Pokemon: But You'll Do (G)
But You'll Do
It wasn’t just curiosity which brought Winona to Route 118 that rainy day, although it was a part of her motivation. She was also driven by her sense of responsibility to the people and pokémon around her home and post in Fortree City, especially if the person she was checking on was the champion of the Hoenn Pokémon League and thus her boss. At least, Steven Stone was technically in charge of the region’s gym leaders. In practice, however, Steven was pretty (hands off), something that Roxanne had eagerly identified as an example of primus inter pares before proceeding to translate and explain, with historical references, the concept to the other gym leaders until Brawly had fallen asleep in his chair, to Roxanne’s annoyance and the other gym leaders’ laughter.
Winona smiled at the memory and held onto it to warm her a little against the rain and gloom. Wattson and Norman were the two oldest gym leaders, but somehow Winona had fallen into the role of the responsible, even motherly, one towards the younger gym leaders, and with the headaches came plenty of amusement, too. Into which of those two categories today’s errand would fall remained to be seen, though the gloomy weather around her didn’t inspire confidence.
She found Steven just where Wattson had said she would: sitting on top of a grassy hill and seemingly unaware of the rain falling around him as he looked intently at the narrow but quickly flowing river below his vantage point. At least he was wearing a poncho, Winona thought to herself, and she pulled her own covering closer to her body, which shook off a few of the raindrops which had been resting on her. At the top of the hill, Winona cleared her throat to announce herself.
“Oh, hello, Winona,” Steven said genially. He came out of whatever deep thoughts he was pursuing with the dignity and ease that he did everything. “What brings you out here today?”
“I left my gym in good hands, and did everything else that I needed to do before stepping away,” Winona said primly. With that assurance out of the way, Winona turned to answering Steven’s question, “I heard from Wattson that you’ve been coming out here for a few days now, rain or shine. I know that we’re technically closer to his gym than mine, but he asked me to come, as a favor, and see what you’re doing, and what you might need.”
“Wattson can be too inquisitive for his own good sometimes.”
“It’s not my place to say,” Winona said, her stiffness contrasting Steven’s ease.
Steven shook his head and smiled under the hood of his poncho. “Is it really an emergency that I’ve decided to do a little camping? I’m not aware of any challengers waiting for me at Evergrande City, though perhaps you know something that I don’t.”
Winona let Steven’s teasing roll off her like the rain dripping off of her violet rain jacket. “I only wanted to see if you’d like any assistance with whatever it is that you’re doing, but if you’d like for me to leave and go back to my gym-”
She wasn’t expecting Steven to interrupt her, but Winona stopped as soon as he held up a hand and told her, “I wouldn’t mind a bit of company while I wait. If you don’t mind being away from your nice warm gym for a while longer.”
“All right, but not for too long,” Winona agreed. “I suppose if there’s an emergency one of my bird pokémon can take me back to Fortree City if I’m needed.”
“How does your skarmory manage in this type of weather?” Steven asked idly. “Mine hates flying in the rain. Even my aggron doesn’t dislike getting wet as much as he does.”
“We would manage if we had to, but it hasn’t really come up yet.” When Steven patted a patch of wet grass next to where he was sitting, Winona refused his invitation with a shake of her head. She did, however, step down to where Steven was seated and joined him in staring across the river. “What are you waiting for?” asked Winona.
Steven looked up at Winona to ask, “Did I say that I was waiting for someone?”
“Only that you were waiting.”
Chuckling, Steven said, “Well, since you asked, there’s a trainer whose progress I’ve been following. He’s proven to be quite the prodigy, conquering gyms across the region one after another.”
Winona’s voice sharpened as she asked, “Wait, are you talking about Norman’s son? I’ve heard the other leaders talking about him. Flannery told the rest of us that he beat her a few days ago.”
“That’s right,” Steven said with a soft smile. “He spent some time training around Lavaridge Town, but the last I heard was that he went to challenge Norman. And after he’s beaten his father, I’m certain he’ll come this way looking to conquer your gym next, Winona.”
“You seem pretty confident that he’s going to beat Norman,” Winona remarked, choosing to ignore Steven’s mention of her own gym. “But those slaking of his have ended a lot of trainers’ league challenges, especially the overconfident ones.”
Steven laughed, “I don’t think Norman’s own son is going to underestimate him, but I suppose we’ll see.”
Winona tucked a wayward strand of her long hair back under the hood of her poncho before asking Steven, “What’s so special about this kid, anyways? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this excited.”
“Is that so?” Steven briefly looked contemplative, but then his soft smile returned and he explained, “Maybe I’ve just started to get a little unsettled in my role as champion, but I truly believe that Norman’s son has the potential to challenge our Elite Four, and maybe even beat me. I’m not the only one, either. Scott and his Battle Frontier has shown interest in him as well.”
“That rich hobbyist?” Winona snorted. “Well, if he thinks this kid is so great, then it must be true!”
“You’re upset?”
Winona folded her arms across her chest and huffed, “I’m not. I just don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about one trainer, even if he is Norman’s son.”
Steven only turned his attention back to where the falling rain was pelting the river’s surface before saying, “Maybe you’ll change your mind when you meet him.”
“Maybe,” Winona echoed, keeping the rest of her thought in her head, “when grumpig fly.”
When she had been chilled by the cold and the wet for long enough without any sign of Steven’s trainer, Winona said as stiffly as her body felt, “Well, I’m going to go back to Fortree City and my gym now. Are you going to be waiting here all day?”
“I’ll probably return to Mauville City shortly to have some lunch and warm up for a little while. Maybe I’ll call on Wattson and take him to task for making you come all this way in this terrible weather just to check on me.”
Winona didn’t acknowledge the champion’s joke. Instead, she simply said, “I would have come if he hadn’t asked. It’s part of my job as a gym leader.”
The next day, after defeating a challenger and having lunch across the street from her gym, Winona decided to check on Steven again. She signed out of her gym’s (logbook) that she made all of her visitors and gym trainers use and then returned to her apartment to change out of the (flight suit) which was the official attire she had adopted as a gym leader.
Unlike the day before, it was warm and sunny, characteristic of the rapidly changing weather in this part of the Hoenn. Accordingly, Winona picked out a light, patterned blouse which was the same rich blue color of the sky and a pair of jean shorts which had lingered in her wardrobe since the end of summer. The resulting outfit was a poor choice for traipsing through the tall, thick grass which was fed by the area’s frequent rainstorms, but Winona wasn’t planning on walking today.
Any of Winona’s pokémon could have ferried her to the hill where she had met Steven the day before. Her swellow was the fastest, while her pelipper was good at carrying cargo, such as after a shopping trip to Lilycove City, and Winona’s skarmory was the most valuable in dangerous conditions. For today’s flight, Winona wanted to allow herself some comfort, and for that she called out her prized altaria. Sitting between the flying pokémon’s powerful wings with their covering of downy feathers which resembled the few clouds in the sky today, Winona flew high over the countryside. Her heart soared as well, as it always did when her feet left the ground.
She saw Steven long before he saw her. Steven waved to Winona and her altaria until the gym leader had guided her blue and white pokémon down to the hill where the champion had set up camp. “Winona, what a pleasant surprise,” Steven said as soon as Winona had dismounted her altaria. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you with your hair down since that league-wide meeting we had before the holidays, and even then it took you until the third day of the conference.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Winona said automatically as her hand went to her long hair.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. This is hardly an official meeting, is it?” Steven asked with a teasing lilt in his voice.
“No, I suppose not,” admitted Winona. Then, she attempted a joke of her own, “Wattson didn’t send me this time.”
“I should hope not after the earful I gave him yesterday.” When Winona didn’t say anything, Steven laughed for the both of them and said, “I’m only kidding! Is it really so believable that I could be such a monster?”
Winona quickly shook her head. “No, Steven, it has nothing to do with you as a person,” she explained, “it’s just, well, you have to admit that there’s a lot of authority that goes with your title.”
That made Steven’s friendly smile vanish with the heavy sigh which escaped his lips. “That’s another thing I don’t like about my current position.” To Winona, he said, “Please, relax and make yourself comfortable, Winona. Your pokémon certainly is.”
Sure enough, Winona’s altaria had moseyed over to a patch of berry plants and was helping itself to the ripest and juiciest of the yellow berries. Words of admonishment sprang to Winona’s lips, but her thoughts caught up to them in time for her to bite her tongue. She reminded herself that they weren’t on any official League business as she tried to force her body to relax.
“I can’t be sure, but I like to think that those are descendants of the same sitrus berries which I planted here back when I was undertaking my first pokémon journey,” Steven remarked as he rolled a piece of grass between his index finger and his thumb. “Of course, delving into the different caves around the region was my favorite part of my travels, but it was nice doing simple things like planting berries for future trainers. It gives one a small sense of legacy, I suppose, though that sounds more than a little pretentious, doesn’t it, Winona?”
“Have you heard anything new about your little project?” Winona asked. “Do you know whether he’s beaten Norman yet?”
Steven shook his head ruefully. “No, no news yet, though I don’t know how quickly we could expect Norman to notify anyone if he lost to his own offspring. A father’s pride can be a fairly tricky thing.” He rose to his feet after that to scan the horizon as though he risked missing a glimpse of the trainer he was awaiting. “For all I know he may be off running a hundred different errands or seeing a hundred sights before coming this way. I can forgive him that given the breakneck pace with which he’s tackled the other gym leaders. But sooner or later he’ll pass this way and I’ll be waiting for him.”
“How did you two meet?” Winona asked.
“It actually wasn’t what you’re probably thinking,” Steven answered. “It wasn’t as though I was following his career from the beginning. He was actually performing a favor for my father, who’d heard that I was in Dewford Town exploring Granite Cave. Since I wasn’t returning his calls and since this young trainer had evidently proven himself dependable, my father gave him a letter to hand-deliver to me.”
Winona frowned at the ironic tone of Steven’s voice and pressed, “But how did that impress you? Your dad runs the largest company in the region, who knows how many people he has running around doing what he tells them to do?”
Steven was smiling as he replied to Winona, “Quite right. It wasn’t so much the errand or the fact that he took it on which impressed me, but rather how he carried it out. He could have delayed delivering my father’s letter in order to train one of his pokémon to illuminate the darkest part of Granite Cave, as all the local guides recommend. But, instead, he plunged into the unknown and braved the darkness and wild, territorial pokémon out of a sense of duty. Needless to say, I was impressed.”
“Needless to say,” Winona repeated tonelessly.
“I even gave the young man a technical machine for my favorite technique as a thank you.” There was a playful gleam in Steven’s blue eyes as he asked Winona, “Care to hazard a guess what it might be?”
“I don’t know,” said Winona, her eyes drifting over to where her altaria was finishing up its meal of sitrus berries, “is it hyper beam?”
Her guess made Steven grimace. “I suppose that would be the sort of an answer you assume a champion would give, isn’t it? I suspect Lance would say yes, for instance, but for me I’ve always viewed the steel wing attack fondly. It balances offense and defense so well, and is quite elegant to look at as well, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’m familiar with it,” Winona said. “My skarmory, of course.”
“My favorite pokémon,” Steven sighed, then he chuckled at himself, “not that a trainer is supposed to admit that, true as it may be. But I love skarmory as a species, not just my own. They’re tenacious, incredible survivors. They have to be to live under the shadow of Mount Chimney.”
Winona’s face grew wistful. “They’re harsh pokémon, from their voices to their feathers. There’s a proper way to take care of them. The first time I tried to groom my skarmory, I cut my hand open. It’s faint, but I still have the scar.” Instead of responding to Steven’s unspoken curiosity, Winona clasped her hands together in order to ensure that no sign of the muted scar would be visible. “It’s important to do things the right way. Otherwise, you can get hurt.”
Steven didn’t say anything. He returned to looking across the river, and Winona couldn’t tell whether he was thinking about what she had said or if he was really looking for the trainer he was expecting. When Steven did finally speak, his words didn’t betray an answer. He only said, “Thank you for keeping me company, Winona,” and though he did not seem to have intended it as a dismissal, Winona excused herself back to her gym not long afterwards.
After two days of waiting without any sign of Norman’s son, Winona wondered if Steven’s interest would flag, but when her altaria dropped her off at Steven’s little hill the following day, she saw that the champion was as intent as ever on waiting for the young trainer.
“Don’t you have any work you need to be doing for the league?” Winona asked, the words coming out a little harsher than she had thought they would.
Perhaps that was why Steven raised his eyebrow at her and parried Winona’s question with, “And don’t you have things you’d like to get done back at your gym? I don’t believe you’ve ever taken so many days off in a row before. And I certainly don’t need to be babysat. So why are you here, Winona?”
Now it was Steven who looked embarrassed by his loss of control, but before he could deliver the apology that was on the tip of his tongue, Winona was already answering him. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came here the first time because I thought that you might need my help with something, and then I was curious about why you were so invested in this new trainer, this boy with a famous last name.” Winona shook her head which set her the long braid of her hair swinging behind her until it returned to rest between her shoulder blades. “And I still don’t understand what that’s all about, but beyond that,” Winona stopped short when she saw that Steven was studying her intently and she spoke in more measured tones than before as she finished, “beyond that, it’s interesting for me to see a different side of you.”
“A different side of me? How so?” asked Steven. “I don’t think my behavior over the last few days has been out of character.”
“Maybe you aren’t different. Maybe it’s everything else. It’s strange seeing you outside of Evergrande City, but maybe,” Winona sighed, “maybe that’s my own fault. I feel like I’ve learned more about you talking on this hill than in all the time since you beat Flannery’s grandfather and joined the League.”
“If you’ve learned anything about me, it strikes me that you’ve remained quite private yourself,” Steven remarked innocently. “You’re curious, and you have a wealth of questions for me, which I think I’ve done a fair job of answering, but what about you?” Steven turned the full force of his sharp blue eyes upon her as he asked, “Who are you, Winona?”
“Who am I?” Winona was taken aback by the directness of Steven’s question. “I’m the gym leader of Fortree City.”
Steven shook his head, but his grin made the gesture gentler than it otherwise would have been. “That’s a title, Winona, but is that who you are, truly? I may be the champion now, but the champion isn’t all that I am.”
Winona seized on the opening like a lifeline, and it was with hints of both relief and triumph in her voice that she asked in return, “Well, then, who are you, Steven?”
“I don’t know, at least, not yet,” Steven laughed. “But I think I’m enjoying finding out.”
“That’s not a very good answer,” complained Winona, but when Steven only laughed harder, she found herself doing the same. “But maybe it’s the best I was going to get out of you.” Steven spread his hands as if to admit his guilt, and Winona rolled her eyes playfully at him. “So, is that what you’re going to do if someone beats you and you have to stop being the champion? Find yourself?”
“When I get to stop being the champion,” Steven subtly corrected Winona, “I plan to travel around the region again, or maybe I’ll go overseas where no one will recognize me. There’re plenty of interesting sights to see around the world. Perhaps I would find myself inadvertently.”
Winona let out a gust of air from his nose and repeated, “’Inadvertently.’ Why do you talk like that?”
Steven’s reply was, “Some combination of nature and nurture, I suppose. Like everything else in life.” His eyes returned to the river. “What do you think it will be like battling him? I haven’t witnessed any of his matches myself, only heard second-hand information from your fellow gym leaders. But that’s been enough to pique my interest plenty.”
“He’ll just be another challenger to me,” Winona said a little curtly, “it doesn’t matter to me who his dad is or what Roxanne and Flannery and the others say about him. I won’t be intimidated just because he’s done well so far. I’ll do my job and I’ll do my best. Either I beat him and he has to slow down and do some training, or he’ll beat me and keep going.”
“You’d like to beat him though, wouldn’t you, Winona?” Steven asked with a smirk which somehow remained dignified. “If only to try and prove my interest wrong.”
She didn’t rise to his challenge, saying coolly, “Winning feels better than losing. The opponent doesn’t matter.”
“Isn’t it interesting that being a gym leader means that you have to expect to lose at least sometimes while as the champion I’m not supposed to lose even once.”
“And you still sound like you’re almost looking forward to losing to Norman’s kid,” Winona interjected. “If you hate being the champion so much, why don’t you just resign?”
Steven looked up abruptly at Winona and asked, “Really? What kind of a pokémon trainer would I be if I just quit? It wouldn’t be fair to the region, to the League, or to my pokémon and all of the sacrifices which they made to get us to the top. I don’t want to quit, Winona, I want to be toppled off of my lofty perch. And I think this young man could be the one to do it.”
“Maybe,” Winona said as she finally joined Steven in looking across the horizon. There was still no sign of anyone crossing the river. The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes before Winona shrugged her shoulder and told Steven, “Well, I should be getting back to my gym. I’ll want to be good and ready for when your protégé shows up.”
“He’s not my protégé,” Steven replied cheerfully. “But I won’t keep you away from your work any longer. It was nice for you to keep me company. Will you be back again tomorrow?”
“Hopefully you’ll be done waiting by then.” Winona let herself match Steven’s smile after she mounted her altaria. “Hopefully this is my last day babysitting the champion.”
Steven’s reply was a hearty laugh and a friendly wave with which he bade Winona and her pokémon farewell.
The rest of the day saw Winona bustling around her gym getting herself and her gym trainers ready for their anticipated challenger. Between drills, she found herself glancing at the entrance as if Norman’s son would step through the door at any moment. “Great, now Steven’s got me doing it, too,” Winona grumbled to herself after the third time she caught herself doing so.
But Norman’s son didn’t arrive at Winona’s gym that day, and so Winona got up the next day planning to check in with Steven again. After her breakfast, Winona released her swallow from its poké ball and sat astride the blue-feathered pokémon sidesaddle in her long, flowing skirt. The flight was quick, but Winona’s mind was already full of jibes and questions for Steven by the time that her swallow landed on the hill where the champion had maintained his vigil.
Only, Steven wasn’t there.
Winona hopped off of her pokémon and walked around the grass, disturbing the dew which still lay collected on its green surface. Her smile of joyful anticipation was wiped away by a frown as she surveyed the lonesome hill. It was silent save for the faint sound of the river below lapping at its banks and the sound of her skirt being rustled by the wind. Winona’s sigh joined them and then she told her pokémon in a hard and professional tone, “We’re heading back. We have a challenger to prepare for.”
As they flew back to Fortree City, Winona felt her expression softening before she reasserted control over herself. She decided that there was no point in dwelling on her conversations with Steven over the past few days. There was nothing to do but get ready for a battle which would certainly be a difficult one.
“I won’t roll over for Norman’s kid,” Winona told herself after she had returned home and changed out of her soft, feminine skirt and blouse into the sexless gym leader uniform. After she had put up her hair how she wanted it, Winona studied the woman in the mirror with eyes as sharp as any of her bird pokémon.
This was who she was, but was it all she was? Winona didn’t think so, but there would be time to answer that question after her battle. Her job came first, after all.
