The Sailors’ Café proves to be one of the largest buildings in Olivine. Which isn’t saying too much on its own, considering Olivine’s choice to have smaller buildings sprawl out in all directions rather than build upwards, but even in Goldenrod, the Café would still be remarkable. It sits just outside of the cargo area of Olivine’s Port, part of a four story monstrosity of a construction that also holds a hotel, a spa, a recreation center and a laundromat, amongst other things.
Doro stops listing the many facilities held within the Olivine Café at that point, in favor of simply dragging Ran along to the top floor. There, the term ‘café’ proves to be somewhat of a misnomer, as they instead enter a massive all you can eat buffet style restaurant. Just a quick look around at the clientele confirms what the Café’s name already hinted at.
This place heavily focuses on serving sailors and other people with nautical professions. Not that Ran and Doro are the only trainers in the enormous room, which has ballroomlike proportions, but they’re a very small minority indeed. As Ran takes a look at the fees and the terms and conditions, he also realizes just why that is.
The charged rates are exorbitant for any person with a normal appetite, especially for those who only want to partake for an hour. However, for those both capable and willing of gorging themselves for a few hours on end, suddenly the value proposition shifts to a major degree, as the price doesn’t rise commensurately with the extra time at all.
Viewed in that light, the many sailors aren’t a surprising sight. After all, if their ships are docked, it’s not as if they can’t spare the time and they’ve probably got physically demanding jobs. Doro’s clear enthusiasm for visiting this place would be more surprising, if Ran hadn’t gotten a pretty clear view of just how many calories she burns through in a day.
Clearly, he won’t personally be frequenting this place, like Doro seems to be planning, but for a one-time splurge, he’s more than willing to indulge, even if they’re just staying an hour. Soon enough, he’s carrying a first plate, filled modestly with some appetizers, to the small table they’ve been allocated to. Unsurprisingly, when Doro joins him, her own plate is easily twice as full as his.
“So, what do you think?” She asks enthusiastically, before starting to wolf down the meal in front of her.
“It’s impressive,” Ran allows with a slight smile, “Though calling this place ‘Café’ is a bit of a misnomer, isn’t it?”
Doro nods in agreement, swallowing the bite she’s chomping down on before answering once her mouth is empty, “I looked into that, when I was here before. This is the fourth iteration of the same business. It grew along with the port itself. Four generations ago, it really was ‘just’ a café, and the name was never changed.”
Ran accepts the explanation easily, the conversation flowing organically, interrupted only to eat and to go and get more food. By the time their hour ends, Ran’s just about ready to go lie down and sleep, whilst Doro looks as if she’d be more than happy to tack on another hour, but her desire to lead him on an evening tour proves to be greater still. Thankfully, the rain has stopped at least.
They start, upon exiting the Café, by turning to the Port.
A large part of the Port, really everything that handles cargo shipping, is obviously off-limits to them. Which isn’t a surprise, but as the Café sits closest to those parts of the Port, they do end up having to walk for some fifteen minutes, before finally reaching the more touristy, public, commercial part of the Port.
What Doro leads him to is the quintessential kind of yacht harbor that belongs on a postcard, with narrow and quant piers sprouting out from the coastline, which recedes here to form a natural bowl-shaped harbour, and countless small sailing ships moored on all of them. As for the buildings that ring the natural harbor, there’s charming seafood restaurants, quaint souvenir shops and fishing supply stores as far as the eye can see. Doro doesn’t seem too impressed, but Ran doesn’t even try to hide just how charmed he is by it all.
“You didn’t consider one of these restaurants for dinner?” Ran asks his companion, gesturing expansively towards the many trainers and not-sailors he can see frequenting the many establishments, “We would’ve fit in a lot better here.”
Doro scoffs, shaking her head incredulously, “You think this would have been better? A strong trainer needs hearty fare, not these unfulfilling half plates these people dare call a main course.”
“We don’t all need to eat as much as you, Doro,” Ran disagrees mildly, “For us feeble mortals, what you consider a half plate is usually a full meal.”
“Pah, you just don’t appreciate good food yet. Don’t worry, my rival. I shall save you from your foolishness yet.” Doro states in what Ran hopes is an attempt at a joke, though her expression is worryingly serious for his tastes.
Opting to distract her, for his own safety, Ran starts to wander forwards once more, “Well, this place is lovely, but I doubt your tour is just an enjoyable trek along the coastline, right?”
“You are correct,” Doro acknowledges immediately, “We shall go to the Lighthouse.”
“Doro, the Lighthouse is miles away, it’s almost entirely on the other side of the city.” Ran responds slowly, trying to impress upon his rival just how he feels about the idea.
“Indeed,” Doro agrees swiftly, “It will allow us to take in most of Olivine Beach. Besides, a good, brisk walk after dinner shall help you with digestion.”
Ran looks at her warily for a few long moments, before finally letting out a beleaguered sigh, “Alright, fine. For future reference, I want it on record that my digestion is also fine without taking any absurd walks.”
“So noted.” Doro confirms, before starting to lead the way.
They start to walk along the boulevard, or what passes for Olivine City’s boulevard. It isn’t a massively wide or impressive path by any means, but with the beach and sea on one side and Olivine’s uniquely small buildings on the other, it should make for an enjoyable enough walk nevertheless.
Especially as unlike most of the city, the boulevard has clear signage allowing for pokémon to be out of their balls. Something both Ran and Doro make immediate use of. It makes for a busy moment, as they suddenly go from a party of two to a group of ten, but with their teams at the very least having met already, even if they aren’t particularly familiar with each other, the situation isn’t as chaotic as it could have been. Not that that’s saying all that much.
Ran focuses on his own team, allowing Doro to do the same for her own squad as well.
With twilight in its waning moments and the city’s artificial lighting being sufficient but somewhat sparse, Golbat is clearly in his element, only waiting for a single approving nod from Ran before he’s flying up to the nearest light post so that he can hang from it comfortably. Not that the rest of his team is far behind in their enthusiasm. His first three pokémon all had a natural preference for being active at night already and through circumstance, his fourth and fifth members seem to fit quite nicely into that mold as well.
Which in a way isn’t exactly ideal for Ran of course, who keeps to a far more human, diurnal schedule. Of course his team has generally adapted to his rhythm, but its moments like these, as he watches them all enthusiastically take in their surroundings, nearly buzzing with energy, when he wonders if there’s any concessions he could make to their natural schedules, when he’s not beholden to things like Gyms’ opening hours.
The sight of Caesar, whose whole hood vibrates slightly as he lets out a pleased hiss, and Aria, who wiggles in place eagerly whilst taking in her surroundings, is reminiscent of the enthusiasm they used to show back in Azalea Town, when Ran planned late night or extremely early morning training sessions. Of course their bodies are different and so the moves and sounds aren’t exactly the same, but there’s a clear remnant of the behavior they showed as small, unevolved pokémon in their actions.
It’s that realization that has Ran pay some extra attention to Skorupi in particular, who of course has already managed to scramble up his back, where he’s attached like a limpet, and Croagunk, who is as cheery as ever, offering another croaked ‘hello’, to the rest of the team’s dismay, when he notices Ran’s eyes on him. Taking up three-fourths of the boulevard for the moment, as Ran greets all his pokémon and starts to catch them up on their plans for the evening, Ran does for a moment feel awkward when an older couple has to walk single file for a moment, to be able to pass the congregation of his and Doro’s teams.
He raises an apologetic hand, but the couple in question waves him off, with the older lady in particular visibly melting when she catches sight of Skorupi clinging onto his back. Her husband, or that’s who Ran assumes the man to be at least, is less enthusiastic, attention tensely shifting between Caesar and Aria, but he too proves unable to resist Croagunk’s cheery wave, which he answers with a brisk nod, before hurrying his wife along. As they pass, Ran can just catch the lady gushing about ‘that adorable bug-type’ on his back, whilst its good that he only catches the very first words of the man’s response, as the snappish way in which says ‘exclusively poison-types’ implies that whatever he responds to his wife, Ran doesn’t want to hear it.
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Fortunately, rather than get too distracted, he’s brought back to attention by Doro, who has clearly already finished talking to her own team, with the fighting-types neatly paired up and clearly eager to get going. Ran’s own team is a bit more rambunctious and less-organized, though it only takes him a few seconds to check if any of them want to be returned to their balls, which they don’t.
They start walking down the boulevard, with Golbat periodically flying ahead to a light post before he hangs from it until the procession catches up and passes it, at which point he easily flies ahead once more. As for the rest of his team, they’re all more than happy to travel with the group, though with Skorupi eagerly clinging onto his back, his head just popping over Ran’s shoulder so that he can keep an eye on where they’re going, Ran’s own team can’t neatly pair up like Doro’s own.
Fortunately, that’s easily remedied by Aria who, clearly having taken inspiration from the race in Cianwood, happily settles on Caesar’s back to let herself be carried. That way, Croagunk can walk alongside Ran’s starter and the three of them can have their own discussion, though Aria and Croagunk are clearly the main participants, with Caesar only ever offering a brief hiss here or there to interject or express his (dis)approval of whatever the other two are debating.
It’s an amusing display to watch proceed in front of them, as Ran’s team takes the lead on their walk. Apart from the practical consideration that Ran doesn’t want to lose sight of them, not trusting them in their enthusiasm to stay close by and behave, there’s also the cool-factor of having an Arbok sliding ahead of him to announce his approach.
Not that there isn’t any entertainment to be had behind them, as Doro’s team has its own sideshow going on. Because the pairs walking together change around, a lot. Whenever Ran glances behind him, a different one of Doro’s three starters is walking next to Toff the Croagunk. Her own preference seems to go to Quick the Hitmontop, the other female member of team Doro, but from the moments Ran observes, Strong the Hitmonlee and Precise the Hitmonchan constantly team up to have one of them distract and draw away Quick, so that the other can walk next to Toff.
Ran doesn’t bring it up and Doro doesn’t comment on it, but it’s an amusing spectacle to say the least.
The majority of Ran’s attention is on practical matters, as with their stay in Olivine now planned to take a lot longer than he’d originally planned and a solid date in the books for his match at the Olivine City Gym, Ran can’t make himself hold off on making firmer plans for what comes next any longer.
“So, I’ll have my fifth badge by late afternoon of the twenty-eighth,” He announces, drawing a soft sound of assent from Doro, which is enough for him to continue, “Then, you want to get to Ilex Forest. I see two options. First, we could swing by Ecruteak, at which point it’d make no real sense for me to leave there without also challenging Morty, which would put me at six, assuming you’d want to stick around that long and we want to commit to doing the whole circuit together. Because then we’d move through Goldenrod on the way to Azalea and Violet to get you up to six as well, before cutting through the Dark Caves to do Blackthorn and finish in Mahogany.”
Ran explains the first option, his old worries over timing admittedly having been lessened to a significant amount now that he’s scheduled to add his fifth badge before the end of the ten month season’s third month. Doro is content to listen quietly, only nodding to indicate her understanding as they continue to walk.
“Alternatively, we could cut directly to Goldenrod, rather than swinging by Ecruteak,” Ran starts to explain the second viable path forwards he sees, “It’d be quicker and should give me in particular ample opportunity to track down a really strong member of the Nidoran-line, rather than having to settle for a weaker member of the species that hasn’t been driven off of the Routes by the Rangers. It’d be more challenging of course, but at this point, with our full teams, I think we’re ready to brave the real wilds. Then, from Goldenrod on, we could just continue on as discussed, only we’d tack on Ecruteak at the end instead of the beginning and I’d be challenging one level lower than you in Blackthorn and Mahogany. All of this in the assumption of course that we continue to enjoy traveling together and that we’re both willing to compromise here and there to make that possible.”
“All of this assumes that you defeat Jasmine, of course,” Doro responds calmly, before raising her hands apologetically to ward off his angry glare, “I mean no offense. These plans also assume that we have success at the future Gyms, but Jasmine is the first in line.”
Ran huffs, not looking to fight, but also not entirely appeased as the implied slight lingers, “I will beat Jasmine. My match against Chuck was a bit closer than expected, but that was calculated, otherwise I’d have used Aria over Skorupi. Steel has a defensive advantage, but I have plenty of answers for her. If anything, it’s your match-up against Falkner where we’d run into trouble, assuming you do still actually want to travel together, because you haven’t answered that yet.”
“I don’t tend to plan as far ahead as you do,” Doro replies patiently, “And I do not wish to commit to a months-long journey just yet. But I do believe the journey directly to Goldenrod holds more merit than the official route through Ecruteak. One of the major advantages to travelling together, to my mind, is the safety in numbers that an exploration of the wilder areas can only benefit from. So, if you must absolutely have a plan for your own sake of mind, plan for that path, I would say.”
“Alright,” Ran accepts, hesitating for a moment to turn Doro’s words over in his head, before accepting the logic behind them, “I guess that makes sense. It’s not as if my initial plans have survived this far anyways.”
“They have not,” Doro chuckles, “Though from what you have told me, and what I believe you have omitted in your retelling, I do hope that if we do part ways at some point before the Conference, it will be on better terms, no?”
Ran doesn’t directly admit that Doro is correct that he didn’t share his whole story with her, though he omitted more about his history with Bugsy than he did of his conflict with Spencer. Instead, he merely agrees with a slight smile, “I hope so too.”
The conversation turns lighter after that, their procession continuing to lazily make its way along the boulevard that runs along Olivine Beach, towards the gradually growing less distant shape of the Lighthouse. There’s a moment of hilarity when Aria, who clearly wants Golbat to be a bit more sociable, tries to tag him with a string of her silk, to stop him from flying ahead yet again.
Unfortunately for her, she overestimates her grip on Caesar’s back, as well as her own weight, whilst underestimating just how strong Golbat’s been getting. Which means that when her shot lands, a thick strand of webbing connecting her to Golbat’s abdomen, Golbat isn’t arrested in his flight. Instead, Aria is sent flying after him, Golbat’s momentum and strong wing beats tearing Aria off of Caesar’s back, leaving her to trail after him just a few feet above the ground.
Ran hurriedly pulls out Aria’s ball to try and prevent a painful crash landing, but Golbat catches on to just what’s happened just in time, putting extra effort into maintaining his height whilst bleeding off speed. Aria meanwhile lets out one of the shrillest chirps she’s ever produced, as with Golbat stopping his forwards momentum, she in effect become a pendulum, swinging onwards past the flying-type she’s attached to, her legs clipping the ground at the bottom of the swing, before she is carried onwards and upwards.
Golbat clearly can’t keep it going for too long, but when Aria realizes that any immediate risk of a crash has been averted, the sounds she produces become a lot more enthusiastic, spurring Golbat to ascend just a bit more before simply letting Aria’s momentum bleed off slowly. She swings back and forth another five times, before finally coming to a rest a few feet above the ground. Then, she simply lengthens the strand she’s attached to Golbat by until she gently lands on the ground.
The reactions of the rest are mixed, with Caesar seemingly set on lecturing both Golbat and Aria for their tomfoolery, whilst Skorupi is glaring distrustfully at Golbat as if scared that, with the poison-flying-type’s strength proven, he might himself be carried off at any time. Croagunk, meanwhile, has visible stars in his eyes as he gazes hopefully at the strand of web that’s still attached to Golbat’s abdomen.
As for Doro and her team, they all seem just about equally puzzled, clearly unsure how to handle the chaotic moment. Which leaves Ran to impose some amount of order.
“Alright, Golbat, clearly Aria wants you to stay close, so hitch a ride on Caesar with her for now. Aria will help you get rid of her webs. Croagunk, you can try and convince them to let you have a go later on, when we’ve got free time and enough room to do so safely. Caesar, it’s alright, Aria shouldn’t have tried to force Golbat to come down, but nobody was hurt and I’m sure that she’ll apologize. Oh and Skorupi, ease up, Golbat isn’t going to grab you and take you flying.” He lists off, looking each of his team members in the eye in turn.
It’s enough to restore order, as an only slightly annoyed Golbat hops onto Caesar’s back, allowing Aria to enthusiastically start chittering at him in what could almost be an Ariados’ version of a serenade. At the same time, Skorupi’s grip on Ran’s back, having grown significantly more tense over the past minute, eases up again whilst Croagunk contents himself with simply continuing to walk alongside Caesar’s form for now. With that sideshow handled and once more preceding them, Ran turns his attention to Doro, only to be met with an extremely puzzled look.
“What?” He asks cautiously.
“I find you a confusing boy, Ran Carr.” She simply informs him, not expanding any further on just what she means by that statement over the next ten minutes, no matter how much he badgers her over the matter.
Finally, his demands for an explanation come to a halt, as they arrive at the foot of the Olivine Lighthouse. By this point, the sun has set and though there is a decent amount of moonlight, the tourist deck is already closed.
“The area up to and including the tourist deck is freely accessible to anyone who wants to take in some of the city’s history and culture, or who just wants to go and enjoy the view. Beyond the tourist deck, the tower’s upper innards, is a Trainer-only area that may be worth a few visits, as although there are no wild pokémon, it makes for an interesting battling location. There’s an unofficial, though quite reputable, gauntlet ranking system.” Doro explains, as she looks up towards the tower’s top.
“Oh?” Ran asks, intrigued by the mention of a competition.
Doro doesn’t hesitate to explain, clearly a fan of the concept, “There are multiple floors. To proceed to the next floor, it is considered proper practice to win at least a single one-on-one battle before doing so. Of course not everybody participates as it is an unofficial thing, but for those that do wish to partake, they simply need to buy a souvenir pin of the lighthouse and pin it onto their clothes upside down. I made it up three floors the last time I was here, under the circumstances, that was quite a good performance.”
“It sounds like fun,” Ran agrees, “We’ll have to come by and give it a go sometime in the next few days.”
“Yes,” Doro agrees enthusiastically, “We should.”
