Liftoff 1.6

April 2015

Hunting for spearow was, shockingly, boring. I didn't know what I was expecting. It wasn't like I was headed into the forest to chase them down directly. No, my job involved sitting at the highest place on the hill with a borrowed hunting rifle in hand, watching the skies.

Just to keep myself useful, Pat had dragged up a wheelbarrow full of mid-sized logs and handed me an ax, something to do during the wait. It was only the promise of payment for each bit of firewood that kept me swinging. So long as I kept an ear out for Rocket's barks, I'd get the chance to take a potshot at a bird if one came out into the terraced fields.

Rocket himself had taken to making his rounds, meandering along the dirt paths and scaring away anything that wasn't supposed to be there. He looked like a furry snake from an old arcade game, moving only up, down, left, and right through paths that reminded me of mortar laid between brickwork. Once in a while, I'd see my furry friend snap out into the crops, only to emerge seconds later with a bloody rat in his maw.

It was helpful, fed his gluttony, and looked visually impressive to the working farmers. He quickly made himself a welcome sight and more than one tossed him a picked cherry tomato or something as he ran by.

The general caution towards pokemon was still there, but the naked fear I'd seen from some as I walked down the street was absent. Considering the farmers worked with pokemon on the daily, and likely shot at rattata and spearow and the like in the past, it made sense that they'd be some of the most inoculated to the idea of magic animal companions.

I smiled softly and loaded a decent-sized log of ponderosa pine onto a raised stand. It was one of the more common trees around, and light compared to the likes of redwood, which made it great for quick firewood that wouldn't tire a man out.

I scanned the skies above the treeline for a quick glance and hefted the ax. It was a no-frills sort of thing, steel head with a slight beard, hickory handle with a slight curve to fit the palms of my hands comfortably. I brought it down and nodded in satisfaction as a crack formed on the log. I wasn't very strong, at least not in the same way as a bodybuilder or lumberjack. I was in good shape from all the trekking I'd done, but I could admit I needed a bit of work upstairs to fit the typical manly man image.

A few more downswings and I had the log split in half-ish chunks. I could already feel the burn in my arms and back. A painful shock went up from my hands despite the swell of the handle. It all went to reminding me how new I was to this.

I grit my teeth and bore it, using the excuse of scanning the treeline to take liberal breaks in between. If nothing else, doing this often enough would be good for me.

The first hours passed with nothing to show for my efforts save a half-filled wheelbarrow. By lunchtime, Pat came up the hill to join me. He tossed me a package and sat down with a grunt.

"Lunch. Ain't much, but it's on the house," he said. He kicked at a bit of splintered pine. "You did alright. Your pokemon did better."

"He did. He's probably gobbled enough field mice and the like to keep him going, but he won't say no if you wanna feed him," I drawled. Sure enough, I glanced down the hill to see a beige and caramel blur racing up towards me.

Rocket skidded to a stop at my feet and stared expectantly at the packet of wrapped foil in my hand. "Lin. Linoone."

"Yeah, yeah, let me unwrap it first, ya glutton."

The provided lunch wasn't anything special, some kind of flatbread that had been folded over to make a sloppy attempt at a taco-sandwich hybrid. The filling was a slurry of fish, tomatoes, beans, onions, and the like, probably a few more things I couldn't identify at first glance. I took a whiff; it smelled a little like chili. Tearing my sandwich in half, I offered one to Rocket, who nibbled at it suspiciously before deciding it was good enough and taking a big bite.

"Yeah, ain't too appetizing, is it?" Pat said. "It's what we've got though. We ran out of bread months ago so the bread's just some water and flour mixed into dough and baked flat."

"I figured. Bread Isn't bad for what it is. I'm not sure about beans and fish going together though."

"Heh, yeah, not too much in the way of protein options though. The communal kitchens try, but they can't make steak out of nothing."

"True, true."

Pat and I shot the breeze for a while. He seemed like an alright sort, but looked a little overwhelmed at being put in charge of all the crops. It wasn't that he didn't know what he was doing necessarily, but the guy went from being a truck driver to being responsible for the survival of thousands of people practically overnight.

If it weren't for the grass types he'd befriended, apparently on accident, I didn't think he would have coped nearly so well. On the plus side, that meant Pat was as friendly towards pokemon as anyone in Carnelian Bay could be. He knew exactly how reliant we were on their continued support.

Rocket let out a quiet noise that was halfway between a chuff and a bark to get our attention. He flicked his snout off to the side, towards the southwestern edge of the farming terraces.

Sure enough, I could see seven spearow leaving the treeline. I polished off the strange not-sandwich and braced my hunting rifle against my shoulder.

"Rocket, go," I ordered. "Circle around and strafe the sky with Pin Missile. Keep them from heading back into the forest."

"Linoone," he grunted, slinking off.

"You a good shot?" Pat asked me.

"Ehh, I'm decent with a crossbow."

"This is a fair bit farther than crossbow range, 'bout two hundred yards by my guess."

"Yeah. You said we had other guns?"

"We do, but it's not like we're any better," he said with a wan smile. He gestured broadly around at the people doing one thing or another. "Bill there was an accountant. Jim used to be a driver like me, but worked mostly out in Nevada. Felix sold insurance for a living."

I raised the rifle and leaned in until my cheek rested gently against the stock. Behind me, Pat fell silent to let me focus.

Five more spearow came out of the trees, each flying off in seemingly random directions. The farmers below heard them by now and had shouldered their rifles, but the bird pokemon seemed to have no trouble avoiding their line of fire. The faint glimmer of white that trailed behind them gave it away: Quick Attack, Rocket's bread and butter and apparently also theirs.

Made sense, a bunch of amateurs like us? Spearow were about a foot tall, two at the largest. At a hundred yards or more, we really weren't likely to hit them. The scattered flock descended on the grape tomatoes and some of the men had to break off so they weren't shooting across from their fellows.

The birds screeched loudly, mockingly, knowing we weren't really a threat.

That annoyed me more than I cared to admit. I was no crackshot, certainly not by whatever anime logic permeated this world now, but I worked for my skills. As a woodsman and survivalist mainly, sure, but also as a huntsman.

I took a deep breath even as several people took their shots. One must have gotten close because a spearow shot up into the air with an ear-piercing squawk. It glowered at someone, Bill maybe but I'd never been good with names. Then, with a final shriek of indignant fury, it split into three mirages and dove.

The man cried out in alarm as the spearow took its revenge. Razor sharp claws and beak descended on him. From up here, I could see little of the crimson blood. His cries of pain startled me but I did my best to keep my aim steady.

I couldn't take the shot. No matter my pride, I knew I wasn't good enough to pick off a spearow at this range, not without fear of killing the man I wanted to protect anyway.

Then I felt a wave of relief wash through me as I spied a streak of white race through the farmland. Rocket had this. He gave up on flanking the spearow in favor of saving the farmer.

I forced myself to turn my attention to another spearow. They were distracted, either busy chasing away farmers or with their ill-gotten plunder. They were a flock, but that seemed more like something that happened out of convenience or happenstance rather than something they'd organized as humans might. I didn't know if the flock would become more organized under a fearow's leadership, but I could use that disorganization now.

Slowly, taking a deep breath, I lined up my shot for the nearest bird, some two hundred yards away. I held my breath; some said you should shoot with the exhale, make the action as in line with your body's biorhythm as much as possible, but I disagreed. I found the stillness easier to shoot through.

The rifle kicked in my arms. A loud crack filled the air. Down below, the bird I was aiming at let out a startled squawk and took to the sky.

Miss.

Grunting with annoyance, I quickly chambered another round and led the bird for a bit before taking a second shot. This time, a sudden jerk of its left wing proved my aim true. My target fell to the ground in a spiral that was probably a lot better than it looked. If anything, pokemon being bullshit magic animals, I expected the spearow to be up and about in a few days if left alone.

I couldn't have that. I shouldered my gun and started to walk down the hill, getting a little closer to the action. Right now, my aim was to down a few more; we could go about finishing them later.

Rocket had chased the spearow that had been savaging Billy or whatever. The beige fur around his muzzle was dyed an ominous red, showing that despite being fellow pokemon, he felt zero kinship with the flying pests. He let out a howl and his fur stood on end.

I knew what was coming so I took aim several feet above the next closest spearow.

Sure enough, a wide area Pin Missile pelted the farm in a large cone, forcing the spearow to back off. His attack lacked the raw distance of a rifle but more than made up for it with its spread.

Two more spearow went down. A third took a bullet somewhere in the thorax from a farmer, bringing our count to five. That broke their morale and they scattered with a combination of Double Team and Quick Attack.

I took three more shots, emptying the magazine, and missed every last one. I grunted in annoyance before taking the ax and walking to the nearest spearow, the one I'd downed.

Turned out, my aim was a bit better than I thought, or I was luckier than expected, because the bullet went through its left shoulder, not the wing. Being the size it was, the bird wasn't going to be flying anywhere anytime soon, if at all.

It saw me coming and thrashed about. It glared at me with beady, hateful eyes that promised murder if I let it go. I reached for it but a vicious Peck kept my hand at bay.

"Just gotta make it hard for yourself, huh?" I muttered. I pulled out the M1911 and unloaded two shots, missing the first. The second found its beak, shattering the light of its Peck attack and punching a hole through its head.

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I picked up the bird and put two fingers between my lips, letting out a harsh whistle that had Rocket bounding to my side. A dead spearow was in his mouth, wing already missing.

"Have fun?"

"Lin," he barked. He dropped the bird and lolled out his tongue to give me a wolfish grin. He looked so much like a dog like this, except with quite a bit smarter.

"Come on, let's go finish off the others we downed. You can finish your little snack later."

"Linoone-lin."

I was wrong; that wasn't Bill that went down, it was Jim. I wanted to commit his face to memory but the man just had that forgettable quality about him. I didn't think I'd recognize him for a while yet.

Either way, Jim had managed to bring his arm up in time, probably saving his life. He now walked with his arm wrapped in a bandage made of his own flannel shirt, tears and snot streaming down his face.

The spearow had done a real number on his arm in the seconds it'd taken for Rocket to come to his rescue. Though its talons were short, they managed to leave vicious scratches and Peck extended the length of its beak four or five times until it was the length of a good-sized dagger or hunting knife. Given the deep lacerations, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost the arm for good.

'Maybe then I'd remember him,' I thought, and immediately felt like a douchebag for thinking it, even as a joke.

Some of the others saw Jim to Dr. Lansdowne, one of the two doctors in the fledgling town. From what I'd been told, Cole Lansdowne was an elderly gentleman who'd decided not to go down the mountain when Truckee started to bleed talent. He instead joined the holdouts and moved here to Carnelian Bay, earning him an enormous amount of goodwill from the townspeople.

Rocket and I finished off the two other birds that he'd downed with Pin Missile and strung up the three corpses on my belt. Looking at them, these things were only a foot and change tall on average, about the size of a normal chicken. I'd never have guessed they could do so much damage to a man. It was a sobering reminder of how fragile us unawakened humans were compared to even a weak pokemon.

"Good work," Pat said, coming up to me. "You nabbed four of them."

"Rocket took down three. I got one, and missed most of the shots I took.," I snorted, handing him back his rifle. "I think I'm no good as a sniper."

"Maybe, but that's one more than anyone 'cept Bill got. And Rocket's damn impressive. We'd be happy to have you a few more days."

"Ehh, maybe. I'm not sure if this is where we can do the most good. I haven't really finished looking around town."

"I hear that." He produced a small sack full of rocks. "Forty stones, ten per bird. There'll be a hundred more if you take out the rest of the flock. I counted only eight more."

"I'll think about it. But didn't I say I wanted to be paid in produce?"

"Yeah,"he reached into the sack and picked up a handful of rocks. "There. Go ahead and fill the sack with what you think you need for a good meal. If you want to sell the birds, I wouldn't mind tasting one."

I picked out mine. "You're free to mine, but Rocket took the others and he's already eaten one. Trust me, things basically taste like chicken, just tougher."

"Ehh, worth a try. We don't exactly get to eat pokemon, usually the other way around."

"Suit yourself. I'm going to go ahead and dress the birds somewhere. Anywhere I can do that?"

"Kitchens. Near the mess hall. There's a butchering station there you can use. There's a guy there who'll dress your kills for you for some stones or part of the carcass if you're feeling lazy."

"Ehh, for two birds? Nah. Maybe if I kill something bigger and need an extra pair of hands. Rocket's great, but he doesn't exactly come with opposable thumbs."

"Fair enough. See you around, Shane. You're a solid guy."

"Likewise. You stay safe. And maybe see about getting your goats to help you out."

"Bah, Queenie's just happy to laze 'n' graze," he spat with annoyance.

I snorted. Goats were goats, magic or not. They gave no fucks about anything but the herd. They probably saw Pat as an easy source of companionship, maybe food. Or, if the goat pokemon could think ahead, a way to cultivate the land into something more pleasant than pine forest for her and her herd to live in. Sounded preposterous, but Rocket was as smart as I was; I didn't see why the same wouldn't hold true for other pokemon. A lack of communication wasn't a lack of intellect.

X

After our little scuffle with the spearow flock, the two of us headed to the communal kitchens with our prizes in tow. Pat did give us a nice mix of produce so I'd be making some roast veggies to go with my poultry tonight.

The kitchens were a bit of a holdover from a month back when they were still figuring out where everything ought to be and a communal mess hall was beneficial for coordination. It occupied a central location in town and the storehouse and smoking room were some of the few buildings that had been converted with a set objective in mind. Even now, with so few people having working kitchens of their own, it served as a convenient way to keep everyone fed.

There was a series of long, metal tables set out into the open in front of the smokehouse. Every five feet of table space ro so, a bucket of water was placed, alongside a rag to wipe the surfaces down. Off on one end was a wheelbarrow where trimmings we couldn't eat like birds' feet and heads could be tossed. Presumably, they'd get wheeled off somewhere to be turned into compost.

"Oone…" Rocket whined as we approached. He stuck his snout into the dirt and scraped it back and forth.

"Yeah, the offals don't smell very good, do they? Can't really help it; that's just part of doing all the butchering in one place."

"Linoone-lin."

"You're free to go wait by the cafeteria tables if you want," I waved him off.

The dining area was a good hundred yards away and situated further from the water so the lake breeze would carry the smell of raw meat away. There, I could see a dozen odd people eating an early dinner or catching up with friends. Rocket chuffed and found a nice little patch of grass to lie in.

He placed his cream-colored tail beneath his head as a pillow, forming a noticeable ring with seven feet of ferret. My starter looked like a glazed donut and I was fine with that.

Chuckling to myself, I found an empty butchering station and went to work. There were a handful of people who worked here. I could pay them a few rocks to dress my game for me, but I saw no need with two spearow. I hacked off each head with my hunting knife and held the carcass over a pail to drain it of blood.

The gross task reminded me of Uncle Tony, a family friend of mine who'd owned a farm somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley area. My family would visit him for holidays, he and dad were college chums or something, and he'd treat us to free range chicken, farmhouse ham, and more fruit preserves than I cared to name.

Uncle Tony took me and his sons out to the yard once and showed us how his free range chicken ended up on our dinner plates. He had a traffic cone that had been upended and placed between two tables so it could hang like a funnel by the square base. He'd have one of his boys catch a chicken, stuff it inside until only the head poked out the tip, and slice across its throat, nice and clean.

He claimed it was the humane way to do it because the gravity helped the blood rush to the head and out the stump quickly, minimizing suffering. Effectively, he was inducing anemia via extreme blood loss.

I didn't know about humane, but holding a spearow carcass upside down over a pail reminded me of that day. Core memories and whatnot. I missed Uncle Tony… and his traffic cone. It definitely made the job cleaner.

I then began the messy task of plucking the birds. The five longest flight feathers at the tip of each wing came first. I doubted there was a real bowyer around, but it wouldn't hurt to save them. If nothing else, the red and black plumage made for a pretty neat trophy.

After I was done with that, I did my best to cut up the birds into halves and rinsed them all one final time in some clean water.

"Would one of those be for sale?" came a voice behind me. I turned to find a matronly woman with heavy freckles and deep dimples. She wore an apron stained with indeterminate sauces and spices, and looked positively exhausted.

I hummed in thought. "Maybe? I'm not really interested in stones though."

"Oh, I don't know what Mayor McAllen's thinking. River rocks! As currency!" she laughed. It came from the belly, a full-throated laugh as though she'd made the funniest joke in the world. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a glass container of whole black peppers. "I'll give you a few pinches of this for half a bird."

I didn't know where peppercorns came from specifically, but I knew they were grown somewhere tropical. Since the breakdown of various world governments, global trade had become problematic at best, more likely nonexistent. Black pepper, or really many of the tropical spices in general, were becoming rather uncommon.

They weren't essential survival goods, not up here in the cold where preservation didn't require them, but there was something to be said for a bit of variety to bland game and produce. I saw no reason to deny her.

X

Rocket and I decided to call it an early day out on the town and returned to our little trailer. Dinner for us was half a spearow for me, a full bird for my murder-badger, and roasted carrots and potatoes. I coated the birds in crushed pepper, wild garlic, and torn up salal leaves for flavor. I'd read in a hiker's guide that the leaves were appetite suppressants and always made sure to carry a few bunches.

Salal was one of those plants I learned to recognize in my year out here. It had bright, emerald leaves that shone with a glossy, almost waxy hue. It was conveniently common and both the young leaves and ripened berries were edible. I preferred the berries but they only ripped in late summer or early fall. For the moment, I'd just have to settle for the leaves.

Considering I made it all in a single cast iron pan, the food tasted pretty good. It wasn't anything to write home about by the standards of the Before, but I hadn't had roasted potatoes in months and the herby, subtly sweet taste made me smile.

We just about finished up our meal as the sun began to set. I took a quick jog to the water to do the dishes. We still had an hour or two of light, so I motioned for Rocket to follow me out to an empty section of the golf course. Here, away from the trailers, I could try my best approximation of a pokemon trainer.

I… had no idea what to do. We'd done a bit of practice while on the move, but Rocket and I weren't exactly a traditional pair, not that "traditional" really existed here. It was one thing to pick out move names on a gameboy screen, but another matter to actually exercise, coordinate, and grow.

He sat on his haunches and stared up at me with a quizzical glance. "I don't know, Rocket," I told him, "I thought that if we had more time to train, if we could settle down in one place for a bit, it'd just… come to me, you know?"

"Lin."

"Yeah, I know that's stupid. Look, I've never even trained a dog before, never mind a pokemon. I don't know how much is too much." Problem was, if I drove him too hard or he got injured, there wasn't much I could do without a Nurse Joy to run to. Because of that, I considered close combat the most dangerous thing Rocket could engage in. He had to get better somehow.

In the end, my answer was simple: Rocket was never going to be a brawler, linoone just weren't built for that. And that meant he had to gut the other guy and get the hell out of dodge.

At the far end of the golf course, I found a tall, metal fence post. Here, the chain link fence was four stories high to catch any overly long balls. I gestured to the chain links. "Try to cut that, Rocket. Hone Claws into Slash. Get in, get out."

"Lin!"

A dark miasma formed around his claws, extending them a few inches. He then became a cream-colored streak and ripped a hole clean through the chain link fence. Seconds later, he was back at my side with a happy grin.

I reached down and gave him a good scratch. "Great job, bud. You ripped through that like it wasn't there."

I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Chain link fences were made of… aluminum? Some kind of low-density steel? Whatever could be made cheaply and was resistant to rusting probably. They didn't need to be strong because they were meant to demarcate property lines, not really to keep people out. I should've known Rocket wouldn't have any trouble ripping one to pieces.

I didn't want to have him practice on a fence post. Those were thicker, but if or when he managed to bring one down, it'd probably cause a huge mess I'd be responsible for cleaning up.

We veered off a ways until we reached the stone walls that encircled the town. I took out some bright, neon-blue tape, used as a trail marker, and taped a blue X at about head-height. Since the walls were wide enough to stand on, and all filled with rock and gravel, I doubted Rocket would have any trouble.

"Alright, let's try this again. The walls are thick enough that I think you can slash away at it."

"Lin."

"Try to be as accurate as possible, okay?" He stared at me as if to say, "No shit." "Yeah, I know, I know."

I stood back and watched him for a few minutes, then promptly felt awkward as hell. What did trainers do while their pokemon worked out? Did they just… shout encouragements? Go get 'em! You can do it! Believe in me who believes in you!

Just thinking about that made me shrivel up inside. I'd never been all that talkative, certainly no peppy cheerleader or exercise coach, and becoming a backpacker hadn't exactly made that any better.

In the end, I spent the time jotting down notes about what I wanted Rocket to become. His speed was fine, probably, but he needed more striking power. Liftoff, the only unique move we'd developed together, could maybe be the foundation for a combat style revolving around Extreme Speed. If I could get him to use Liftoff and Quick Attack on top of Hone Claws and Slash, I felt he could make up for his lackluster strength with a fast, decisive strike.

How did one go about teaching a linoone Belly Drum? He wasn't literally rolling over and beating his tummy, right? What did that kind of all-out offense look like in practice?

Rocket began to leave noticeable tears in the rock face. I wondered if he could burrow through the earthen wall with Dig. That was something to keep in mind. As nice as this wall was, I didn't think it'd keep truly curious pokemon out.

We wrapped up when it got too dark to see. After a quick shower that was effectively just pouring freezing water down my back, the two of us headed off to bed. Whatever the state of things in the town, I was grateful for a reprieve from traveling. Such things were Mayor McAllen's concern, not mine. Mine was trying to get Rocket as strong as possible; I had a feeling I'd be needing his strength soon enough.

Author's Note

I'm just taking the average range of a hunting rifle. It's usually good anywhere between a hundred and four hundred yards away. A crossbow is typically only good for about forty yards. Obviously, the bullet/bolt travels farther, but most hunters make shots in that general range and Shane's no different. He's not a terrible marksman, but switching from crossbow to a hunting rifle and tripling the range is a tall ask.

Animal fact? Loggerhead shrikes are psychopathic monsters. They capture prey and impale them onto sharp branches and thorns, sometimes even barbed wire fences, and pick at them over the course of several days. Yes, the prey are often alive.

Now, stepping back from the sheer weirdness of it, loggerhead shrikes obviously don't do this because they enjoy seasoning their meals with the screams of their prey. They do this partially as a way to store food somewhere most other creatures can't reach, and because some toxins inside of insects will break down after a few days.

Things make a lot more sense when we stop personifying animals. But then again, it's more fun to think of them all as little Ted Bundys.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.