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thesidestoaconflict · 9 months ago

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Middle Ground: Chapter 2

Stepping Stone 2084 words

First Chapter Next Chapter

Two days later- the group needed time to gather up the appropriate gear that a trainer’s journey would need- everything was ready. Hilda and Otto, Bianca and Blaise, and Cheren and Lucian were all ready to head out.

Hilbert had decided he’d walk with them to the next town over, but afterward he’d need to split and head back to his placement work at a lab near Driftveil city.

So, clad in the same outfit as on her birthday- it had been washed and dried; it was her favourite outfit, and she wanted to start her journey off right, Hilda stood a few meters down the street from the Juniper Pokemon Lab, awaiting her friends. She’d fashioned the pretty gem her dad had sent her into a string pendant that was now tucked inside her turtleneck sweater for safekeeping.

She liked to be early to things, knowing she’d end up late if she wasn’t trying to be super early- Cheren, as always, showed up on the dot of when they’d agreed to meet up, and Bianca was about five minutes late.

Cheren rolled his eyes, but the action was free of any actual irritation. And together, they entered the lab.

There was a small kitchen, a sliding glass door to a massive garden protected by a glass dome, a small library, a room with the door shut tightly that was probably full of light sensitive equipment, and finally, they found Professor Juniper, holed up in her study, one biro stuck behind her ear, evidently forgotten as another was in her hand, scratching notes onto a dollar store ring-bound notebook.

She looked up as the three of them walked in the door, glanced at the digital clock on her desk, and bolted up.

“Sorry! Sorry, completely lost track of time!” she exclaimed, jumping up from the ancient chair she was sat in, and leaving the notebook open on her remarkably tidy desk, “How are you three feeling this morning?”

“Great,” answered Cheren, as all three of them were ushered out of the study and into the garden-dome-thing, and the girls echoed the sentiment, “Are you alright, Professor Juniper?”

She laughed briefly, as they sat down at a picnic-style table to talk.

“I’m fine, don’t worry! Just busy! I’m sure your parents have mentioned I have a bit of a task I’d like to entrust to you three, if you’ll take it on,” she responded, leaning her head on one of her hands and finally noticing the biro on her ear, which she promptly tucked into the chest pocket on her lab coat. The three friends feverishly nodded, excited and nervous, “Okay, so, first off, you three know about the basis of my current research, right?”

“I do!” exclaimed Hilda, louder than she intended, “It’s about those new ruins that were found in Desert Resort, right?”

“Yes, exactly! As well as a strikingly similar ruined structure found underwater off the coast of Undella down.” Juniper nodded enthusiastically, “Well, two also strikingly similar artefacts were found on important-looking pedestals in these ruins. Lenora, Hawes, my father, and I are working with Shirona, the old Champion of Sinnoh, to try and translate the texts on these pedestals, but from what we can figure out already, these artefacts are some kind of living thing- at the moment we think they’re pokemon eggs of some sort, but we aren’t sure.”

“Like… that Manaphy thing?” Bianca asked, “I think I saw something about that on the news a little while back…”

“Yes! Yes, pretty much like the Manaphy egg that was discovered! It’s probably not a Manaphy, since these don’t look anything like that egg, but, I’m sure whatever they are must be important to something!”

“So…” Cheren furrowed his brows as he thought, and folded his arms, “You want us to look around Unova for any information about these… things… while we travel? Is that it?”

“Hm, almost, Cheren.” Juniper smiled, “I want you three to hold onto these artefacts, actually. If they are pokemon eggs, they’re more likely to hatch when with active trainers, according to Dr. Utsugi, and he’s the expert on the matter of pokemon eggs!”

Hilda was practically vibrating. Being able to hold onto a piece of important history… to help solve its mystery… it was a dream come true!

Bianca looked intrigued, but Cheren looked… a little sceptical.

“How big are they? They won’t be too difficult to carry around, right?” he asked.

“Oh, no, no, don’t worry!” Juniper replied, reassuringly, “They’re both only a little bigger than a pokeball, actually. So they’ll fit into your bags fine, and they’re both really light, for some reason. And also, Cheren, I’m not going to force you. I won’t take your snivy back or anything like that, it’s just something completely optional. You can change your mind, too!”

“Ah, thank you,” Cheren looked a little embarrassed; possibly having assumed that she might actually ask for the pokemon back if he declined to help with the research, “Have you—”

“Professor, can we see them?!” Hilda butted in, feeling like she was going to explode, “Please?!”

Bianca giggled, and Cheren rolled his eyes once more, both amused by Hilda’s excitement, since it was very typical of her to suddenly get extremely energetic whenever anything related to ancient Unovan history was involved.

Juniper smiled again, “Of course. I’ll just go grab ‘em, okay? Give me a minute.”

And she headed back inside her lab briefly. During the short wait, Hilda was tapping her hands on the table and bouncing her legs up and down, unable to contain her anticipation for this.

Upon Juniper’s return, she’d ended up squeezing her hands into fists so tightly that her nails had made indents on her palms.

“You know, Professor,” Bianca said as Juniper sat back down, a small wooden box in her arms. There was a teasing glint in her eye, and she kept glancing over at Hilda, “I don’t think Hilda’s really all that interested, you might wanna leave this to me and Cheren.”

“No!” Hilda took hold of Bianca’s arm and sank down on the bench, so she was almost lying with her head on Bianca’s leg, though she was holding in a laugh as she added, “Not funny…”

Juniper chuckled, and opened the box as Hilda sat back up.

Inside were two spherical objects. One a piercing white, the other the deepest black imaginable. Almost perfect spheres, save for an inward circular bevel on the white, and an outward circular bevel on the black. The bevels were both the same size, only about two millimetres deep, and on the other side, they were reversed.

Almost like a puzzle, one that could be infinitely rearranged.

Hilda was almost overwhelmed when Juniper passed the things to her first. Light and heavy at the same time. She could hold each one in one hand with very little difficulty. They weren’t warm or cold, it was like they were devoid of a temperature completely. Impossibly smooth. And she understood perfectly what Juniper had meant by them seeming incredibly important, though she couldn’t begin to guess what purpose they might have served.

She handed them to Bianca before she was completely overcome with thoughts.

“Oh!” Bianca exclaimed, and she held up the white one, “This one feels warm!”

She quickly passed it to Cheren.

“Right? Doesn’t it?”

He looked at her oddly.

“No? It’s freezing. What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t the time for sarcasm, Cheren,” Bianca sighed, but he insisted it felt ice-cold to him. “What? Okay, but this one is cold then, too, right?”

She passed him the black one, and a very surprised expression crossed his face momentarily.

“Not at all. This one feels warm.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not!”

“Are you both being funny?” Hilda asked, “They don’t feel like anything.”

“What are you saying?!” Both her friends exclaimed at the same time.

Juniper looked puzzled by all three of them.

“I’m saying they don’t feel hot or cold. Not… room temperature either. I dunno how to explain it.”

Cheren shoved the white one into her hands.

“You’re telling me this thing doesn’t feel like a block of never-melt ice to you?”

“No?”

“And it’s not warm?” Bianca added, shooting a look at Cheren.

“No. It’s not.” Hilda replied.

“This is weird.” Cheren muttered, “You two are both being serious, right?”

“Yeah.” Both girls replied.

He frowned. And Hilda got an idea. She handed the white orb back to him.

“Hold this for a minute. Really get a good grip on it.”

He grimaced, but did so.

She could see the tips of his fingers redden from the supposed chill after only a few seconds.

And she reached out to touch his hand.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, yanking her hand back and shaking it, “You’re freezing!”

“I told you!” he snapped.

Bianca took the black orb from where it lay on the table, and after holding it for a moment, put her hand on top of Hilda’s, who flinched back.

“That’s so cold!”

Cheren reached his hand over to Bianca’s, who just looked even more puzzled.

“But that feels warm!” he cried, “What is this?!”

They all stopped at once, looking over to Juniper, silently begging for an answer.

“I… don’t know.” She responded slowly, “None of my staff have reported any of this. They all just say they both feel a bit cold, like a stone would. But not… icy. Not warm. And none of… whatever it was Hilda said.”

Cheren and Bianca were both holding onto the spheres they’d said were warm, to fend off the chill in their digits. Cheren had been outright shivering when he’d been holding the white one.

Hilda watched her friends as they held onto the things as if for their lives for a minute.

“Professor, have you any notes on them yet that you could make copies on? I’d be really interested to see what you and the others have found so far. On the ruins, too.”

“Yes, of course. Come with me, Hilda, I’ll get you some copies, and we can get all your PokeDexes fully up to date while your friends thaw out, alright?”

“Sounds good.” Hilda nodded as her friends handed her their Dexes, following the professor back inside the lab, feeling a little disconcerted.

While she waited for Juniper to make copies of all her notes so far, and staple them together into a shockingly small booklet, Hilda couldn’t stop thinking about the artefacts. Was there some weird property in each of them that was giving her friends, oh, who knew, a bizarre allergic reaction?

A small pile of papers in one hand, and a fully updated PokeDex in the other- Juniper carrying the other two- Hilda returned to her friends, who had placed the artefacts out on the table between them and were looking at them apprehensively.

“Come on, guys, they’re not gonna like… bite you.” Hilda sighed, reaching out to pick up the black one, and recoiling for a moment as she got a small static shock off it. She shook her hand briefly before picking both the rock-egg-orb-things up. “Who’s taking what, or am I the only one doing this stuff?”

“I’ll take the black one for now,” Cheren said, “You know how I feel about the cold. So something to keep me warm’ll be nice.”

Bianca stuck out her tongue at him, “I’ll take the white, if you don’t mind, Hilda? We can swap around soon, ‘kay?”

“Sounds good. Don’t drop ‘em.” Hilda teased as she handed them over, “And let me know if anything changes with them. This is super cool.”

“Freezing cool, even,” Cheren added, dryly.

“Who says ‘freezing cool’, you weirdo?” Hilda laughed and he huffed, and started insisting it was definitely an expression and that he definitely wasn’t just being stubborn and refusing to let himself be made fun of.

This time, Bianca rolled her eyes.

After a little while more of briefing, and confirming with Professor Juniper that they’d update her as soon as possible if they found anything, and also agreeing to swap around the stone-egg-things with each other when they met up in Nacrene city- since they’d be together until they left Accumula town, and agreed that time between there and Nacrene would be plenty to get started on some solo research.

They then bid the Professor farewell and hurried off to meet Hilbert at the outskirts of Nuvema town, still making light-hearted jabs at each other.

#middle ground #chapter #tstac: middle ground

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thesidestoaconflict · 9 months ago

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Middle Ground: Chapter 1

The Starting Line 2686 words

First Chapter (You're here!) Next Chapter

“Hilda!”

The invention of the pokeball is credited as being in the Johto region, as recently as just over 200 years ago, though it was not imported to regions outside of that landmass (Johto, Hoenn, Kanto, Sinnoh), until some hundred years later. By this point…

“Hilda, come downstairs, your dad’s calling!”

…the usage of apricorns as a primary ingredient had already started to decline in favour of more synthetic materials. Especially as apricorns themselves began to diversify, making creation of traditional red coated pokeballs difficult, however…

“Hilda! Now!”

…There remains a select few, mostly residing in the Johto region, though a notable craftsman lives in Galar, too, who still create pokeballs using traditional methods. Though I am not able to share the method, as it is a traditional family technique, and I’m sure fellow poke-ball enthusiasts will understand why such a thing is precious to me, it does sadden me greatly to see the rapid decline in appreciation for traditionally crafted pokeballs. This does not mean to say that pokeballs made with synthetic materials by corporations such as Silph Co. are at all inferior; not at all, their functions are…

Her bedroom door bursting open, revealing her exasperated mother, was what finally convinced Hilda Mahelona to close her copy of The Heart of Hiwada- The Mystery of PokeBalls by Gantetsu Waguri and look up at her mother.

“Hilda. It’s your birthday. Are you really not going to come down? Your dad sent over some interesting looking parcels for you!” Hilda’s mom, Katherine, “Plus, your brother’s just shown up, and your friends are coming over soon.”

“Okay, okay… I will.” Hilda sighed, lamenting over having to stop mid-chapter, and finally clambering out from under her covers, “I’ll be down in a sec. Gonna get dressed, first.”

“You got it, sweetie.” Smiled her mom, disappearing out of the room, and Hilda heard her descending the stairs soon after.

As much as she wanted to just pick her book back up, Hilda knew she’d just get completely absorbed in it again, and probably not realise how much time was passing until her mom came to get her again.

Most sixteen-year-olds would be bouncing off the walls on their birthday. And though her mom, dad, and brother always went all-out for birthdays, Hilda wasn’t especially interested in them what-so-ever. Too much hassle.

It was nice that Cheren and Bianca were coming round, though. Even if she’d have to endure their playful teasing about how she wasn’t a baby anymore. That was what happened when you were the youngest in the group, she supposed.

Still, she knew the pair of them were in cahoots with her parents for some kind of birthday surprise. She’d been suspicious of them for ages. But especially since Bianca had sent a message to their group message, and then promptly deleted it after panic-blocking Hilda’s number and a bunch of other silly things she rapidly had apologised for. It was cute. But more importantly: Hilda was on to them.

With her komala-themed pajamas swapped for a fashionable white turtleneck, black tailcoat, and stressed jeans covered in her doodles, she finished the look with all her favourite loom-bandz bracelets and headed downstairs, where the house phone was placed almost immediately in her hand, and her dad’s voice sounded through the receiver.

“Happy birthday, daughter of mine!” he exclaimed, and she could hear his comfey chittering away to emphasise the wishes, “How many pages did you read in the last hour?”

“Hm… about two hundred?” she hummed, balancing the phone between her head and shoulder, so she could use her free hands to grab and eat an orange for breakfast, “How’re you doing, dad?”

“Good. Not much progress on the wormhole biz, but no bother. Went out with my colleagues for dinner yesterday, to some cute diner on Melemele. It was great, you’d love it.”

“Promise to take me when I next come to see you?” she asked, throwing an orange seed at her brother, who was watching TV across the downstairs room, in the lounge area of the open space, “What kinda stuff did they have?”

“Lot of good old traditional Alolan recipes. The owner’s daughter works there, she’s working toward becoming a Trial Captain. She made this thing using those massive radishes that grow on Poni island… they were like those mochi you get in Kanto, or those fancy bodegas… Crazy that she made something like that from those spicy things!”

“Man, wow! They sound great.”

“They were! Speaking of great… Have you opened any of your presents?”

“No, not yet, I only just got downstairs.”

Her dad gave a hearty laugh, and he started pestering her to go open her presents, which she eventually did, promising to call him on the X-Transceiver in the evening, as she signed off the phone.

The very second the landline clicked back into place on the wall, her older brother- Hilbert- grabbed Hilda from behind and lifted her off the floor in a tight hug, though he had to put her down quickly; despite his three-year age advantage, they were about the same height.

“You’re catching up to me!” he exclaimed, teasing, “You’re how old, seven?”

“Try sixteen,” she retorted with a grin, shoving his shoulder and crouching down to pet one of his three deerling- the other two were happily snoozing by the TV in the living room, “Bet I’ll be taller than you, though!”

Hilbert scoffed, “As if!”

“Even if I don’t end up taller…” she scooped up his deerling and took off suddenly toward the living room, “Bet I can ruin you in Smash!”

“Slow down! You can’t even try beat me if I’m not there to fight.” Hilbert replied, purposefully walking as slowly as he could without losing his balance, as their mom rolled her eyes.

Hilda jeered her brother as he inched over, “That’d count as a forfeit in a pokemon battle, y’know.”

“Smash and battles are very different, dear sister.” Hilbert retorted smugly, as he threw himself down on the couch next to her, “Not that you’d know, not being a trainer.”

“Boo… Buzzkill.” She stuck her tongue out, purposefully giving him the wii remote with a faulty senser and an A button that only responded half the time, “I bet I’d beat you in a pokemon battle, too.”

“Go catch a pokemon and battle me, then.”

A few quick rounds of smash bros later (the siblings being at a perpetual tie), they ended up having to stop at the sound of the doorbell.

Hilda kept the good wiimote in her hand as she leapt over the back of the couch and hurried to the front door.

Her two best friends were waiting there, Cheren holding a rectangular package that he was clearly struggling with the weight of, despite how he tried to hide his plight, and Bianca carrying a cute glittery gift bag with the price sticker still attached.

Hilda all but dragged them inside as her friends tried to get out ‘happy birthday!’s, but were cut short by the hug she pulled them into.

She intentionally stood between Cheren and the dinner table so that he had to keep holding onto the heavy gift in his arms, talking to him as she watched him realise exactly what she was doing.

Every slight shift to the side he made, Hilda would mirror, and she felt a smug grin stretch across her face as Cheren’s grimace grew.

Bianca was drinking a glass of apple juice that Hilda’s mom had poured her, as she watched.

After a solid three minutes of inching side-to-side, Cheren made a sudden step left, which Hilda copied, but then he threw himself rightward and slammed the thing down on the dinner table.

“Augh, damn it!” Hilda exclaimed, “Fine. You win this time, Ohashi.”

“Pulling out the surnames?” Cheren responded, feigning shock, “And here I thought you were the type to lose with grace.”

“As if!” Hilda exclaimed, grabbing him around the middle and attempting to hoist him off the ground as he yelled out in surprise. She only succeeded by an inch or so. “Take that, fiend! I’ll never yield!”

She did have to put him down quickly though, not being especially physically strong either.

“Are you two done?” Hilbert appeared from the living room, covertly swiping the wii remote that Hilda had put down on the table before lifting Cheren into the air and replacing it with the faulty one, “I believe Hilly has some presents to open.”

Hilda felt heat rise into her face. That was another reason she didn’t find birthdays especially exciting. She liked getting stuff- who didn’t?- but opening presents around other people felt weird. She didn’t like the spotlight at the best of times- literally; one time she and her friends had decided to sign up for the school musical and Hilda was so terrified of the spotlight she made herself sick enough that she didn’t attend a single rehearsal. She didn’t even have a named role. Just a member of the chorus.

But that nervousness- unusual for her- was always there during times like this.

It didn’t help that she always felt inexplicably guilty for getting things. Even though it was her birthday, and people typically get given gifts on their birthday. And Hilda always got her friends and family the best presents she could for their birthdays. It still felt weird.

She wondered if they all felt like that too, and if they were just better at hiding it than she felt she was.

Still, she’d be lying if she said she completely, totally hated it.

Getting things was always nice.

Especially when those things included a giant set of loom bandz (curtesy of Bianca), a huge, heavy book on Unovan Myths and Legends- a recent edition, and signed by the author (the thing Cheren had been struggling to carry), a shirt that read NAME’s LUCKY FISHING SHIRT, with a lineart print of a basculin, and a beautiful aquamarine crystal (from her dad, so the crystal was surely more than just something pretty), a baseball cap that read NO. 1 DAD (an excellent choice from Hilbert, and she put it on immediately), a set of bright (really bright) pink shoelaces, more loom bandz, three mystery packs of sillybandz, and oddly enough, a camping set and a private link to the Cyberspace Bag System, from her mom, though she knew her dad would have pitched in especially for the latter two.

When Hilda glanced over at Cheren and Bianca, who seemed equally bewildered by the camping stuff; Hilda wasn’t opposed to going outdoors or getting muddy or anything like that, but she was definitely more of a bookworm, and if given free choice of any activity, probably wouldn’t choose to camp of all things…

Unless…

Her mom and brother shared a knowing glance, before leaving the living room to the three bewildered sixteen-year-olds.

They heard the front door open and close, as Hilda’s family left to go somewhere, and all sat in silence for a moment.

“What’s going on?” Hilda demanded, “Do you two know anything?”

“Nope. My parents were acting weird when I set out, though…” Cheren mused, “You have any ideas, Bianca?”

“None…” she sighed, leaning back, “Come to think of it, my mom was also acting kinda suspicious. I wonder if they’ve all planned something together.”

Hilda shrugged, and tossed each of her friends a pack of sillybandz to open while they waited, and they compared each of the bands they got once they had.

Even then, Hilda’s mom hadn’t returned, so Hilda dug out a third, even worse wiimote from the cupboard, and scrambled all three of them on the coffee table before handing them out to her friends so they could play Smash, since it was still on the pause screen she and Hilbert had left it on.

Two rounds later (both won by Bianca, an absolute monster at Smash Bros, even with the most broken of the wiimotes), and Hilda’s mom and brother finally returned.

Her mom was carrying a delicate looking blue box, and her brother had a smaller, but evidently just as precious package in his hands.

The packages were brought through to the living room, and placed on the coffee table in front of the trio of friends.

“So. Hilda. Cheren. Bianca.” Hilda’s mom said, sitting down on the armchair below the windowsill, and Hilbert perched on the armrest of the larger sofa, “Your parents and Keoni and I… we all decided that now that you’re all sixteen, and that you’ve all expressed interest… it would be nice for you to all become Pokemon Trainers at the same time.”

Hilda, on the left of the sofa, felt Bianca- in the middle- stiffen, and she felt her own heart thudding in her throat.

“So, we all spoke with Professor Juniper… and, well…” she lifted the lid off the blue box, “She has agreed to give you all a starting pokemon and a PokeDex. I also believe she has an important task she wants to entrust to you all, if you’ll accept it.”

Inside the box, resting on a soft cushion, were three PokeBalls.

Hilda glanced over at her friends- Bianca had the biggest smile on her face, practically vibrating with happiness, and Cheren’s hands were pressed over his mouth- and he honestly looked like he might simultaneously start screaming with joy and crying at the same time.

“Of course,” Hilbert piped up, “You all should meet your new partners before picking one, yes?”

Then he grinned.

“Unless… you don’t want them?”

Hilda leapt out of her seat and yelled at him, “Don’t even say that, oh my GOD!” she let out a breathy laugh, “Mom, are you serious?!”

“Of course, I am, sweetheart. You’re so fascinated by pokemon, you always have been. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go out and learn first-hand, alongside your books?”

Hilda sank back into her seat. Yes, yes it absolutely would. But what would she even do on a journey? Challenge Gyms? Try out the musical in Nimbasa? Totally geek out when she got to Nacrene city and never ever leave that library?

Probably all of those and more, come to think of it.

“Mrs Mahelona…” Bianca squeaked out, “I… Are you sure?”

“Of course, dear. Your mom was one of the first of us all to suggest it, actually.”

Bianca’s eyes widened, and she looked shyly over the pokeballs.

“Can… we meet the pokemon?” Cheren asked, very obviously trying to hide his excitement.

Hilbert was the one to grab the three pokeballs. He threw them one by one, introducing each pokemon as he did. Tepig. Snivy. And Oshawott.

And, oh, how adorable they were.

An energetic tepig that could barely sit still. The snivy that kept using vine whip to hoist itself out of the way of the tepig as it ran back and forth. And the oshawott that immediately curled up on the floor for a nap, using the shell that usually rested on its belly as a pillow.

Hilda and her friends were instantly enamoured with all three of them. And she could see them both having difficulty; who would they pick? How could they pick? They all seemed so charming.

She knew exactly which one she wanted, though.

And since both her friends encouraged her to go first- it was her birthday, after all- she had no issue in gently scooping up the snoozing oshawott and dubbing him with a name. Otto.

After some discussion and thinking, Bianca took the energetic little tepig- who she called Blaise- and Cheren took the snivy- who he called Lucian.

And with the pokedexes that Hilbert handed out- which was what had been in the second package… everything was…

Though they were still sat on the comfortable sofa in Hilda’s living room. Though none of them had their shoes on. Though none of them were really dressed for the great outdoors. Though none of them had expected this- even though they had all wished and wished and wished for it.

Everything was different now.

Their journey had already begun.

#middle ground #chapter #tstac: middle ground

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