Pokémon: The Price of Caution.

"Finish it up! Tackle!"

"No! Aipom! Out of the way!"

The small crowd of spectators cheer as Brendan's Shroomish rushes the twitching, paralyzed Aipom across the makeshift arena. The Aipom can only grit his teeth and shut his eyes, his body not heeding his trainer's cry to dodge. The little mushroom pokemon collides head-first into Aipom with a painful Thwack!, throwing the little monkey to the ground where he lands heavily and ceases to move.

The referee by the sidelines, an older trainer in her teens, waits for several seconds then points to Shroomish. "Aipom is unable to battle! The winners are Shroomish and Brendan Birch!"

Further back behind Brendan, Lee watches his young friend cheer and rush out to the field from the shade of the Pokemon Center. Brendan scoops his pokemon up into a hug and says something that is lost over the cheering of the onlookers. Shroomish gives his trainer a dull look, but does not resist the hug.

'Makes sense that the town's battling area would be right behind the Pokemon Center,' Lee looks back to the large, hospital-like building, already reopened just two days after the fire sans the damaged parts that are already being repaired. 'I've got to give credit to the Pokemon League. They really don't fuck around,' he thinks, watching a team of large bird pokemon wearing League vests fly overhead, each one carrying an entire pallet of building materals in their talons without a hint of strain. They touch down beside the Center one by one, giving their loads to human construction workers aided by a medley of bulky fighting and rock types, mostly Machop, Geodude, and the rare Machoke, but Lee swears he saw a Lucario bounding about with a toolbelt on.

He turns back to the arena in time to see Brendan and his dejected opponent, a young, probably 11 year old kid named Jason or something, shake hands.

Vulpix huffs at Lee's feet and flicks her fan of tails, her irritation beginning to bleed through the tether to him.

'Give it some time, love. One will want to battle eventually,' Lee sends to her. His own uncertainty is much harder to hide in a telepathic conversation, however, and so the vixen just huffs again.

Nearly all of the battle-hungry trainers in Oldale are young beginners that started only this year, all of whom looked at himself and Vulpix with no small amount of apprehension. The rumor mill in the small town was in full swing, and the only things that most people knew is that a trainer with scars on his face and a Vulpix went in the burning Center, a gigantic Manectric 'fled', then they came out after rescuing Jenny and the hapless Center intern.

People connected the dots, and assumed Lee and Vulpix were grizzled veterans.

Ha! Since the egos of young trainers are delicate, none wanted a bout with a 'veteran'. Instead, they all decided to challenge the other town hero, a kid like them.

Brendan is sitting at 8 wins and 0 defeats so far. Mudkip gladly demolished any pokemon before him, including an Elekid that an older boy bragged heartily about, assured of his win from the type advantage alone. The bragging stopped when Mudkip's Mud Slap lifted Elekid right off his feet and straight into dreamland.

Shroomish, the battler for the last two rounds, struggled more than his masochistic blue teammate, but pulled wins under Brendan's coaching. Vulpix looks up to her trainer, sending him a feeling of both stiffness and illness along with an image of the downed Aipom being returned to it's ball.

'Yeah, poison powder and stun spore. Brendan is shaping up to be a good battler with how he plays to the strengths of his team,' Lee mentally replies, watching as yet another young trainer, so eager to prove himself, matches up to Brendan with a pokeball in hand. 'Mudkip is a full throttle berserker, and Shroomish is a more reserved distance fighter. Definitely more in-depth than a simple turn-based game.'

"Hey, you're the guy who rushed into the Pokemon Center during the fire, right?" Lee blinks away his thoughts and turns to address whoever spoke to him.

Just to his right is a pretty young woman several inches shorter than he, with dark, short cropped hair that comes down to her chin in rough locks. She's clad in a form-hugging black top and equally form-fitting olive drab shorts secured with a red rope belt. Around her shoulders is a well-worn brown traveling cloak. Her eyes, a dark crimson, look down to Vulpix.

'Wait. I know who this is...'

The instant that Vulpix returns her gaze, the woman lets out a god-honest "Squeeee!"

"You are just the cutest!" cries the woman with a beaming smile and stars in her eyes. She crouches down to Vulpix's level and scratches behind her ear. From Vulpix's unique-sounding purr, the mysterious woman guessed Vulpix's sweet spot in one try. "And you're so soft that it's sinful! What's your secret, sister?"

The vixen stops pushing her head against the woman's hand and looks back up to Lee. The woman follows Vulpix's eyes up to Lee before she freezes and blushes..

She stands hastily with a nervous laugh. "Haha... Sorry about blowing you off like that," she says sheepishly. "It's not everyday you get to see such a rare fire type. Anyway, my name is Zinnia, nice to meet you!" Lee racks his brain to try and remember where he heard that name before. A moment later, it clicks

'The woman from the Alpha and Omega remakes?' He wonders, having only played the beginning of the Delta Episode of Omega Ruby. 'What's she doing in Oldale?' Lee chuckles and takes her outstretched hand for a shake. "Lee is the name, and you've already met Vulpix." As he says that, the little fox jumps to her favorite perch on his shoulders to watch the proceedings. "She's the more interesting of the two of us, so no harm done."

Zinnia smiles as the tension leaves her shoulders. "Glad to hear it. Anyway, I wanted to know if you wanted to battle? You and this cutie here would be a great challenge!"

Everyone not watching Brendan and his latest battle turns and looks after hearing the question. Several whisper in excitement. "Yeah! Battle!" Someone cries. "I wanna see the Vulpix fight!" a young trainer that Brendan thrashed earlier yells

"Yeah! She sent that titanic Manectric packing! She's gotta be crazy strong!" A girl in her teens joins in.

"Hey, yeah!" Someone confirms. "This'll be an awesome match!"

Lee blanches. "I dunno about that. Brendan and I were going to get on the road after lunch and... and uh...we don't want to exhaust ourselves?" A second later dread begins to pool in his stomach. 'Of fucking course a Dragon trainer would single us out,' He sends to Vulpix as everyone groans at his words.

"C'mon, Lee. It'll be fun!" Zinnia says, taking a shrunken pokeball from her belt. All the onlookers roar in agreement.

Lee screws his eyes shut with a sigh. 'I know pokemon battles are big deals here, and rightfully so, but god damn, why does this freak me out so much?!'

The man thinks back to all his other battles, all featuring Vulpix considering she is his sole pokemon. In their repeated battles against Brendan and the occasional wild pokemon around Littleroot, one thing stood out.

Vulpix had never lost. She won every single battle handily.

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