” the woman replied to the boy. “But do please keep it to yourselves if you can do so much as that. I’d appreciate it. I’m not really supposed to be here, you see.”
“The Conference is at the end of the month!” one of the girls said with a gasp.
“Precisely,” came the reply. “But I desperately needed a little holiday before the madness starts, and so here I am.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Whereas the trainers were veritably gushing over her, Luvia was mostly immune by virtue of ignorance. She knew the conference was the regional competition to filter out the best pokémon battlers in Hoenn, but she still couldn’t quite piece any “Glacia” into the picture. Maybe she was a minister or something?
Everyone forgot about Luvia’s plea for a moment, but the man called Robert swiftly and mercilessly brought the hammer down.
“Look, I’m sorry, but if you don’t have a flying or surfable pokémon you can ride, you just won’t be of much use out here…” He tilted his head down at Luvia and pointed two finger guns at her. “This is a prank, right?”
Glacia sighed in exasperation. “Gods, Robert!”
Luvia answered by flicking her pokéball before her and letting Mida out in a flash of light.
“Maahd!” Mida cried out, shaking herself.
Luvia looked on with dejection as the man’s face opened up in realization, came back down to something studious, then finally settled into a disappointed acceptance.
“It’s nice!” whispered one of the trainers.
And strong too! Luvia wanted to say. We can do the job!
Robert pursed his bearded mouth and shook his head lightly. “Looks like a hatchling too… I’m sor-”
“She can fight!” Luvia cut in. She knew Mida was strong. She knew it, and the neighborhood was starting to know it too. She felt a pang of irritation at the thought that someone would judge her for her plushy looks alone. Mida was a fighter, and not acknowledging that felt like an insult to all the work they had put in the past weeks.
She looked him in his face and almost called him out – challenged to battle!
“Ohoho!” Glacia laughed again. “Hire her, Robert! She clearly knows what she wants!”
Robert shook his head again. “Not having a license – alright, we might find a workaround, but a hatchling?” He tutted and wagged ‘no’ with his finger. “That’s not going to cut it for this job.”
“Meehd…” Mida sat by Luvia’s feet, placing her belly on the sand as she studied the faces around her with curiosity.
Sucks.
It wasn’t the end of the world, but the rejection was bitter. Bitterer than Nana’s worst anti-malaise brew. Luvia couldn’t help but look sour as her shoulders slackened in defeat.
She leaned down and picked her pokéball, then moved to pick Mida up too.
“Oh, be a dear, Robert,” Glacia said coolly.
Luvia didn’t bother getting her hopes up again, she hoisted Mida up in her arms and began turning away.
“Girl,” Glacia’s clear-cut voice called after her. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Luvia froze at the command and looked back at the woman, who was now taking a long sip from her mug, pinky finger extended and all.
“Glacia…” Robert said hopelessly.
Glacia had an eyebrow perked up with amusement. “A young woman like this, without a license but a heartful of spirit? Why, it reminds me of the best days, before all this ‘license this, license that.’”
“Here we go…” Robert raised his palms and threw his arms down before turning away.
The pale-eyed woman levied a piercing look into Luvia’s eyes. “You need this job to get your license, you said?”
Luvia nodded. “Yes.”
“Meehd!”
She smiled down at Mida and gave her a little press.
“Then how about a little test?” Glacia suggested.
“What test…”
“How about you show dull old Robert over here why he won’t need to worry about you and your mudkip on this job.”
The trainers started whispering again. The other colleagues chuckled.
“Uh oh,” one said.
“I’ll battle her!” on of the trainer boys eagerly volunteered. “I’ll test her for you!”
Glacia liked that, but she waved her hand slowly in refusal and unzipped her rain jacket enough to reach in and down to her waist.
She pulled out a pokéball and gestured at Luvia. “I will test her myself.”
Glacia of the Elite 4.
This was her.
Glacia of the Elite 4 in Clearcloud Island, face to face with a fourteen year-old girl called Luvia Juneworth.
The other teen trainers had made her expressly aware of just who exactly it was she was about to have the honor of battling with. Most trainers had to collect 8 badges and take part in a brutally competitive conference to even get a look from her.
Luvia still didn’t believe it. The woman had an imposing voice and a stare that felt like needles tracing a millimeter over her skin, but the way she was dressed in those dorky, baggy nylon cargo pants, tucked into a pair of bright blue socks, and of course that cinched up hoodie covering everything but an ‘O’ shape of her face… It just didn’t scream ‘elite.’
She looked more like a mom on a camping trip.
The nimbus breeze swept through the sandy battlefield…
“What is happening?” Luvia mumbled quietly to herself. Mida was pacing slowly on the sand next to Luvia, keeping her sights on Glacia across the 15 yard distance. The little one already knew what was going on here.
She wondered what monster pokémon a member of the Elite 4 would have. She wondered what exactly Glacia was expecting of her – because it surely couldn’t be to win!
Glacia lifted the ball in her hand as a heads-up gesture and brought it down, opening her palm and letting the pokéball snap open atop it.
Luvia closed her mouth and squinted, focusing on the glowing white form of a volleyball-sized pokémon that sprang out.
“A spheal??” She pulled back with a quizzical frown.
“Shall we?” Glacia called across the distance.
Luvia took a second to glance over at the adults, two of which were sat on a pair of foldable chairs, while Robert watched standing, travel mug in hand and a this-is-just-another-Wednesday look on his face. The quartet of teen trainers were watching intently with smiles already stretching their mouths.
Compared to the Slateport crowd, this was nothing, so why did Luvia feel even more self-conscious? Was it the stakes?
“We’re ready!” she declared loudly.
“Very well!” Glacia thumbed her up, then in a lower voice said, “Felia, let’s dance.”
“Swaal!” The Spheal began rolling slowly on the sand on its round, fatty body.
Luvia and Mida watched attentively, the little one’s tail fin vibrating excitedly.
…
…
“Feel free to attack,” Glacia suggested. “This is a battle.”
What? Luvia was sure she was walking into a trap. Damn it! She glanced sideways at the sparse number of onlookers for a clue as to what the hell was happening. Did she say dance??
Spheal was a water-type too, but Luvia didn’t want Mida getting close before she had an idea of what the hell the move called Dance did.
“Water Gun, Mida!”
Mida tracked Spheal momentarily before snapping her mouth open and firing a whizzing shot of water that struck the sand in a loud and puffy thud. Spheal hadn’t altered its speed or direction whatsoever.
“That is a fine Water Gun attack!” chimed Glacia. “Not bad at all!”
Luvia’s frown deepened. Is she patronizing me?
“Again, Mida! Again and again!”
“Maahd!”
*Ghh!* *Ghh!* *Ghh!*
The first one glanced off the Spheal’s blubber but slowed its roll enough for the other two to land square on.
That familiar, rising feeling of success shot its way through Luvia, but it was quenched out by silence of the small crowd. No one let out a whoop or a cheer.
The expression on Glacia’s face had hardly changed either. “I liked that!” the woman said anyway.
Spheal resumed its rolling around in circles without any command from Glacia.
…
Luvia observed. Why is it doing that?
As if reading her mind, Glacia answered, “There isn’t a trick here, this isn’t a trap. The Spheal is only rolling, my dear – what shall you do?”
What shall I do? How about this!
“Tackle!”
Mida’s tail buzzed and she shot forward into a gallop on her tiny paws. The sand kicked up behind her.
Glacia kept on gazing serenely into the battlefield. She made Luvia feel like a toddler punching at her father.
Heart beating loudly in her chest, she waited until the very moment Mida landed her Tackle before calling out her trump card move.
“Mud-Slap, Mida!”
Spheal grunted from the knocking it received, opening its mouth right on time to eat a mouthful of grainy sand buffeted at point-blank range from Mida.
“Shhwaagh! Kaagh!” Spheal started coughing, finally putting an end to its rolling.
Glacia laughed along with a few chuckles from her colleagues on the sidelines. “Was that on purpose or a happy accident?”
“Why aren’t you attacking?” Luvia answered instead.
Why was she letting Spheal get pummeled for free?
“Clean your mouth out, Felia.”
The Spheal’s mouth inflated and it spat out drooling mass of water. “Sweeel!”
“Dance.”
There she goes again! What is dance!? It’s got to be a trick!
“Mida, use Water!”
Since Glacia and Spheal were offering no retaliation, Luvia decided that they needed to stop Spheal from “dancing” at any cost.
*Ghhhh!* A fat stream of water hosed down on Spheal, pushing its roll backward, though it used the momentum of its new direction to carry on rolling in an arc that brought it right back where it had been.
A couple of the teen trainers laughed, and Luvia glanced at them. She was pretty sure they were better trainers than her, or more experienced anyway, so what would they do in her situation.
She was almost at the point of asking.
“Give yourself an advantage quickly,” Glacia warned. “Felia is about to attack.”
That sent a rush of anxiety through Luvia.
“What advantage, what do you mean!”
Glacia’s only response was a thin smile. “Rollout.”
Spheal, still rolling in slow circles, suddenly shot out like a cannon, big puff of sand erupting in its wake.
*Ghhhh!* Mida instinctively pelted it with her strongest water gun stream, but the Spheal had too much force behind it. It was hardly slowed, violently sprinkling the air as it cut right through the stream.
It was just like that battle with Tyrogue all those weeks ago at Slateport City.
Mida flinched or sidestepped at the very last moment, receiving a glancing blow from the sickeningly quick rollout attack. The little one let out a pained grunt as she spun in the air like a ragdoll and landed a yard away from where she had been hit.
“Meehd…” She got up on shaky legs.
“Sweeel!” Spheal cried out happily, hobbling on its fins back to the center of the battlefield.
A few murmurs went around the crowd, and Luvia caught the man called Robert nodding a reluctant not-bad nod.
“That was a knockout blow, my dear.” Glacia seemed happy. “Wonderful battle instinct from the hatchling, right, Robert?” She spared her colleague a bemused glance to which he responded with another not-half-bad nod.
Hold on… Luvia’s eye’s widened.
“So that’s what it was!” she said with an accusatory tone.
“What's that?” Glacia smiled.
“Dance!” Luvia replied. “You were building up the rollout!”
“Ohoho! No, no!” Glacia waved the notion away, then her smile dropped slowly and she motioned at Luvia with a hand ever so slightly.
“Aurora Beam, Felia, not too strong please.”
“Sweeel!” Spheal opened its mouth, summoning faint trails of fog from thin air that began converging at a point a few inches ahead of it.
Luvia’s mind kicked back into gear. “Mida!”
Mida’s tail kicked up the sand as she whined at the Spheal.
“Growl!”
In the past few weeks, Luvia had learned that the best time to use Growl was in the middle of an opponent’s move, especially if that move had a long wind-up. Growl against weak pokémon was pure intimidation. Growl against stronger pokémon could work as a great disruptor. Kind of like flashing a laser in a baseball player’s eye before they batted.
“Rweah!” Mida screamed, and Spheal gave a tiny quiver as the trails of fog converging just outside its mouth fluttered erratically.
A soft and crystalline hum began ringing through the air. The small mass of fog near Spheal’s mouth coalesced and shone like a pretty drop of morning dew.
Luvia’s mouth parted. It looked so nice! Oh, wow!
She kind of wanted to see what it did!
“Mida, do your biggest Mud-Slap!”
“Maahd!”
“Felia, fire it now.”
Mida lifted a thick curtain of sand into the air.
Spheal cried out and let loose a sparkling beam of wispy, ethereal light that blew forward silently, save the soft clinking sound of the air in its path freezing over.
It struck the curtain of mud-slapped sand and froze it instantly, causing it to fall back down to the beach floor in hefty chunks of frozen sand.
Good! That had been good right?
Glacia was probably going easy on her, but Luvia was starting to feel warmed up. She was starting to ease into the battle. Her confidence grew.
“Another beam, Felia, please,” Glacia said tersely. The woman was entirely unreadable. Like she was mathematically testing variables.
“Water Gun, Mida!” Luvia called out without skipping a beat. “Hit the foggy thing!”
Glacia chuckled then, looked briefly at Robert, and let the moves play out.
Spheal began charging another Aurora Beam, but when Mida’s glob of water whizzed and skimmed its side, it stopped charging the attack, shuffled a few fin-steps away, and began charging up again.
Mida didn’t let up. Blob after blob she fired, and the Spheal began to whine in frustration.
Glacia raised her voice. “Alright, enough!”
Both pokémon, Mida included, stopped fighting at the call, and a silence came over the battlefield.
Luvia was delighted. She shifted on her feet and let out a private sigh. Ending the bout on a high note like that could only mean something good.
…
“Let’s have a little water fight then, shall we?”
!
“Aqua Ring, Felia,” Glacia commanded. “And let’s bite back with some water guns of our own. Splash out, I want the sand drenched!”
A glow came over Spheal that extended from its body, and like condensate forming on a lid, water droplets began gathering in the air around it. Most of them merged, forming a band of wiggly water that encircled the round little guy, while the remainder kept floating like a permanent haze of spray that tapered off towards the top.
It had created its own little atmosphere.
So cool! Luvia was stoked about seeing new moves. Moreso because they were water-related, and she wondered if Mida might be able to learn them.
Spheal attacked Mida with chockful after chockful of water.
Luvia had Mida respond in kind.
She giggled, at the sight of both pokémon harmlessly buffeting each other with streams and globs and sprays of water. The spray form of the water gun attack was Spheal’s, and Luvia made a serious mental note of it.
Another variant of the move to teach Mida.
A light-hearted mood came over the air. It was kinda funny. The battle had become a playfight. Even Robert had the hint of a smile behind that scraggly beard. Luvia felt good.
“Very nice,” Glacia said with a tone that cut through the air like a knife. Her pale, heavy-lidded eyes were flicking slowly from one spot of the battlefield to the other. She wasn’t even paying attention to the pokémon.
It puzzled Luvia. Made her feel like she was missing something…
“Oh, Feeliaaa…” Glacia crooned. “Let’s widen the ring now.”
“Sweeel!” Spheal responded eagerly, firing on last mouthful of water at Mida, who ducked and cut through it with the jutting fin on her head.
The aqua ring around Spheal grew, gathering water from the just-drenched sand, and the cloudy haze of tiny droplets expanded with it, creating a growing, donut-shaped mist that harmlessly enveloped Mida within it too.
The teen trainers gasped in surprise while the adults watched silently, as if this was something they’d seen before.
“What will you do now?” Glacia called over at Luvia.
The girl frowned deeply at the mist and the thick, wiggling ring of water enveloping the majority of the battlefield.
Aqua Ring… wasn’t that a healing sort of move? It had to be. Mida looked positively content to be in there. Her fin tail was vibrating in the happy manner. Luvia could tell.
So what did Glacia mean?
The Elite 4 member didn’t give her another moment to mull over it.
“Alright.” She lifted a hand at the mist. “Aurora Beam, Felia. Snap it.”
Spheal let out a sharp grunt and gathered a ball of mist before it in a second. It compressed and lit up with that rainbow, ethereal glow.
“Mida!” Luvia called. “Mud-Slap!”
“Meehd!”
Mida dug into the sand with her front paws, and Spheal snapped its mouth shut.
The aurora ball cracked the air and the entire area surrounded by the Aqua Ring snap-froze in the blink of an eye. Every single particle of mist, the entire wiggly ring, and even the drenched sand itself – it all froze over.
The mist dropped like snow, and the ring dropped and cracked against the thin layer of frozen beach floor.
Mida… was still.
Spheal was still too.
“Wow!” cried one of the boy trainers. The others huffed in disbelief and started gushing all over again.
Glacia gazed at Luvia and smiled. “Et voila, my dear.”
Spheal’s frozen body began shaking, breaking off a thin layer of ice encasing its body. “Sweeel!”
It flapped and hobbled on its little fins back toward Glacia, leaving Mida frozen as a statue behind.
Luvia rushed in, slipping once on the frozen sand, and got to Mida’s side with an aching frown on her brow.
“Mida…” She looked at her Mudkip. Her little paws were fused to the frozen sand. Her blue skin glinted like glazed porcelain, and her small eyes were closed and scrunched up in a flinch.
Luvia began working her hands around her, heart hammering with worry. Getting frozen like that was dangerous, wasn’t it? What if her nose was blocked?
She rubbed that part first, scratching with her short nails at the layer of ice covering the little one’s body.
“Relax, my dear,” said Glacia, boots crunching against the frozen sand as she approached. “Mudkip will break out soon enough.”
Luvia kept frowning and kept scratching at the ice on Mida’s snout.
This was their first real defeat. It had happened so fast. One moment all smiles, the next frozen to silence. How hadn’t she seen it coming?
The mist, the water “play fight”… Glacia had never been playing. She had never wasted a moment. Even the dance thing? Just charging up a rollout, Luvia was sure of it, regardless if Glacia herself had denied it.
The ice on Mida’s tail quivered. Luvia pulled her hands back and watched with a complicated expression, relief rearing its head.
The ice trembled again, it cracked, and finally fell off. With her tail fin free, Mida made quick work of the rest. She broke out with her brutish strength and shook herself vigorously.
“Meehd!!!”
Luvia sighed a relieved laugh and picked the little one up in her arms. Sorry, Mida.
“It’s over,” she whispered, hugging her tight.
“Maahd!!”
“No, Mida. Over!”
Glacia chuckled softly. “You did well, girl. Both of you did.”
“Hired!” one of the adults cheered with a clap as he made his way back to the tables. The other joined him too, as they casually walked off.
Robert and the group of teen trainers approached, and Luvia kept a searching look at the man. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Not terrible,” said Robert. “Not terrible.”
Glacia snorted. “Not terrible? I get the acute feeling that you wouldn’t do much better, Rob, dear.”
Robert looked visibly taken aback. “Really? I’ll have you know I hold five badges!”
The teens laughed.
“From when? – two decades ago, perhaps? You’re sorely out of practice.”
Luvia giggled at that. She had a feeling Robert hadn’t been convinced, but she was grateful for Glacia’s support.
…
Robert nudged up the frame of his glasses and pocketed his hands.
“Seriously – not bad. You clearly work well with little mudkip over here, but you still can’t surf on it.”
Luvia looked down for a moment, then back at his face. “I have a raft – there in my bag.” She pointed. “She can pull it. We’ve won races.”
The pair of teen boys snickered to themselves, but Luvia ignored them.
Robert winced. “No, come on… What if, say, something happens to it out there – what then?”
Luvia took his meaning.
What if a wild pokémon attacked.
“I…”
She could still swim along with the harness, but it sounded like too many hurdles and too many ‘what ifs.’ Why pick her when there’d be others who wouldn’t give them this much of a headache?
She looked down, her hold on Mida slackening slightly.
There was a sharp, grating sound as Glacia unzipped her raincoat and pulled out another pokéball.
“She can use mine.” She held a miniaturized pokéball between her thumb and forefingers, eyeing it with lofty serenity. “So hire her and let’s be done with this, Rob. Learn some tact.”
That left them speechless. The trainers were gawping in disbelief and staring at Luvia like she had grown a second head.
Glacia walked off, back to the tables, and Robert flung his arms and followed after her. The other teens hung around Luvia and Mida and helped the girl to her feet.
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