“So, on a mission to become the best there ever was I take it?”

I tried to keep the snicker out of my voice, but Bert gave me a side-eye nonetheless.

“Something like that. Right now, we’re headed east to look into a disturbance near Hawthorne for Professor Rosewood.”

I tried to recall where Hawthorne might be, but the name only seemed passingly familiar. Rosewood was entirely unknown to me. We broke free from the edge of the thicker forest and into a clearing where I could see Combees buzzing about in the distance and what I assumed were their hives.

A beekeeper in full regalia turned towards us as we came into view and Mete waved before jogging ahead to greet them. Bert seemed unhurried, and I followed his example, continuing to walk forward at a leisurely pace.

“I’m kinda surprised we’re still just walking about. I sorta expected…”

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to phrase it and the Charmander finished the thought for me.

“That you’d be stuck in a little ball?”

“Uh, yeah. Not that I’m complaining.”

“It’s fine,” Bert said, “different trainers take different approaches to it. Some fall into the camp like it sounds you’re familiar, keeping their pokemon in their pokeballs and only really letting them out for battles or whenever they’re useful. It saves on food costs, I’ll give ‘em that. But what those trainers lose out on is the emotional connection.”

“I guess Mete’s different?”

Bert gave a smile, something I was beginning to suspect was the exception rather than the rule.

“He is. Trainers like him keep their pokemon out as much as possible. It’s more expensive, especially if you have any big eaters. He’d have Salem out too if we weren’t on a mission.”

“Salem?” I asked, glancing back to Mete, who was talking animatedly with the beekeeper. The ambient buzzing noise and the distance made it impossible to make out what they were talking about.

The Charmander looked conflicted, but smoothed his expression when he noticed me carefully scrutinizing him.

“Salem is… Salem. It’s possible you’ll get along with him better than I do. And if not, well, you’ll just have to put up with him.”

“Ah…” I said, “one of those.”

Bert grimaced.

“Like I said, Mete’s got a good heart. Salem is a point we disagree on. Anyway…”

The Charmander trailed off as we got close enough to overhear the rather animated conversation between the humans.

Mete glanced down at us.

“...anyway, you’ve met Bert before, but this is… uh… I guess we didn’t work out a name yet. Well, this is Nidoran. He was attacked by that Houndour I was tracking down, and ended up joining the team. Nidoran and Bert have been chatting it up the whole way here, so they seem to get along.”

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This close I could see through the face mesh that the beekeeper was a blonde woman with dark skin and a kind smile. She squatted down and held out a hand to me, which I sniffed at. She smelled like honey and flowers.

“Nice to meet you, Nidoran. My name is Ise. Please take care of Mete here, he tends to get in over his head,” she said with a wry grin.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, and once again it seemed like my meaning got across well enough as she smiled.

“Ah, anyway, we should probably be going. Rosewood wanted me to look into what’s winding up the pokemon near Hawthorne.”

Ise nodded.

“Be careful - they’ve gotten terribly aggressive. If I didn’t have all the Combee and Beedrills out here looking out for me, I’d be staying inside myself.”

She gave Bert a stern look.

“You take care of him - they’re mostly grass types, so you shouldn’t have any issues, but stay sharp.”

The Charmander nodded seriously. I got the impression this was a role he was familiar with.

When we reached Hawthorne proper, I was a little surprised to see that it wasn’t much more than a handful of buildings at the center of a clearing surrounded by thick forest and the occasional rock formation. There wasn’t much time to quiz Bert on the settlement, however, as we arrived to find green and white pokemon that looked like floating cotton balls actively menacing a group of cowering people in the center of the town.

“Bert, get in there and ward them off! Nidoran, stay with me and protect the villagers from the Cottonee.”

The fire-type was already rushing ahead before Mete could even finish the order. The cotton pokemon drifted back slightly at the aggressive charge, and that was enough for the surrounded humans to make a break for it, running towards and behind us.

As they passed, I could see how one was carrying an unconscious Pichu, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that the little electric mouse might have tried to defend them only to be crushed by both a numbers and type advantage.

When the Cottonee tried to pursue them, Bert was quick to step in the way, breathing small plumes of flame.

“We don’t mean you any harm - why are you attacking,” Mete called out to the wild pokemon.

One of the Cottonee slipped past Bert and I leapt between it and Mete.

“Nidoran, use Peck!”

My brain locked up. I entirely failed to figure out how the hell I was supposed to do that without a bird beak, and I stumbled backwards as the cotton pokemon seemed to pull energy directly from my body, leaving me feeling drained.

One of the Cottonee blocked by Bert puffed up as others yelled “Liar! Liar,” in turn before rushing forward.

“I’ve had about enough of you,” Bert growled before rearing back and letting loose a nearly solid wave of flame across the line of unruly pokemon, forcing them back.

I made myself stand up and move forward again before rushing at the Cottonee that had drained me. With a snicker, the pokemon backed away, leaving a cloud of sparkling yellow spores which I stumbled into before feeling my muscles lock up painfully.

Just as the Cottonee was looming over me, it was knocked aside with a screech as Bert struck at it from behind, his claws gleaming in the light like polished steel.

The Cottonee fled back towards the forest, and looking around I could see that it was the last one. I settled down to bear through the paralysis, but Mete rushed over swiftly with a high-tech looking spray bottle which lessened the effect from debilitating to simply overwhelming, as if most of my body had fallen asleep and lost blood flow.

“Good job there,” Mete said, and I couldn’t help but give him an incredulous look.

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“This was your first real battle, and we haven’t had any time to actually train or coordinate on tactics. That’s something we can work on. But you defended me and the villagers as best you could, giving Bert time to mop them up without having to worry about defending us. You did well, and I mean that.”

I accepted his words begrudgingly, still sore from the one-sided fight both physically and mentally.

“For now, rest. We made good time getting here, and we can get some training in before we investigate any further into the forest.”

Bert said nothing, but gave me a nod which went a long way to assuaging my injured pride.