The windy east region of Kalos had been struck with a particular bad weather of late: A cold front moved in from the sea, bringing thunderstorms, hail, and even the occasional snow fall to delay my training and pin me down to a window seat where I'd idly watch the cold showers descend. It was a good obligatory pause, and yet one I didn't indulge in for long - upon noticing the weather wasn't getting better any time soon, I decided to resume my travels regardless.
After two weeks of wet training, the storms finally gave out – the previous night was one of heavy showers and thunderstorms, the last the season should see. I watched as Charizard and Greninja opposed each other, practicing the last tricks I had taught them under an overcast, drizzly twilight on a meadow. The weather boosted Greninja's moves, and his speed, coupled with the increasing rain descending, rendered him nearly invisible, each blow finding its mark on Charizard… but the latter was tough! Though speed wasn't his forte, one hard stomp was enough to steal Greninja's upper-hand, and the beastly creature's roar was enough to send a shiver up anyone's spine and make them think twice before approaching. I watched them carefully, shielding my eyes from the rain and waiting for the moment to call our practice over before any of them could lost their temper and cause actual damage to each other. It never happened, though. Perhaps the rain was too cold to allow their nerves to grow hotter, perhaps they were too tired to give more than they already did… In any case, when the mud got too sticky and the raindrops too heavy, we rushed away in the greying dusk. The way ahead of me was half unknown, and my wet clothes had already reached a state of emergency, so I sought refuge in the nearest town I could find: it was Couriway. I arrived, checked into a hotel, ordered my meal, ate them alone, in the warm silence of my room. There I slept a tired, half-feverish sleep disturbed by the noisy wind shaking the windows and the rain crashing against the roof. After a few hours, it ceased...
The day dawned with a bright sun shining moderately through the few remaining clouds that drifted like foam through a clear sky. A gentle breeze blew through the alps surrounding me, bringing back the smell of wet soil and the memories of the rains, but memories were all they were: birds sang on the trees, certain there would be no more of it.
I had a delicate breakfast prepared to me in one of the local cafes, then went out to greet the town under that serene, clean morning glow. I soon found myself leaned over the parapet of the docks, watching the waterfalls' fury subside into the river - The constant murmur of the water lulled me into a break I had denied myself thus far, the almost invisible gleam of a rainbow descended with the fall, the vapors perfumed the air... That was a pleasant place to enjoy a pleasant day! If possible, I could even feel my Pokémon's tranquility through their pokeballs.
"Excuse-me, ma'am!" a voice called me. Even though it sounded utterly inconvenient as it broke my musings, I had been there for over an hour contemplating them - the time to move on neared anyway.
"Yes?!" I turned around.
A scientist lady bowed respectfully:
"Pardon the interruption, but I was asked to deliver a message to you."
I did not answer, and she moved on to deliver it:
"It's from a fellow trainer - he wishes to challenge you!"
I guess she could see the shadow of disinterest blur my eyes, for she soon added:
"He guarantees he's in level with the champion, and wishes to test your skills in a 'fervent battle like you never had before'..."
"And who is this trainer?" I raised an eyebrow, suspicious.
"I'm afraid I don't have that kind of information: he only asked that I would be so kind as to convey the message. He says he will be waiting eagerly inside the old train station at noon."
I nodded, accepting the challenge almost begrudgingly. The woman bowed and took her leave. I lingered on the same spot a while longer, but the murmur of the waterfall was no longer relaxing, my thoughts not as unclouded as they'd been a moment ago. No longer biding my time, I gathered myself up and sought my own way.
The station was a shadowy, empty place that made me doubt whether it was still in use. Eager or not, I found no trainer waiting there for me, just a set of empty benches facing the mountain tops. The platform was high enough to be in level with that restless waterfall's crest, bringing the comforting vapors to my reach just as much as down by the docks, so waiting became a pleasant consequence.
Also... I was curious to know who this mysterious trainer would be, and how much of a challenge he could offer me at this point. As a rather conceited, anticipating smile crossed my face, I compared the feelings from now with the ones that came before, and wondered at the great disparity between them: How much fear of defeat used to stress me away from battles... and how I craved for a trainer that was good enough to challenge and entertain my party now... How little I actually hoped this would be one of those rare cases!
I heard his footsteps climbing, traversing the wet flagstones of the steps. My body moved with warm anxiety.
"Pardon my delay!" He sighed, entering the platform "I have come very far only to see you... I hope you won't be disappointed?!"
I turned around: a formidable rival he was indeed - the one that could make the very blood inside my veins freeze, and the one I would never have expected to challenge me...
...because he was no trainer at all!
"Professor Sycamore!" I exclaimed in disbelief.
"You still remember my name! How very pleasing..." He had his hands tucked inside the pockets of a thick grey coat he wore. Slender blue jeans ran down his legs, and a pair of Italian formal shoes gleamed in lustrous brown leather. He stood at the entrance to the platform, watching me from a distance.
I watched him back, now confused as to what to do. Pride unconsciously reproached me when I considered running away from a battle, even if it was one against him – silly, naïve me, though: Sycamore wanted no battle – his eyes tranquilly traced my reaction to the surprise meeting while a faint smile marked his expression. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing calm as can be: There would be no challenge, cause it was nothing but a ruse.
Running would be no easy task nevertheless: With or without pride standing in the way, he did, physically so: blocking the entrance and forcing me to face him. "How well planned!" I concluded, looking around myself and finding no other way out that didn't go through him.
"What's with those eyes?" he chuckled "Nearly two months without so much as hearing from me, and all you have is a cold, annoyed expression that asks 'what the deuce is he doing here?' as you desperately look about yourself for an exit!" Approaching me with cool, collected steps, his voice expressed a splinter of vexation. "Tell me, dear... have you not missed me at all?!"
He stopped before me, at last – his eyes shone both with color and movement, reflecting the waterfall as they pierced uninterruptedly into mine.
"Well?" He demanded with a cynic smile.
I was cornered. Escaping, avoiding this troublesome encounter was no longer an option, regardless of how long I had been doing so. I sighed, accepting defeat, and an annoyed, sarcastic chuckle automatically followed as I moved my head from one side to the other.
"How careless of me! I should have known no one in a white coat could be trusted!" I poked.
Sycamore smiled pleasantly, calculating a specially cynical voice to address me next:
"I don't know what you're talking about, dear..."
"In retrospect, I think I have crossed quite a few of them on my way here: the lab-coats. Your people, too?"
He closed his eyes and chuckled tranquilly, proudly – he couldn't resist bragging about the different resources he could employ in tracking me down, and therefore didn't put a lot of effort into concealing it.
"Ah – them!" He smiled, pretending to recollect "A merry coincidence. I have sent a few of my team on a field research. To think you have crossed them all those times..."
"Field research, huh?" I folded my arms over my chest. Sycamore smiled, always too calm, little interested in how persuaded I truly was. It was unnerving...
"Listen, don't they have anything better to do?!" I blurted out. "I'm sure following a girl around is not what they signed up for!"
However explicitly harsh the accusation, Sycamore still didn't react an inch out of his distant calmness – he merely enjoyed a mute, mature laugh, as if he regarded me as nothing but a kid throwing a tantrum and it was his obligation to prove himself superior:
"I can assure you such is not the case. However... they do as I tell them to." He paused, peering into me with a cold, challenging gaze that gave me the chills "...unlike someone I know..."
As if the affront wasn't loud and clear enough, he stood there examining me for a while longer, until I accessed my annoyance in order to say something in return:
"You might as well get used to it, since you've had to come all the way here!" I retorted.
"Ah! So it is as I suspected, huh?!" He closed his eyes as a half-smile calmly crossed his lips. When he opened them again, however, a different color played there, with what looked like a passive sadness weighing them down. I was surprised out of my anger! "You are pulling yourself out of my research!"
I felt the cold assault my breast – was I? My lids felt heavy, too, contaminated by his.
"It's my duty to inform you though..." he pursued with an invariable hardness now – a professional tone that insulted and wounded more than any ill-intentioned word could have done "That if you wish to withdraw, you must do so officially. Come to my office as soon as you are done with your business here, whatever that is, so we might discuss your termination."
Whose eyes did those grey, hard lenses belong to? I guess that was Sycamore giving me a taste of what crossing him really felt like. I had to actively hold my head up, for it threatened to fall languidly with dismay.
I heard him sigh – A cool breeze blew by, the unique scent of nature pulled his attention, his head was now turned to the side, where he gazed intently at the waterfall murmuring next to us. The hardness melted away, as if he had forgotten it, or replaced it for more humane, more sympathetic feelings, and the liquid color of his blue eyes returned, as warm as melted sapphires again.
"Can't really blame you for choosing to linger here though..." he flashed the view a kind, flattering smile "Of all the refuges that come to mind, this is certainly the best place in all Kalos, and the one I would promptly run to at any hour, given the need. I did love this place as a boy..."
I helplessly joined him, and we both watched in silence as the falls crashed against the lake, my imagination quickly wandering towards a projection of young Sycamore: was he as handsome? ...as mean? I bet I could have felt more comfortable around him, for he couldn't overpower me so easily.
And speaking of trust issues...
"Can't we sort that out here and now?!" I boldly suggested, and braced myself for an expected reaction...
This time I wasn't wrong: Sycamore's meek smile faltered, hesitated, and the magic he saw in his surroundings completely effaced. His lips stretched again, but not upwards, and in a less familiar, less charming way:
"No, we cannot, miss Anne, for I must speak to you in private!" Was his cold reply that silenced me like a severe reprimand would - Ironically, for the first time, like a Professor's to his pupil.
I guess I took the hardness much harder than he had planned, for he felt the need to neutralize it with a faint smile and a comic shake of the head:
"Once a deserter, always a deserter, I suppose..." he sighed "I'll be waiting for you, miss Anne. Good to see you!"
And without more delay, he turned to go – the distance I felt in him, the distance that had grown between us screamed, clear as the day, and yet it hid deep inside our reserves in a way we couldn't quite point out what it was. It simply... was there.
"You didn't come here only for that, I am sure!" I called him back, unnerved again – angry that his goodbye was such an easy, conformed one.
He stopped in his most recent step – and I'm sure a smile stretched across his lips, though I could not see them.
"If that was all you had to do, I'm sure your assistants could have easily conveyed a simple instruction such as 'come to my office'!"
"Do you happen to fancy a battle?!" He looked back with a teasing smile.
"No..." I replied "...I'm sure that's not what you came here to do, either!"
He turned and chuckled with his eyes closed again, walking to me, once more, in calm steps.
"And what is it you suppose I came here to do, pray tell!" He challenged, stopping right before me.
I looked him in the eye – my irritation amused him once more, enough for him to be willing to stay and poke it further.
"I don't know..." I looked around myself again, not wanting to be made a fool of "But I'm sure you wouldn't call me up here, where you know I couldn't run, if it was just to talk..."
A different muscle pulled up his lip and malice masked his face. I could almost read the thought – the exact memory that crossed his inward eye. In his turn, he read it in me when my thoughts intercepted his. I blushed, tortured by the exposure, he smiled a larger smile, enjoying himself.
"No! I don't mean..." I startled, my face burning red. His expression lightened up, and I realized I only announced the inconvenient memory occurring to me all the more.
"Of course you don't!" He lowered his head and chuckled "And though I have not come to either battle or... that which your vivid imagination implies..."
I blushed harder, and promptly prepared an angry protest – Sycamore expected it, and ignored it through quickly pursuing his point:
"...You must grant it is my right to come and see for myself what has been of you after six weeks of not the slightest contact! Only tell me..." he laughed to himself "Did you enjoy the 'fervent battle like none before' part? I figured this new persona you assumed could never resist it..." and a confident smile teased me.
"Nonsense!" I felt myself embarrass "I am the same person!"
"Sure you are..." he followed "That's why you have not answered any of my calls? Or returned them, for that matter? Throwing away your Pokédex in the first dumpster of Central Lumiose also sounds just like something your old self would do..." His smile was there, but his neck muscles visibly tensed, strangling an angrier tone from giving his impatience away.
"And though you seemed disappointed that I was no challenger, I confess myself quite the opposite: Your looks seem to have shifted to reflect the merciless trainer you've become – I must say black quite suits you..."
His hand stretched out in a bold reference to a previous intimacy he only felt half-comfortable with – it satisfied with rubbing his fingers against the neat collar of my trench coat. I examined his gaze throughout the gesture: He couldn't test the limits of his freedom as his anxious eyes urged him to... but he could push them a little farther:
"I wonder if it's all my doing..." his voice grew wet and composed, as low as it could go without turning into a whisper. His fingers, having rolled down the lapel, now felt their way around my coat's belt, penetrating the space behind them "That you should dress less girlish, more..." He lost the word, flashing me a sideways smile "If this is supposed to be a mourning frock, it provokes one into questioning: what is it you have lost of so important? You do seem gravely offended about it..." his hands quickly held both sides of the belt, and pulled the knot tighter in a vigorous movement, almost taking my breath away.
As I gasped in a small fright, he smiled as if he was satisfied with only that small form of punishment - for now, and he made sure I could see it in his eye. Now, letting go of me and actually turning to go, he recovered his unyielding tranquility, tucked his hands back into his coat and followed to the end of the platform.
"I'll be expecting you tomorrow, and I sincerely hope you won't fail to come to me this time. I believe you do appreciate there is a lot to talk about, what with you being this intelligent woman that you are now..." He casually instilled as he trod down the steps. "Civility is the least to be expected from one that carries herself as you do; and if nothing else, I deserve as much!"
I remained in my position, rehearsing a protest, or anything I could say to at least contradict him – even if just for the sake of contradicting! At the same time, I tried to conceal my feelings. Watching him go, his pale skin growing pink around his eyes and nose as the cold wind flailed them, his jet-black hair flowing back, framing the erect collar of his coat… I specially tried not to betray myself – not to open a box I had carefully sealed through hard work and sleepless nights.
But... as he disappeared from view, and as I walked back, sat – or rather fell on the bench – my chest couldn't help it: The knots of resolve had been too soft... now they all came undone, one by one, and I embraced my own stomach – it hurt! My bones threatened to shake again... I missed him! God, had I missed him!