8 Months Later
"How interesting," said the boy clad in blue.
"We accept your challenge," said the girl in the same clothing.
"We, Tate and Liza of the Mossdeep gym, accept the dual challenge of Elron and Flora!" The two spoke simultaneously.
"We'll use twice as many pokemon than usual..."
"...To test your bond!"
"We're twins..."
"...So our bond in battle is unbreakable!"
The two struck a power pose.
"You ready?" I look over at Flora. She nods determinedly. "Alright, let's get this show on the road! Go, Aaron!" I toss my pokeball forward and release my stubborn pokemon. At this point he is quite the battleworn little guy and has scratches all over his metal hide.
"Go, Tiffiny!" Flora sends out her Beautifly.
The gym leaders send out their pokemon: their characteristic Solrock and Lunatone. The battle is on.
"Use Psychic," the psychic type trainers command. Aaron and Beautifly are surrounded in a purple-ish pink aura and are lifted into the air.
"We won't let a physical attacker..."
"...like Aron even touch our pokemon!"
"Is that so? Autonomize!"
"Tiffiny," yells Flora, "use Silver Wind!"
For a brief moment Aaron glows and gets lighter, then Tiffy waves her wings to send scales sparkling into an attack at the Rock/Psychic types on the other side.
The twins laughed. "Using Autonomize to lighten and speed up your pokemon only makes it easier to control with Psychic," says Tate.
"That girl seems to know what she's doing though," replies Liza.
Yes, Autonomize would make him easier to control due to his lightened weight, but that also means your pokemon will likely use less energy to control him. Aaron will have an easier time breaking out from your control now, and will be even faster while doing it.
Lifted high into the air, our pokemon were abruptly hurled at the ground. Beautifly's Silver Wind was cancelled and she stopped just above the ground, eyes aglow in a similar pink color: she had used her own Psychic to stop that of the opponents. Aron slammed into the ground, creating a small cloud of dust that obstructed him from view.
"How does that Beautifly already know Psychic..."
"...when we are the ones who hand out the TM?!"
Flora smiled. "I know a guy." She wasn't fazed at Aaron hitting the ground so hard: she believed that he would pull through.
Out of the cloud of dust burst a bullet-like pokemon, which pelted towards Solrock and hit right in the center. Soon as he hit he twirled around to face Lunatone and used Solrock as a jumping board, springing towards it at a remarkable speed. Without need of command, silver scales shot at the injured Solrock and finished it off. Aaron collided with Lunatone and sent it flying into a wall, then backflipped into a graceful landing. In his mind it probably would've had judges holding up a "10" sign, but I'd give it a solid "8."
The twins' jaws dropped as they saw the pokemon carry on incredibly well without their trainers' help. Lunatone struggled back into the air, and now suspended itself in a wobble. The leaders looked troubled, but then shifted into a grin. Tate returned Solrock and pulled out another pokeball.
"Interesting! Bring it on!"
-----
"Here you go," said Tate, holding out a badge to me.
"You earned it," said Liza, handing one to Flora.
Flora clasped the badge and jumped around like a giddy schoolgirl. "We did it!" she yelled, throwing her hands into the air.
I laughed. "We sure did! It's all thanks to your brilliant strategies!"
She blushed. "Na, it probably would've been a lot better if you came up with it!"
Probably right. No way would I say that out loud though. "I don't know about that. How about we go do our next event of the day?"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought we could try to make a shell bell at Shoal Cave."
Her face lit up. She gave me a big, tight hug and pecked me on the cheek. "That sounds so great!"
Tate and Liza, who were still standing there and were very young, cringed.
"I believe this is our signal..."
"...to get the heck out of here!"
The twins ran out of the rooms like Rattata scattering at the sight of a Pidgeot. Unlike the Rustboro City gym, they didn't get too many challengers, and were probably off for the rest of the day. They were getting an awesome, low hour job as mere children. I may have been slightly jealous.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
-----
We hopped off the back of my Gyarados and stepped ashore inside the cave. I had decided, no, was inspired to get a Gyarados after seeing them evolve at Evergrande, so I did. Our teams looked quite a bit different than they were eight months prior, but we still had the pokemon of our original teams, though many were evolved. I looked down at Aaron's pokeball in my hand. "You know, if you evolved into Aggron, you could be the one that Flora surfs on instead." I put his pokeball away, probably irritating him.
"You're so mean to him about not evolving. I think that he should be able to evolve whenever he chooses! Plus he's so cute as an Aron." We had hardly stepped inside the cave and Flora already looked like she was shivering.
"It's because you keeping doting on his cuteness that he refuses to evolve. If he's this powerful as an Aron, imagine the kinds of amazing stuff he could do as an Aggron!"
"Aren't you forgetting Lairon?"
"Na, he's fully capable of evolving twice. He's just stubborn."
"He takes after you!"
"Hey!"
She giggled and shivered a little bit more. She pulled out a pokeball. "Baguette, use Flamethrower!"
"What are you doing?!"
A Shelgon popped out and spat out a stream of fire. "Ahhh... That feels so nice!"
Aaaaaand it's too late.
Chunks of ice that was stuck to the ceiling immediately melted and a splash of water came pouring down, soaking Flora. She screamed a little as the mostly cold water soaked her.
I sighed, then walked over and gave her my jacket. "What were you thinking? We're surrounded by ice on all sides. Now you'll just be even colder." I motioned to her Shelgon. "Go find a stagnant pool of water and heat it up for her, would you? There should be some at this point in the tide." She obeyed and waddled off.
Flora forced a little smile. "Well, at least I'm wearing my swimsuit."
"You know, most people don't wear swimsuits instead of undergarments. Isn't that uncomfortable?"
She just kept forcing a smile and didn't respond.
It definitely isn't. Why the heck does she do that?! I sighed. "You can be a bit of a handful sometimes, you know?"
"But you're glad to deal with me!"
"I guess you've got me there."
We sat there for a few minutes as she effectively rendered my jacket a towel. Baguette came back and directed us to what was now a hot tub in the ground.
Flora let out a sigh of delight, and became one with the water as she sank down into it. I kind of wanted to get in, with me not wearing a coat and all, but I knew that the tide would rise soon and that we would become unable to get some shoal salt. "I guess I'm going to go find some salt, you can sit there and relax for a while."
"Thanks!"
I started making my way around the cave, but didn't get far before a voice came from above. "Hey, what are you kids doing here?!"
I looked up and saw an old man on the upper levels. "Getting shoal salt and shells so that I can have a shell bell made!"
"Oh, ok. Come find me when you get five salts and five shells then."
"Are you the guy who makes the bells then?"
"Yep."
"Then I have a few questions for you. What the heck does 'five salts' mean? What kind of unit is that?"
"Just get five handfuls. That should be close enough."
"...Ok then. Why do you need five shells to make one bell?"
"Because I actually make five then sell four."
"Then can I just buy one off of you and make it easier?"
He glanced at Flora and then back at me. He noticed that we were on a date. "Nope. I'm all out."
I didn't really believe him, but I saw what he was trying to do. Eh, whatever. I went around and gathered 'eleven shoal salts,' then went back to Flora. The tide was getting dangerously close to the level of the lukewarm warm that she was resting in.
"You're going to want to get out and dry yourself off before the water catches up."
"But that would be getting out of the warmth," she teased.
"Fine. Wait in there until the freezing water comes and takes all your body heat then."
"I'm out."
-----
We ate dinner in Mossdeep and waited for the tide to change, then were back in the cave. It was almost like an entirely different structure this time. We ran around the place in search of as many shells as we could. We found the ten that we wanted and the one that I was keeping secret, but I had to hold Flora off from collecting more shells than necessary.
"Save some for the other people!"
She smiled and stuck out her tongue playfully at me. We brought the stuff to the old man and had him fashion two shell bells out of it. She was nothing but smiles for the rest of the night.
We left the cave then decided that tonight's camping spot was near the shore of Mossdeep's beach. I threw down my sleeping bag, and she pulled hers out and put it right next to mine. For quite a while we slept with the bags touching. I guess it started shortly after she became my "girlfriend."
"Good night Flora, I love you."
"Love you too, Elron."
***
A/N: Successful procrastination!!! Somewhat! Sorry I'm late guys! It felt kind of awkward writing that: I believe that's my first time having characters go this far in a romantic relationship :3 I hope the 8 (heh) month time skip doesn't make any of you feel cheated. I had lots of good reasons to leave a gap in the story there, including getting to the main plot, finishing in time for the Pokemon Watties, and not boring myself, so I decided that it was a good move. I look forward to showing you what comes after this time skip! :D
Also I have got to say that Google is getting too overpowered. I type these in Google Docs and it was correctly correcting the names of pokemon and even pokemon cities O_o I think I'm so shocked that it got "Rustboro" right that I will never again mess it up.