o1. Willowcove Village

[Sleigh Bells Fan]

Chad gave a worried look to Kadaj, but something told Chad that arguing would only make things worse. What could possibly be running through Kadaj’s mind that made him think that going with Chad would be a better solution that actually going with someone who knew what they were doing? “Well, okay if you insist but you should’ve probably…” Chad trailed off mid-sentence as he realized that it wouldn’t be wise to tell Kadaj how he should raise his Pokémon. When he thought about it, Chad wouldn’t want someone doing that to him either, so he could understand why it wouldn’t be too kind to simply do that to Kadaj.
The fact that it seemed like Kadaj put some effort into coming up with a decision made Chad realize that perhaps Kadaj was more serious about being a trainer than Chad had first presumed, but then again, Chad kind of figured that out when Kadaj had asked him to take his Poochyena and get it healed somewhere. “Alright then Chad, so long as you know what you’re doing with your Pokémon.” Chad turned his attention back to Torben and shrugged, almost as though he didn’t know what to say. “I guess he wants to go to my place, although I have no idea why.” After saying this, Chad turned back to Kadaj, his expression growing a bit more exhausted as he did so. “I think we should probably be leaving now if you want to get your Pokémon some rest. I think I have a couple items at my house that were used when my father first moved here. We had a pet Miltank and he always had a stockpile of potions in case Miltank got sick.”
Chad tried to remember where they were but couldn’t seem to figure it out. Oh well, he’d figure out where all the potions were when he got home. After all, it’s not like he had some magical healing powers that could bring back the Poochyena from its unconscious state anyways other than his power of patience and composure, unlike Kadaj who seemed to be a ball of nerves when it came to his Pokémon. “So Torben, I hope we meet again. Perhaps then I’ll be alone and we get into a more interesting and deep conversation.” Chad smiled warmly and then decided to slowly start walking down the street, not sure whether or not Kadaj would have a couple parting words for Torben or not. When Chad realized this, he stopped in his tracks and made sure that Kadaj wasn’t about to say anything mean or uncalled for. Since after all, Torben was just trying to help.
In a strange way though, Chad kind of understood what it was like to worry about pride. It was a messy thing that Chad forced himself to tone down on after his father died. He lost a lot of his will to keep going after that and the first thing Chad got rid of was his pride. He did that so he’d have the power to not care whether or not he cried over his father’s death, which he did a lot.

Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ┆┆Willowcove Village (The Street) ___Ｐｏｋｅｍｏｎ_ｏｎ_ｔｅａｍ┆┆Nincada⇢Lvl. o5 ✖_

 

[Sleigh Bells Fan]

Chad walked with Kadaj and quietly sighed in a sad attempt to seem apologetic for Tobren. “I’m sorry Tobren.” Chad stopped walking and decided to hear out Tobren for the sake of letting him get things off his chest. Truthfully, it wasn’t Chad’s fault that Kadaj and he were leaving. If anything, it was all Kadaj who wanted to go to Chad’s home for some strange and unapparent reason. He didn’t want to argue or emphasize on this point since it was already pretty obvious why they were actually leaving.
If Chad had gotten to pick what was done, he would’ve had Kadaj stick around here and allow Tobren to heal his Pokémon. Of course, Kadaj was really being stubborn for some reason. Chad didn’t want to question it because he might’ve done the same thing if he was in the position Kadaj was in, but then again, Tobren didn’t look like the type of person that would actually do something that would harm any Pokémon ever. “Tobren, Tobren, Tobren. Okay, I won’t forget that name if we ever meet again. I’m sorry about that, I had a lot going on in my head when you introduced yourself and if I failed to introduce myself, please call me Chad.” Chad smiled in a courteous manner to Torben before turning his attention back towards Kadaj who seemed like he was more in a hurry to get to Chad’s house than he was.
“Yeah, I used to have a pet Miltank when I was probably fourteen or fifteen. It made milk for us and we could sell it to the town for a few bucks here and there. We had to get rid of it though whenever we couldn’t pay the mortgage on our house, so no more Miltank.” Chad smiled as to show that he was over the incident and wasn’t gloomy about it or something of the sort. He never really talked about his past in general because it was somewhat dark and Chad didn’t want people getting a wrong idea about him being gothic or saddened all the time. He was actually a lot happier than he was sad because he knew how to just lock his past away and hide the key so he didn’t have to bring those shadows out to play.
Chad did in fact pick up his pace whenever it was suggested by Kadaj, only because it was something that seemed like it needed to be done for the sake of the Poochyena who was still inside of its Pokeball. He couldn’t help but role his eyes though because of the hair comment. “It’s just hair, no one care what it looks like, I mean, look at mine.” Chad’s hair was always shaggy and relatively long for a guy, although not exactly as long as Tobren’s. Still, he didn’t care what people thought of it half the time because it just seemed to not be so important in his life at this point. “You should just focus on Poochyena.”

Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ┆┆Willowcove Village (The Street) ___Ｐｏｋｅｍｏｎ_ｏｎ_ｔｅａｍ┆┆Nincada⇢Lvl. o5 ✖_

 

[Sleigh Bells Fan]

Chad could practically feel animosity coming from Kadaj, but for what reason? Why was he having such a short fuse? Was it because his Pokémon was knocked out or was it because he didn’t like being corrected by people? After really thinking about it for a moment, Chad simply decided that it probably had to do with a little bit of both, although he didn’t know Kadaj well enough to be sure, although he did know a thing or two about how conceited Kadaj could be, and arrogance seemed to go hand in hand with being so vein. Chad gave a worried look to Tobren before ultimately deciding to take Kadaj to his home so that he could let the Poochyena rest.
As the two walked hastily down the street, Chad listened to Kadaj talk about never having a Pokémon before. To be honest, Chad’s first Pokémon wasn’t really the Miltank. It was more like his father’s Pokémon, but since his father was ill, Chad sort of took up the role as father in the house and took care of everything. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he was doing more damage control than he needed to with Tobren because he didn’t like just sitting by and watching things play out. Chad figured that most people would just consider this a weakness of his, but ultimately he’d rather be the way that he was than an arrogant person like Kadaj. Who by the way, he was only helping for the sake of his Pokémon.

After walking for a little bit, Kadaj arrived at his home, a simple two-bedroom place with a pretty nice yard. Most of the neighbors were at work, so Chad didn’t have to worry about them asking why he was still in town. He didn’t really like talking to any of them anyways because they always wanted to talk about his father, who at this point he was trying to forget the existence of. “This is my house. Let’s help out Poochyena.” Chad walked up to the door and quickly unlocked it before stepping inside and pointing down the hall for Kadaj. “My room’s on the left, feel free to just put Poochyena in the bed. I’m going to go find a potion in the medicine cabinet.”
Chad walked down the hall and made a left into the bathroom, not very worried about Kadaj at this point. He just hoped that Kadaj wouldn’t do anything like rummage through Chad’s belongings since there were some things that Chad didn’t want anyone seeing, such as his web-browsing history, but the computer was password protected so getting on that would be impossible for anyone except for Chad and maybe a few internet wizards, but Chad didn’t see Kadaj as that kind of guy.
After rummaging through the bathroom medicine cabinet for a moment, Chad found a few potions leftover from a long time ago. They should be enough to heal the Poochyena since it wasn’t that strong to begin with. After letting out a sigh of relief, Chad walked back into his bedroom ready to heal the Poochyena.

Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ┆┆Willowcove Village (His Home) ___Ｐｏｋｅｍｏｎ_ｏｎ_ｔｅａｍ┆┆Nincada⇢Lvl. o5 ✖_

 

[Sleigh Bells Fan]

Chad walked back into his bedroom and saw the Poochyena laying on the sheets and Kadaj seemingly anxious. That made for a somewhat easy combination because at least then Chad wouldn’t have to fight with Kadaj to simply spray the potion on the Poochyena. “Okay, okay. I guess I should get started then.” Chad walked over to the bed and knelt down beside it. He looked over the Poochyena with a keen eye, not sure about where he should spray the potion. He remembered his father did it to the Miltank on the location that it had been injured, so Chad decided to spray the Poochyena where it had been scratched by Nincada. “Poochyena, Kadaj, this might sting a little, but like my father always said, ‘No pain, no gain.’”
Chad aimed the potion at Poochyen and began to spray on the healing item. He just hoped that Poochyena wouldn’t run or attack him, but then again, it was unconscious so it might not do anything at all.

After he was done, he turned to Kadaj and nodded. “All done, I think he’ll be fine in a few minutes. Just give the Potion some time to sooth him and we should be good to go.” Chad nodded and walked back into the bathroom. He needed to put up the potion since there wasn’t enough in it to keep them going. At least, not right now anyways.
‘Let’s see, I have two pokeballs still because that woman gave me a couple whenever I went into her rehabilitation center. After that, I have a potion now from my house. This could help with my Pokémon if it gets injured.’ Chad nodded to himself and then thought about whether or not he could tolerate Kadaj enough to go on this adventure with him.
When he was done thinking about it, Chad decided that he could at least ask Kadaj if he wanted to since it wasn’t like Chad would have any more fun doing this by himself. Besides, Kadaj was a tolerable guy once Chad got past his conceited and arrogant personality. But, if Kadaj got too arrogant, Chad could always knock him back down to size through a Pokémon battle. That seemed to shut Kadaj up whenever he was getting too cocky. Then again, Chad would need to keep training if he actually thought he could stand a chance against Kadaj by staying where he was at now.
Currently it seemed like Kadaj acted like he didn’t care about training, but Chad could tell Kadaj had a desire to keep going, no matter how tough it got. Chad could really use that kind of motivation to keep him going since he sometimes fell in a depressive state that was just too hard to get out of.

Chad walked back into his room and turned to Kadaj before asking in an undertone, “Want to do this journeying thing together?” Chad could feel himself blushing as he thought about what he had just asked. It was a lot to expect Kadaj to say yes right away, but maybe once he thought about it, Kadaj would realize how that could work out.

Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ┆┆Willowcove Village (His Home) ___Ｐｏｋｅｍｏｎ_ｏｎ_ｔｅａｍ┆┆Nincada⇢Lvl. o5 ✖_

 

[Sleigh Bells Fan]

There was a moment of doubt flash across Chad’s eyes as he thought about how easily it could’ve been for Kadaj to say no. Sure, Chad could consider himself to be the good guy in their friendship, but at the same time, he could see why Kadaj would possibly say no. For starters, he thought that maybe Kadaj would say no because of how pushy Chad had been about trying to convince him to get medical assistance from Tobren, the guy they had met in the streets earlier. Another thing that Chad thought would be a plausible reason to say no, was when Chad was trying to teach Kadaj a lesson about how he shouldn’t be conceited because he lost a battle that he was so confident about winning. Ultimately though, the number one thing that Chad thought he’d say no for was because Chad’s Nincada was the one who knocked out his Poochyena.
His doubts washed away though whenever Kadaj said yes. A held breath escaped from Chad’s mouth as he comforted himself in the answer he was given. All that worrying he did was for nothing, and if it wasn’t for Chad asking, the two of them might’ve parted ways after they were done in Chad’s house.
Chad looked to the bed to see the Poochyena twitching and doing things all normal Pokémon did when they were sleeping. It was a bit alleviating to see that Poochyena was better, even if it was still asleep. The way it moved in its sleep kind of reminded Chad of the battle they’d had earlier. That was a pretty good battle when it came down to it because of the dynamic personalities that made up the two fighting. “Well, I guess I’m going to sit and wait for Poochyena to be ready with you.” Chad walked over to his chair that was in front of his desk and sat down at it. He was half-tempted to turn on his computer, but there weren’t any friends he wanted to say goodbye to that he didn’t already.
“Yeah, we can go to the Pokémon Center in the next town over. I’ve been there a couple of time with my father because there’s a pretty big hospital there that he went to.” Chad pursed his lips as he went over what he had just said. He never liked talking about his father in a past tense because it was too hard for him to come to terms with sometimes. However this time, he already had a lot to deal with, such as Kadaj and his Poochyena, and the fact that he now had a Pokémon of his own to concern himself with. Luckily though, Nincada had only suffered from a couple of scratches so there was nothing that needed to be healed. Eventually Nincada would recover himself since all he did was get tackled by a simple-minded Poochyena several times before ultimately winning the battle.
Although to be honest, Chad had a feeling that in the future he would be lead into a rematch with Kadaj and next time, there would be an even bigger challenge.

Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ┆┆Willowcove Village (His Home) ___Ｐｏｋｅｍｏｎ_ｏｎ_ｔｅａｍ┆┆Nincada⇢Lvl. o5 ✖_