After three days of hiking up the valleys and along the slopes we managed to reach the Celestic Pass. It was the highest point we had to cross between Eterna City and Celestic Town, a largely unremarkable stretch of path between two mountains. Other than a marker, there was nothing there and sadly, the mountains blocked most of the view we might have had otherwise. We joked around for a minute or two, standing in front of the marker so each of our legs was on one side of the divide between Eastern and Western Sinnoh, but there wasn’t anything to do or celebrate. If anything, we could be glad that we had managed to travel roughly half the distance between the two towns.

“You know, maybe we should have checked out that cave yesterday,” Lucas suggested, as we continued along the pass.

“What for? Sure, there might be some sort of mystery there, but really, I doubt it. It’s not like we are the first group that travelled this path, I mean, it’s an official Route for Arceus' sake, where hundreds of trainers travel on every year,” I paused for a moment, letting out a sigh. Lucas looked quite disappointed, but couldn’t really argue the point.

“Given that it’s one of two Routes through the Coronal Mountains, it might even be more than a few hundred trainers, might even be a thousand. If you want mystery, we’d have to head off the beaten path, but I doubt we have the strength to go deeply into the Coronal Mountains,” I shook my head, “No, it’s far too risky, we might go to Celestic Town and explore from there a little but not when we want to travel from town to town,” I reasoned, getting a thoughtful look from Lucas.

“Why didn’t you suggest to explore from Eterna City?” Cliff asked, sounding only mildly interested.

“Because I don’t like the town,” I admitted with a shrug, “The people were…” I looked for the right word, something that expressed my discomfort with their rules and open dislike for Pokémon and their trainers but came up empty. Luckily, the others nodded in understanding, maybe they had the same sentiment.

“It was a little strange that they didn’t even let Gem carry Terrance into town when he was hurt. I mean, sure, they can have their rules, but shouldn’t there be some flexibility? What if his wound had gotten worse due to the delay?” I grumbled, trying to express the frustration in my heart.

“Their town, their rules.” Now it was Cliff’s turn to shrug, before continuing, “We don’t know why they established that rule, so we can’t really judge. Might be a good reason for it.”

“And really, I doubt the fifteen minutes in treatment made a difference after three days,” Lucas added, quite rounding quite reasonable.

“They are still strange and I don’t think I’ll head back there again,” I mumbled, still unable to put the discomfort into words.

“You might have to, as you said, there are only two ways through the mountains. Unless you start going off-Route in the future, you’ll either have to head back through here or take the southern pass.” Lucas reminded me, making me grumble some more.

Our conversation ended when Claire, who had been in the lead, raised her hand, warning us of trouble. Looking around, I didn’t spot the enemy immediately, even as Claire sent out Nuts to do battle.

“Go, over there,” she directed and as she pointed, I was finally able to spot the foe she had noticed earlier. It was, as so often since we started our journey through the Coronal Mountains, a Geodude and given that it had yet to move when Claire noticed it, I was quite impressed.

Nuts immediately started towards it, razor-sharp leaves growing on his slender arms and he managed to cover the distance before the Geodude was able to do much more than rising from the ground. There was no way for it to dodge the swift attack and both Razor Leaves struck right in its centre.

I was about to consider the battle over, when I noticed movement on the other side of the pass, a little higher up on a ledge. Looking up, I noticed a slender, humanoid figure, quite similar in shape to Nuts, but instead of nut-brown with green leaves, the figure was light blue, with a white, almost mushroom-shaped head. We might have disturbed the Meditete’s meditation and from the looks of it, it wasn’t happy about our interference.

“I’ll take care of the one up there,” I told the others, briefly considering who to send out. Charm had fought just earlier, taking down a Bronzor, so either Vio or Su. Given that Meditite was Psychic and Fighting, my hand went to Vio’s Pokéball, sending her out just as the Meditite started sliding down the mountain in a graceful motion.

“Vio, go,” I ordered, “Let’s sing for it, so it can go back to sleep,” I mocked, Vio eagerly moving forward and the hot-pink glow of Fairy attacks already gathering around her horns. As she raised her voice, it echoed beautifully from the high walls around us, creating a strange harmony that made me want to join in. With a smile on my face, I started to softly sing along, trying to cheer my partner on that way. It seemed to work and as the hot-pink glow started to envelop the Meditite’s head, Vio started to sing even more enthusiastically.

Sadly, just a simple, single song wasn’t enough to send the angry yogi packing and it swiftly advanced towards Vio.

“Let’s not give it a chance, dodge,” I cheered her on, as the Meditite jumped forward, its leg shrouded in the glow of a fighting-style attack.

Vio, as so often, simply spun aside, using the spin to create momentum and distance. She didn’t manage to perfectly evade, but was quick enough to only get glanced by the attack and used the short distance to raise her fingers to her lips, shrouding them in energy before pressing them to the Meditite’s face in a Draining Kiss.

The combination of attacks was enough to stagger the Meditite and I was about to have Vio keep going, when Lucas’ voice broke into the fight, “That one got potential, anyone interested?” he asked, catching my attention. He was pointing at the Meditite and behind me, Claire looked over with interest in her eyes.

“Can we switch?” she asked, clearly interested in the slender martial artist.

“Sure,” I agreed, the Meditite unable to catch my interest. Sure, it had the moxie to attack, but there was something lacking about it, it didn’t make my blood boil like the Larvitar we had seen a couple of days before.

“Nuts, we change places,” Claire directed and we both moved aside a little directing our Pokémon to the foe of the other. It was a bit of a risky, slightly annoying manoeuvre, with the potential to make both foes flee or attack in reckless abandon but in this case, it seemed to work out.

Vio and I changed our tactics, and she started to send out waves of Psychic Energy befuddling the Geodude, making it unable to discern where to move and what to do. It was our standard tactic and against a lot of weaker Pokémon, it was incredibly effective. The Geodude tried to slap some mud at Vio, but she dodged aside and it only made her focus harder to punish the attempt. Once Vio’s temper got going, my Shrinking Violet became quite the scary little fairy.

Before long, the Geodude dropped to the ground, unable to move and knocked out. Turning around, I saw that Claire had managed to corner the Meditite and already had a Pokéball in hand. After Nuts managed to land yet another Razor Leaf, Claire threw the ball, easily managing to get it close enough to attempt the capture. A surge of red light flashed out and the Meditite got sucked in, the ball dropping to the ground and visibly starting to shake.

The shaking intensified and sadly, after a few moments, the ball broke apart, the Meditite re-appearing in another flash of light.

“Crud,” Claire cursed, before directing Nuts to knock the Meditite out. Given how weakened it was by now, there was little challenge involved and after yet another attack, the Meditite fainted.

Claire walked over, making sure that it wasn’t overly hurt, before pointing her Pokédex at it again.

“Could we maybe camp somewhere nearby? It might have rejected me because I wasn’t the first one to challenge it,” she asked, sounding hopeful.

Looking at the other two, and up to the sky, I shrugged, not minding making our travelling day a bit shorter.

“Sure, we can do that,” Lucas accepted, “I think I heard there’s supposed to be a small lake somewhere nearby. Maybe we can go there to get some water and wash up,” he added, the allure of getting clean instantly scouring any resistance from my mind.