The Confusion attack alarmed the Quagsire enough that it dived back into the water behind me and didn’t attack us again. That was good, because using the attack for the first time seemed to drain Drowzee; he sat down hard on the ground and grumbled once the other Pokemon had disappeared.
“That was amazing!” I called over to my Pokemon after I had unrolled myself and gotten back onto my feet. “You finally did it, Drowzee!”
My starter brayed in a tired way and put his paws over his ears. I frowned for a moment, then nodded slowly as it dawned on me that he might have given himself a headache from using an offense-focused psychic attack for the first time.
“Just let me know if you want to go back in your ball,” I told him, quieter this time. He wagged his trunk left and right sluggishly and closed his eyes.
Before I could say anything else, Florence marched up next to me and briskly smacked the back of my head. “Why in all the regions would you do that?” she asked, her tone flat.
I rubbed the back of my head (she hadn’t hit me all that hard, but it still smarted) and glared at her. “I didn’t do anything! I just tried to reason with that Quagsire, then it attacked me. How is that my fault?”
Isaac had joined us as well at that point, and he looked at me as if I’d said something peculiar. “Wild majū do not understand human language, Trainer Monroe. How could they? They do not interact with us enough to learn it, not until they bond with trainers.” Then he tilted his head to the side. “Perhaps this works differently in your home region?”
I stared at him for a moment with my eyes open wide. “Uh, yeah,” was all I managed to say; I was too flabbergasted to think of anything else. Pokemon couldn’t even understand human speech in this era? How had that changed between now and my own time?
Isaac nodded, then folded his arms and continued in a lecturing tone. “When you waved your arms at the Quagsire and shouted at it, it most likely interpreted that as an aggressive motion, and therefore categorized you as a rival making a claim for its territory. Quagsire are not known to be particularly aggressive majū; if you had made it clear that you were not a threat, it likely would have left us alone.”
I groaned and rested my head in my hands. Just my luck.
“However,” Isaac added, “since Drowzee was able to defeat the Quagsire, this actually may be to our advantage. Now we can finish gathering materials without the threat of attack, as the wild majū have retreated for the time being.” Isaac perked up at that thought and rubbed his hands together. “I shall get back to work right away.”
He did exactly that, but Florence hung back for a moment. She waited until it was clear that Isaac was entirely absorbed in his task, then leaned close to me. “Truly?” she muttered. “Wild majū in the future can understand what you say?”
I glanced at Isaac as well – he seemed fully engaged with digging in the ground – then nodded. “Yeah, at least in my experience. They can’t speak the language, obviously, but understanding each other isn’t impossible.”
Florence leaned backwards and shook her head slowly. “Amazing,” she whispered in reply. Her eyes were gazing far away, like she was already dreaming about what she would do if she could talk to wild Pokemon more easily.
Once I’d gotten my breath back and the aches from my bruises had faded a bit, I returned to collecting stones from the cavern floor. The stones had an almost hypnotic quality to them; it was easy to settle into a meditative state of mind when I looked at the glow sparkling through the rocks. That meant that the work went quickly, and soon my bag had a sizeable collection.
After twenty minutes or so of work we compared our collections and Isaac announced that we had gathered enough material. We trudged back through the pool of water, and this time we kept well away from where the Goldeen had appeared before. No other Pokemon emerged to accost us, which was good because Drowzee looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He shuffled behind me with his trunk drooping, rubbing his head every time a loud sound echoed through the room.
It didn’t help that when we got across, Jordan was inordinately cheerful about the whole event. “Congratulations Drowzee and Trainer Monroe!” he called loudly as we approached, with Sudowoodo cheering his own name right afterwards. Drowzee winced visibly in response.
“Thanks,” I replied with a small smile, keeping my own voice quiet in the hope that Jordan would notice and adjust his volume. “But we should really –"
“Your first elemental attack is always special.” No luck; Jordan was still talking loudly, and his eyes were on Sudowoodo, not Drowzee and me. “Partner, do you remember when you first showed me how you could generate your own rocks instead of taking them from your surroundings?”
Sudowoodo rustled his branches together and made a sound like the fluttering of leaves. Next to me, Isaac perked up. “Is there a difference between natural rocks and majū-generated rocks?” he asked. “It would be fascinating to compare two samples.”
“Sudo, su woo,” the rock Pokemon replied immediately. After exchanging a nod with Jordan, he moved one of his limbs through the air in a scooping motion, and a bright ball of energy gathered in the center of his branch-palm. When the light faded, a regular-looking rock was left in its place.
Isaac leaned forward to look at the rock more closely, his eyes gleaming. I sighed and dropped my bag of stones to the ground, then motioned for Drowzee to go ahead and sit down next to it. We clearly weren’t going to leave the caves as quickly as I wanted to.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
~
Luckily for us, getting out of Union Cave wasn’t anywhere near as complicated as getting in had been. Once Florence and I got the others to stop their discussion and start moving towards the exit, things went pretty smoothly.
Well, except for when Isaac tripped over the entrance to a Sandshrew tunnel and cursed loudly, which woke up a pair of Zubat hanging overhead. We had to hide behind Jordan and his partner to escape the Supersonic waves they shot at our group in retaliation. Sudowoodo was able to scare them off with a few Rock Throws, but I was still unnerved by how the air shimmered as the sound waves passed through it.
And except for how Florence decided she was going to befriend one of the Geodude in the piles near the entrance using a handful of berries from her bag. First the Pokemon had curled up tight and ignored her; when that didn’t work, it launched a handful of rocks straight at her head. I was able to pull her back just in time so that we avoided getting hit, but it was a close call.
Otherwise the trip was almost easy. Still, I was relieved when we finally saw light at the far side of the large entrance cavern. Light meant an escape from the endless rocks and Pokemon attacks. Light meant that I could look forward to changing out of my damp clothes and shoes into something dry and clean.
Unfortunately, light also meant that part of our group was ready to leave. Once he spotted the light off in the distance Jordan nodded and crossed his arms. “Well, there you are. You should be able to get out of the caves on your own now.”
Isaac looked startled. “Why not come with us? We would be happy to provide hospitality in Azalea, especially after all you have done for us.”
Jordan just grinned and shook his head, Sudowoodo mimicking the action to his side. “This was a nice distraction, but it is time the two of us return to training. We have a campsite set up nearby, we’ll do just fine.” He then turned to look directly at me and Drowzee (who was currently leaning on me, half-asleep). “Monroe, Drowzee, you should come find us when you are ready for a battle. We should be in these caves and on the trail up towards the ruins for the next month or so.”
I blinked at him in surprise, then nodded after a moment had passed. I had no intention of challenging Jordan and Sudowoodo to a battle any time soon – the duo was far too intimidating for that – but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Later’ was the best I could get.
Jordan waved at us casually, then turned around and headed back into the caves, Sudowoodo at his side. I only noticed then that he didn’t have a lantern with him. They had been wandering around the cave for two days in the dark?
I shook my head as I turned back towards the entrance. Jordan and Sudowoodo were intimidating, sure, but they were also more than a little crazy.
Our hike back down to Azalea was uneventful, though we did have to re-light the lanterns since the sun set on us when we were only halfway back to the town. Gloria the Slowbro was still seated at the end of the path, though she now had a small basket of rice and cooked fish that she held nestled in her lap. I watched as she slowly stuck a paw into the basket and drew out a slice of fish as we passed by; the food still hadn’t reached her mouth when it passed out of my sight.
It had fully transitioned to night by the time we reached Isaac’s house, and I was shivering constantly. As soon as the door was open I made a beeline for the small bedroom I shared with Isaac, where I shucked off the muddy, damp clothing I’d worn so far and put on the outfit I’d been given back in Florence’s town. The fabric might have been itchy, but it was a solid improvement over what I’d been wearing for the past few hours.
I paused to peek over my shoulder and make sure Isaac hadn’t followed me into the room (he hadn’t, but Drowzee had; my starter had already flopped down onto my futon and covered his head with the blanket). Then I pulled Drowzee’s poke ball and the strange gold and silver ball out of my jacket’s pockets. Drowzee’s ball was easy to minimize and stuff into the small pouch that had been bundled up with the clothing, but I found myself frowning down at the mystery ball. It refused to change its size, no matter how much I poked and prodded at it.
The gold and silver ball was an entirely different model than the modern ball, then, or at least a model with an entirely different set of features. And actually… I squinted down at the middle band of the ball, then laughed quietly in delight. I recognized the material it was made of now – it was the very same stone we had spent so much time collecting that day. That proved we had to be on the right track!
I eventually decided that I would just have to keep the mystery ball hidden somewhere nearby since I no longer had handy giant jacket pockets to rely on; it could just barely fit in the pouch, sure, but it would be way too visible whenever I opened the flap. I snuck out of the room with the special ball hidden behind my back, looking around carefully to make sure Isaac and Charity wouldn’t notice what I was up to. (Drowzee didn’t come with me; it looked like he had already fallen asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him up after everything he’d been through that day).
It turned out that I didn’t need to be so careful. Charity was gone, and Isaac had chased after her.
“She left a note,” Florence told me in a straightforward way after I sidled up next to where she was heating a pot of rice on the old-fashioned stove and asked for an explanation. “It said she and Maisy were going to stay with the Kurts for a while. She did not say why, but, well…”
I frowned; what with how our battle had gone, I could guess why Charity would have left. I still didn’t think I had done anything wrong, but that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty about the whole situation.
“In any case, why are you acting so suspiciously?” Florence asked, frowning over at me. I jumped at the accusation, then sighed and pulled the gold and silver ball out from behind my back.
“I need someplace to hide this until I’m ready to work on it,” I explained, tossing the ball up into the air (and promptly fumbling the catch). “Got any ideas?”
Florence pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. “Not outside, it’s too likely that a Murkrow will fly off with it.” I shuddered at the thought. “Why not in the workshop? Some of the boxes are quite dusty, it seems unlikely that the others will look through them anytime soon.”
I liked the idea, both because it seemed reasonably likely to work and because it gave me an excuse to poke around the workshop more. I liked it even better when I went back into the room and found that the storage parcels were still scattered around the room from our attempt to find stone samples two days before; if I put everything back into the neat stacks they had been in before, I could just tell Isaac I had been tidying up and he would have no reason to be suspicious.
I scanned through the boxes and eventually settled on a worn crate simply labeled ‘Paint’ in faded handwriting. I was able to pry open a corner of the box and slip the gold and silver ball inside. Once the box was closed again, I shoved it against the wall and started moving other boxes and parcels back into their places, making sure they fully covered the crate of paint. There was no reason for anyone to go looking for paint as we worked on prototype poke balls; the strange ball that held Celebi should be safe for as long as I needed.
… hopefully it wouldn’t need to be safe for too long.