Isaac, Charity, Florence, and I (along with Drowzee and Maisy) all stood in a line and observed the section of the grove that Farmer Kurt wanted us to clear out.
“This isn’t a small majū infestation,” I finally observed. “This is a giant majū disaster.”
Dozens upon dozens of Caterpie and Weedle were happily clinging to the tree trunks and branches, and many were attempting to nibble their way through the shells of the apricorns. Several Metapod and Kakuna had spun lines to dangle themselves off branches while a number of others rested against the trunks of trees. Higher up in the topmost branches of the trees, a few Butterfree and Beedrill flitted from fruit to fruit or rested amongst the leaves, half-hidden in the greenery.
“Yes, well,” Isaac replied, sounding a bit helpless. “Kurt did warn me he can usually handle a few bugs on his own, and that this case was more extreme. But he also said we could harvest all the ripe apricorns from the trees we rescue. It seemed like a good deal at the time.”
I shook my head as I watched a Weedle sharpen its stinger against the trunk of a tree.
“Still! We should be able to clear them all out using my repellant.” Isaac dug a jar out of the bag he had slung across his back. “I have set these up with inner covers that have a few holes poked through, so they emit the scent. This is an excellent opportunity to test exactly how well the solution works.”
He unscrewed the lid of the jar, and I leaned forward curiously to examine it. A moment later I reeled backwards, gagging. The smell was completely awful, like rotting fish mixed with a chemical sharpness and a completely incongruent undertone of cinnamon. I tried to cover my nose and mouth with my jacket sleeve, but the smell seemed embedded in my nostrils and, Mew help me, I could actually taste it.
“That is vile,” Florence said flatly in a nasal tone. I glanced over and saw that she was holding her nose. “No one, neither human nor majū, should be subjected to this.” Drowzee brayed his agreement from my side, and Charity waved her hand in front of her face while giggling. Maisy laid calmly on the ground, her content (if also vapid) face showing that she hadn’t even noticed the smell yet.
Isaac replaced the lid on the jar, screwing it into place. “If you have a better idea, you are welcome to try it,” he told us calmly.
Florence looked at me and I shrugged in reply. Maybe if Drowzee had more moves we could have used a psychic attack to force all the bugs off the trees. But he only knew Pound, and if he tried hitting the other Pokemon I was pretty sure they’d gang up on him, which would end badly.
“In that case,” Isaac said smugly, “let us start with the repellant.” He started pulling more jars out of the bag and handed them out to each of us. I held mine away from my body; it didn’t seem to leak with the lid on, but I didn’t want to take chances. “It may help to cover your nose and mouth when your jar is open,” he continued, passing out bandanas as well. “I soaked these in mint-infused water earlier; that should help keep the smell at bay. We should be able to herd the majū towards the edge of the forest by angling the open jars at them.”
I tied the bandana over my face so that my nose and mouth were covered (it did smell overpoweringly of mint), then turned to Drowzee. My starter was still wrinkling his trunk in discomfort, and he eyed the jar in my hands with clear skepticism. “I guess you can go back in your ball if you want,” I offered, pulling his poke ball out of my pocket. “Though I might have to call you out again if the bugs attack us.”
“Drow,” he replied, shaking his trunk reluctantly left and right. “Zee, dru zee.” He gestured widely towards the infested trees, then shook his arms in the direction of the forest line.
“You want to help?” He flipped his trunk up and down; that was a yes. “Okay, I guess. Just… be careful. I can’t keep an eye on you if I’m helping chase off the bugs too.”
Drowzee gave me a flat look that wasn’t hard to translate: he thought I was being stupid. I supposed that out of the two of us, he stood a much better chance against the wild Caterpie and Weedle than I did. Still, he accepted the offer of an additional bandana from Isaac and let me tie it in a loose knot over the end of his trunk.
Next to me, Florence (now masked up with a bandana) let out a determined huff and nodded. “I will go first,” she said imperiously; then she stalked towards the nearest tree, loosening the lid of her jar as she went.
I hung back and watched as she crept up to a pair of Caterpie that were nosing the dirt next to the tree. One of them glanced at her and wiggled its antenna, which made her freeze in place, but it turned back to its companion after a moment. Their disinterest changed when Florence removed the lid from the jar and pointed it towards the pair of Pokemon.
One of the Caterpie trilled a loud protest while the other shook its head back and forth vigorously. Then, just like that, the two bugs turned away from the tree and rapidly began inching their way away from Florence.
“I can’t believe it’s that easy,” I said out loud as I watched Florence herd the two bugs out towards the trees. She made it look effortless to change her angles this way and that in order to get the Caterpie to flee in the direction she wanted.
“We will see whether it works that well on all of them,” Isaac replied. Then he turned to look at me and raised his eyebrows. “Shall we join her?”
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I shrugged, then headed towards another one of the trees. I removed the lid from my jar (ugh, I could still smell the awful scent, even through the mint) and pointed it at the trunk of the tree. Like magic, two Weedle and a Caterpie dropped from the trunk and started scurrying away. I had to hustle to angle them away from Charity, who was happily pointing her own jar at an especially large Caterpie that had been lazing on the ground.
The smell was unpleasant, sure, but I got better at ignoring it as I focused more and more on the task at hand. And it was actually kind of fun to chase the bugs around instead of being the one who got chased. I’ll admit that I was feeling pretty happy with myself by the time I sent my third group of bugs off into the trees.
“Your partner appears to be having fun,” Florence commented from a few trees away, where she was trying to coax a Weedle down from a branch.
I blinked back at her in surprise, then started looking around to figure out what exactly Drowzee was doing. I finally spotted him standing next to one of the more interior trees. He was directing a thin blue spray of light from his hands up to a Metapod that was dangling from the tree. The eyes of the Metapod were already drooping; after a few more seconds, they closed completely. Drowzee reached up and plucked the other Pokemon out of the tree, then started trundling towards me with the Metapod held awkwardly in his arms.
“Hypnosis,” I said after a moment, feeling stupid. “I should’ve thought of that.” The move worked much better when Drowzee could take his time with a motionless opponent instead of being rushed into an attack.
“Yes, you should have,” Florence replied, chasing the Weedle she’d forced down from the tree off into the forest on my left. She stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, then looked at me sidelong; I suspected that she was grinning under her bandana. “I have now chased away twelve majū. How many have you gotten?”
“It’s not a competition,” I told her loftily, turning away. Then, when she continued looking at me, I sighed. “… Nine.”
“Ha!” She was definitely grinning, even if I couldn’t see it. “As I suspected.”
“I’ll catch up,” I promised with a grumble, turning back to the grove to look for a larger group of bugs I could chase. “Just watch me.”
~
Before an hour had passed we had cleared all the non-fully-evolved Pokemon out of the orchard, leaving only a few Butterfree and Beedrill who had fled to the tops of the trees. That had worried me at first, but Isaac assured us they’d eventually return to continue their work of pollinating. Some of the other Pokemon on the higher branches had been hard to reach, but we’d eventually figured out how to use Maisy’s Water Gun to knock them down onto the ground. Sure, it made the bugs angry and more willing to fight us, but that didn’t matter; they still ran away as soon as they caught a whiff of Isaac’s disgusting repellant.
I chased away eighty-four bugs (not counting the neat stack of Metapod and Kakuna that Drowzee had left at the edge of the forest). Charity scared off sixty-three. Florence smugly told us that she’d gotten ninety-five by the time we were done.
“Well done, everyone!” Isaac said as he screwed the top of his own jar shut. “That was much more efficient than even I expected. We can harvest the apricorns and still return to the house before sunset.”
I groaned and sat down hard on the ground, pulling the bandana off of my face. It was a relief to take a breath of fresh air that wasn’t doused in mint and, occasionally, worse smells. All I wanted to do was lay back on the ground and breathe clean air for a while.
Florence looked like she was going to scold me, but Charity beat her to it. “Come on, Trainer Monroe,” the younger girl said cheerfully as she leaned over me, “it will be fun! We can climb the trees and shake their branches so all the ripe fruit falls down.”
I looked up at her blankly. “… I’ve never climbed a tree.”
Both girls were momentarily stunned by this. Charity recovered first. “Well, there is only one way to fix that,” she told me brightly.
Five minutes later, I had fallen out of my first tree. By the time I was able to stand up (badly shaken but with nothing broken, lucky me), everyone agreed I shouldn’t try climbing trees again, at least not on that particular day.
I was assigned to ground duty instead. Florence and Charity clambered about up in the trees, gently shaking the branches to make the ripe fruit fall down. Isaac and I held giant baskets that we had borrowed from the farm and caught the apricorns as they fell. Drowzee and Maisy found a nice sunny spot and laid down to nap, and I couldn’t help but frown at my starter’s laziness (never mind that I wanted to be lazy too; I was working despite that, wasn’t I?).
Isaac must have noticed me glaring, because he suddenly chuckled. “Do not be so hard on your partner,” he told me lightly, resting his basket on one hip while his daughter maneuvered herself over a branch in the tree above him. “He used his sleep-inducing move many times earlier, did he not? He must be quite tired now.”
I set my own basket down so that I could pick up a few of the apricorns I had missed earlier. “But he hasn’t battled today,” I pointed out. “Shouldn’t he still be healthy?”
Isaac waved his hand from side to side in an uncertain gesture. “For any majū, but especially a young majū like yours, practicing moves may drain their energy. Other researchers have found that a majū can only demonstrate a move so many times in a single day before they grow tired and no longer wish to use it.”
I frowned at that, scratching my ear absently. Hadn’t my teacher said something about the number of times a Pokemon could use certain types of moves in battle? I hadn’t paid close attention; I’d always figured I’d be able to look up things like that on the internet when I needed to know them.
“Why did you decide to study majū?” Florence suddenly asked from up in her tree. I glanced up at her, and she looked authentically curious for once, not like she was about to scoff.
“Why? Because they are so important, of course,” Isaac said, a smile spreading across his face. “Majū shape our culture and the world around us, yet we know so little about them.” His smile faded and his eyes took on a darker look as he hoisted his basket back up again. “Of course, they are also dangerous. It is the responsibility of people like myself to determine how best to interact with and control majū so that no harm comes to them or to human beings. That is part of why this project is so important.”
Florence looked like she had more questions, but Isaac called up to Charity to tell her he was ready for the next set of fruit before she could say a word. As for me, I found myself fully in agreement with Isaac. Even in my normal time, when there were lots of Pokemon Professors who did research into all sorts of things, there were so many unanswered questions about Pokemon. Gathering more knowledge seemed like it could only be a good thing.
We shook down ripe apricorns of a wide variety of colors until all four of our baskets were filled. Then we fetched Drowzee and Maisy and headed back towards Isaac’s house, each carrying a basket (Drowzee helped Charity lift hers). Inside, I was nearly bouncing in excitement. It was time to actually build something and see if it worked!