Funny, actually, that so many people considered silence awkward. Meg didn’t, really. Sure, she liked to put on headphones and listen to some music when on her own, but especially in company, she never really minded silence. Or rather, not talking, given that in a city like Slateport, silence wasn’t exactly a commodity that was being traded, even when everything else was. Especially not in the aftermath of a recent space-time distortion. Emergency services were on their way, clearly, but neither she nor Jojo needed any help, so sticking around would only lead to needless questions. And those were inedible.
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Either way, she saw no reason to talk, just enjoying purposefully walking besides another human for once. But that did not mean she would ignore a question asked, of course. “Ah, well, I guess I had Arca here for like, years. But I have only really started actively training a little over a year ago. As in, taking it seriously, going on a Pokemon journey, challenging gyms. Already beat a few of those, too. Who knows, maybe I will have one of my own at some point.” Naturally, she was playing it way cooler than it really was. She desperately wanted to become a gym leader eventually and was betting her life’s trajectory on that. But sounding like it was some kind of natural outcome of her disposition just made it sound more amazing, so she tried to invoke that.
“What about you?”



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Ah. More praise. That was good. Good indeed. She didn’t quite get enough of that most of the time. Sure, when she won her badges she had gotten some praise indeed. But that had been of strangers she’d met once. Not exactly something like this. Which was a stranger that so far she had met once. But it was different! She was not a gym leader evaluating her. That made it something else for sure.
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“Haha, yeah, I guess I did quite a bit,” she replied, a bit awkward about it but clearly enjoying the praise nonetheless. It was probably way too easy to manipulate her with those sorts of things, if one tried. Fortunately, this girl so far did not. “Though I guess it’s in part just because I am doing only this. Or at least mostly this. I am sure if you fully devoted yourself to the training life, you will get somewhere quickly, too. You seemed to know your way well enough in a fight earlier, even if it was probably way scarier than what most Pokemon battles are like.” Granted, that was only true in the city. She still remembered when they had had to all but wrangle that Hydreigon. That had certainly been all kinds of scary, too.
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Fortunately, the question for more details made it easy to divert from that. And allowed her to whip out her badge case. “I got these! That’s the rhythm, skyrider and honor badge. The honor and skyrider badges were really tight matches, battles of attrition, really. Rhythm, well, uh, I just happened to get that by battling a gym leader during the summer tournament. Didn’t even know she was one. But she gave me the badge afterwards still.” Another laugh. That way, she could downplay the fact that this had been a pity badge, given for a battle lost due to a single sleep effect. Hence she always carried berries against that these days.



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“Oh, yeah, there was one on the beaches, back when it truly was super hot. I myself didn’t get the notice until it was almost there to begin with. Rushed over and managed to get one single battle. And that turned out to be a gym leader incognito. What are the odds?” She laughed once more, her good mood completely undeterred, while she tried to spy the store. It should be about there, but she actually had not been here since her last visit two years ago, so things were a little bit fuzzy. However, thankfully, it was the kind of place that also sold smaller pizza and pizza-adjacent things for people on the go, so her nose picked the proper scent up quickly.
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Which then caused her to quickly turn a bit left, making a bit of a beeline towards where she thought to be seeing the storefront, Jojo in tow. “Anyway, if you want to start getting badges, I guess just try one and see how it is? Sure, it’s a big deal and one should prepare and stuff. But at the end of the day, if you lose, you don’t really lose anything. They are supposed to be learning experiences. Winning is always more fun, but losing isn’t half bad either, at least when you are not fighting for life and limb.” In that way, being in the wild and fighting Pokemon out there was much more dangerous and difficult than any gym challenge, which was odd because travels like that often did connect one gym challenge to the next.



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“Hmm, good question, actually,” she replied, rubbing her chin as she walked. Fortunately, the place they were looking for wasn’t all too crowded, so they could either get something to eat on the way, or take a seat. She didn’t really care either, so she subtly allowed the other to go in first, if she so desired, and make that call. It wasn’t something she really did consciously, though, so it did not much interrupt her musings, however.
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“I guess if I really had to pick one of them, I would say the Honour badge would probably make most sense. Gym leader seems a bit like a weirdo, but he’s fair and not too much of a try-hard. Though you probably should read up on bug types before going there.” She had to laugh at that last part, vividly remembering her own fail in that regard. It had been a rather memorable sight, seeing her Lucario and a Volbeat beating one another with very ineffective moves. She still did not exactly take responsibility for that, though. “You never really have anything to lose, though, so I reckon you could just tackle whichever happens to be near when you feel ready. That’s how I went about it. If you want to beat them all, you will have to get around to whichever it is anyway. So might as well try right away.”



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“I am known to make those from time to time.” Well, at least she should have been. Not like her manager back in the day would have known. He had always just dismissed her. Sure, some of the ideas she’d had were half-baked at best, but that was where a good manager would have tried to improve upon them, not outright ignore them. But…that was in the past now. In fact, she now had a young woman all but hanging on her lips, even though she had only been like, one year ahead of the other. Funny how that worked sometimes. “But yeah, stopping to worry and starting to simply do things is usually how you best get started. Trust me, took me years to get to that point – “ and punching a man who probably had not deserved that strong a reaction in the face “ – but once I did, I started doing much better right away.”

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And frankly, that was what kept her going these days. Not the best of origin stories, but at least it was hers and hers alone in that regard. Sadly though, her subversive tactics had themselves been subverted – just by the other asking her what best to do next. Not that she could fault the girl on that, to be honest. “I am actually not quite sure. But I guess I haven’t heard of those distortions happening right after one another, so we can probably risk getting in and stretching our legs. It will be fine, I guess.”



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