Chapter 44: Calls
Eterna City was bigger than I expected.
Not Jubilife big, but bigger than Oreburgh. Old buildings, wide streets, trees planted along the roads like the city actually wanted to be near the forest instead of pretending it wasn't there. It felt like a place that had been here for a long time and was comfortable with that.
I found the Pokémon Center, got a room, handed my four balls to the nurse. Four. That was still weird to say. Gastly had been on the team for about a day and a half and so far the main development was that Prinplup wanted him gone and Gastly thought her anger was the most entertaining thing that had ever happened to him. Rhyhorn didn't have an opinion. Deino tolerated him, mostly because Gastly had figured out pretty fast that sneaking up on something that tracks you by smell is a bad idea.
The Pokémon Center had video phones along the back wall. I sat down at one and dialled Rowan's lab. He picked up on the third ring.
"Ryan," he said. "You're in Eterna City?"
"Yeah, got in about an hour ago. Went through the forest, took a few days, nothing too bad. Oh, and I caught a Gastly in there so I've got four Pokémon now."
"A Gastly." He wrote something down. "Interesting choice. Ghost types require a different approach to training. They don't respond well to structure."
"Yeah, I'm already noticing that. He licked Prinplup on the back of the head about six hours after I caught him and I think she's still planning her revenge."
Something that might have been amusement crossed Rowan's face. Then it was gone and he was looking at me the way he did when something more serious was coming.
"I received a report from the Windworks operation," he said.
I felt my stomach drop a little.
"A ranger named Nolan filed a debrief that mentioned a fifteen-year-old trainer who entered the facility during the assault against direct orders. The report described this trainer freeing the hostages and destroying the extraction equipment." He paused. "The report didn't include a name. It didn't need to."
"Professor, I know it sounds bad, but when I got there the fighting was already happening and the side was barely guarded and I could see that the strong trainers were all outside so I just thought if I could get in there and do something useful then maybe—"
"Ryan." He said it quietly and I stopped talking. "I'm not going to lecture you. You made a choice and it had consequences and those consequences included saving fifteen people. They also included you collapsing unconscious on the ground with no visible injuries and nobody understanding why." He let that sit for a second. "I'm not going to tell you it was wrong because I don't think that would be honest. But I need you to hear me when I say this."
"Okay."
"Call me next time. Before you go in, not after you wake up. Not because I would stop you. Because I would worry less if I knew you'd told someone where you were going."
I sat there with that for a moment. That was worse than yelling. Yelling I could have handled. This was Rowan telling me he'd been worried and choosing to say it like that, calm and simple, and it landed somewhere in my chest and stayed there.
"Yeah," I said. "I will. I'm sorry I didn't."
"Don't be sorry. Just do it next time." And just like that he was back to normal. "Eterna gym is grass type. Gardenia. She's good, relies heavily on her Roserade. Prepare accordingly."
"Prinplup actually learned Peck on the way through the forest. She's been working on it for a while, I think. I didn't even ask her to, she just kept jabbing at things until one day it cracked a tree stump and she looked at me like I should have noticed sooner."
"That sounds exactly like a Prinplup," he said, and this time he actually smiled.
We talked for a few more minutes and then hung up and I sat there for a bit. Rowan had known the whole time. He'd just waited for me to call.
I dialled Lucas.
He picked up immediately. His face filled the screen and behind him I could see a road and trees and sky.
"RYAN! Hey! Hold on let me just— " The screen shook. His face came back. "Sorry, I'm walking, I'm almost through Route 202 actually, should be in Jubilife by tomorrow which is crazy because this route took me ages the first time but Bolt and Arc are doing so much better now, we battled like four trainers yesterday and Bolt took out two of them by himself which, honestly, I think he was showing off but I'm not complaining because—"
"Lucas."
"Yeah?"
"That's great. So you're almost in Jubilife then?"
"Tomorrow probably, maybe the day after if I stop to train more, but yeah basically Jubilife. Which is exciting because I've never actually been there properly, I mean I passed through before but I didn't really stop and—" He went quiet. Which was unusual enough that I noticed. "So. Uh. Speaking of travelling. You went north, right? Through Floaroma and past the Windworks and all that?"
"Yeah, I did."
"And did you, you know, happen to be there when the whole thing was going on? The assault and everything?"
"Where are you going with this, Lucas?"
"Ryan, it was on the NEWS." His voice jumped. "It was on actual television. They said a fifteen-year-old trainer went inside the Windworks during the assault by himself. By HIMSELF, Ryan. They didn't say a name but they said fifteen years old, and I was sitting there eating my cereal and I just looked at the screen and I thought, I know exactly one person who would do that. Exactly one."
"Wait, it was actually on the news? Like, national news?"
"YES. Cynthia gave a press conference about it! The CHAMPION talked about it! A journalist asked about the young trainer and she said she wouldn't comment but everyone was talking about it. Everyone, Ryan. People in the Pokémon Center were discussing it at breakfast. Some girl said it was the bravest thing she'd ever heard and some guy said it was the dumbest and honestly I think they were both right."
I sat there processing that. I'd been on the news. Not by name, but still. Cynthia had stood behind a podium and someone had asked about me. People I'd never met had opinions about what I did.
"That's... I didn't know that," I said. "I had no idea anyone even cared. I mean, the league was there, the rangers were there, they did most of the work. I just went inside and broke some stuff."
"You JUST went inside. He just went inside." Lucas looked at the sky like he was asking it for patience. "Ryan, you freed fifteen people. You walked in alone. The news made it sound like you single-handedly ruined whatever Team Galactic was doing in there. And you didn't know?"
"I've been in a forest for three days, Lucas. There wasn't exactly a TV."
"Fair point." He was quiet for a second. "Was it actually you though? Like, for real? Tell me honestly."
"Yeah, Lucas. It was me. I walked in through a side door while the rangers were fighting at the front and I found the hostages locked in a room and I broke them out and then I smashed up all the equipment Galactic had set up in the generator room. And then I walked outside and there was this really strong grunt waiting for me and I had to fight him and it got... it got pretty intense."
"How intense?"
"Prinplup went down. I had to recall Rhyhorn. Deino finished it."
Lucas didn't say anything for a second. That was rare enough to be noticeable.
"I knew it. I was sitting there with my cereal getting soggy because I couldn't stop staring at the screen and I just knew it was you." He shook his head. "You're insane. You know that, right? Actually, genuinely insane."
"Yeah, probably."
"But you're okay? Like, actually okay? Because they also said something about the trainer collapsing after and that part freaked me out way more than the going-inside part."
"I'm okay now. Honestly. It took a lot out of me, more than I expected, and I'm still trying to figure out why exactly. But I'm good. The team's good. We made it through the forest, I caught a Gastly, and now I'm sitting in a Pokémon Center in Eterna City about to start thinking about the second gym."
"You caught a GASTLY?"
And just like that we were off on a completely different topic. Lucas had about forty questions about the Gastly and I answered most of them and he told me about a Zubat that had followed him for an entire day before he caught it and we talked about training and routes and Jubilife and all the stuff that had nothing to do with the Windworks and everything to do with two people who were on the same journey in different places.
When I hung up I sat there for a while.
I'd been on the news. That was still sinking in. Cynthia had talked about it. People in Pokémon Centers had sat around tables discussing what I did without knowing it was me. Lucas had almost choked on his cereal.
I went to my room and lay on the bed.