How we meet

Chapter 10

Walking into your first day of work was strange. You walked around the gym and observed the green houses as a person explained where you would be working first. Something about it possibly being too much for you to start with. You weren't paying attention. You just stared in awe and the wonderful field. The main gym area.
The wonderful set up of saplings and shrubs. Beautiful greens of all shades. Ivy and moss covering large rocks and surrounded by streams and mini waterfalls.
You dug through the storage finding fertilizer and anti pest sprays. You found seeds and some shears. You looked around finding a hose and a sprinkler control panel.
"Oh a clipboard!" you picked it up and flipped through the papers. A checklist for water times and fertilizer. you fiddled with the sprinkler system and figured out how it worked before looking at the plants.
The leaves were droopy and the colors had started to fade. They were underwater. You felt the soil, dry and warm. You started the sprinklers. Watching carefully as the soil soaked up the water. Guzzling it down, drinking until it couldn't drink anymore. You watched making sure they were not overwatered. You laid down mulch, you removed the dead plants. You cut trimmings and adapted to the plant's needs with ease.
You embraced the hurt plants. With warm hands a flutter of a touch you plucked, and snipped away the rot. With benevolence you ripped the roots away from dirt. Spinny and thin they clung to clay and wrapped around rocks trying to strangle water from the dust. You moved quickly by noon and there were no signs of suffering.
You rested then sitting with venipede, snacking on your fried puffball mushrooms. You enjoyed each other's company as the doors opened to the gym. Burgh walking in and smiling in awe of your work.
"It's much brighter." he said, turning to you. "You did this in one day?" he asked, walking along the sides of the field.
You smiled as you joined him. "That one there," you pointed to a small flower. "That one thrives in a clay base but that one," you pointed to a flower clinging to the side of a tree. "It steals water from plants around it, and should be in a rock based planter."
"Okay that pink colored one?" he asked, "it's a personal favorite."
"Easily overwatered, if you aren't careful those petals will fall off if you touch them."
"Oh, well there goes that dream."
"Stick with a plastic one?" You joked, bending down to remove a dead flower.
Burgh stood in the arena. The dust and dirt kicked up behind him as he walked. The large arena was empty with painted lines. When the gym doors opened and the lady at the desk introduced a challenger you were only half surprised to see the stranger.
"Ah I remember you," Burgh spoke offhandedly, shaking the man's hand.
"It's been quite a while." He spoke with a calm voice. His posture was straight and posed. Looking at him you felt weaker than him, that you couldn't compare to him. He seemed godly in comparison to you.
"Are you trying to reclaim your title?"
"No." A simple word. A complete sentence. No.
A flash of confusion crossed Burgh's face. You could see the look in his eye, he wanted to ask. He wanted the answers you did. He had the context you didn't, he had more knowledge than you, yet you shared the same question.
Then why? It rattled inside your mind. It searched for invisible answers, impossible probabilities and incomplete solutions. A question that wished greatly to be answered. What title? Was the question you had. What did he have in the past/ What was his purpose? What was his reasoning?
Understanding. He wanted to understand. The conversation you had shared the previous day. Both of you wanted to understand. He was a trainer you had yet to understand trainers and Pokémon's relationships. He wanted to learn from them, to know answers to questions he had never shared with you. As such, you were the same.
A storm of dust. Even safely on the sidelines did dirt and mud cover your shoes. A ballet of punches and kicks mixed in with the dust. Sand twisted in the air, it cascaded down onto the observers. It mixed in with your hair, it blinded you with its talons.
You starred in horror. Frozen in place. Sweaty clammy palms. You dig your fingers into the fabric of your shorts. Nails dug into skin, pricking you like thorns. Poison laced thoughts made your blood cold. Everything you watched looked like your nightmares.
Claws, monstrous fangs. Venom dripping into your eyes, helpless to stop it. Unable to move tied in place begging for the pain to end. You sat there again unmoving now. The horrors in your sight made your breathing grow heavy, venipede clung to you.
Small legs begged you to turn away. Prayers for you to answer him. Tears that had fallen onto his face. A smooth exoskeleton that you did not stroke for comfort now. Now you did not turn to him for comfort and now you were left surrounded with your thoughts as N was announced the victor.