She took the Midnight Train

[friendyousohard]

Who: Twilight Sparkle (friendyousohard) and Fluttershy (3_butterflies)
Where: On the Magnet Train from Goldenrod to Saffron (and maybe some stuff in Saffron).
When: Sunday Morning to Night.
Summary: Twilight's discovered that a quick trip to Saffron City can earn her the Fly HM much faster than hiking (and surfing) all the way out to Cianwood ever could. Being her logical self, she's taking this easy route (heh). Fluttershy is coming along for moral support.
Rating: I highly doubt we'll top G.
Log:

Twilight couldn't believe she'd never thought of this before. Then again, she'd just assumed until Riku had mentioned otherwise that there was only one place that gave out the Fly HM. She figured it was hard to get for a reason, namely the convenience of it.

But here she was, heading down on a much simpler, easier path to get the same reward. Sure, the tickets had been pricey, but her winning streak against trainers and gyms alike had more than paid for the whole thing, and once she had that HM in her hands travel would be so much less of a hassle.

Unless she was going somewhere she hadn't been before, anyway, but you couldn't win them all.

Settled in on the train next to Fluttershy, she fiddled absently with her Pokedex, looking up various Psychic-types. It was more a nervous habit than anything, as she didn't think the leader even had the species she was looking at.

"Huh. According to this, a Reuniclus's arms can crush boulders even though they're made of liquid. Fascinating..."

She'd been doing this the whole trip, but she just couldn't think of anything else to occupy her mind. Looking out the window again and once again being reminded that there was no scenery, she sighed and went back to the dex.

Comments

[3_butterflies]

Fluttershy was nervous and excited as well, but for reasons of her own. Rainbow Dash was here, and even though she'd lost her memories again, it was still absolutely wonderful to see her again. Fluttershy still deeply missed all of her friends, and she was very eager to see her high flying pegasus companion. She tried to pay attention to Twilight's smart talk, though it wasn't easy at times.

"Psychic types can read minds, can't they? How are you going to fight her team if they know what you're thinking? And you're always thinking..."

[friendyousohard]

If she was thinking about it, Twilight would have remembered that most of her babble went over Fluttershy's head, but she was just too keyed up to worry about it at the moment. And with Fluttershy not being the type to remind her, she could blabber on for a while.

Fortunately, every so often one of them would say something that would get an actual conversation going, rather than Twilight just talking to herself or at Fluttershy instead of with her.

"That's a good point, but it's actually against the rules for a pokemon to read the opposing trainer's mind in a match. I wouldn't count on that in a fight against, say, Team Rocket, which is one of the reasons why I have Starswirl, but I'd hope a Gym Leader can be counted on to play by the rules, if no one else."

Then again, who would know if she broke them?

[3_butterflies]

Fluttershy nodded slowly, and leaned back in her seat. If she was to be of any use to Twilight during this match, she'd need to try and catch up to Twilight's brain... which wasn't easy.

"Psychic types are weak against Dark and Bug... Megasoma would have been a good choice, but he's also a Fighting type, which is weak against Psychic... but maybe that's for the best... with his attitude, well... another crying gym leader would have been bad..."

[friendyousohard]

"He still might be able to do a bit of damage before they bring him down. With his raw power combined with the Megahorn attack, a lot of Psychic-types would go down so quickly they wouldn't even be able to take advantage of his type weakness. But actually, I think my ace in the hole is going to be completely different. Since she has Crunch, a powerful dark-type attack, I think it might be time for Sapphire to shine."

She looked down at the ball carrying her ginormous normal-type, and smiled. "Sapphire can take anything they dish out, and her only weakness is fighting moves. Unless Sabrina's packing a Medicham, I don't think she can possibly be ready for her. Besides... it's about time she actually got a chance to show what she can do."

[3_butterflies]

Fluttershy beamed, more than happy for Sapphire's sake. "That's true! And if that doesn't work... Sapphire can just fall on them! She's quite the big girl." She means this as a compliment, of course. "But no matter what, you'll definitely win. There's no Gym you can't take down. And just think... right now, Rainbow Dash is waiting for us. And we were just talking about her! Maybe she'll even get to stay for a while!"

It was a sad reality that Fluttershy had accepted her friends would disappear so soon. But she would take in as much time as possible, almost bouncing in her seat at the thought of being with her fellow pegasus.

[friendyousohard]

Twilight chuckled at that comment, nodding. "She really is. A good body slam from her will take most Pokemon right out of the fight." Fluttershy's easy certainty that she could take on anything had her flushing, but appreciatively. "Ah, well... I'm glad you think so. I guess we'll see, huh? As for Rainbow..."

She paused a bit, trying to think of the best way to phrase what she wanted to say. "I'll beat the gym, get the HM, we'll head back and Fly to Violet to pick her up, and from there, well... who knows? But at the very least, we'll be together."

All three of them, together. It was better than they'd had in a long time. She just hoped it'd last...

[3_butterflies]

Now there was another thing to look forward to. "And flying..." As much as she preferred the ground to the air, she often missed the wind beneath her wings, and being able to simply flap up to a tree to help a poor animal. She allowed herself to pause in memories, before nodding again. "Flying on a Pokemon... that will be so wonderful too... going through the sky, and looking down at how small the ground looks... It's been so long..."

[friendyousohard]

"I'm a little surprised, I thought the idea might scare you." Twilight was hardly going to complain about this particular topic, though. "Or is it that you don't have any problems trusting yourself to our Pokemon?"

She could see that, actually. Fluttershy being who she was, she might even be more comfortable flying on the back of a pokemon than doing it herself, simply because she'd trust them to do it right. And it wasn't like Fluttershy never flew, far from it, in fact... she just didn't usually fly as high, or as far, or anywhere near as fast as Twilight planned to have her Pokemon go.

[3_butterflies]

"Of course I trust our Pokemon." Why, she trusted their flying capabilities more than she trusted her own. But that was probably more to her lack of self confidence. "They can do just about anything. Surely carrying a couple of humans won't be much of a problem... I don't even know if a pegasus could carry a single human that far. It's really amazing if you think about it."

[friendyousohard]

"You raise a good point. Of course, ponies of any sort don't usually get as big as Spike... or even as big as Apus, for that matter. So that might have something to do with it. Spike, I think he could fly all three of us around and barely even notice we were there." An exaggeration, sure, but not all that much of one. Dragonites in general were pretty darn strong, and Spike was no exception. He probably could actually fly the three around if they stopped for regular breaks.

Though that did bring up another problem. "Do you think Dash will be alright leaving the flying to them?" Not that she had much choice, mind, but it would be a good idea to think up any issues that might arise.

[3_butterflies]

Uh-oh. Fluttershy blinked, having momentarily forgotten about Dash's pride. "... oh, dear." She sunk in her seat a little, hoping that it wouldn't be too big of an issue. Dash wouldn't throw a crying tantrum like Whitney, but she could be horribly upset in her own ways. ""Well... I'm sure she'll warm up to it? Maybe by the time we get there, she'll... just have to understand? I mean, it's not like there's anything else we can do about it..."

[friendyousohard]

"I know we can't really do anything, I just... I want to be prepared for whatever her reaction might be. I mean, this is the loss of one of the most important things in the world to her, I can't even imagine what her reaction might be."

She gave Fluttershy a hopeful look. "You've known her the longest. Do you really think she'll be okay?"

[3_butterflies]

Fluttershy sighed deeply, knowing she needed to be honest. "Well... it can go one of two ways... Either she'll be very angry and jealous and pout for a really long time... Or she'll want to fly everywhere and it'll be hard to make her stop." There was the possibility for a middle ground, but Dash tended to have her emotions to the extreme.

[friendyousohard]

"Neither of which is particularly healthy." Twilight sighed as she pictured both reactions. It was almost sad how easy it was to do so. "Not that I expected it to be. So, let's say it's the first. What should we do to help her get through that?"

A few ideas of her own came to mind, but she wanted Fluttershy's opinion badly on this. Missing one little detail about how to approach Rainbow on the subject, even if she thought she was doing everything correctly, could be disastrous.

[3_butterflies]

Fortunately, despite how long it had been since she'd seen dear Dash, Fluttershy knew her friend like the back of her hoof... er, hand. "After we comfort her, we have to encourage her. She loves being the fastest pegasus around... so we'll try to encourage her to be the fastest and best human around! Maybe help her into an exercise regimen in order to help her adjust to her new body... She just needs a healthy dose of competition to take her mind off of the changes." because if there was one thing Dash loved, it was competition, and being the best. The contest had merely changed, that was all... sort of.

[friendyousohard]

"Well at least competition isn't going to be that hard to find, here. We're going to have to keep her away from the idea of challenging me to a Pokemon battle, though, at least until she's got a much stronger team." Twilight didn't even want to think about Dash's reaction if she made that mistake and wound up crushed... which she would be. The only one of Twi's Pokemon Dash would have a prayer against would be Echo, and even that was up in the air until she'd trained a bit.

"Exercise regimens, though, I can do. And she won't really need one until she gets to Violet anyway, seeing as how she'll be on the move every day until then." And those kind of trips, whatever else they might be, were absolutely terrific for getting in shape.

[3_butterflies]

What a relief. Fluttershy smiled, feeling at ease now that they got over this little hill, for now. But then that left the matter of competition between Twilight and Dash. That would be inevitable, and she didn't like the sound of that. Dash did like the idea of Gyms, and she had sounded envious of Twilight's badges so far. "That reminds me... She may want to take on the gyms as well... We might have to revisit some cities..."

But then, an idea! "And you could train her for that, too! You can teach her all about Pokemon battles!"

[friendyousohard]

"Yeah, I more or less anticipated that. Do you think we should just fly to the cities, or bring her along the whole way?"

The idea of training Dash did have merit. Particularly as it could give her a way to demonstrate the various uses of a fully balanced team, well-trained team. A sort of "this is what you can look forward to having" method of encouragement.

It would also probably demonstrate to Rainbow how bad of an idea challenging Twilight would really be.

[3_butterflies]

"Whatever you two wish to do is fine with me." She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feel of the train. It was nice to relax, thinking of the happy future they would all have. Even the worst of the troubles was small, compared to the fact they'd be with Dash again. "Both are good... I'm just happy to see her again."

[friendyousohard]

"So you're saying we should keep the planning for later?" Twilight pondered the idea for a moment, nodding. "Yeah, that makes sense. There is such a thing as thinking too far ahead, after all. Especially since I haven't even figured out a full plan for fighting Sabrina. One thing at a time, right?"

[3_butterflies]

"One thing at a time." She opened her eyes midway, in order to see so she could pat Twilight's hand. Sometimes Twilight thought too much, whereas Fluttershy chose to coast. "Let's just focus on one thing at a time... like dealing with Sabrina. And that will be no sweat, like we said before. Then we can deal with Rainbow Dash, and whatever comes of that."

[friendyousohard]

"Right. There's no point trying to do everything at once, after all." Pausing a moment to try to order her thoughts, she added in: "Though, I'll admit it's kind of hard not to let my mind drift right now. I think this train ride is almost too relaxing."