Interlude 1
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He comes into the world kicking and screaming. Too mad to be happy, too weak to change.
They call him Mankey. It fits, he thinks. He is a Mankey. But unlike the others of the grove, he wears no titles. He isn’t Torterra the Earthshaker or Pyroar the Flame or Xatu the Soothsayer. No one considers him, pays him enough mind to call him something more.
Mankey is Mankey. He isn’t strong, fierce, or important.
He simply is.
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He grows up alone. Mankey never knows his mother, never meets his father, but he asks Xatu about it exactly once.
The bird stares at him with the same distant look he watches everyone with. ‘They left you here,’ Xatu says. ‘When rain returned, so did they — from where they hailed.’ For the first and last time, Xatu’s face twists.
‘You would not have survived the journey.’
It’s a terrible sympathy. But as much as it chafes, Mankey doesn’t bring it up again. On the night of the solstice, the anniversary of his birth, he stares up at the cloudless sky and wonders if he has any family that watches the midnight stars.
He wonders if they ever think of him.
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A year passes. He spends it with the residents of the grove: Mother Khan, Fearow the spear, Old- man Whiscash who rests at the bottom of the lake. They’re all good pokemon, better than him, but Mankey doesn’t connect with any of them like he does Michael the Machamp. With three arms instead of four — Mankey knows Michael is supposed to have four arms, but he lost one fighting Krookodile the Dust (a story he’s heard many times) — and a chest lined with scars, Michael has all the reasons he needs to hate.
He doesn’t. The near seven-foot prime example of combat prowess and martial dedication never loses his smile. He constantly sits by the water’s edge, kicks his feet, and stares across the clearing. Once, Mankey asked him what he was looking for; once, Michael placed a hand atop his head and told him that he wasn’t looking for anything.
He just enjoys the sights.
“Every pokemon gets to a point where their fighting days are behind them.” Michael skips a flat rock across the water. “Maybe they can, but choose not to. Or perhaps they just don’t enjoy it like they did before.”
“There’s no shame there.”
Mankey doesn’t understand. Michael says a lot of things that he never quite gets, but Michael still spends time with him. So instead of arguing, he sits down next to the larger pokemon, and looks across the clearing to the shore on the other side.
He never sees the appeal, but he comes every day and glares out over the water and tries. He fails. During the second week, he asks for lessons instead.
There isn’t much through there, but Mankey feels that if he gets stronger, if he learns how to fight, maybe he’ll earn some respect. Hell, maybe he’ll get strong enough to strike out and look for the family that he’s never known.
Michael agrees.
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He punches rocks until his knuckles bleed.
Michael says he isn’t tough enough, that to get stronger he needs to learn his limits. Needs to learn to ignore them. Mankey thinks it’s shit. At least until Michael squats down next to him and shows him the sharp, jagged scars that run across the back of all three of his hands. The Machamp reaches down and pushes his finger into a rock, lifting it up like the bowling ball that Sableye the shadow guards in his cave.
“Half of it’s physical,” Michael says as he pulls the rock off his finger. With a flex, he crushes it to dust. “The other half is mental. It’s all about telling yourself that you’re not done yet.”
Mankey goes back to punching boulders until his hands slip against the dents in the surface. He adjusts, wipes them off, and keeps going.
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Michael dies on the twenty-third day after the ninth moon of the year. It’s a bright, sunny day — a stark contrast to his somber mood.
Xatu holds a service: a memory of the life that Michael lived. Mankey doesn’t understand — if they wished to celebrate Michael’s life, why hadn’t they done so while he still breathed? He attends anyway.
Apparently, it’s a human thing.
He’s never met a human before. But he’s heard about them from Fearow the spear. Some of them are great, some terrible, but most are somewhere in-between. Fearow told him a story once, of a human tribe that captured pokemon and turned them into unthinking, unfeeling monsters.
Fearow told him of man's hubris, and how they attempted to tame the beasts of the burned tower of flame.
Fearow told him how they were stopped by a single man.
A single man, and six pokemon.
It’s a pretty story, but that’s all it is. A story. Michael once told him that words are wind, and actions will always speak louder. At the time, it’d seemed like a Michael-ism, but now that he thinks on it, he guesses it makes some sense. Mankey crouches down next to the water and glances at his own reflection.
It was just yesterday Michael stood over him. For the second time in his life, tears prickle at his eyes, and for the first time, he lets them fall freely down his cheeks.
The sun hangs low and the sky glows red before he walks away.
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He learns to hate on a day that ends in Y. Michael had told him the human titles for each day in the ‘week’, but he can’t remember them.
It’s even harder to know how Michael could tell the difference.
But it’s a comment from Timburr that sets him off. “It’s a shame how Michael died,” he says one day. “I’m sure he would’ve wanted to go out on his feet, maybe fighting someone like the Queen of the Sands. A fighter like him dying from old age —” he pauses and exhales “— that’s kinda lame.”
Mankey sees red.
He doesn’t rebuke Timburr for his remark, doesn’t pull him aside to offer him wisdom, as Michael would’ve done. Mankey punches him in the face, drops him into the dirt, and wails on him with fast jabs and heavy hooks mixed between. When he pulls his hands back, they drip with blood and smell of iron.
He takes a moment to realize it isn’t his.
Taking one glance at Timburr’s bruised, battered face, he swallows hard. Mankey had never noticed before, but he’s strong. There’s a chance, he thinks, that he’s always been strong, and he’d been too busy chasing after giants to notice the steps in his own wake. And now he’s used that strength to terrorize someone weaker than him, someone who doesn’t even know what a mistake they’ve made.
Mankey runs. He passes Mother Khan, who steps out of his way. He passes Xatu, who looks at him and doesn’t say a word, though it’s clear he already knows what has happened. He passes Small Gurdurr — Timburr’s father — who offers him a wave even when Mankey ignores him and shoulders his way through the brush and into the cave he uses to go topside.
He takes his anger out on the stone at first. Mankey punches the mountainside until his own blood mixes with Timburr’s, and the scabs over his knuckles bust and bleed.
He doesn’t stop. When his rage never simmers, and his blood refuses to cool, he tries to swallow his spite like he’s done so many times before.
He fails.
Mankey doesn’t hate Timburr. He doesn’t hate Gurdurr or Xatu or even Michael who left him all alone.
He hates himself.
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Michael trained with a human, once.
It’s a detail that Mankey had never known, never thought to ask. Xatu tells him. He tells Mankey about Bruno — a man called ‘the Steel’ — and the years that he and Michael had traveled across the lands of Kanto, Jhoto, Orre, and the rest of the world that humans felt the need to name. It’s a silly sentiment. The world is the world, the land is the land, and only creatures as complex in their simplicity as humans could stake claim to things that can’t be owned.
Xatu told him once that the human cities are beautiful; Mankey wonders how beautiful they’d be if the Queen or any other monster sacked them.
“If they went on so many grand adventures,” Mankey starts, picks up a piece of grass between two fingers, and focuses on it. “Then why did Michael decide to stop?”
Xatu stares off. ‘You already know the answer. Michael was old. Older than me, older than the Earthshaker — older than everyone except for Torrent, who surfaces once on a moon-cycle. Michael didn’t want to fight anymore.’
‘He’d been dying for a long time.’
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Mankey tries to leave once under the cover of nightfall. It’s a cloudy night, one of the few cloudy nights he’s seen, and he makes his way up to the surface and looks out at the desert down below.
It’s as scary as it is captivating.
He’d never thought of it before. The sands have been here his entire life, but he’d given no consideration to traveling them. But Xatu’s story lingers in his mind, and he thinks that maybe — just, maybe — he has a chance to escape this place that he no longer belongs.
Maybe, he can find a human like Bruno the Steel who he can learn from. His stomach twists and turns and he decides against it.
That would be like replacing Michael.
Despite that, he takes his first steps. He follows the rocky path to the river, traces it down the mountain. And as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Mankey loves the climb. There’s something cathartic about the way his hands grasp the stone, and it’s a unique, exhilarating feeling.
“Who the hell are you?”
Mankey turns, stops, and stares at the pokemon who addresses him in the mountain pass. Even in the low-light of dusk, he can make out the odd, red and black armored pokemon that points its sharpened hand in his direction.
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“I’m Mankey,” he says, clenches a fist at his side. “And how the hell are you gonna ask for my name when you didn’t even introduce yourself first?”
“I’m Pawniard the blade.” The pokemon runs his arms against one another in sharp, practiced motions. It reminds him of Sableye’s whistling laugh. “This is my territory. Leave now, or prepare to suffer the consequences.”
Territory? Mankey almost scoffs. “Consequences?” Mankey hums. “Take your consequences and shove them up your ass. Let me pass.”
For a second, Mankey thinks that Pawniard will back down. It hesitates. But it isn’t smart enough, and it lunges towards him with raised arms and pointed steel.
The fights over as quick as it starts.
Mankey clasps one arm and uses it as leverage. He forces Pawniard to turn, pushes it into the ground, and squeezes. A snap, a crack, a cry — the metal joint that makes up its elbow crumples like a wet, autumn leaf.
“What now?” Mankey taunts. He places his foot on the back of Pawniard’s head (careful to avoid the sharp edges) and pushes it further into the ground. “You were ready to kill me a moment ago. So, what changed? Was all that bravado for nothing?”
Pawniard gasps. It flails and struggles against his hold until Mankey grabs its other arm and puts pressure on the same spot. “Stop that right now, or I’ll break your other arm, too.” Pawniard stills. “Good, now remember this the next time you threaten someone you don’t know.”
Mankey kicks Pawniard once. Hard. “You’re weak. Now scram, and tell everyone you know about how easily you lost. Maybe I can get a decent challenge, then. This isn’t your territory, but if someone wants to stake claim to it, they’ll have to beat me.”
“And if I ever see you around here again, I’ll break both your legs.”
He’d planned on striking out, but another opportunity falls into his waiting hands. Mankey says nothing else as turns back to the grove.
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One day he thinks, ‘it’d be so much easier if I stopped caring.’ He tries, and this time, he thinks he succeeds.
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Another fight, done.
Mankey no longer feels guilty. Sometimes he thinks he never has. And after each battle, he returns to his little hole he’s beaten into the earth and beds down for the night. No one congratulates him on winning. No one pats him on the back for a well-fought match, or a good punch for a last-minute clutch.
No one should.
Every night he goes to bed, he stares up at the sky, and the questions from his past play over and over in his mind.
He still has no answers.
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More time passes. Mankey continues to train, and he continues to fight anyone that comes looking for a challenge.
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The desert dries up.
In fairness, the desert has always been dry. It’s a desert. But even the lake that Old-man Whiscash rests at the bottom of loses some depth. Not much — Whiscash would never let it get too dry — but enough that Xatu starts talking about cutting the forest down at the basin of the mountain and damming up the one river that flows through the desert.
Everyone agrees after a while. Mankey doesn’t pay it much mind, ignores it in favor of training and fighting and bleeding until he can’t stand. But he likes Bibarel, he owes Timburr and Gurdurr, so he chips in and helps tear the trees down and carry them back up the mountain.
There’s nothing wrong with more pokemon in the grove. If anything, it just means that Mankey will have an easier time finding a good fight.
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Who is Landon?
Mankey hears the name for the first time from Whiscash’s lips. He pokes his head out from behind a tree, and listens in even if he thinks Xatu already knows he’s eavesdropping. Despite that, the prophet never acknowledges him.
“He’ll be here soon, Xatu,” Whiscash says. His goofy smile that sits on his face folds into a frown. “And when he arrives, things are going to change.”
“I still don’t know if I need to be worried.”
Xatu doesn’t say anything. At least, not out loud. He turns away from Whischash to stare out at the lake for what feels like hours. Whiscash doesn’t respond, but after a while he sighs and dips back into the water. Mankey releases a breath he hadn’t realized he held and turns to walk away.
Xatu stares back at him.
‘There’s a saying amongst humans,’ it says, words whispering in his mind. ‘Curiosity killed the Meowth. You’re already a sterling example of a delinquent, and now you’re listening in on others’ conversations?’ It’s as close to chiding as he’s ever heard from Xatu. There’s still no emotion there (or, as little as possible) but the bird’s eyes cut over to him and watch him like he’s prey.
Mankey chafes at the thought.
“Who is Landon?” He settles on instead. “I’ve never heard that name before.”
‘It reminds you of Michael,’ Xatu corrects, and Mankey takes a sharp breath. ‘And he should. Or, his name should, in any case. Michael had a human given name because he traveled with one; Landon Dunn has a human given name because he was born with one.’
It takes Mankey a second to figure it out. “A human is coming here?” He glares down at the grass and sits. “Why now, of all times?”
Xatu trills. ‘For what reason would any human have to come to a pokemon community?’ It turns and looks at him with the same, dispassionate stare it always has.
‘To catch a pokemon, of course.’
Xatu disappears in a flash of teleport, and Mankey slams a hand onto the ground. “I had more questions!” he shouts to the sky, but this time, there are no answers.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he thinks. ‘Even if a human comes here, it doesn’t change anything for me.’
‘I’m already on my path.’
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“Who is Landon?”
It’s a question on everyones’ lips. He hears the same words from Sableye, Pyroar, and Bibarel. Mankey ignores them. He doesn’t care about the human, doesn’t care about whatever nonsense something like this brings, and he focuses on his training instead. He travels up above to the mountainside and pounds his frustrations out into the earth itself. He throws punch after punch, but his knuckles never bleed.
They’d stopped a long time ago.
It’s a testament to his strength: of what he’s gained, and what he’s paid for it. He’s strong now, stronger than he’d ever dreamed of being.
It still isn’t enough.
Mankey stops swinging. He takes the palm of his hand and rests it atop the stone and breathes. All the strength he could ever want, and he has nothing to do with it. Briefly, he thinks of Michael and wonders what had driven the giant to seek so much power. No ordinary pokemon could ever be that strong.
He snorts. Michael wasn’t special. The Machamp had started just as weak as Mankey was.
They’d had this conversation before.
Mankey sits down in a hole of his own making. The entire time, he wonders if this is the way things are meant to be.
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Who is Landon?
The thought burns bright in his mind. Mankey turns to Whismur the Song and Baby Phanpy with a furrowed brow. “You both lost?” He asks, sits down on a rock, and stares at Sableye. The pokemon lurks on the cusp of his cave and laughs. “What, did he have some strong pokemon you weren’t expecting?”
“No,” Phanpy says, eyes downcast. “He wasn’t using big, strong pokemon if that’s what you mean.” Shit, she looks like she’s about to cry. “It was just him and Ziggy; the only fight she lost was to the Lord of the Small Mountain.”
Mankey frowns. Makuhita is stupidly strong. They’ve fought once, and it’s the only time he ended up plastered on the ground — an outcome he expected, but he still pushed himself anyways. He has a couple of things he wants to ask, but he settles on the first thing that comes to mind.
“Are they still going?”
Sableye laughs. Whismur snorts and shakes himself no. “They stopped a while ago. Said they needed to take a break.”
With a loose tongue, he can’t stop himself from asking, “do you know where they went?”
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“Who is Landon?” He asks Ziggy.
She wags her tail and smiles, even as she lies on the grass and enjoys the cool breeze. “He’s my trainer, silly,” she says before drinking some of the water in the small container at her side. “He just stepped out for a minute, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
A frown pulls at his lips. She’d answered his question yet didn’t. He tries again. “No, I mean, who is he? Where’s he from?” Mankey pauses, thinks about his next words.
“What kind of person is he?”
A hum leaves Ziggy’s lips. “Well, Landon is Landon. That’s who he is.” Her smile widens and her eyes sparkle. “I don’t know where he’s from, and I guess he’s a bit of a dumbass.”
“Come to think of it, you seem pretty stupid, too.”
What? Mankey glares at Ziggy as she laughs. He screeches, slams a hand on the ground, and grabs a handful of her seeds before throwing them into her mouth. Ziggy’s smile doesn’t strain, though it sharpens.
“What, too weak to get your own food?” She asks through her chortles. “Oh no, woe is me! The small scary Mankey stole my food. What ever will I do?” Her eyes glaze over with fake, unshed tears, and Mankey barks like a dog.
Mankey spits in her water.
Finally, her smile falls away from her face. Ziggy tilts her head to the side and raises an eyebrow in his direction. “Now that wasn’t very nice.” She nods to the Spinda that he’s ignored, and the little dizzy creature rolls away into the tree-line. “I’m guessing this is how you treat every girl you meet.” Her smile comes back.
“It’s probably why you’re so mad and lonely.”
Mankey screams. He clenches his fists and tightens his arms and he’s seconds away from swinging on this bitch when he hears a call from behind him.
“What the hell is going on here?”
He turns to Landon, and he’s hit with immediate disappointment. “This is Landon?” He asks, glare on his face, pointing at the man in question. Ziggy rolls her shoulders; it’s as much of an affirmation as he’s gonna get.
“What, you wanna fight?” He focuses back on the trainer — on Landon. What a stupid question. When doesn’t he want to fight? He offers a curt, stiff nod, and holds himself back when the man treats him like an annoyance. As much as he wants to swing on the trainer, his Zigzagoon is a much more appealing target. The two of them go back and forth for a moment before a decision is made, and Mankey takes a spot across the clearing.
He waits for the stick toss for their fight to begin.
And it’s over as quick as it starts.
Ziggy kicks sand up in his eyes, and instead of falling back to clear them, he pushes on. With one well-placed move, he takes a skull to the soft part under his nose and folds on the second direct hit. It takes him a second to come to. It takes a second for the realization that he lost to settle over him.
He slams his hand onto the grass and cries. It’s one thing to lose, he thinks, but it’s another thing to lose so handedly. ‘To a pokemon with a massive disadvantage, too.’
‘What have I been doing?’ The thought torments him, digs into his skull and roots around in his mind. ‘Has all my hard work been for nothing?’
He screams.
“Quit being a bitch.”
Mankey’s head snaps up, and he glares at Landon through his tears. “You lost a single match, so what? You’re strong, yeah? Don’t cry about it. Stand up on your feet and push on.”
That… sounds like something Michael would’ve said. Mankey pauses, and for the first time in a long time, he feels his rage soften. His hand, tight and grasping against the ground, loosens just a little.
“When you throw a fit like this, it makes you look weak as hell.”
‘The other half is mental. It’s all about telling yourself that you’re not done yet.’ Mankey’s eyes go wide as Michael’s words come back to him. He snorts. Perhaps he is weak, he thinks. Too caught up in his own flow to remember what Michael taught him all those years ago. Mankey claps his hands and bows his head.
He’s thankful. For this fight, for this lesson, for meeting someone this strong. Yet, he isn’t satisfied. He still doesn’t have the answer to his recent query: who is Landon? And more than anything, now he wishes to know.
The man turns to walk away; Mankey makes up his mind.
He reaches out and grasps Landon’s wrist.
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‘Who is Landon?’ he thinks when Landon gives him a name just like he’s always wanted. Michael’s title was ‘the Machamp’ and Sendo thinks it’s a bit poetic now that he’s Sendo the Mankey. There’s a tightness in his chest that he’s familiar with, but instead of wallowing in that pain, he embraces it. He’s closer to his goal; he’s closer to his mentor; he’s closer to his trainer who he wonders how he ever doubted.
“Who is Landon?” he asks himself when the man tells a story from his homeland. It’s a fictitious tale about a fighter named Rocky Balboa, who was a nobody — who became somebody by taking a match that no one expected him to win. It’s a story that resonates with him. He was weak, once. Hell, compared to some of the monsters that he’s met, he’s still woefully weak — even if he doesn’t plan on staying that way for long. Between Landon, Ziggy, and himself, he’s sure that he can surpass anyone that gets in their way.
“Who is Landon!” he screams in the sand. They find cover beneath a rock, and they huddle together for a moment for comfort. Until his trainer tells him he’s going back into the ball. He wants to protest and scream, at least until Landon slaps him on the back and puts all his faith in him instead of Ziggy. Somehow, they survive a dance with the Queen of the Sands, even if she never knew they were here.
Who is Landon. He wants to say the words, but they don’t leave his lips even if he wants to voice them. Instead, he stares out at the desert below and enjoys the view.
Who is Landon? He wants to voice his question in between reps, but he’s too busy struggling to breathe to offer that question. And later, in the hall, when it bubbles up to his lips again, he’s too busy sobbing and trying to hide it.
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Landon is a good man, Sendo decides.