Aidinza had never been so cold in his life. Even in the dead of winter, the coldest nights in the Ya’an-ah desert had nothing on the icy chill consuming his bones as he approached Twist Mountain and Irricus beyond it.
Where once sleet rain had pounded down from the heavens, now snow danced on the wind, coating the trees and road in thick layers of powder that Aidinza struggled to wade through.
It was, in many ways, miserable. Aidinza was forced to sleep in his spare clothes and wear the previous day’s still slightly damp clothes the next day just so he would have something dry to sleep in.
Thankfully, the thick leather of his tent was enough to keep him somewhat warm during the nights. The Ya’an-ah detested the idea of sleeping where the moonlight could reach them almost as much as they detested settling down in permanent shelters.
And what chill he was forced to face on the road, well, as frustrating as Shandíín could be, his newly evolved body made for a fantastic heat source. Aidinza just had to put up with the bird tugging on his hair every once in a while.
Though, if he got too annoying, Astazhei was always ready and willing to put him back in line. The eaglet had taken Shandíín’s evolution as a challenge and had more than once proven that a new typing and a more mature body were not enough to wrestle him on even terms.
Aidinza pauses as he thinks of his first bird, glancing around the sky as if he would see him swooping down at any moment with his newest obsession. He was not totally sure why Astazhei had taken to carrying ice cubes back to camp, but he was willing to blame Skyla for it.
He shakes his head, trying to get back on track. The only one of Aidinza’s pokémon that seemed impressed by Shandíín’s new form was Sandile. The desert croc had taken to watching the newly evolved bird with wide eyes whenever they were released together at night, wide eyes alight with something like expectation.
Expectation for what Aidinza could only guess at. But he suspected it might have something to do with Sandile’s recent growth; his back legs were thickening, and small ridges had begun forming along his back. He was starting to look like the older sandile that Aidinza would play with back home.
Aidinza paused, glancing around as he struggled to recognise where he was. It took him a few moments to realise he had been so lost in his thoughts about Sandile evolving that he had managed to wander out of the freezing snow and into twist mountain.
Though being inside the mountain hardly did anything for the chill in the air, if anything, it was even colder inside. Aidinza shuddered and pulled his poncho tighter against his body, briefly tempted to release Shandíín again. But the fire type had fought a powerful Zebstrika earlier in the day and had far more trouble than it usually did against its unevolved form.
“Oi kid!” A voice bounces around the cave tunnel, and Aidinza looks over to see a burly man maybe a few years older than him with teal hair approaching in a shining yellow vest and hat.
“Cool sands and wet winds.” Aidinza greets as he comes to a stop. The other man just gives him a curt nod, evidently in something of a rush.
“We’ve got some serious earth-works going on deeper in the mountain. So the lower levels are off limits, and I’m going to have to ask you to wear this while you’re here.” He shoves a hat like his own into Aidinza’s hand. The Naisho’h examines the hat for a moment, its yellow plastic gleaming even in the soft lights illuminating the cave, and it felt solid in his hand.
With a shrug, he puts it onto his head. “I’m trying to get to Iriccus city. Do I need to go to the lower levels?”
“Eh, nah. It’ll be a bit of a walk, but you should be able to skirt the upper levels just fine.” The man shrugged before giving Aidinza a long look. “You’re ah, you’re one of the Ya’an-ah, right? Dzil’ana?”
Aidinza blinks; of all the places he had expected for one of his people’s tribes to be mentioned by name, it was not in the mountain. Icirrus certainly, but not the mountain. “Naisho’h, the Dzil’ana no longer participate in the ritual of the sun.”
The burly man snaps his fingers and shakes his head. “Thought the hair was the giveaway. Ah well, trustworthy steps, clear or cold cousin.” The man grins and shrugs off his vest and then the jacket underneath, offering it to the shivering teen. “You look like you’re just about to turn blue.”
Aidinza eyes it for a moment before another shiver down his spine convinces him. He takes it and throws it over his shoulders, grateful for the warmth even if it was several sizes too big for him, the sleeves hiding his hands from view.
“I’m Gwi’geh, of the Tly’an-yeh.” Aidinza’s eyes widen for a moment, and his attention flicks to the man’s cyan hair. It had been years since he had last met one of the other native peoples of Unova, but he and the Ya’an-ah would not soon forget their cousins-in-land.
His own smile crosses his face, and the tension of meeting a new person slips away. “I am Aidinza, of the Ya’an-ah. I didn’t expect to meet your people outside of Icirrus.” Gwi’geh turns to stand beside Aidinza, hand coming to pat his shoulders.
“Gwee’aa Brycen would not let such a big project happen in our lands without money passing into our hands.” The other man led Aidinza through a carved-out opening in the rock that led into a massive cavern filled with men and pokémon dressed in the same hats and vests of Gwi’geh. Aidinza watched in awe as a giant machine, perhaps only somewhat smaller than Skyla’s cargo plane, bore into the side of the mountain, a great grinding sound filling the cavern. “A path from Driftveil to Icirrus, a vein between two beating hearts of Unova.”
There was no mistaking the beam on his face as anything but proud as the two of them witnessed the very mountains themselves being reshaped in front of them.
“It will take months and enough sweat to fill our wetlands, but it will be well worth it.” Aidinza could only hum in acknowledgement as his eyes traced over the already worked stone. Hundreds of tons of rock had been mined through, and he could only imagine how much earth would be moved by the time they were done.
“It’s very impressive.” The man pats Aidinza on the shoulder again before stepping forward and bellowing to the workers below. “Nijin tłʼoo łaiin-choo, itʼee valak łʼuu nduh tsʼąįį”
“About ten minutes might have to wait for them to unload, and no Tly’an-yen on-site man, the foremen can’t understand it.” Gwi’geh turns back to Aidinza and gives him an exasperated shrug, clearly not too pleased with being called out.
“My brothers make excuses. They simply don’t remember their mother tongue as well as I do. The foremen just ask for translations.” He chuckles and scratches his pale face. Aidinza just nodded. Some of the other Ya’an-ah children he had met struggled with their Ya’an-ah and preferred to speak the common tongue. “We have another truck coming soon. You can head across on that, save you half a day skirting around the edge.” He nods his head towards a trail that circled around the edge of the mountain, illuminated by a long stretch of wired lights pinned to the cave wall.
“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Even with the extra warmth of the jacket on his shoulders, he had not been looking forward to walking through this freezing air any longer than he absolutely had to. “And for the jacket.”
“Bah, don’t mention it. Have to coax you desert nomads out of your sandy dunes someway, and a bit of kindness seems like it ought to do it.” Aidinza hums to himself and lets his attention drift back over the work site. Not everyone was obviously Tly’an-yeh, but there were so many that were. Even during his ritual of the Sun, even during his sister’s ritual of the sun, he had not seen so many Ya’an-ah in one place in his entire life.
Maybe during the half-centennial Sun Festival, but he had hardly been capable of toddling back then, and this was something as mundane as work - as much as that word could apply to reshaping mountains - not something as sacred as the festival.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you to some of my brothers while you wait.” Aidinza looks back to Gwi’geh, his eyes lost in thought for a moment. He shakes his head and nods, following after the broad man to the crowd of his cheerful people.
-
Driving in a truck had been an experience much more palatable than flying in a plane. For one, the truck remained firmly on the ground the entire time. Or under the ground as it were here. Though the company was less enjoyable than Skyla, no offence meant for the taciturn man who had driven him.
It was also blessedly short; in ten minutes, Aidinza had been driven through the massive worksite for this enormous undertaking, and in twenty, he had walked through the other side of twist mountain. The quicker he got out of the mountain’s freezing cold air, the better, in his opinion.
Though, the road leading from twist mountain to Icirrus was not much better. Even with the jacket that Gwi’geh had lent him - with the promise that he would return it to Brycen - the chill of the snowy air sent his teeth chattering. Aidinza was not even sure that his tent would manage to keep this cold at bay when night fell, and for the first time, he found himself hoping to reach a city before that. Even if it turns out as disorientating as Nimbasa, getting out from this weather would make Aidinza’s day.
So when he ascended the steps to the clearly defined bounds of the city - the road actually cleared of snow for the first time in what felt like days - it was with no small amount of relief. For the first time since he had seen lights in the distance, Aidinza pauses and takes the city in.
Where one could use the word uniformity to describe Mistralton - a product of it being a corporation town, Skyla had told him, whatever that meant - that word would be the farthest thing from any tongue witnessing Icirrus. No, with diamond dust snow glittering in the dusk as it swirled through the streets, the only thing that came to Aidinza’s mind was character. Each building was a beautiful structure of an eclectic selection of carved wood, every aspect of each house different from the next. But not only that, all of them were painted with colourful murals stark against the snowy ground.
On one side of the street might be a single-story house of cedar planks painted with a mural of clashing dragons, and across from it would be a house of oak, painted with picturesque rolling summertime hills.
But it was more than just the buildings. It was the people as well. There were fewer of them than Nimbasa or Driftveil, maybe. But despite that, they felt more… present. Children played in the snow, an echo of their giggles filling the streets, left on their own as the adults tended to open, roaring fires of roasting meat. Often Aidinza saw a pokémon, too dirty to be tamed, too clean to be truly wild, lumbering around the streets. He saw massive beartic, each large enough to dwarf the oldest of Krookodile, watching with lazy eyes as Cubchoo stumbled into groups of playing Tly’an-yeh children.
There was life in these streets that made Aidinza ache for home. Ache for the nights playing with basks of sandile and krokorok. For looking after the young of the Naisho’h and getting dragged into their contests and games.
Replace this cold in the air with heat and the buildings with thick tents, and Aidinza could almost be convinced he was home.
It was enough to sweep Aidinza into simply wandering the town, ignoring the shiver threatening his spine. Simply taking in the sights and sounds and smells of Icirrus. He saw entire neighbourhoods whose building’s mural’s combined into one unifying art piece. He saw things done with wood that he struggled to even understand with wood that he would never be able to name. He saw entire streets turned upside down by children throwing snowballs at each other in giant wars.
“Vizhee gwichʼin yaaʼee.” Aidinza stops his aimless sightseeing as a woman standing at one of the many fires around Iriccus waves him down. “Ya’an-ah! I recognise those colours! Come, come!”
Aidinza glances around as if he would see some other desert nomad behind him before shaking his head and walking over to the woman and the half dozen other adults standing around the fire with her.
“Trustworthy steps, cold or clear Vizhee Valak.” The woman was black-haired, but her pale as driven snow skin and icy blue eyes marked her as Tly’an-yeh as clear as cyan hair would. Most of the people standing around the fire were, and Aidinza only said most because he was on the fence about the last two.
“Vizhee Valak?” He murmurs, trying to recall what little he knew of his cousin tongue. “Colour friend?”
“You wear our colours, cousin, and unless you walk into our home with blood on your hands, it must mean you are a friend.” A short man spoke as he flicked salt over the sweet-smelling meat cooking over the fire. The jacket, Aidinza realised, must have Gwi’geh’s colours, like Aidinza’s poncho had his own Naisho’h colours.
“Gwi’geh gave me his jacket when we met in the mountain.” There’s a moment of shared oh’s among the Tly’an-yen and more than a few chuckles. “Cool sands and wet winds, sorry.” He blurts out, remembering his manners.
That earned even more laughter.
“No sorry’s here, cousin. It’s a beautiful winter afternoon, with a warm fire and good company!” A woman, not the one that invited Aidinza over, slurs out to a cheer from the rest of them. “Our baby snow goose might have talked your ear off already, but stay a while, and we’ll prove it runs in the family!”
“The fire does smell good….” And with another round of cheers, Aidinza found his fate sealed. In moments he was sitting in front of a fire, two Tly’an-yeh on either side plying him with a plate of sweet-smelling meat, as they chattered his ear off, probing for any detail about his journey Aidinza would spare.
Aidinza spared few. From Sandile appearing at his ritual to the mistaken identity in Nimbasa, his encounters with plasma and every meeting and fight in-between. The nomad did not consider himself much of a storyteller, but the Tly’an-yeh made him feel like he could weave words as enchantingly as Bi At Ini.
They would gasp and cheer at every turn, from his unimpressive victory over Mark to his crushing defeat at Clay’s hand. All the while, plying him with more and more food and a sweet drink warmed him from inside out.
When he was done, the Tly’an-yeh did not give a moment to dead air. Diving into their own stories, from triumphs over powerful gym leaders to braving the frozen swamps north of Iriccus for grand hunts.
And Aidinza gasped and cheered along with everyone else.
-
There were more than a few things that Aidinza noticed upon waking up. The first, and perhaps the most pressing, was that he had absolutely no idea where he was. The second and most irritating was that his head throbbed and ached like he had been smacked by one of Gowteel’s pokémon.
The last, and the most important to him at the moment, was that the bed he had fallen asleep in was snug and cosy, with a large fluffy blanket, pulled tight around his shoulders.
He groans as he tries to sink deeper into the soft pillow behind him as if he could force his headache away.
But it was a losing war. Before long, Aidinza shoves the warm blankets off him and stands up to find answers to where he was and why his head hurt so much. Though, it only gave him a fourth question, why was he in strange new clothes? The thick cotton he wore was far from unpleasant, but he did not remember putting it on.
He stumbles through an ornately carved wooden hallway, half taking in the scenes of a seismitoad dancing through a valley of flowers. Before he stumbles across a woman that he vaguely remembers from last night in the living room.
“Vizhee Valak, your snores could wake the slumbering Truth!” The woman’s laughter sent a lance of pain through Aidinza’s skull, and he winced. Something she was quick to notice, crossing the living room and pressing a blessedly cool hand to his forehead. “Che, you’re hungover. Luckily I have just the remedy.”
Aidinza finds himself sitting at the head of a stone table covered in a white and black patterned cloth. He glances around, first at the door the woman had disappeared through, then at the house’s walls covered in paintings and pictures, of landscapes and people and everything in between. However, his attention is disrupted when the mouth-watering scent of sizzling meat touches his nose. He had not realised before how ravenously hungry he was, but now it was all he could think about.
Luckily, he did not have to wait long, a few minutes passed, and the woman walked out and placed a plate in front of him.
Aidinza hardly managed to give her a thankful nod before he began devouring it wholesale. “There’s a compliment to the chef, eh? Careful you don’t bite through your fork going that fast.” Aidinza flushed, slowing down his feast. Not that it mattered particularly much, considering that most of his plate was already gone.
“Sor-.” He starts before an amused look cuts him off, and he flushes again. Silently he eats the last of his meal before crossing his cutlery and placing them to the right side of his plate. He glances back up to the woman, and to her pleased smile. “I… don’t exactly reme-”
“Where you are?” The shorter man from last night enters the room, scratching at the side of his lightly bearded face. “A tip for next time, cousin, drink halfway; an empty cup is an invitation for the Tly’an-yeh.” The man takes a seat and slides over a glass of pinkish liquid. “For the hangover, our little snow goose would throw a fit if we left his friend in such a sorry state.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Aidinza eyes it for a moment and drinks it to the halfway point before carefully placing it back on the table. It was a reasonably pleasant taste, all things considered, but he did not want to be rude by rejecting freely given advice in one’s own home. The other two seemed to find that hilarious, their infectious laughter drawing out a half smile from the desert nomad as his headache recedes.
“Snow goose?” He asks as the laughter dies down. The other two exchanged surprised glances, and the man rubbed at the back of his head with a sheepish smile.
“Ah, you really did have a lot to drink.” The man says haltingly, leaning away from the woman’s increasingly unimpressed look. “Yee ooʼan gwahaadlii. I am Nah’aa. This is my wife Da’zhoh, Gwi’geh’s sister.”
“No sorrys here.” Aidinza half mutters to a pleased grin from Nah’aa before shaking his head. He vaguely recalled the names from last night, and he definitely remembered their faces. “Where are my….” He trails off, not exactly sure what to ask about first.
“Your pokéballs are by the bedside, and your clothes are drying in the clothes dryer,” Da’zhoh said as she gathered Aidinza’s plate. “We considered taking them to the Pokémon Centre, but we thought it would be too forward.”
Aidinza slowly nodded, glad for that. Waking up with his clothes removed was strange. Waking up with his pokémon gone… would be far more difficult to stomach.
“Speaking of the Pokémon Centre, my friends have spent weeks on the road fighting. They deserve a healer’s touch.” Aidinza stood up and rubbed at the cotton he was wearing. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You are blood of our land, Vizhee Valak of our kin. Our home is your home, our fire your fire, our bed your bed.” Aidinza pauses for a moment, the weight of Nah’aa’s words settling over him. He slowly breathes in, still in a moment of appreciation he was unsure how to express.
So all he does is bow his head. His people were far from hostile to travellers or strangers, but something in him told him that they would never welcome someone into their lives so openly like this.
“I’ll get your clothes.” With one final grin towards Aidinza, the shorter man stands up and disappears into another room. Leaving the nomad to slightly awkwardly linger in the room with Da’zhoh. The woman watched him for a moment, her dark hair stark against her pale skin.
“His words are true, cousin. Our home is open to you.” The nomad slowly nods again, still unsure what else to do. “It’s been so long since we have seen any of you; perhaps a little kindness will change that?”
“You’re the second person to say that to me.” Aidinza lingers at the head of the table for a moment, watching the woman.
“Then maybe it will be true.” She stands up with Aidinza’s plate and glass in her hands and, with one final smile, disappears through the door from which she had brought the food.
“Maybe.” He mutters again to himself as a yawn cracks his jaw, and he heads back to collect his pokéballs.
-
Icirrus Gym was carved into a cliffside painted in a vivid mural of an endless field of snow flowers, lit by a calamitous crash of living lightning and fire that curled around the pillars and balcony that made up its entrance.
It was a fitting tribute to their beliefs. Aidinza knew that everyone who would challenge their leader would do so underneath the eyes of their Truth and Ideal. For a moment, he wondered what the Ya’an-ah would do in the Tly’an-yeh’s place. Would his people’s gym honour the Sun, or perhaps invoking the ideals of Bi At Ini was more fitting?
He could almost see it now, a tent of gossamer silk embroidered with the stories of his people. Their meaning and lessons there for anyone in the world to learn. Patterned with the legends that made the Ya’an-ah who they were. Their glory for everyone to see.
Aidinza tightens Gwi’geh’s jacket around his shoulders and pushes through the heavy gym doors. The other side was cold, the walls were rimmed with ice, the air brisk in his lungs. A blonde-haired man sat behind the desk, bundled underneath several thick layers.
“I’m here to challenge the gym leader.” He announces, and the man gives him a thumbs up.
“Aidinza? Gwee’aa Brycen is waiting for you.” The man’s tongue stumbled on Brycen’s title, giving away that he was not one of the Tly’an-yeh just as surely as his blonde hair.
The nomad nods, and continues through another set of doors, and finds himself surprised as his boots meet something slick and cold. He catches himself before he could slip and eyes the frozen ice floor with trepidation. It was not quite as ridiculous as Skyla’s fan, but he found himself missing Clay’s straightforward gym design.
Finding a gait that prevents him from slipping every few seconds on the ice takes him a few moments, but he manages it quick enough. He was Ya’an-ah; he was used to strange footing underneath him. Soon enough, he found himself standing on one end of a tall ice stadium filled with icy boulders and watched by more than a few Tly’an-yeh in the bleachers.
But he did not look at them. No, his eyes were drawn to the man sitting on the other end of the stadium. The Tly’an-yeh were a distinct people, especially compared to the Ya’an-ah, and Gym Leader Brycen seemed to embody that distinctness. His skin was as pale as falling snow, his cyan hair glittered like ice, and even sitting down, Aidinza could see he was a tall man, with his powerful muscles exposed by the mantle covering his left arm.
“The sun sings for your health, Ah-na-ghai Brycen. I am Aidinza of the Ya’an-ah, son of the Naisho’h.” He called across the field, hand falling to his belt. “I am here to challenge you, honoured cousin.”
Aidinza flinches slightly as the bleachers explode in cheers and whoops. He had not been expecting that.
“Ideals guide your path, and Truth guides your judgement, Aidinza of the Ya’ah-ah. I am the Gwee’aa of the Tly’an-yeh. I am a gym leader of Unova. I accept your challenge.” The cyan-haired man rises, his full height an imposing thing to witness as his muscles rippled. He turns to face Aidinza, his cyan eyes almost glowing with colour. “This will be a three-on-three battle! There will be no substitutions; Pokémon may only be returned upon being declared unable to battle! Test him, Snorunt!”
In a flash of red, a small black pokémon appeared, with spherical hands that almost seemed to hold its cyan coat closed and fierce orange eyes. A moment later, Shandíín appears with a furious cry and flicker of flame across his orange coat in answer to a chorus of oohs.
The two of them stood there for a moment as Brycen’s icy blue eyes slowly scanned the bleachers. He raises a hand, tension and anticipation building among the watching Tly’an-yeh. He brings it down, and the crowd roars. “BEGIN!”
“Shandíín, to the skies, ember!” With a whistle, the fire type rose into the air, making use of the high ceiling of the stadium to completely avoid the ice-rock-covered field.
“Icy Wind.” Brycen snaps as the fletchinder dove at the snorunt, a spark of intense flame flickering in his beak.
“Acrobatics. Avoid it.” Even if the natural heat in Shandíín’s body would help him resist the icy cold better than the average flying-type, it was far from something the fragile bird could take easily.
Shandíín hastened to obey, spitting out the flame resting on his tongue towards Snorunt before banking hard left, avoiding the icy wind that tore through the air behind him. Then he dove, building to a speed that made him little more than a blur to Aidinza’s vision.
“On your back-left, Ice Shard when it’s close.” Aidinza looked across to his opponent, who seemed to be keeping up with Shandíín’s speed with little issue.
However, his pokémon lacked the same ability. Before the snorunt could even spin around, Shandíín slammed into it, sending it sliding backwards on the ice. Without offering it a single moment’s respite, he threw himself into a turn and crashed into the snorunt from a different angle, this time causing it to smash into a heavy rock of ice, unconscious.
“Snorunt is unable to continue the battle.” Aidinza gave a double take to the older man standing on the side of the field, wracking his brain to remember if he was there when he came in. “Gym Leader Brycen has two pokémon remaining.”
“Hide the path to Truth, Cryogonal.” With a flash of red, perhaps the strangest pokémon Aidinza had ever seen appeared floating above the battlefield. It seemed to be made of sheer ice, cut into the shape of a blue, hexagonal snowflake. Two cracks ran through its body, the first exposing cold, fierce blue eyes. The second exposed what Aidinza hesitated to call a mouth.
“Mist.” A groan of ice fills the field, and Crygonal’s lower mouth cracks open with a shuddering movement, spewing forth a mass of white gas that filled the arena in moments, seeping between the icy rocks and obscuring the entire stadium.
Including where Aidinza was standing. He grits his teeth as the mist turns the place even colder and rubs at his face. It would be embarrassing, to say the least, if he could not order his pokémon because his teeth were too busy chattering.
Though considering he could hardly see Shandíín circling high above the arena, and could not see the Crygonal in the slightest, maybe he had more pressing things to worry about.
“Ancient Power.” Not that he would be given a moment to worry about it, as he watched four large rocks rip from the mist-bed towards Shandíín.
“Agility.” Aidinza would not be able to warn Shandíín of coming attacks, and the bird would not be able to see where the attacks were coming from. The fletchinder would need to be at his fastest to react and avoid being hit by the powerful rock-type attacks, which very well might put him down with a good connection.
“Keep it up, Crygonal.” It was a brutal stalemate, Shandíín only managing to keep ahead of the powerful barrage by the skin of his teeth. Dipping and diving with all the grace that had impressed Aidinza when he had dodged Naazin’s smackdown.
But the Crygonal was growing more accurate by the moment, Shandíín’s ability to avoid them growing more and more tenuous.
They had to do something, and maybe it was a mistake, but Aidinza thought there was something to be learned from the last time Shandíín was in this situation against Naazin.
“Flame Charge.” But this time, the flying-type had a fair bit more power behind his wings.
The fletchinder did not even waste a moment, his wings snapping tight against his sleek body as he dove towards where the ancient power had just come from. A trail of flame spilled out of his beak to form a thick nimbus of flame around himself. He slammed into the mist, sending a ripple through it as he disappeared into it, lighting it all with an intense orange light that raced through the obscuring mist.
A moment passed, and then two as the flame flickered and raged inside that mist, lighting up the entire arena in a dance of shadow and light on fog. Shandíín was chasing his enemy with lethal focus, and the Crygonal was managing to keep ahead of him in the hazardous field.
Then, the Crygonal broke the mist, its fierce blue eyes locked underneath it, as it hung high in the air, rock-type energy coalescing in the air around it to form large boulders. But coalescing was as far as it got as Shandíín broke through the mists on its heels, a burning fireball as he crossed the distance between the two in a heartbeat and slammed into the Crygonal’s cracked face, sending it careening into the ceiling.
Aidinza’s grin was as fierce as Shandíín’s cry as he swept around the misty arena, the white mist breaking in his wake without its master to control it.
“Crygonal is unable to battle.” The older man speaks once more as the crowd goes wild with cheers. “Gym Leader Brycen has one remaining pokémon.
Rather than releasing his pokémon immediately, Brycen seemed to study Aidinza, and as blue eyes met green, he seemed to come to a conclusion. “Yee ooʼan gwahaadlii. Cousin of my land. I am unused to this sort of battle and am rusty. Nor should I have dishonoured you with it. Please.” His hand falls to a pokéball by his side and the stadium gasps. “Let me do you the honour of a proper battle.”
The pokémon that appeared left no doubt that Brycen was taking this fight seriously. Aidinza had seen beartic around Icirrus yesterday, even beartic that would, in theory, dwarf this one. But they had lacked the trained edge that sculpted the massive ursine beast in front of Aidinza. Lacked the sharp steel in its eyes.
The other beartic were enormous because beartic were enormous. This beartic was enormous because it was built with muscle and intent.
A low, rumbling growl shakes the arena, only matched by the crowd going wild, cheering for the appearance of the freezing pokémon.
“Hail.” Aidinza’s eyes widened as Beartic’s icy beard began glowing a harsh blue. Though hail was far from something he had spent any particular time looking into, it was something he had stumbled across while reading up on sandstorm, an ability he had seen Krookodile put to incredible effect in the sands of his home.
“Flame Charge.” He snaps out. Fighting in the hail would be disastrous for his team, without even considering the natural advantages it would give Beartic. Shandíín, showing a complete disregard for the fact that his opponent was well over two and a half metres of powerful muscle, surged forward, fire once more spilling out of his beak.
“Liquidation.” But it was nothing but a trap. The moment that Shandíín was close enough, the Beartic’s beard stopped glowing, and it reared back onto its hind legs. A thick layer of glittering water formed over its powerful arm and, like a guillotine, swung down on Shandíín.
The flying type did not stand a chance, and Aidinza watched wide-eyed as he was sent crashing into the ground, unconscious with a single blow, to a whisper of shock from the crowd.
“Fletchinder is unable to battle!” Aidinza returned Shandíín as he stared at the muscular ice-type. His hand fell to the pokéballs at his side as he raced to think of how in the world he could beat something that big. But then again, he had won against something even bigger before, had he not? “The challenger is down to two pokémon.”
His hands closed around Sandile’s pokéball, and in a flash of red, his starter appeared on the field, claws digging into the slippery ice beneath him.
“Hone Claw.” Aidinza knew that he would need every edge he could get against this pokémon, and between the lack of ground to manipulate, and the chill in the air, he did not have many to start with.
“Frost Breath.” Not that the massive eight-foot bear was going to let them get that edge. As the malicious rasp of Sandile’s claws scraping against each other filled the air, Beartic filled it in a more direct sense. It spat out a gale of blue-tinged wind towards Sandile.
“Dodge!” He did not want to find out how ill-suited Sandile was to deal with an ice-type attack without the innate heat to ward it away like Shandíín.
The sound of keratin sliding across ice fills the stadium as Sandile struggles to throw himself out of the way, taking cover behind a rock by the tip of his tail.
“Icicle Spear, then follow up with Ice Punch.” With a roar, Beartic’s beard glowed again as he slammed down onto all fours and charged Sandile, crushing through rocks in his way.
Sandile did not need to be told to get out of the way. But before he could build up speed on the slick ice, Beartic roared again, and several long shards of ice fell from its beard and raced towards Sandile, cutting off his escape with a crash of crushed ice.
“Sandile!” Aidinza shouted as the massive form of beartic slammed into the desert croc, arm glowing with a harsh, icy light as it crushed him to the floor.
And just like that, it should have been over. Aidinza knew that a physical ice-move like Ice Punch was almost uniquely suited to crushing through the defences of a ground type, and as tough as Sandile was, Beartic was a monster of physical strength.
But Sandile held on.
As the beartic reared up on its back claws and roared its victory to the crowd, Sandile dragged himself off the ground and lashed out with his powerful jaws, the strange energy that empowered him when he used hone claw so thick in his teeth that it turned them black. He latches onto Beartic’s calf, teeth sinking deep into the thickly furred limb, and with all the might he could muster, he dragged the mighty ice-type off balance sending it crashing down onto its back. The dark-energy Sandile mustered sank into the bear’s white fur, staining it as it roared in pain and anger.
But it was not enough to truly put the beartic down, and after a moment, Sandile was lifted off the ground by his jaw and slammed into the ground. That was enough to put him down.
“Sandile is unable to battle!” The desert croc disappeared into his pokéball, and Aidinza whispered praise to him before clipping it to his belt again. “The challenger is down to one pokémon!”
An air of tense expectation fills the stadium as the assembled Tly’an-yeh - whose number had only grown since the start of the battle - waited for Aidinza’s next choice of pokémon.
Aidinza, for his part, let his mind race. Sandile had landed a clean blow, and he could see that Beartic was gingerly on its back leg. It was not enough to decide the next bout outright, not like it had been against Skyla’s skarmory. But it was something to take advantage of.
Something that Naazin would be able to take advantage of.
The sixth and final flash of red fills the stadium. Naazin appeared on the ice, his placid yellow eyes quickly finding the beartic. He turns to glance at Aidinza, incredulous. Aidinza, for his part, gives him an encouraging smile. “It’s down to the wire, Naazin. You’re last up.”
The crustacean let his antenna squeak and turned back to face his massive opponent, still reluctant. Though, how much that reluctance counted when he was reluctant against all his foes and hung around anyway was questionable. As he watched his opponent, he tested his claw-like legs against the ice, feeling them slide over the slick material before he tapped it with his smaller arm, a web of cracks forming.
“Slash.” Naazin was not given long to test the ice as Beartic charged forward again, its bulk no less intimidating for being slightly slower. Naazin, much like Sandile, was well aware he wanted nothing to do with a beartic at close range. The water-type skittered across the ice, slightly more comfortable in the ice compared to Sandile.
But it was not enough to make meaningful distance between him and his opponent, and soon enough, Beartic would crash into him with all the force that brought Sandile and Shandíín low so quickly.
“Bubble Beam.” It was a desperate idea, the time lost from coming to a stop to attack the beartic might not even be made up for by the potential speed that Beartic would lose. Fortunately for Aidinza, while Naazin was lazy, he was far from stupid and had noticed something long before his trainer.
Rather than coming to a stop, Naazin just spun on his claws, letting his momentum continue sliding him along the ice, as his keen yellow gaze locked onto his opponent and brought his larger claw to bear. A stream of viscous bubbles spat out from his claw, smashing into the charging beartic with enough force to stagger it for a moment.
A moment that Naazin did not waste, twisting back around, and with barely a pause, he retook control of his momentum. Just in time, too, the giant wall of the stadium was looming in front of him, and it would have been very embarrassing to lose the gym battle to his pokémon knocking themselves out on a wall they ran into.
The clauncher pulled into a wide turn, struggling against his own forward momentum, and moments before he would have smashed into the side of the stadium, he managed to complete his turn, skittering parallel to the wall.
Beartic did not have the same trouble. This was his home and his terrain. Where Naazin struggled against the ice, making barest guesses of how to turn it to his advantage, the beartic knew precisely how to move to get exactly what he needed. A spray of shaved ice crashed into the stadium wall as Beartic made up all the time and more that he lost from his stumble.
“Frost Breath.” Another terrible gale of glittering, icy blue wind surged out of Beartic’s mouth, crossing the thin distance between it and Naazin with terrible force. The moment it touched him, he lost control of his gait, sliding on his front as his back legs were frozen underneath him.
“Brick Break.” The powerful ice-type roared, moments from his quarry, arms beginning to glow a potent white that glared off the ice with searing brightness.
But if there was anything that Naazin disliked more than having to put in effort, it was being punched in the face by a massive two-and-a-half-metre tall bear. So rather than rolling over and accepting his fate, the crustacean improvised.
His minor, anchoring claw slammed into the ground, ripping around a ninety-degree angle, leaving him facing the wall. While his firing claw snapped open, a familiar if slightly frustrating orb. The first stage of Aqua Pulse.
Naazin rips his anchoring claw out of the ice and fires the Aqua Pulse at the wall. And unlike every other time, rather than falling apart into a useless puddle of water, the Aqua Pulse expanded into a wide circle of pulsating water, crashing into the wall with enough force to soak the onlookers in water.
And enough force to send Naazin careening backwards, out of the way of the Beartic’s brick Break to raucous cheers.
Aidinza’s grin was just as fierce as when Shandíín had put the Crygonal down as he watched Naazin’s first, proper Water Pulse.
Beartic attempted to rear up on its back legs to turn to face Naazin, but in its worst moment, Sandile’s parting gift came back to haunt the powerful ice-type, its back leg buckling underneath both momentum and weight.
“Aqua Pulse.” Naazin’s anchorclaw smashed into the ice in front of him, tearing him to a dead stop, and without a moment’s pause, another aqua ring ripped from his large claw. The pulsating ring of water smashed into Brycen’s final pokémon, yanking it off its feet and sending it slamming into the wall behind it. Its sheer weight buckled the high stadium wall as it bounced off and landed heavily on the thick ice in front of it. Cracks reached as far as Naazin, four metres away.
It did not get back up.
“Beartic is unable to battle! The challenger is victorious!” The assembled Tly’an-yeh went wild, with thunderous applause that shook the arena. But Aidinza had eyes for Brycen instead, as the cloth-masked Gym Leader returned his pokémon. He had been right when he said he would give Aidinza a proper battle. The young nomad had never been so pushed in a fight, even when he had lost to Clay.
Brycen meets his gaze, and his pale lips pull into a pleased grin. “Your strength is commendable, cousin of the sand. You do your people, and mine, proud. There is a seat at my table tonight; I would like to see it filled.”
A scratch of ice catches Aidinza’s attention, and he kneels down to heft Naazin up as the clauncher reaches his side. Lazy as the crustacean was, he would never turn down getting pampered after a fight. It also gave him some time to remember just what he was supposed to say when the leader of another tribe invited him into their home.
“You honour me, Ah-na-ghai Brycen. I would be honoured further by filling that seat.” That sounded… about right to his ears. Brycen at least seemed pleased by it as he nodded at the young Ya’an-ah and turned to leave the stadium.
Slowly Aidinza breathed out and let his gaze wander among the Tly’an-yeh in the bleachers, who even now were comfortably talking among themselves, occasionally waving down to him.
Then his eyes fell to his clothes, and he remembered that all he had was ratty travel gear and someone’s borrowed jacket.
He was going to need to buy some clothes.