Love in the Time of Traveling

Chapter 9: A Spark

This is the first chapter I ended up wholly writing for this trilogy. My apologies if it's a little rusty (I wrote the threeshot back in 2020, but this I didn't write until March of 2021). Anyway, Chapter 9 time!

Chapter 9

A Spark

"Scorbunny, run for it! Speed it up with some Flame Charge!"

"Niiibbaaaaah!"

For what must have been the fiftieth or a hundredth time that day (Gloria stopped counting after five, if she was honest), Scorbunny charged forward, the embers on his feet attempting to light into a blaze around his body. There was no such luck, even her most nimble companion tripping in his focus and rolling forward into a tree. Perched on a branch overhead, Rookidee laughed.

"Hey, no laughing from you, either. You need some work on learning Air Slash if we're going to triumph over the Turffield Gym!"

"Rooko?" Rookidee tilted his head, but soon flapped his wings in what Gloria presumed was a salute. He launched from the branch and landed on Scorbunny's head, chirping with nonchalance. The bunny didn't look too pleased, but did nothing aside from folding his arms at Rookidee's wings expanding, a faint glow present on their tips. "Ko!"

The force of his subsequent flap sent the two Pokémon partners sprawling backwards, only a gust forming from the bird's actions. It certainly wasn't the solid, compressed air that Gloria had been hoping for, and she sighed, slapping her face.

"Not again..."

"Hey, it's not too bad so far." If Ash was hoping to give her some encouragement, she didn't get it. She whipped around to glare at him, only stopping when she realized Serena and Astrid's eyes were fixed upon her, as well, the pair sipping on cups of tea on the veranda outside the nearby Pokémon Center. "You're showing promise. Even Chewtle's working hard."

"Promise isn't enough right now..." Her grumpy sides were starting to show, as was the trickle of sweat running down her face from the day's strenuous activities. She hadn't realized it just yet, but they had already been on the road for half a day since setting off early in the morning from Motostoke. The training, all one hundred and fifty failures of it, had taken up comparatively little time as the journey to the Center had. It made her more fired up than ever to improve her team. "Don't you have some, like, super-special training techniques you can show me? You know, like 'this is dangerous, but it will help you master it faster' sort of thing?"

"Uh...do we, Pikachu?"

"Pika..." Pikachu said with a shrug. Gloria hung her head.

How is this guy a Pokémon Master...? She felt her internal question was not without merit; she had only been caught up in the fervor of his arrival and offer before. Now, however, she was seeing the sides of Ash Ketchum that the television never showed. Like the fact that even though he was strong, his teaching left something to be desired. Or, most recently, the fact that he had little care for the beaten path on what was considered the easiest route in all of Galar to traverse. Gloria had to wonder just how many of her rivals had surpassed her on this straight road alone; Hop most certainly had.

A small nudge at her foot brought Gloria down to see her little Chewtle nudging her and looking up with burning eyes. She could tell what the turtle wanted, but she was forced into a squat, rubbing her horn with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Chewtle, but we'll have to train together later. This Gym wouldn't be a good match for you."

"You already know what kind of Gym it'll be?" Ash asked, catching wind of her conversation. His eyes briefly flitted away to where Sobble was, gamboling alongside Pancham and Sandshrew. The adorable Water type would occasionally stop on his two stubby legs to fold his arms together, but managed to fall over every time. Ash smiled at it, but kept his ear open to Gloria.