The sun sank behind the mountain and plunged Halfhenge into shade. Night Vision emerged from the keep and scurried over the grass, Rockruff leading the charge, eager to meet an old friend. Ren forsook donning a disguise, which made it easy for Von to chase after him.
True Aim was hard to miss, even amongst the population of Halfhenge milling about in the courtyard. Three large winged beasts caught Von’s eye from afar; Wyn was dwarfed by a colossal black bird whose feathers glistened at every turn. Two more winged Pokemon flanked the fox, one Von recognized as a Flygon, the other an unfamiliar owl that wore a shroud of leaves as a hood. The owl had bandoliers looped across its chest, small ampules tucked into its pockets.
"Fei!" The excitable dog barked and leapt toward the towering owl. She skidded to a stop at its talons, her tail wagging as she grinned up at it.
"Kaia," he said calmly, peering down at her. "Doing well?" His voice came as soft stuttered hoots.
"I am! We're back! We can battle again! Oh, I bet you missed me!"
As she yipped and yapped, Fei raised his gaze. It hovered on Von for a few moments, taking his measure, before landing on Ren. Despite Fei's avian features not conveying much emotion, the cold stare he fixed Ren with had the fox shirking back.
"- and I learned how to feel out the best rocks to use! When I sense for them underground, sometimes I get lucky and can call up a stone harder than a Shuckle shell!"
Fei glanced back down to the Rockruff at his talons. "You never stop growing, Kaia. I'm certain one day you'll outpace me."
Rockruff beamed and proudly puffed out her chest. "I can't wait to show you what I learned while I was away!"
"You'll have to wait just a little longer, Kaia. We've-"
"Human business," she sighed. "But soon, soon you'll feel what I'm capable of!"
"And you'd best not hold back." Fei dipped his head to her before he refocused on Von.
"Time for introductions?" Wyn offered as Von joined the huddled group. Rockruff backed up and sat down beside him, but kept grinning at her old friend.
Meanwhile, Von tried to push away the thoughts of an imbalanced sense of scale. One metallic talon of the giant bird was larger than his entire body. His anxieties flared, and his throat squeezed shut.
"My name is Fei," the owl said, "Though Decidueye works just as well." He paused to let the small Salandit reply.
"Um, hi! I'm Von. A Salandit." He glanced nervously up at Wyn for reassurance, then back up at the winged strangers that flanked Fei.
"Welcome, Comrade-Salandit!" came the call of the bird whose voice resounded like a creaking iron gate. "I am Corviknight, of majestic Free Aim!"
If the screeching noise alone wasn't enough to make Von tense, the volume was. He dug his claws into the grassy lawn.
The Flygon seemed to smirk at his surprise. "Flygon, of Free Aim," it said in an insectile hum.
"N-nice to meet you all," Von gulped.
"Fei's been here, what, seven years?" Wyn asked.
Fei didn't look at her and instead kept his gaze on Von. "16th June, 2013. Eight seasons since. Wyn told me you're an American?"
Oh no, what else did she say? "That's right! Just a good ol’ American boy, that's me." He ignored Rockruff's quizzical look. "And you?"
"I'm from Dongguan." A moment spent looking at Von's expression, and he continued "In the Guangdong province."
"Oh! Cool!"
Fei looked at Wyn, then back again. "What geography do they teach you in school?"
"None," Von admitted. "They gave us tests in high school, to write all of the states on a map? Never scored higher than a 70."
The expressionless owl blinked once. "That tracks."
"Not like my education was much better," said Wyn. "But hey, how about that human business?" She smiled to the members of Free Aim, hoping two of them would take the hint.
Rockruff's ears drooped in dejection. Fei expended a wing towards her, and with surprisingly dexterous feather-fingers, brushed her cheek. "I'll meet you in the training field sometime soon. Welcome home, Kaia." His head swiveled towards Flygon as he unfastened his bandoliers. "Mind taking our gear to the roost, Volx?"
Flygon's wings thrummed, and bandoliers in hand, it took flight. "Follow, Llyr! The humans wish to conspire without us," it buzzed during its liftoff.
Corviknight spread its grand wings and cast the group in shadow. "I missed you too, Comrade-Kaia!" scraped its voice as it took a few steps back before the powerful flapping of its wings threatened to blow Von across the lawn. He hunkered down in the grass while the metal raven circled higher and higher.
Fei watched his teammates ascend, gusts of wind buffeting his feathers. “Kaia, why not round up your mate and head to the practice field? We’ll join you soon.”
Rockruff nudged Von with a paw once the wind had died down. "We'll find you again later tonight, okay? Ren, where should-" she looked around for her mate, and spotted him a distance away, feigning disinterest and preoccupying himself by chewing on the tip of his tail.
Ren looked up once he felt eyes on him. His gaze fell on Fei, and the fur on the back of his neck bristled.
"See you soon," Rockruff said to Von before she trotted over to her companion. She said something to him, and he relaxed his posture. Ren spared one more look toward Von before the pair left the humans to themselves.
"I'm sensing some history here," Von finally spoke up.
"Another time," Fei said. "For now, how are things on Earth?"
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"Oh."
The three perched on the wall above the practice field. Von had scaled the stone and sat on the battlement so he could overlook the dirt clearing where Ren and Rockruff waited, and so that he could come closer to eye level with Fei. "If it's any comfort, I doubt I brought the plague with me."
Wyn sat slumped with her back against the battlement, paws fidgeting with her driftwood wand. "Not quite the news we were hoping for, I'll admit."
Von peeked down at her. "What were you hoping for?"
"Oh, you know, maybe finding a portal on their end. Maybe they can drop a ladder through? Or at the very least toss us some cans of Irn-Bru."
"I’ll admit I miss the convenience of running water." Fei's head swiveled to look over the courtyard and the community contained within. He and Von watched a Growlithe and Poochyena playfully tussle in the grass. “Yet I’ve no desire to return home.”
“What? Why not? I mean, aside from the plague, and… everything.”
“Aside from everything? That doesn’t leave much room.” Fei’s head snapped back to face Von. “This is a home that charges no one rent. We grow our own food. We can see the stars clearly, we breathe fresh air.” He lifted his beak and gazed at distant clouds. “And of course, flying is fun.”
“Were it not for friends and family, I might agree,” Wyn replied. She pushed herself up to her paws and hopped up onto the battlement beside Von so she could join him in watching the troublemakers below.
Von, once more feeling diminished between the two, let his tail droop down the wall. “I just want my body back.”
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“I felt the same, once. Fresh to this world, I was about your size, and lacked all but talon and beak to interact with my surroundings.” He ignored Wyn motioning with paw across her throat to cut him off. “I’m sure as you grow, you’ll come to feel more comfortable-”
“I just want my body back,” Von repeated, gripping the stone beneath him tighter.
Fei cocked his head in confusion. “Wyn knows everything about Earth’s idea of Pokemon. Von is a Salandit, right?” He continued on as Wyn shook her head ‘no’ with increasing desperation. “What do they evolve into?”
Put on the spot, she looked from the owl to the forlorn lizard at her side. “... Salazzle,” she answered truthfully.
That name sounds familiar, thought Von before his eyes widened in dawning horror. Faint memories of countless pieces of fanart that peppered his social media dashboard rose to the surface of his hippocampus. Each lovingly rendered image was drawn with a certain intent, and of a very specific focus. Dread and disgust in equal measure roiled in his stomach.
"Ah- if you would rather stay as you are, that too is an option." Fei waved a wing as if to banish Von's source of discomfort. "Wyn has chosen to remain as she is."
"Braixen's a good shape to be in," the fox admitted.
“Must be nice,” Von muttered bitterly.
Wyn and Fei exchanged a look of concern. “Not like it’s the end-all, be-all, mate. That wall-crawly thing you did to get up here was pretty cool, wasn’t it? And with a bit of practice, we’ll have you breathing fire in no time.”
At least that’s still something to look forward to. “Fine. How do I breathe fire?”
Excited to switch tracks, Wyn grinned. “Let’s get you down to the field.”
Fei stretched his wings and took off, his flight dead silent. Von watched him swoop down and land on the grass, before he peered down over the side of the castle wall. He put one claw forward and began climbing straight down.
“I’ll just, ah- I’ll take the stairs,” he heard Wyn say from above.
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Every Pokemon gifted with fire held within them what Wyn referred to as a furnace. In Von’s case, his furnace ran throughout his tail, an organic mechanism that could ignite poisonous gas and oils. Much as the rest of his body, the prospect of such a thing was revolting to him. Similarly, being poked and prodded by the curious Braixen had him feeling embarrassed, especially when his tail began to sweat a thin layer of purple oil oozing from the red-orange stripe. She was quick to pull her paws away then, her muzzle wrinkled with displeasure at the feeling of the substance that clung to her fur.
“Oh god, what a smell,” she whined.
“I warned you about Salandits, Braixen!” called Rockruff from afar. Ren snickered beside her.
“Smell?” Von craned his head to look back over his tail. If he concentrated, he could make out a faint whiff of rotten fruit, an underlying sickly sweet scent. Fortunately he appeared immune to the brunt of it.
Wyn knelt to wipe her paws off on the grass bordering the field. "Stings a little bit, too. Lack of forethought on my part, shows how rarely I run into poisonous critters."
"You okay?"
"Perfectly peachy! What's more important is teaching you self-defense. Light up for me again?"
Von tensed a muscle, and the oil sheen on his tail ignited. Flames danced over his scaly skin, painless, as all he felt was a radiant warmth.
"The pheromones are back! Run, Ren!" barked Rockruff, and both members of Night Vision playfully chased one another away from the field.
"You sure it's not too late for me to become a Charmander?" Von asked Wyn with a defeated smirk.
"Don't let them discourage you, Von! Chemical weapons are no laughing matter!" called Fei from a distance.
"I'm a war crime with legs!" he called back.
"We're trying to train here!" Wyn shouted to recapture focus. "Concentrate, Von. There's gotta be some way to funnel that fire forward, unless you just plan to thwack Pokemon with your tail."
Von swept his tail behind him, and listened to the sound of shifting flames burning the air. He did have one option open to him, as unappealing as it was. "I have an idea, but don't look at me weird if I throw up." He turned away from Wyn, steeled himself, and flexed open the vent in his mouth.
Heat coursed through his body from his tail to his snout, and a fireball bloomed in the empty air before him. The spectacular fwoosh ! of rushing air was accompanied by a bright flash of flame that seared into his vision. It was over as soon as it began, leaving him disoriented and blinking rapidly.
"Hey, not bad!" Wyn brought her paws together in a polite golf clap. "Feels scary at first, I know, but- oh. Oh no." She scrunched up her nose as the scent of burning pheromone wafted over them. She hurriedly raised a paw to wave off Fei's advancement, the owl concerned about the flash fire. "Stay back! We're f-fine!" she loudly coughed towards the owl.
"That bad?" an oblivious Von asked, looking over himself. The eruption from his mouth had siphoned the flames from his tail, leaving him with a foul sulphuric aftertaste. With another flex, he reignited himself.
"No! No, we've made enough of a mess, let the air clear," Wyn breathed through her shawl she had drawn up over her nose.
Von relaxed, and the flames slowly died. "Am I really that unbearable to be around?"
Wyn rolled her eyes. "This is nothing, try standing next to a Hyper Beam. No, my concern is more, ah…" she glanced at Fei, relieved he had been keeping his distance. "Pheromones. It's the fuel you use for your fire, yet what Rockruff said about its other effects…" she trailed off as she grasped for a tactful way to phrase things.
"Keep the scent away from Ren and Fei," Von finished for her.
"And all of Halfhenge. Fortunately we're downwind." Wyn fanned a paw in front of her face, took a tentative sniff of the air, and frowned. She slipped her shawl up over her head and hugged it to her chest. "I had to wash this thing anyway."
"Is it really that bad?"
Wyn hesitated. "Sort of, not really? But I brew explosives out of Turtonator dung, so my sense of scale might be a little off."
"For something that's been market tested and designed to sell to children, I didn't think Pokemon could be this gross."
"Yeah, well, that's biology baby. Everyone thinks hedgehogs are cute, but did you know they chew their own-"
"Breathing fire though, that's pretty cool!" Von interrupted.
"-dung. And yeah, it is! Do it again. See if you can hold the flame longer, yeh?"
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Von never knew lakewater could be so refreshing. After burning through his fuel reserves, the taste of sulfur clung to his tongue until he plunged his head into the shallows of the lake and drank deep. Wyn carefully crouched at the water's edge to wash her shawl, taking care to keep as much of her fur dry as possible. After a quick rinse, Wyn deemed Von fit to mingle once more.
Dinner in Halfhenge had little in the way of ceremony. Woven baskets filled with fresh fruits and findings were brought from the castle's larder into the fractured hallway, which let the populace dine with a dockside view.
Night Vision kept to a corner away from the water, each member making away from the buffet with a treat of their choice. They piled apple, plum, and mushroom before them, and tucked in.
"Orange fur, all fours, puffy cheeks?" Von gestured at a Pokemon with his tail.
"Pawmi," Ren answered, licking plum juice from his muzzle.
"Cat on two legs, blue fur?" He pointed again.
"Meowstic," Ren said before crunching back into his meal.
A thought occurred to Von. "When I say 'cat,' what does that word mean to you?"
"It's a shape of Pokemon," spoke Rockruff to stop Ren from talking with his mouth full.
"Ah, there you three are!" Wyn held an apple on her way over to their corner. Fei's talons clacked on the stone as he followed behind, a mushroom dangling from his beak.
"Wyn, how does language work here?"
"Language?" She cocked her head, then smirked. "Pokemon don't actually talk, they just put peanut butter in their mouths and dub over their lips moving."
"... What?"
Fei dropped his mushroom into his wing, surprisingly prehensile feathers closing around it. "Different species with different tongues, able to understand one another? We've named the phenomenon Intent. Yet how my brain filters your hissing into Cantonese, it's unlikely we'll ever know."
"Tower of Babel wasn't lost, it just got isekai'd," Wyn shrugged. "Only explanation I got."
"I'll keep an eye out for Babylonian ruins, I guess."
Fei tore off a piece of mushroom and snapped it down. "You do intend to explore, then?"
Von sunk a clawtip into the pear he'd been nibbling on. "Not going to find my old body here. No choice but to go." He sucked in a deep breath. "I can spit fire now, right? That'll carry me a ways, won't it?"
Fei peered down at him for a long moment before his gaze scanned over to Rockruff. "You're in good company for the challenges ahead."
The dog's tail wagged as she basked in the attention of her reunited friend. "It'll be just like those escort missions, but it'll take forever!"
As Ren snickered at the wind leaving Von's sails, a trio of Pokemon entered the hallway. Wyn's tail abruptly ceased wagging at the sight of Slowking coming towards them.
Wyn and Fei turned to follow her gaze, and the Braixen lifted a paw in greeting. "Jun! Welcome home!"
Von didn't recognize Slowking at first. The bright and cheery cartoon he faintly recalled beared little resemblance to the beast that approached them. His shell helmet had sunk over much of his head, the Shellder's eyes the ones now doing the work. The frills around his neck draped over his shoulders, no longer a carnival red and white, but shades of purple.
Slowking was flanked by two adventurers freshly returned from the field, both bipedal, both with bags slung over their shoulders. One a five foot tall cat with yellow fur and electric blue whiskers Von swore he had seen before.
The second traveler he recognized instantly as a Lucario with a red sash about his waist, and a gnarled scar that ran from the base of his ear to the corner of his mouth and drew his expression into a perpetual grimace.
Von looked between the two taller Pokemon in jealous anxiety. Am I the only human who isn't a biped?
"Salandit," rumbled Slowking, "It's always exciting to welcome a new human to our numbers. I'm relieved that these two," he swept an arm in gesture to Night Vision, "Did the responsible thing bringing you here."
"Likewise, I'm lucky they saved me."
Ren puffed out his chest. "Heroes, that's us!"
"I am Slowking," Slowking pushed on ignoring Ren. "Guildmaster of Halfhenge."
"Salandit, Burnout of Portland. Nice to meet you."
"Quite." The eyes of the shell crown surveyed the gathered group. "I know your kind is best at making one another feel comfortable, but if there are any accomodations you may need, please bring them to my attention. All I ask in return is knowledge from Earth."
Von looked from Slowking to Fei and back. "I'm not sure what everyone else has told you, but sure, maybe I can write a few essays?"
"Once you're settled in." Slowking bowed his head, a smile gradually spreading across his face. "Tonight, eat, rest, and gather your strength." He turned to depart, not waiting for a reply.
"Seeya boss," growled Lucario as he and his companion both remained behind. His voice was gruff.
"What's the word, you two?" asked Wyn.
"In short?" spoke the cat, "Word on the wind is a new dungeon has formed, of human construct." The feline smirked to Lucario. "You all just can't pick up after yourselves, can you?"
Lucario caught Von's gaze, and the lizard found himself frozen under the studious glare. "What curious timing," he growled out of the side of his muzzle.