It had taken Aidinza well over three hours to clean up the poacher's hideout and to get everything movable out of the durant's nest. It took another hour to free the Pokémon captured, mainly because Aidinza had no desire to unleash a network of angry durant while trapped in their once nest. Doing that would leave him on a fast-track to having his bones used to repair the damages the poachers had left behind.
Unfortunately, there was far too much to carry to Opelucid in one go, even with him loading as much as he could into packs he strapped to his prisoners.
But that was fine; he buried what he could not take and made sure what he did take was important.
Aidinza pauses as he tends his fire, glancing over to the three figures he had captured. It had been… challenging to encourage the three poachers to keep moving. They dragged their feet, spitting and swearing all the while. But it was either moving their feet or getting dragged along on their faces by Nihanlo.
The question of what to do with them at night… Aidinza was still trying to decide on that. He glances over to the three poachers as he prods the fireplace. He had tied them to a nearby tree but was unsure if he could muster the motivation to make a proper shelter for people like them.
He sighs; he should probably get his pokémon to keep a watch over them while he was sleeping. While he had broken the lead poacher's fingers, Rocky and Revy still had full range of motion, having yet to give him a reason to break their fingers as well.
Though who he could leave in charge of it was another question. Naazin was probably out. The crustacean was smart enough to realise what Aidinza wanted but would likely grow uninterested and head off for a nap. Nihanlo, for her part, would more than likely freeze over and be unable to even warn Aidinza if she did see them try to escape.
While Sandile… he casts a fond look over to his starter, as he snaps at what little grass had been left unmolested around the campfire, tearing it out with powerful jaws more suited to finding purchase in thick scale than a plant. He tosses the grass out of the torchlight, the clump of dirt arcing high in the air to land next to a rustling bush.
Aidinza's eyes linger on the bush, it would not be the first time some wild pokémon had poked their head into one of his campsites. Usually, they only took a few moments to assuage their curiosity, disappearing without fully exposing themselves. But it would also not be the first time a wild pokémon decided that they were intruding and attacked. They always managed to repel the attacker, but it meant that they would have to move, given territorial pokémon usually had a family to call upon.
A figure emerges from the bush, and Aidinza resists the urge to groan. Of course, he would not be given a break today by not being attacked after he set up camp. Then he noticed the firelight glinting off steel blades, and a shock of recognition hit him. It was the pawniard from the durant's nest, its serious yellow eyes staring up at where Aidinza was sitting next to the warm fire. It scanned around the campfire, the blue plates that made up its protective armour only slightly visible in the dim light.
Only slightly visible was all the visibility that Sandile needed. The look of shock on the pawniard's face as Sandile pounced on it with a gummy grin was enough to make Aidinza snort. The way it flailed and struggled against Sandile's firm hold was enough to make him actually laugh out loud, the panicked look entirely at odds with the severe shape of its face and the wickedly sharp blades jutting out of its body. Or, maybe wickedly sharp was an exaggeration, Aidinza noted, as Sandile hounded the steel type into the firelight and cooed over the deep blue plates.
The pawniards blades were dulled and notched. They might have dug uncomfortably into Sandile as he fussed around the new object of his blue obsession, but they did not actually find purchase in his scales. Aidinza's brow furrowed; he remembered them being in far better condition earlier today. Yellow eyes sought his own as the pawniard sat frozen under Sandile's attention.
Aidinza gave a little wave at the steel-type, just a little flick of his fingers, and then watched bemused as the pawniard surged to its feet, throwing Sandile off it and whirled around in a ready stance, glaring out into the dark, wet forest surrounding them. Had it heard some sort of threat? Aidinza let out one piercing whistle, and Astazhei, who had been resting off his injuries, and the poison he had been forced to process, took to the air - slower than usual, Aidinza noted with a frown - surveying the scene from above.
A moment passed, then several seconds. Nothing happened; Aidizna glanced up at Astazhei, who flew higher in the air before descending back down, clearly not seeing anything worth paying attention to. His eyes seek the strange pokémon in their camp but seem to decide to leave it alone when Aidinza gives him a stern look.
The Ya'an-ah glances back at the new pokémon, who stared dead into the dark night with extreme intent, poised to defend at a moment's notice. "Do you hear something?" The steel type glances over its shoulder and shakes its head emphatically. Aidinza was lost. "If you don't hear anything, you can relax." Then, just as suddenly as the pokémon had burst to its feet, all tension drained from its body, and it sat down in front of the fire. The pokémon pulled its right leg up into its chest, blade scraping at its blue-plated feet, digging off muck and dirt built up.
Aidinza, feeling like it needed repeating, was lost. Like many times when he found himself lost, he turned to face his starter, and like usual, doing so was a mistake. Sandile's dark eye membranes had pulled back as far as possible, making his eyes as large as Aidinza had ever seen them, and that grin…
That damn gummy smile.
Aidinza could not resist it back in chargestone, and he was pretty sure he had no chance of resisting it here. Feeling his resolve crumbling, he glances over to where the pawniard was sitting, catching it stealing its own glance at him. He wondered if he would ever get the chance to catch a pokémon normally. Astazhei had crashed down on him with a challenging fury. Naazin had shown up to be a source of stability in a sea of lies. Shandíín had followed him for some reason that Aidinza still did not know, and Nihanlo… He glances at the newest member, limping with along half-frozen back leg.
He was pretty sure that as a trainer, he was supposed to be searching for pokémon himself, not having them… stumble onto him. Aidinza rubs his mouth with his hand before being startled out of his thoughts as the pawniard hits the ground, burying its face in the dirt with all the desperation of a man on fire.
For a moment, he just stared at the steel-type, head tilting ever so slightly. That was the second time it had exploded into a burst of motion and ended up in some strange position. Aidinza paused for a moment, glancing down at his right hand. A kindling of a thought formed in the back of his mind.
That thought was quickly broken when Astazhei pulled himself to his feet and bullied his wings towards the far side of the camp - opposite of where Pawniard had shown up - with a threatening shriek.
Aidinza heard what the flying-type was menacing only a few moments later, as the sound of breaking sticks and rustled undergrowth hit his ears. Pawniard snapped to its feet, racing between Aidinza and the noise source - tripping over Sandile as it did so.
He watches as the two of them go down in a tangle of limbs for a moment, before a new figure bursts into view. It was a small pokémon, just slightly taller than pawniard, with yellow skin and a massive, black second jaw filled with sharp teeth. The pokémon had focused red eyes and a thin torso that flared into an almost dress-like protective layering. In its black-tipped arms was a thick stick that it held like a blade.
It was the pokémon that had attacked the pawniard earlier today. It took one look at the tangle of limbs that pawniard was caught in - Sandile was not making it easy for the blue pokémon to escape - and launched into action, crashing into the steel-type with a clang that sent the bladed pokémon stumbling. As Sandile looked around in confusion at his lost playmate, the yellow-skinned pokémon imposed itself between the reptile and the steel-type, almost protectively standing over Sandile.
Like it had earlier in the day, the black-jawed pokémon began a stream of meaningless grunts and noises as it posed heroically at the pawniard and waved its wooden 'blade' about.
And, driving home the feeling of deja vu, the pawniard was stealing confused glances over to Aidinza, looking for guidance. Aidinza, for the sake of his sanity, avoided shrugging again. Letting events play out exactly the same way twice was to forgive his superstition, bad mojo. Besides, if what he suspected was true, then… he shakes his head and gestures at the newest pokémon to invade his camp. Half to just do something different, half to test the idea still in the back of his head.
Pawniard exploded forward, as the yellow-skinned pokémon clutched its jaw in its arms like it was cradling a fallen brother-in-arms. Needless to say, it was not prepared for what it seemed to be implying was its nemesis to fall upon it in a flurry of dulled blades.
Not prepared but quick to respond, it untangled itself from its jaw-horn and brought its stick sword up to meet pawniards' use-dulled blade-arm. Even dull, Pawniard's arm dug deep into the stick, threatening to snap it in half with a single blow. Not that the steel-type saw fit to follow it up, instead reaching inside the yellow-skinned creature's guard, raking its glowing black blade across its foes' side.
The black-jawed pokémon grunted, stumbling back, clutching at its side as it collapsed into the dirt, one arm reaching to the sky as it whined. Aidinza was pretty sure that it was trying to pantomime dying from a fatal wound.
He just watched the spectacle for a moment, grunting slightly when Astazhei hopped into his lap. Despite himself, he could not help but be impressed, he might not be able to understand the noise the strange pokémon was making, but its emphatic gestures conveyed more than enough.
Though considering that AIdinza was pretty sure it was trying to say that it would power through its great wound with the power of strength of duty and love to defeat its evil foe, maybe he had just gone around the twist.
With great effort the yellow-skinned pokémon hauled itself to its feet, staggering a few times before straightening up, and closing a hand around its stick blade that had snapped under its body weight when it fell. But Aidinza let his attention drift away from the theatrics going on ahead of him, hand pressing to the back of Astazhei's neck, feeling an intense heat. Astazhei not getting involved in the fight made him suspicious, but this worried him. He had given the bird an antidote, but it seemed like being held in the muck from toxic had deeper consequences.
"You'll feel better in your ball." He mutters, and the flying type does not resist when he lightly presses the ball into the bird's side, disappearing with a flash of red. He stands, glancing towards the sky; the sun had only disappeared half an hour ago, it would be a treacherous walk, but that was fine. The only issue would be keeping the prisoners moving, especially with Nihanlo struggling with the cold air.
But he had something more pressing to address at the moment, namely the two furiously fighting pokémon that had entered his campsite. Despite his earlier bemoaning of the fact he never seemed to capture a pokémon normally, he knew he was not going to pass up on the opportunity to capture at least pawniard. The steel-type had saved him inside the cave, giving plenty of time for Nihanlo to recover from her defeat.
While the other pokémon… had proven to be erratic. Pokémon did not think like humans as a rule, which only grew more true the further separated they were from what it was like to live like a human. Sandile might have their territorial instincts, but they had nothing on the strange behaviour of a durant part of a full-on nest. But Aidinza had never seen one as strangely delusional as this yellow-skinned pokémon. Willing to help, however indirectly, poachers that had captured it in one moment and dash their last hope in the next just to fight its object of obsession.
Aidinza was not planning on leaving here without the pawniard and was not sure just what the black-jawed pokémon would do if the pawniard was captured in front of it. But he was loath to have his pokémon beat it down until it stopped getting up, which seemed unnecessarily cruel so far from the miracles of city healers.
So he supposed he was leaving here with two new pokémon. He slipped a hand into the pouch strapped to his thigh, feeling the cool metal of empty pokéballs. He had four left after capturing Nihanlo. But he doubted he would need anything more than just the two. Both pokémon were vicious fighters, grinding away at the other with mighty blows, the yellow-skinned pokémon using its black jaw as both a shield and a deadly trap, while pawniard danced around that trap, its dull blade-arms slipping through its foe's guard with instinctual grace.
Neither were giving a quarter, and the toll of the battle was quickly becoming apparent. The pawniard was not in the best condition before the fight had even started; its plates scuffed and blades notched, and it seemed like the yellow-skinned pokémon was not much better off. Its jaw beginning to lag behind its body, its blows losing the real force that had been behind them at the start of the fight.
It was inevitable that the pawniard would land a truly telling blow, and with a blade oozing a dull, black light, it did so, smashing its arm into its enemy's smaller chin and sending it crashing to the ground.
"Stop," Aidinza called, banking on the pawniard's odd obedience, even as he glanced to his side to see which of his pokémon was paying attention if he needed to physically interrupt the fight. But the pawniard froze, arm centimetres from a devastating follow-up blow straight to the downed pokémon's forehead. The steel-type glances over to Aidinza, silently hovering over its opponent, prepared to land an injuring, if not fatal, blow.
Aidinza expands one of the pokéballs, and with a flick of his wrist, the ball arcs through the air towards the yellow-skinned pokémon. The pawniard followed the trajectory of the pokéball, seemingly recognising what was happening, as it stepped back to let it have an unobstructed path to the black-jawed pokémon.
Or at least tried to step back; its eyes widened as it felt a grip on its leg and was torn into the path of the pokéball. The steel type disappeared in a flash of red.
"Pawniard, Female Captured!" Aidinza watched as the yellow-skinned pokèmon leapt to its feet, possessed by a vigour that had waned as the fight progressed, and pressed a foot to the top of the weakly shaking ball.
It strikes a heroic pose, chest puffed out and hands pressed into its side as it lets out a series of unintelligible grunts and chirps that nonetheless convey victory.
Aidinza let a hand fall to his side, running a calming stroke down Sandile's tense, ridged back. The reptile was on edge; something not-his had defeated something he was interested in, in his own territory. Aidinza could only imagine his instincts were raging at him to do something about that. The tense pokèmon calmed at the touch, muscles relaxing ever so slightly, still teetering on the edge of flinging himself forward, but for the moment, willing to wait.
The motion drew the black-jawed pokèmon's eye, and it twisted around to face Aidinza and his watching pokèmon, once more posing and babbling out noise.
It had to be said that there was a vast gulf between what was a pokèmon and what was human. An evolutionary divergence millions of years in the making. There were many ways that fact was demonstrated: pokèmon could throw around elemental attacks capable of crushing stone for one. But another was the fact that pokèmon could broadly understand each other and had a strange, universal link that meant no matter how different they were from each other, they knew what other pokèmon were saying. Or at least had a broad understanding.
That link was not something humans had; that… connection was barred from them. Forever separated from the hundreds of thousands of species that made up pokèmon by their inability to just get it.
The elders of the Naisho'h used to tell a young Aidinza that the greatest tragedy humanity has to bear is that lack of ability to truly communicate.
It is… somewhat different for trainers and their pokèmon. Somewhere along the line, things start to click. Little ques begin to make sense, and the little differences in tone start to have a purpose. It was not proper communication, but some great Ya'an-ah thinkers believe that somewhere along the line, a pokèmon let their trainer tap ever so slightly into that great network of understanding.
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But that took time. Less time the longer one was a trainer, but time nonetheless for each new pokèmon.
Aidinza was pretty sure that this yellow-skinned pokèmon never got that memo because he got the feeling he knew exactly what it was saying.
And right now, it was demanding praise for it vanquishing such a terrible evil. The black-jawed pokèmon tossed its head, a look of smug faux humility glittering in its ruby red eyes.
Aidinza stared at it blankly.
Seemingly noticing that it was not getting its demanded praise, the pokèmon paused, hands crossing in front of it as it stomped a foot into the ground.
"You didn't beat the pawniard." The pokèmon stumbled backwards, hand clutching to its chest. It stood there bent over for a second, visibly gathering itself, before straightening up. It thrust an arm at the still pokèball, with a proud exclamation, and a humble shake of its head.
"You came around and attacked a tired pokèmon before tripping it into the path of a pokèball after it beat you." Aidinza cut the pokèmon off as it tried to pat itself on the back again. "Hardly fighting a great evil."
That set the yellow pokèmon off, its arms flailing wildly by its side as it growled. Then very deliberately, it began… pantomiming evil acts? That was the best Aidinza could get, from the way the yellow-skinned pokèmon menacingly posed, arms held in a poor mimicry of how the pawniard held its arm-blades.
"If anything, considering you helped the poachers…." Aidinza trailed off and glanced over to where the poachers were still tied to a tree; Rocky and the pleather-wearing poacher were hardly paying attention. But Revy seemed to be watching, struggling to muffle laughter.
The yellow-skinned pokèmon whined, shaking its head as it pounded its black hands into its sides, producing a harsh metallic clang. Then it jabbed a hand back at Aidinza, then at its jaw, then at the pokèball and itself.
Aidinza watched, perplexed but strangely enthralled, as the pokèmon began playing two parts with one body. Acting out a grand betrayal where its main body gained its jaws' trust before backstabbing it at the last moment. It was a strangely moving show; for all that it lasted ten seconds.
"You think the pawniard was trying to deceptively gain my trust?" Both of the pokèmon's heads' nod' emphatically before it posed again, seemingly thinking it had convinced the trainer. "Why would she ever do that?"
The pokèmon paused again, for the first time looking genuinely lost. It dithered on its feet for a moment, glancing around as if the dark forest would hold the secret of what it should say. Before it settled on posing menacingly again.
"Because it's evil?" Aidinza was, if he was being honest, pretty sure he was being fucked with. The pokèmon nods again. He should have just left it at that, abandoned chasing this insane rabbit hole. "Why is it evil." Aidinza may have been slightly masochistic.
The yellow-skinned pokèmon paused before kneeling down, and pointing at its yellow skin, then the black of its leg. It then gestured in front of itself, in the shape of pawniards steel helmet.
"Because it's not yellow?" Aidinza knew broadly what racism was. He had been called sand humper and desert rat by more than a few unpleasant people unhappy to be defeated by him. He sneaks a languid glance over to the poachers again. He knew that many people in Unova hated anyone from Kanto or Johto, and the less said about what some people thought about Hoenn, the better. But this was the first time he had seen a pokèmon be racist.
The pokèmon shook its head, then paused, a thoughtful look crossing its head, and it slowly nodded and tilted its hand side to side in front of it. Then it repeated the gesture at its yellow skin and black leg, finishing it with another tracing of the pawniards helmet.
"Because it's… blue? It's evil because it's blue?" Aidinza felt Sandile tense underneath his fingers and knew that this would end terribly. The black-jawed pokèmon, on the other hand, remained oblivious, eyes lighting up as it nodded enthusiastically.
Aidinza should not add fuel to the fire. Aidinza should simply throw a ball at the pokèmon and capture it. As animated as it was, it could not hide how beaten it had been during the fight.
"So you hate blue?"
Aidinza did a little bit of mischief.
The pokèmon nodded again, smiling wide, and took twenty kilograms of angry reptile to the face.
-
The yellow pokémon was called a 'mawile', and he was male. That was all the pokèball said before it declared itself locked until a connection to the pokè transfer network.
Which concerned Aidinza, partly because the idea that his pokèball could be locked was… terrifying, and mainly because Sandile had not been gentle in his vigorous defence of his favourite colour. He did not know what the pokémon experienced while in their balls, but he could only hope that it dulled the pain.
On the bright side, it was not like he was going to be far from civilisation for long; with Astazhei ill and the mawile potentially injured, Aidinza set a brutal pace through route nine. If the poachers dragged their feet, Aidinza dragged their faces through the mud. Or well, Nihanlo did, the ice type would hardly notice if the poachers put their entire body weight into moving her; she was simply too heavy and too strong.
Unfortunately, the pace Aidinza set meant that there was little time to get to know the newest pokémon he actually had access to, there was no time to waste battling the various wild pokémon along the route, and the particularly insistent ones would find themselves quickly thrashed by an agitated Sandile.
But little time was not no time, and in the short camps that Aidinza took as it grew too cold to continue on, and his aching muscles slowed him, he did what he could to figure out the female pawniard. It was informative and confusing in equal parts. Pawniard was not like his other pokémon; she was less… independent. Everyone on his team was obedient, though some like Shandíín toed that line, but they were self-contained in their downtime. Driven by their own motivations to… do things. Whether that was heading off to sleep like Naazin, or Astazhei's once daily foe-seeking after training, or even as simple as Sandile's hatred of grass. They had something driving them outside of what Aidinza asked them to do.
Pawniard seemed to not have that. Nearly every moment she was out of her ball, she was looking for direction. Constantly waiting for the next order and interpreting those orders from Aidinza's slightest twitch.
Oddly enough, it made him remember one of the fights he had in Route Six against a Yanma. It was a superbly trained pokémon, reacting to its trainers' whistled orders with split-second obedience. But when it came to something it knew but its trainer did not, the bug-type made no adjustment to what it was doing. Made no effort to do anything but exactly what it had been taught.
Even when Aidizna told her to relax, it was a perfunctory thing; she was relaxing because she had been told to rest. Not because she had a drive to relax. She was still an individual in that she had a personality. But that fell by the wayside because of her absolute obedience.
It was a heady amount of power, one that concerned Aidinza. There was an adage in the desert sands. One does not belong to the tribe; the tribe belongs to the one. Aidinza was of the Naisho'h, born to their sand paths, and so was his sister. He was expected to honour their elders, and obey their leaders, though they were one and the same. But if there ever came a time when he wanted to leave the Naisho'h and join another tribe, there was no shame in it. No expectation of staying, no matter what responsibilities might linger when he leaves.
That was a right afforded to every Ya'an-ah. The right of the tribe to belong to the individual. Or, more simply, the right to be an individual.
And no matter the phantom sting that lingered in his heart whenever he thought about it, it was a right he honoured, with all the expectations of independence that went along with it.
But the way that Pawniard acted, it was like she was an individual that belonged to a tribe.
Aidinza was not sure he wanted his pokémon to be like that. Aidinza was not sure he could accept a pokémon like that.
Even beyond the moral issue, there was the practical issue. Though Aidinza used Sandile to fight any wild pokémon during their brutal pace to Opelucid, that did not mean he had no opportunity for practice fights amongst his team. In those practice fights, Pawniard proved that she was a lethally skilled fighter, not able to purely overpower someone like Sandile but able to leverage her strengths far better.
But she was held back by how tightly she held to any instruction she was given. If she was told to use metal claw, she would throw herself at her opponent repeatedly to just land the ability, no matter how fruitless it was.
Worse still, Aidinza could see that Pawniard knew better options, could track that half-start to do something else that she instinctively knew was better. But she abandoned it to throw herself into what she had already been instructed to do.
The comparison to the Yanma from weeks ago was growing more apt by the moment. A noise prickles at Aidinza's ears, and he manages to glance up from the notes in his lap just in time to catch a behemoth of a man dressed in a heavy jacket with many pockets calmly walking into the clearing.
"Opelucid Rangers, keep your hands where I can see them and away from any pokéballs." Aidinza freezes, pencil falling out of his grip as he shows his palms to the man. He had been given an extensive run down on who the Rangers were by the kind Healer Joy at Nimbasa. The men and women that brought as much law as could be brought to the wilds between cities.
"Cool sands and wet winds, lawbringer." Aidinza greeted, letting his arms rise above his head. The man gave him a cool glance, brow furrowing for a moment, before glancing towards the small lean-to that Aidinza made for the poachers.
"Ya'an-ah eh? Great." The man spits to the side and pulls out a device. "I have a report of a Red-haired young man, travelling with three prisoners, two male and one female, pulled along by an ice-type. You match this description." He jerks a head towards the lean-to, and Aidinza nods, that sounds almost exactly like him. The ranger pulled out a device that beeped when he pressed a thumb to its side. "I am Ranger Captain Carlson, Numel Umbreon Four-One-Nine Five-Nine-Two, investigating case reference Sawk Timburr Nine Seven Clauncher. I have positively identified the subject male between ages fifteen and sixteen, six foot tall, with red hair and green eyes. Ethnically and culturally, Ya'an-ah. Subject has shown no signs of hostility and is currently compliant." The device beeps again, and the man pulls a notepad from one of his many pockets. "To keep this short, kid, I have a full ranger squad surrounding the clearing; you will be coming with me, and you will be explaining why you are brazenly travelling to Opelucid with three prisoners."
The man gestures to the side, and Aidinza glances over to see a man dressed nearly identically to Ranger Captain Carlson watching silently.
"All answers you give will be verified by a psychic. As this case falls under potential human trafficking, you do not have any right to refuse verification. Do you understand?" Aidinza's glance back to Carlson was far more cautious; he felt like he was being penned in.
"I have done nothing wrong." Aidinza's words were measured as he carefully met Carlson's brown eyes.
"You forced three people, bound in rope, to travel for seventeen hours a day during winter." The ranger captain's voice was devoid of any particular judgement about that, simply stating the fact.
"They are poachers, not people." For the first time, a crack appeared in Carlson's calm demeanor as he double took at that, blinking rapidly. In the distance, Aidinza heard the sound of laughter.
"Well, that might make things simpler." He drawls, shooting a lazy glare over Aidinza's shoulder at where the laughter had come from. "Vincent, check the prisoners against the database. Then make sure they're not being injured by the ropes." Carlson's voice did not change tone, simply rising in volume, carrying easily in the frosty air. "You are still coming with us, and you will b-."
"Oi, Captain! It's that wanna-be Giovani-looking fuckstick that was posted up a few weeks ago." The voice that cut Carlson off had a heavy accent, curling strangely around its words in a way strangely reminiscent of Rosa's accent.
"Is that a positive identification Vincent?" Carlson looks like he's deciding whether he is pleased, or annoyed by the development, as he takes out another notepad and begins scribbling something down.
"Yeah, he's even got those pleather shoes he stole from Nimbasa Captain; Lorenzo here is fucking wearing pointed shoes in the middle of the wilderness!" The man laughs, a jackal-like sound that dances through the frozen trees strangely. "This guy stole a class two restricted Pokémon, right?"
"Did the poachers have a Munna with them?" The ranger loses the lazy slump in his shoulders, straightening up to his full, intimidating height for the first time since he entered the clearing. He stared down at Aidinza, a full head taller than him. "Pink psychic pokémon, with flower-like patterns in its hide, and secretes a pink gas?"
"They called it Musharna. Its pokéball is in my backpack." Carlson's mouth twists into a scowl, and with a jerk of his hand, another ranger - female this time - enters the clearing proper, pulling the bag at Aidinza's side away from him and rooting through its pockets. "The second pocket, underneath the blue rocks."
"Thanks, kid." Her voice was hoarse from smoke inhalation, and when Aidinza glanced back at her, he caught sight of burn marks running down her arm.
"Eyes on me. You are still coming with us, and you will be subjected to a psychic examination." He glances around the clearing before sighing. He takes another device out of his pocket, a heavy thing that his large hand struggles to wrap around. "Ranger Squad One Four requesting immediate psychic transport of full squad and four passengers, Priority Code Pansage Two." The large man glanced around the clearing, eyes flicking between the various effects that Aidinza had set up around his campsite. "You ever been teleported, kid?"
"No, I ha-." A familiar brown pokémon appeared in a flash, interrupting Aidinza. It hovers in the air for a moment, the tri-coloured jewels on its arm flickering wildly. Before it froze.
A moment passed, and the forest disappeared.
It is difficult to explain just what teleportation feels like; the best Aidinza could attempt was the very precipice of the moment of wake from a dream where it feels like you are falling. Where your physical body was telling you you were still, and your mind was screaming that you were falling.
The young nomad feels his body jolt, knees bracing for a shock of force that simply was not there, bones and muscles twitching strangely. He stumbles forward, hand slapping into a newly there concrete wall to brace him. Someone touched his shoulder, a solid grip to steady him.
He glances over to see the amused face of the man who had called the poacher 'fuckstick'.
"Don't worry, it never gets better, eh? Take a few moments and blink the shit out of your head, yeah?" Aidinza stares at him for a moment, his mind spinning as it protests being forced to process an entirely new environment. Not just the sights but the scents, temperature, and solid beneath his feet. "Now, Captain's gonna get the prisoners set up, so why don't I get your na-"
The young trainer zones out for a moment, dizzy and feeling a sickly feeling creep up his throat. He sways for a moment, even with his hand holding himself up against the wall. "Poké Transfer Network Connection Established, Pokéball Mawile registered to Pokémon trainer Aidinza. Six Pokémon carry limit exceeded. Transferred to Route Five Pokémon Habitat Research Centre."
The voice rattles out from his side, startling Aidinza, and he whirls around to look at it as his belt vibrates before losing an important weight.
The man - Vincent, Aidinza remembers distantly - attempts to catch Aidinza; unfortunately for the ranger, the sickly feeling creeping up the Ya'an-ah's throat turns into a flood, his throat bulging as his small dinner explodes from his lips as his consciousness gives up.
Or, in simpler terms, Aidinza vomits on the ranger's shoes and passes out.