Within just a couple days Gwen was beginning to get back much of her strength. While Emma still wouldn't let Mick see the Ekans on his own, she had definitely gotten less hostile around her... In a way. While she was no longer actively growling at the snake pokemon, she still had a slight scowl on her face whenever she walked into the snake's room. Mick was almost constantly checking on Gwen to make sure she made a full recovery, finally satisfied once she got to within five pounds of the weight she was supposed to have.
That was when she made a slightly odd request...
"Mick..." Gwen began hesitantly, catching the little fire-mouse's attention. "... C-could I come with you on your journey?"
The little Cyndaquil gave her a slightly confused look. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I heard from Vinny that you are looking to travel... and... well... I wanted to go with you." At his continued puzzled look she let out a sigh and continued. "You've been so nice to me even though you have more than enough reason to abandon me and have me fend for myself... I... I want to travel with you, I don't have much use in a city like this, so I want to find a place where I can help, and I think that I can be of help... to you..."
She had her eyes closed, just waiting for his refusal, for Emma to start yelling at her, for anything really... except...
"Hm... I'll have to think about it. I can certainly see the use of having a poison type around, although that does mean we may have to make a small change to the travel plans. But I'm sure we can work it in."
Gwen gasped a little in surprise, switching to as much of a smile as she could, and leaned forward to give him a delighted nuzzle that forced Emma to tense up a bit. "Thank you so much..." the Ekans squealed.
Mick simply waved a paw. "No problem, The more the merrier. We're even going to see Arceus so we'll be able to find a whole bunch of pokemon to battle and help get stronger." He explained with a smile as he got up. "Besides, I want to see everyone get stronger, not just me... so I wanted you to come anyway." He bounced a little with each step as he left the room, followed closely by Emma who shot the Ekans a bit of a warning look.
Despite the threatening gesture, Gwen's chest felt a lot lighter than it had in a long time. If it weren't for the fact that she knew she didn't have wings, she could've sworn she had been floating on a cloud. She curled up and for once, felt like she had someone who cared.
Mick was exhausted, every moment he spent up was used to practice either his moves or his agility so that he could make sure his new smaller size wouldn't put him too badly at odds with anyone he had to fight. As such, when he had the option to simply crash on what certainly did appear to be a comfortable couch, he made no protests and nearly passed out as soon as he hit the upholstery. Even when Emma was trying to wake him for a meal he stubbornly refused to wake up by simply making whiny growls and flailing a paw at random.
With a slight pout Emma began to think of a way to get him to get up long enough to eat, which led to a weaselly smile spreading its way across her mouth. "Fine... if you don't want to eat, I guess you don't get the apple pie that Widget made for desert."
It came as a tiny bit of a shock that, in hindsight, she should have expected when he let out a small groan similar to "...Meh..." and flailed the closest paw he could. She gave out a small chuckle and gave up. "Fine... You probably should feel tired after the day you've had anyway." With a smile she leaned down to plant a small kiss on his head.
The Next Day (13)
The training ring that Mick had procured now had a couple of burning dummies, with Emma, Gwen and Widget on the sidelines to be sure nothing else caught on fire, Quite a few of the dummies had long needles sticking out of them in various places.
Gwen looked over to Emma, "With all his training... why didn't he ever compete in the pokemon league?"
The Quilava shrugged a little. "A little of it had to do with his parents and... me... being a tad overprotective and not wanting to leave until he was a bit older, while the rest of it was just that he never had the desire to travel very far from home. He grew up his entire life without seeing Goldenrod City up close."
"Wait...! Goldenrod? He's from the Jhoto region!?"
"That's right." Emma confirmed. "Why?"
"You guys lived literally just a couple days travel from where I did, I lived just outside Goldenrod City."
That was enough to give Emma pause, "Well... maybe pokemon from similar regions had a big likelihood of appearing in nearby places..."
Widget gave them both a confused look. "Pokemon League? What's a Pokemon League?"
Emma had opened her mouth to begin answering before she was cut off by Mick landing nearby. "The Pokemon League... Was a region-encompassing test of skill, strategy, and power. Each of the known regions had their major leadership and influence based on the Pokemon Gym that was in each town or city."
Widget nodded as she sat down, eager to learn more about where the pokemon came from.
"Generally, each gym had one major unifying type, usually based on the kinds of pokemon that lived in the area, but more than not just focused on the gym leader's preference..."
"... And with that we wrap up the general power structure of my old world..." Mick finished just to turn and rub his eyes in surprise when he noticed he had an audience of quite a few diamond dogs and a sizable number of pokemon. "A-any questions...?" He prompts as he looks over the small crowd.
He pointed to a female diamond dog pup, he had recently noticed that the females had features similar to the poochyena evolution line while the males tended to resemble the snubbul line, "Yes?"
The diamond dog slowly stood, her adorable eyes trained on Mick while her paws hugged the Poochyena next to her close enough to make him balance on two legs as he let out a surprised yelp. "Poochy here told me that there were mean people where you guys lived... that didn't love pokemon like they should have... What did the leeg do to them?"
That caused Mick to hum a little. "Well... They were some pretty big organizations that were hard to bring down at once... but whenever the police or rangers found the bad people who hurt pokemon just to be mean, they were stopped as quickly as they could be."
"Well... Poochy was talking about those Team Wocket people...He said that they made a lot of pokemon sad..."
"That they did... but you want to know who stopped them?"
Everyone seemed to be dead quiet, even the sound of the city clanging around them seemed to want to listen in on his response as the pup nodded.
His smile grew as he stood proudly, "A trainer no older than me by the name of Red, he beat their boss and their boss disbanded the organization so that they wouldn't be such a big problem in Kanto and Jhoto anymore."
The girl looked at him in awe, "Really...?"
"Yeah, that's what the bonds between pokemon and their trainers were truly about... Believing in yourself and helping each other to become stronger than before." With that he went and struck a dramatic pose as his entire third of a meter height could give him. "BECAUSE BONDING WITH YOUR POKEMON CAN OVERCOME ANY CHALLENGE LIFE THROWS AT YOU!"
While the rest of the crowd was clapping, Gwen and Emma had tensed up when they noticed each other chuckling over Mick's dramatics, It was unspoken... but it was there...
... at least just a small piece of the wall between them began to come down, nothing too big, but possibly a place to start.