CHAPTER 258

Gothitelle could see into the future.

The words rang out over and over in Mira Compton's head as she strode toward Denzel's room. That was something she hadn't accounted for, and like a missing piece of a puzzle, the information slid into her mind and her knowledge became a little more whole, and with that came ever-growing satisfaction that could not be abated. Three months, and only things related to Pauline and herself, Mira thought. That gave them a little wiggleroom. If they never planned to involve Pauline into Team Galactic shenanigans, then Gothitelle would never find out about anything. And yet, Pauline was in some sort of danger. Would Mars target her because she was one of Grace's friends? Likely, with how much of a crazy bitch the Team Galactic admin was. Part of Mira almost considered just ripping the band-aid off and talking to Gothitelle, but Pauline was starting to dislike her again for being in the know while she was not, and if Pauline disliked her, then Gothitelle would too. Never mind the fact that the psychic wanted Mira to stay away from her.

While Mira thought about how to approach this Gothitelle situation and stepped into the elevator, multiple trains of thought ran in the background of her mind. Eevee was not looking like an option right now because of money issues, so she was weighing the benefit of catching an Exeggcute in the Safari Zone. Mr. Jimenez needed her code done by six in the evening, and she hadn't even started it yet outside of visualizing it in her head. Somehow, she made mistakes in her head too. She was self-taught in coding, but his extra push had made her fully capable of creating non-sentient Porygon, and a lot of other useful things. She currently had around eight in her phone, at the moment, not counting her actual Porygon, who was currently watching videos on there after getting banned from that gacha game for hacking. Either way, the Poyrgon would be useful for later. Mira was also considering what the hell she'd tell Denzel about all of this, thinking about new techniques for Haunter and Magnezone, and what the hell she was going to eat this evening. Always Quesadillas— Exeggcute were known to be a lot to handle, but Blue Oak's Exeggutor was a menace— Hi big guy! Your not-girlfriend can potentially blow the lid on this whole thing and I don't think she's great at keeping secrets— Just a few more shifts and I'll get my Upgrade to evolve Porygon— Should I do something about Porygon getting addicted to gambling in video games— Okay, but Quasadillas are great.

It was never overwhelming. Mira had gradually grown into it, and was glad that she at least had that to work with, because without it, what was she? Not much. But Chasey would tell her to cheer up and that he was here for her if she needed him, so she did, donning a smile as she knocked on Denzel's door. Mira knew Chase didn't like her back at this point. She wasn't one to miss the subtle signs of romance which was why she'd toned down the flirting just a bit. He was still a great guy, though. Great friend too.

All of her friends were great, really, but he and Maeve were extra great, even if she didn't see her too much these days with the distance she'd taken from the group to hang out with Zoey and them no longer traveling together. Maeve was pissed with her too. Too nosey, she had called her. Not that she was incorrect.

Denzel opened the door, his body filling the entire frame. He looked down at Mira and gave her a disappointed look.

"Ouch. If you didn't want to see me, at least hide it from your face," the girl joked.

"That obvious?" He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, I thought it was maybe Pauline or Emi or something. Thought I could fix things with them."

"That bad, huh? Can I come in?"

He shifted away from the entrance and gestured her in. "Yup." He closed the door. "What's the problem?" he asked. The tension in his body was easy to see. "No poacher trouble?"

"If there was, I would have sent you a text or called, not waltzed into your room willy-nilly."

"Right."

"Okay, so Pauline's Gothitelle. Did you know she could kind of see three months into the future?" Mira asked, tracing her hand against the wooden desk. Denzel stayed silent, his mouth agape. "Okay, so you didn't know. Got it. She was hiding it from you— well, not hiding it, but she just never thought it to be relevant to bring up until someone asked about Gothitelle. Fair enough."

"Wh—what?"

"Yeah, she's warned her to stay away from us— well, you weren't included in the equation, so you're fine, and I doubt Pauline will listen to her anyway. The problem is that I'm starting to lose my doubts that Gothitelle won't figure this entire thing out soon, and that's kind of a ticking time bomb. I don't really know how any of that shit works yet, and the problem is exactly that. So, since Pauline kind of dislikes me right now, I'm going to need you in there to figure out the quirks of how it works. Gothitelle and Xatu are the only Pokemon who can use Future Sight to see longer than like, one minute. Uses the powers of the stars, or something. I won't be able to fill in the gaps until we talk or you come back with more information— oh, I'm rambling, sorry."

"Yeah. I mean, our talk went pretty bad," Denzel winced. "Uh, I'll try to, I guess. I'm pretty sure all of them have a bone to pick with me, at the moment."

"What words did you use?" Mira asked. "I hope you didn't use 'it's for your own good', that one never goes over well."

Denzel's jaw clenched.

"Oh, okay. That was meant to be a joke, sorry," Mira nervously laughed. "Uh, it can't be that bad. I'm sure she still loves you and everything. Give it another day or two."

Every day was a risk, but love was an annoying thing, Mira internally sighed.

"I'll do that," he nodded.

"Hey, I'm no Grace, but I can tell you're still shaken," Mira patted him on the arm. "Why don't I get some coding done here for my job, and we can talk in the meantime about your streaming stuff and how terrible I am to keep as company."

"Won't you need to focus?"

"Nah," Mira said, dropping her backpack to pick up her laptop. "It's just shitty menial tasks. Copy paste a large portion of the code, then tweak it a bit depending on what the Porygon will do. Right now, Mr. Jimenez is asking for Porygon that search through social media to feed ads to users for Chatter, and Chatter sells the data. Or other social media sites. Pretty fucking nifty."

"If you say so. Did you always swear this much, by the way?" Denzel asked, his tone relaxing slightly.

Mira raised her eyebrows. "Huh. I guess I got a little bit of Chasey in me."

Denzel's face scrunched up. "Never say that again."

—

One day later.

Mudsdale walked at a trot, but even his trot made the ground rumble. The ground type was definitely heavier than one ton, that was for sure. There was a reason the Rangers didn't allow him to walk inside the buildings other than him being slightly above eight feet tall. His sheer weight would just destroy any tiles he tried to walk on. I wasn't the one riding him, not that I wasn't going to try. Right now, Angel had anchored himself on Mudsdale's back, vines attached all around the ground type's body and some around his neck. Angel mimicked an elated yell with an eye-smile as Mudsdale rode around in a circle.

Sunshine was still dumbfounded by the entire thing, but he mused that he should have known Tangrowth would have done something like this.

I snorted, staring up from my laptop. "Let him have his fun. He's gotten the idea to ride something ever since I started using his head as a passenger seat," I said, slowing down a video of Gyarados. I sipped on another cup of tea that Mr. Brockhouse had graciously brewed for me. This one was different than what I'd gotten yesterday and had a little bit of a fresh, minty aftertaste to it. Was mint tea a thing? It was probably a thing. "But you have to admit the introductions are going well, no?"

Sunshine nodded and let a smile slip on his face. Supposedly Mudsdale never would have done something like this before.

"Really? He's such a softie, though. Kind of like you. Tough on the outside, but when you open up—"

And with that, the dragon left. I rolled my eyes, and Princess sniggered. I was sitting on her, at the moment. Without a saddle, of course. I wasn't going to pass up sitting on someone so comfortable, and there weren't any seats nearby. Buddy was practicing Taunt with Sweetheart in the distance, and he was getting the hang of it. The rock type had already gotten her fair share of rides, even though she could barely balance herself on Mudsdale for more than five seconds and the ground type could barely support her weight. Every time she fell off, Princess had to fix up the crater that formed. Turning my attention back to Princess, a wisp of bright red flames constantly appeared and reappeared in front of her.

"You're on break right now," I said, passing a hand over her head. "Relax a little. Wanna go for a ride next?"

The fairy type huffed, saying that she was above such things.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever you say. I saw you looking at Mudsdale earlier and you know you can't hide envy from me." I waited to gauge her reaction, but she didn't budge. "I guess Honey'll be next."

The electric type couldn't practice Bulldoze and his other moves outside of the battling arena, so he was one of the few actually taking his break. His control over electricity had grown almost perfectly, so he was holding onto and reading the Detective comics I'd bought him in Sunyshore. I returned to my studying until Mudsdale strode up to me and neighed to catch my attention. He had called out my name.

Angel hopped off the ground type's back with a dull thud, and Princess asked him if he had fun. I turned my full attention to Mudsdale, whose words were still largely unknown to me. It had only been one day since we'd met, after all.

I slid off Princess' back, hobbling on one leg until I got my crutches. Angel, as diligent as ever, slipped my second one into my right hand before I could even blink. My laptop returned to my backpack.

"Thank you," I said before turning to Mudsdale. "Let's go for a walk."

The horse cocked his head to the side, but nodded. Sunshine was lying down in the distance on the rocky floor, taking in today's warmth, but he couldn't have been more obvious about spying on us. We were in an isolated spot in the outpost, which hadn't been hard to find with how empty of trainers it was. Luckily, it was still expertly guarded, so I still felt safe not having an eye on my family at all times.

"How'd you like them?" I finally asked.

Mudsdale stayed silent for a few seconds before settling on an answer. I had to work to figure out what it meant. A small diffusion of satisfaction, steady and firm, but also nostalgia. Huh, interesting. Kamaile's team hadn't had any children.

"I'm glad you like them," I smiled. "They're everything to me. It would have been difficult if you didn't get along. I could tell Sweetheart got a little on your nerves earlier, though. Sorry about her, she's very easy to excite, and her evolution being nearby's got her in all sorts of moods. She thinks she's going to take over the world."

Mudsdale snorted at that, but it was short-lived. Any laugh was good, though. Mudsdale's apathetic view toward life was difficult to miss.

"You've worked with kids before, haven't you?" I asked.

The ground type hid the surprise on his face very well, not even changing the rhythm at which he walked. He answered with a simple nod.

"Use your words. If you don't, I'll still learn, but I'll learn slower," I said.

Of course, that came back to bite me in the ass. I understood maybe ten percent of the long speech that came next, and that wasn't enough to gather context to answer back.

"Okay, I'm not going to lie, I got a big head." I turned my head away from him in slight embarrassment. "I didn't get a lot of that… okay, I didn't get most of that."

Mudsdale didn't laugh, thank the Legendaries, but he did shoot me a curious look.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Sunshine told you about it already, right? Through circumstances I'm not too sure about, I can understand Pokemon after three days with them or so," I explained, skirting around the name Mesprit. "It's certainly made life a whole lot easier. I couldn't imagine my life without it at this point. It'd be like not being alive, really," I ended with a murmur. "But there's no, like, trick to it or anything."

The ground type let out a pensive, rumbling neigh.

"Right? It's weird, isn't it?" I giggled. "Anyway, children! Was it back in Alola?"

Mudsdale nodded, but before he could explain, I opted to have Buddy take his break and come translate. It'd be good bonding, too. My voice carried far in the empty outpost, and he listened right away, sliding across the cracks in the ground and reaching me in mere seconds. Sweetheart looked on, angry that her 'student' had been taken away from her. Jellicent was the one who had taken to Mudsdale the most. He really knew how to approach him and talk to him without stepping on his non-existent toes.

Mudsdale had lived in a group before… well, that part was left unspoken, but he'd been a part of a herd. He had been at its head— the only Mudsdale that led around twenty Mudbray (the number often fluctuated, but it was around there), which I assumed was part of why he was such a steady Pokemon. Someone I felt like I could rely and depend on for whatever I needed.

He didn't go that in-depth with the story, but I assumed that Kamaile had gotten him to agree to join him and not caught him by force. That wasn't his or Alola's style, and I doubted that Mudsdale would have spoken about his old herd without some bitterness if he'd been forcefully ripped away from them.

"I didn't know you lived in herds!" I exclaimed. "I'm guessing you helped with the kids, then."

He did. All the time. And that had built him a tolerance for kid shenanigans. Apparently, in his species, it was customary for the males to lead and take care of the herd while the females were more aggressive and usually didn't lead. There were, of course, always exceptions. Males would also strike out on their own when they reached maturity to start their own herds, either with a few others that they convinced to leave or finding Mudbray or Mudsdale in the wild. He had gone alone, because apparently the first option sometimes created huge rifts in communities that could sometimes end up in fights, or multi-generational spanning rivalries.

Buddy sagely nodded, absorbing all of this information with great interest while he translated, and Mudsdale seemed very pleased that we were hanging onto his every word. I could tell he wasn't used to being listened to like this. It wasn't hard to imagine Sunshine just ignoring what he said, or even the other members of Kamaile's team. I had only heard a few stories about them each, but only Drampa was the one who looked like she would have cared.

We finished our walk in comfortable silence. When we looped back to my family, Angel quickly scuttled toward me, pushing himself with dozens of vines and motioning with a dozen more.

"I can't ride Mudsdale, that was—"

That was Kamaile's spot. Other Pokemon were fine, but Mudsdale only had one trainer, even if he was dead. The ground type paused and then said something else. No translation came out of Buddy's mouth. Instead, Angel hoisted me onto Mudsdale's back, and the horse didn't even so much as twitch to disagree.

"Okay, I guess I am riding you," I chuckled nervously. My hands went to grip at the ground type's dark hair, but I had to work to get in there. The texture was so tough and it was so tightly wound together that digging my fingers to get a grip on it took twenty seconds of effort. "Go slowly, please. It'll hurt too much if my leg bounces."

Seeing the ground from up here was scarier than flying high in the sky, for some reason. Or maybe it was because I didn't have a saddle? Mudsdale slowly walked around the outpost. His hair was softer on the inside than the outer layer, so I ended up petting it the entire time.

Oh, and Princess demanded a ride when we were done.

—

One day later

"So there's one thing you've got to understand, Musdale," I said as I tied my hair back. Togekiss flew far above us, electricity sparkling through her fur. "Princess is like, very uppity. I guess I'm to blame for that? I kind of struggle telling her no unless she demands outrageous things. I think she's been having some kind of rebellious phase too. But! She's also a huge baby, so you don't want to talk back to her too hard."

Sunshine nodded along, adding that it had taken him months to learn to walk the careful line. One second, he could be bantering back with her, and the other she'd be crying to me. Mudsdale raised a hairless brow but followed what we were saying. There had been no accidents yet, but I figured it was better to warn him because they were bound to happen.

"So yeah, she's capricious and I love her," I said, feeling a smile tug at my lips. "But befriending her is solving a puzzle in and of itself."

Mudsdale had decided to ask me about members of my family and what I thought about them, starting with Princess first. I didn't know if he was just genuinely curious or if this was a test of some kind, but I did love to gush about my kids, so I wouldn't miss an opportunity like this. Plus, I was on break, having finally smoothed out my strategy for Wake. Now all I needed was to figure out a containment procedure should he use Palafin. Part of me wondered if I'd need to just throw the match so he wouldn't transform— or transform as late as possible, but that was needlessly risky and complicated. Still nice to keep it as a contingency, though.

"Okay, so, Angel. He's a little strange, right?" I turned to look at the grass type, who was using Ingrain on the barren Ranger grounds. If he could find nutrients here, he could find them anywhere. "Non-verbal. I still don't know why. I guess he was just born this way, but he's easy to understand once you get the gist of his sign language."

Sunshine snorted, letting me know that I was completely wrong. He was just starting to get it after having been with us for months.

I rolled my eyes. "You look at the vines too much. It's mostly in the eyes, Sunshine. Anyway, he's a very sweet boy. Wants everyone to get along all the time, and is actually very easygoing. He's great at listening to people venting too, believe it or not. A great listener in general. I've spent a lot of nights just talking to him about problems. And he's great with kids! Even though he's a kid himself."

Turtornator grunted to say that he wasn't so sure about that. Mudsdale opted not to say anything.

"What? Have you seen him?" I scoffed. "He's totally a kid. Here, let me call him over— Angel!"

The grass type turned, then waved at me before he waddled over with a cute skip. A vine snaked around my good ankle and leg as soon as he got close enough. I had long learned to live with his clinginess. In fact, I thought it was cute.

"Hey kiddo. Mudsdale wanted to know how old you were. I know you said you don't remember, but why don't you try to ballpark the number."

He tilted his entire body, then blinked. Slowly, eight vines rose. At first, I thought he'd meant eight, which was a lot older than I'd believed, but I knew from the sharpness in his eyes that he meant decades, not mere years. Eighty. I closed my mouth, which had opened without me knowing, and gulped.

"Woah. I, uh, I thought you were a lot younger than that."

Sunshine shrugged, asking if it mattered if he behaved like a child half the time anyway.

No.

It did not.

"You're a cute kid, Angel," I smirked. "Why don't I go cook something for everyone? The Center's basically empty, I'm sure I could borrow the kitchen."

Honey appeared before me with surprising control over Radiant Leap and grinned.

"Let's do this," I said, returning the smile.

—

The Pokemon Center's kitchen was a grand affair. An almost endless row of stainless steel countertops sat to my left, serving as the station where most meals were prepared. Large sinks were positioned to the sides, where a lonely cook was currently washing a bunch of plates. She was the only person on shift at the moment, and had been very nice about lending me a slice of her kitchen. People were surprisingly amenable if you were nice and listened to their worries for a little while.

"Remind me to never try to make pizza again, Hon," I sighed. I leaned toward one of the five ovens, looking at the awful experiment the both of us had created while Electivire cleaned the dishes. He had to be very careful with the measuring cups and handful of spoons I'd used to spread the sauce— so careful that he was holding them between two of his fingers. The fact that he could actually touch water without killing everything in the vicinity meant that he was basically normal again. I slid next to him and elbowed his side. "Let me help you out. You did most of the work."

The electric type hummed, his two tails straightening. Electivire tails were very expressive, not that I needed to keep track of body language. Straight when focused or in a fight, loose when relaxed or having fun, and everything in between. He was disappointed in the results, but still excited to taste the damn pizza. We'd made it twice as big as the recipe said because of all the mouths to feed, bought the needed ingredients at a nearby grocery store (which was the only one in the station), but we'd messed up so many times with the dough that we'd run out and decided to do with what we had. An hour and a half later, here we were.

I rubbed a sponge against a metallic bowl. "It's almost ready, by the way. Feel free to go take a look."

Electivire responded with soon. He was very diligent, wanting to finish cleaning everything up before reaping the fruits of our labor. I hobbled behind him and wiped away the leftover flour that had fallen on the counter. We passed the time with him telling me about his comics that he was devouring through and reading to Princess. Having no arms didn't mean Togekiss couldn't turn the pages with Psychic, but she was being a damsel about it.

"Oh, by the way," I said when we were done.

I swiveled around and wrapped Honey into a tight, soothing hug. All this time, I'd waited for him to be ready, and he finally was, despite me still smelling ozone and my ponytail standing straight up. He returned the hug, of course, and I didn't miss the relief rolling off of him. If the cook was looking at us now, I'm sure it would have looked comical, to see me dwarfed by Honey, both in height and in width.

"I'm proud of you," I spoke into his fur. "Truly."

I let go before he did, and realized he wanted to stay like this longer, so I listened. We hugged until the oven dinged, and before I could go to pick up the pizza, Honey did, expertly wielding a Pizza Peel to slide it out of the oven. For my part, I grabbed the pizza cutter, having always wanted to use one at least once in my life. Just as I finished cutting the pizza, I felt a small shift in my hair, and then noticed white powder falling around the edges of my vision.

"Honey! You little—"

He easily slid back to dodge a swipe of my hand with a grin. He'd thrown flour in my hair, the little prankster. An engine-like laugh filled the kitchens.

I sighed— which was more an amused one than anything. "Ha, ha, ha. You got me," I deadpanned. "Help me clean this flour up, then we'll set up the pizza outside. We have no box, so we need a huge plate, uh, napkins for me, I'll have to hand feed Sweetheart, but Angel will help with that. Two slices each— one slice for me."

While the pizza ended up not being the best, it wasn't bad either, and my Pokemon acted like it was the best thing in the world.

Save for Mudsdale. He wasn't very impressed.

Who knew making Margarita Pizza was this hard?

—

One day later.

"Stop being such a sore loser," I told Sunshine. "You know the days of you being able to fight two-on-one are over, but that doesn't mean you're weak. Weaker Pokemon grow faster than stronger ones, that's literally common knowledge. Staying ahead of the curve for that long would be impossible."

The battlefield lay destroyed in front of me, burned to a crisp from both fire and electricity, and it had been torn through by Bulldoze and Ancient Power. In a feat of glaring overconfidence, Sunshine had challenged both Honey and Angel to a fight to see who'd come out on top. Honestly, I mostly believed he wanted to impress Mudsdale, who had watched on at the edge of the arena with me and the others. While the ground type was no longer interested in battles, he still wanted to see how far his friend had come.

The result had been a dominant victory in Honey and Angel's favor. The electric type had taken to melee, so much of his fur was burned off, but the Cross Chops and Bulldozes he could now deliver had devastated Sunshine, who could only escape using two explosions at a time combined with Flame Charge to fly. Meanwhile, Angel had been support with Ancient Power, since getting too close meant he would burn. Every time the dragon had tried to hit Angel with Flamethrower or Dragon Pulse, Honey had been there to block it with Protect. I had already healed Tangrowth and Electivire, who were taking a break in their Pokeballs.

"Your win condition was rushing Angel and getting him out of the fight, but running away from Honey's impossible, and he's strong now, right?" I explained as I applied a potion to his arm. "He can't overpower you yet strength-wise, but the momentum he builds with Radiant Leap knocks you back. So you had to think outside of the box— using Scorching Sands and Bulldoze was good, but it wasn't enough."

Outside of going all out, winning a two-on-one was a dilemma for him now, and not a particularly close one.

"Ever think of using Flamethrower while using Rapid Spin?" I mused. "Now that you can fly for a few seconds, it'd be worth taking a look at. You trap Honey in a Scorching Sand while baiting him to get up close, then you fly and hit Angel with a Flamethrower instead of having to wait to land. In those few seconds, Honey always managed to free himself."

It was harder than it seemed, he answered. First, he'd have difficulty aiming, which was obvious, and the Flamethrower would only hit Angel for a split-second at a time. Second, he was already focusing everything he had into not losing his balance while using Shell Trap mid-air.

"Okay, then how about leaving the Rapid Spin mid-air and using Flamethrower from there?" I asked. "And hey, what I suggested is still good to keep in mind if you want to spread fire everywhere quickly."

He answered that he obviously knew that already.

"Your new movement options will be great against Wake," I said. I had signed up to battle earlier today before coming here, and my battle was in three days in the evening. I wouldn't be the first one of my friends to battle— but I would be the first one with six badges to do so. Our revelations to Denzel had made him reconsider and decide to stay a little longer. "Anyway, Mudsdale, what'd you think? You wanted to see, after all."

I was under no illusions that this had sparked a new interest in battling for the ground type, but he had looked like he had enjoyed it, at least. Mudsdale swayed his head to the side, allowing his hair to droop, and he told Sunshine he was proud of his progress, which caused him to smother a smile. He was a dragon, and his pride wouldn't allow him to be happy at something as simple as praise from a friend. A friend he hadn't seen in months.

Not that he was hiding it very well.

"You two sure are cute," I giggled before turning back to the ground type. "It's about time to go, unfortunately. We'll be back tomorrow as always— oh, actually, I can't come tomorrow. I've got the UPAN stuff I told you about."

Mudsdale was surprised I forgot about something that important, and I had to tell him I didn't forget, it had just slipped from my mind. I rode him back to the Ranger Station with Sunshine by our side, and one of them came to put him back in his Pokeball. I swung by Brockhouse's office before leaving to thank him for today's tea as well. He'd been making me a cup every time I came here, now that I'd wormed myself into his good graces. I'd need to convince him to teach me about tea soon, but Rangers didn't have days off.

I released Princess, and she began her flight back to Pastoria.

In the days I'd spent at the outpost, I'd spoken to more Rangers than I had in my entire life, and it made me appreciate the work they did. I'd probably… not probably, I had been unfair to them in Veilstone due to my own biases. I knew now that most of them only wanted to do good. Granted, things weren't black and white. It was the Rangers that cleared the routes every time a city needed to expand. It was the Rangers that were the tip of the spear for the human race and that prodded at wild Pokemon over and over until one or a group of them snapped and attacked, after which they would clamp down even harder to prevent it from happening. But some Pokemon were aggressive too, that I couldn't deny.

In the end, what were we but people with different objectives and agendas?

People. The word rang out in my mind as I approached the city.

Tomorrow, I would speak to the people in charge of Pastoria and have my first real foray into politics.