We took a day to make arrangements for everything at home. Isaac tried to convince Charity to stay behind again, but she categorically refused as she was simply too excited by the prospect of investigating an ancient poke ball analog. And this time she had arguments prepared for why she should stay with the rest of the group.
“You are worried something will happen to me?” she asked her father stoically. “Well, the world knows about poke balls now, and I know how to make them. What if someone comes to the house and forces me tell them how that works? You would not be there to help.”
“That is wildly unlikely!” Isaac protested. “Besides, you could stay with the Kurts again –“
“Last time there was a whole army that wanted to know,” she interrupted. “I do not think one family would make a difference. But if I stay with you all, Monroe and Florence will be able to protect us with their majū.”
I wanted to protest that we weren’t quite at that level yet, but then again, maybe we were. If any person tried to threaten me Pausso could intercept them with Confusion or Hypnosis, or Echo could hit them with a Supersonic. Florence’s team provided additional potential with Skiploom’s Stun Spore, Natu’s Night Shade, and Snubbull’s Scary Face. We couldn’t take down an army, but we could at least hold off initial attackers as long as we weren’t caught by surprise again.
“Maisy and I are coming too,” Charity said firmly. “It is the smartest thing to do.”
In the end Charity won the debate. Since no one was staying behind, Florence and I convinced a reluctant Smith to look after the captured Pokemon that hung around the house. Pausso thought that Venomoth would be glad for the company, so I figured it would work out in the end. We all packed our travel sacks again, though this time we brought more of the tools for making poke balls along. Sure, we already had a collection of poke balls we’d made over the summer, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
The next morning we locked up the house and walked down to the docks to find Zuri’s ship. I had never been to the Azalea docks before, so I wasn’t prepared for the clamor of people shouting at each other or the clusters of seabirds squawking. The docks also smelled overwhelmingly of fish, though I didn’t see many actual fishing boats – maybe they had already left for the day? Instead there was a large, beautiful ship that floated close to the central walkway in a position of prime importance with a small crowd of men swarming on and off it. Isaac briefly conferred with one of the sailors close to it to see if it was our destination, but the man had never heard of Zuri; probably not the right boat, then. We turned and kept walking down the pier.
A rowdy pack of Wingull landed near us and started jabbering at each other loudly. Most of our Pokemon ignored them, but Skiploom puffed up and yelled something back over to the birds. One of them hopped forward and squawked something in reply, and in seconds Skiploom and Snubbull were squaring up against the wild flock. Even Natu teleported over to join the other two after a few moments, and she chirped a few short words to the others.
Florence practically popped a vein in frustration. “Not now,” she hissed at her team. Natu fluttered her wings slightly and teleported over to stand back by the rest of us, but the other two kept arguing with the wild Pokemon. Florence sighed, then fished their poke balls out of her satchel and returned the two before they could start a fight.
“Alola!” a lightly accented voice called from nearby as Florence put the balls back into her pouch. “Are you the poke ball crew?”
I looked over at where the voice had come from, then looked up. The man who had spoken to us was big. His accent and greeting clearly marked him as Alolan, which I found surprising; how had he gotten to Johto? He had a round face and a cheerful smile, and he wore a simple vest with a pair of loose trousers held up with a yellow sash. He was helping another person carry a large barrel, but he briefly shifted one of his legs under the barrel so he could free a hand to wave at us.
“Careful, Kaiko,” the woman at the other end of the barrel said with a grunt. She looked perfectly ordinary, like a regular townsperson I’d see while out shopping, but she also seemed much too slight to lift such a large barrel.
“Ah, apologies,” the man – Kaiko – said. He moved to hold the barrel with both arms again and hefted it up slightly. “So? Are you?”
“We are,” Isaac said cautiously. “Are you from Zuri’s boat?”
“Yes!” the man said happily. “Come, come, we will show you the way.” He and the woman turned to lift their barrel up higher, and I noticed as they did so that the woman was wearing a similar outfit to Zuri’s, a shirt and short pants instead of a dress. In contrast to Zuri’s extravagance her clothing was plain, except for the yellow ribbon woven into her braid. Well, practical clothing would probably made sense if she was a sailor.
We followed the pair past a fishing boat that had been pulled up onto the side of the dock for repairs and a long stretch of empty water before we arrived at our destination. Zuri’s ship had just two sails, one flying at the front and the other collapsed in the middle, and the ship looked a little small to my unexperienced eye. It wasn’t quite what I had expected, and it certainly wasn’t as impressive as the first ship we’d seen. But it floated well on the water and it seemed clean and sturdy, so it would probably work fine.
A large plank of wood bridged the gap between the ship and the dock. Kaiko and the woman navigated it easily and moved on to carry the barrel belowdecks, but I stepped more carefully since the wooden bridge felt unstable and I didn’t want to fall over into the ocean. I could swim, sure, but it would still be a bad start to the expedition.
The feeling of instability continued as I stepped onto the deck of the ship. I spread my arms out slightly and tried to get my bearings as the floor rocked back and forth just a little. Echo seemed fine on her perch under my hat, but Pausso looked a little green, and he put a paw out to grab one of the ropes that connected the sail to the deck.
“Welcome aboard the Relicanth,” a new voice said, and I looked up. A man with shaggy blonde hair tied back in a tail had been reviewing a small book from his perch near the middle mast, but now he stood up and walked towards us. My eyes were immediately drawn to his left leg, which ended in a stump just below the knee. A wooden peg was tied to his leg with lengths of yellow fabric, and it clunked dully against the deck as he walked. I had always thought that was just something that happened in stories; it was weird to see an actual sailor with an actual peg leg.
Florence elbowed me and I hurriedly looked back up again. The man had noticed me staring, but he didn’t seem that bothered. He just smiled a little instead. “Yes, it is real,” he told me. “There was an accident on my previous ship. I get along fine despite it.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say in reply – ‘I’m sorry’ didn’t feel appropriate, somehow – but luckily he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he looked at Isaac and nodded genially. “You must be the researcher. The captain told me to expect you and your group. My name is Henry, and I am the first mate on this vessel.”
“Ahh, yes,” Isaac said hurriedly. He snapped his eyes up from Henry’s peg leg and bowed unsteadily. “Thank you for having us. We will try to stay out of your way.”
“Thank you for offering your services. And it is no trouble; just make sure to keep your eyes and ears open when the captain and I are giving commands on deck and you should be fine.” He glanced over his shoulder and casually shouted in a robust voice that could probably be heard all the way back on our training grounds. “Boy! Come show our guests around!”
A few moments passed; then a head popped up from an open rectangle set into the floor of the deck. “Yessir!” a boy about my age called back to Henry as he climbed up the stairs and onto the deck. He had messy dark hair and nut-brown skin, and a yellow band of fabric was tied around his upper arm. He sauntered over to join us and his eyes darted almost immediately between Pausso, Echo, Natu, and Maisy. “You all are trainers?” he asked with a slow smile. “Excellent! I have many questions for you!”
“No shirking your duties, Tanaji,” the first mate warned as he walked back to his previous position.
“Nosir,” the boy agreed. Then he waved for us to join him. “Here, I’ll give you a tour first. Have any of you been on a ship before?”
Isaac, Charity, and I all shook our heads, but Florence nodded. “Not one as big as this, though,” she said as she cast an appraising eye over all the intricate parts of the ship that surrounded us. “My village just has a few fishing boats.”
“The Relicanth can handle proper ocean travel,” Tanaji said with casual pride. Then he grinned and jostled the back of his hair. “Well, in theory she can. We haven’t actually taken her all that far out from land since I joined the crew. We usually follow the coast.”
He gestured from the front to the middle of the ship first, where the two masts proudly stood. “Relicanth’s a two-sail junk, but the mainsail isn’t up right now. We use all these ropes to reposition it and the foresail. Make sure to pay attention up here on deck once we are underway, ‘cause you don’t want to trip one of us up or get caught by surprise if a boom comes your way.” I must have looked confused, because he quickly explained his words. “Uhh, by boom I just mean the bottom of a sail. We have to move it sometimes to catch the wind properly.”
Then he led us to the back of the ship and pointed to a long, horizontal rod that connected to something in the back of the ship. “That’s the tiller. It’s attached to the rudder, and it controls the direction we go in.” He made a face. “Kaiko’s trying to teach me how to handle it, but it’s finicky, I can’t manage it on my own yet.”
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Tanaji turned about to face us all and crossed his arms. “You all are passengers, so you don’t get to touch the ropes or the tiller, not unless Captain says otherwise. Leave them to us professionals!”
A chittering noise came from over the side of the deck, and it was shortly followed by a small purple and tan form. An Aipom who wore a yellow strip of cloth like a headband balanced on a rail while its tail-hand clutched one of the taut ropes that led from the back of the ship to the middle sail. The Pokemon chattered a long line of sounds at Tanaji, and he grimaced in reply.
“Come on, Aipom, don’t scold. I’m just saying what the captain would tell them,” the boy said.
“Pom,” the Pokemon said dismissively. Then it turned to look at our group and chattered out another long stream of words. Echo seemed interested; she took off from my head and moved to hang from one of the ropes where she could more easily hear her surroundings, and she occasionally squeaked responses to some of what Aipom said. Pausso felt more annoyed, but that could have been because he still looked a little unstable on his feet.
“Is that your partner?” Florence asked Tanaji, clearly curious. Natu had been resting in her hands, and now the tiny bird opened an eye to watch the new Pokemon carefully.
“Nah,” Tanaji said immediately. “Aipom isn’t partnered with anyone in particular. She just loves the sea so much that she decided to join the crew.” He shrugged. “It’s unusual, but the captain’s partner can talk to her so she knows the expectations. And she gets her work done just like the rest of us.”
Aipom stuck out her tongue at the boy, then jumped forward and raced across the deck towards where Henry was sitting. I watched her yellow headband flutter in the wind, then looked back over at Tanaji’s yellow armband. “What’s up with all the yellow?” I asked him, curious.
Tanaji smiled and pointed up to the top of the center mast. I looked up myself and saw a yellow flag flying there with a broad black outline of some sort of fish drawn within. “It is our symbol,” he explained. “Our way of showing we belong on this ship.”
“So it’s like your uniform?” I asked.
The boy scoffed. “No, no one makes me wear this. I just want to.”
I still didn’t really understand, but Isaac cleared his throat before I could question any further. “We were supposed to see the rest of the ship?” he asked in a leading tone. He looked a little green as well; apparently Pausso wasn’t the only one feeling seasick. Next to him Charity practically hung over the side of the ship so she could look over and into the sea while Maisy balanced precariously on the edge next to her.
“Oh, right,” Tanaji said with an easy smile. “Come, I will show you belowdecks.”
We followed him towards the middle of the boat and climbed down the stairs into the belly of the ship. The whole lower deck was one large room, but it was still a lot more cramped than I had expected. Most of the space was occupied by various barrels and chests that had been crammed together along the sides of the deck next to neatly coiled piles of rope, though there were also several hammocks strung up towards the back of the ship and a small table bolted to the floor near the front. Kaiko and the woman from before were actively engaged in strapping down their barrel into an empty position near the front of the deck, and they didn’t even glance at us as we wandered around the room. Not that there was much to see. The whole room was dim, with light only coming from the hole that led above and a small lantern on the ground next to the two crew members.
Echo was clearly a fan of these new accommodations; she immediately squeaked in excitement and flew off to investigate the room. Pausso sniffed the room tentatively, then wrinkled his trunk.
“Food, water, and supplies are stored down here,” Tanaji explained. “Trading goods go down in the hold, when we have them anyway. We sleep down here too. You all are going to Cianwood, right? That will take two days if we go direct, so we should set up some hammocks for you.”
He gestured lazily towards the hammocks in the back. Then he frowned and turned back to the other two sailors. “Sizhen, where are the spare hammocks?”
The woman who was working with Kaiko glanced up and held a hand out flat, motioning for Tanaji to be patient. She took a few more moments to tie a quick knot on the rope she was holding and tugged it to make sure it was secure. Then she nodded and walked up to us, making a beeline for a particular chest stored near the back of the ship. When she opened it I spotted tightly-rolled fabric packed in alongside many other useful-looking supplies.
Sizhen pulled out four rolls of cloth and handed one to each of us. Then she looked at the sacks of poke balls and tools Isaac was carrying and pursed her lips. “Here; I know where to stow those,” she told him in a soft voice after a moment’s thought, then led him to a small set of shelves that had been built into the side of the ship.
We spent perhaps twenty minutes stowing our bags and setting up our hammocks. During that time Tanaji showed me how to tie two kinds of knots I had never seen before and impressed upon me the importance of making sure everything on a ship was securely tied down. He also asked a lot of questions about Pausso and Echo until I finally asked him why he was so curious.
“Because I want to be a trainer, of course,” he said with a broad smile. Florence immediately perked up and paid more attention. “I love the sea, so I want to bond with a water majū. Being a ship’s boy is the easiest way to meet a lot of water majū quickly.”
“I am the same way!” Florence replied eagerly before I could say anything. “I am helping with the poke ball project so I may meet lots of majū and eventually meet my true partner.”
“Really?” Tanaji looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. “I thought that that Natu was your partner.”
Florence looked at Natu, who had perched herself on top of a chest nearby where she could observe us all, and sighed. “No, not exactly. I am training Natu and two others, but I do not share a bond with them. Not like Zuri and Pelipper, or Monroe and his majū.”
I scratched at my ear and gazed at her sidelong. “I still think you just need to give it time,” I told her. “You understand your team better now than you did before, right?”
Florence shrugged and turned back to her work attempting to tie a knot at the corner of her hammock. I silently shook my head before I went back to my own work.
”Anyway,” Tanaji continued, “if I manage to find a partner majū, we might keep working on the ship for a while, but my real dream is to explore the Whirlpool Islands.” He lowered his voice to a hushed tone. “No one has ever gotten through the whirlpools to see what’s in the caves. Who knows what kind of treasure might be there!”
Charity had been busy attempting to climb into her hammock alongside Maisy, who already lay in it; now she poked her head over the side. “If the whirlpools are such a problem, wouldn’t it be more sensible to bond with a flying majū?” she asked.
Tanaji stared at her for a few moments. Then he laughed. “Probably!” he admitted. “But I still think a water type would suit me best.”
We spent the rest of the time discussing different Pokemon types and our preferences, and I barely held myself back from telling everyone else how superior electric types were. I still liked them best, but I couldn’t explain how useful they were at powering devices when this era didn’t have running electricity in the first place. Besides, it felt disloyal to Pausso and Echo to back a type that they didn’t already represent.
As we were wrapping up we were interrupted by a booming voice from above. “All hands report!” Henry’s voice roared out, making Charity fall out of her hammock. Isaac hurried over to make sure she was alright; then we all funneled up and back out into the sunlight.
The whole crew had gathered up on the deck, including Zuri and Pelipper. She tilted her hat down slightly and her eyes twinkled at us. “Well then! What do you lot think of my fair ship?”
Isaac muttered something noncommittal, but Charity perked up right away. “It’s interesting!” she said, turning slowly on one foot to take in the whole ship. “Everything is so efficient.”
Zuri barked out a laugh. “Efficiency is necessary out at sea, girl,” she said with a broad smile. Then she turned to look directly at Isaac and quirked an eyebrow. “I hope you are not having second thoughts.”
He sighed. “No, no. I am sure the ship will suffice.” A particularly strong wave rocked the boat forward, and he swayed briefly and gulped before he managed to catch himself on the railing at the side of the ship. “How long did you say the trip will take?”
“We-ell,” Zuri said as she exchanged a look with Pelipper. The bird croaked a short sound, and she nodded. “If all goes well, I reckon we will make it to Cianwood by tomorrow evening. But the sea is a fickle mistress, so I can make no promises.”
“Of course not.” He made a weak attempt to smile. “Then we will trust to you and your crew to do your best.”
“Naturally.” She turned then to look at her crew and made a broad sweeping gesture. “You all heard the man! Everyone to stations. Let’s get her turned out of port!”
The sailors called out their confirmations as they scurried into various positions. Kaiko went to the back, where he placed a careful hand on the tiller. Aipom leapt up onto the dock and started untying ropes that had been looped around spurs of wood there, and Sizhen moved to the side of the deck with a long rod that she used to start prodding the ship away from the dock. Once the last rope had been undone Aipom jumped back onto the ship, and she and Sizhen both ran up to join the rest of the crew at the front sail. They all took hold of ropes that were secured to the sail and stood at the ready.
“Alright, Pelipper!” Zuri called. “Tailwind!”
Pelipper squawked a reply and flew up into position perhaps ten feet behind the sail. He started beating his wings in powerful bursts and a light breeze sprang into being. It nearly whipped the hat off my head until I grabbed it and swung it onto my back. Echo had flown over to hang from one of the ropes when we came back to the upper deck, but now she screeched in protest and flew over to me, grabbing my shirt with her wingtips so she could cling to my shoulder.
Zuri shouted a stream of commands at the crew and they worked together to heave their ropes this way and that, shaping the sail around the wind. At a certain point the sail billowed out and the ship started actually moving forward at a decent rate, much better than the crawl it had started out at. I stepped around unsteadily and turned to look at Kaiko; he had thrown the tiller all the way to the left and was leaning his weight against it to keep it in place. Under his direction the ship smoothly turned about until we were facing away from the harbor and towards the open sea.
“First crew switch to the mainsail!” Zuri roared. She, Henry, and Aipom moved to the middle of the ship and started pulling up the large middle sail that had been collapsed down to the bottom before. In just a few minutes they had the second sail billowing as well under the force of Pelipper’s Tailwind, and the ship started moving even faster.
I walked over to lean against the side of the deck and watched the Azalea docks as they slowly got smaller. I was feeling a little nauseous from the ship’s movement, but the moving air from Pelipper’s Tailwind helped. Pausso came up to stand beside me, and he looked a bit better than he had before. Maybe the breeze was helping him too.
I looked over at him with a raised eyebrow and absently reached up to pet Echo’s back. “Ready for another adventure, team?”
N̶o̷t̴ ̵ p̶a̵r̵t̸i̴c̸u̶l̶a̶r̷l̶y̵, he thought wryly. Echo squeaked at me in an uncertain tone as well.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” I said quietly. Our last adventure had been quite perilous, after all. And if we had to face down a murderous Pokemon, this one probably wouldn’t be any better.
There was a retching sound next to me, and I looked over to see that Isaac was hanging his head over the side of the boat. Charity ran up to him and started pestering him to see what he needed, but he just shook his head. His face looked sickly and pale already.
“Natu, no!” Florence snapped from behind me. I turned around to see that Natu had teleported closer to the crew, probably in an attempt to see what was going on, and had nearly gotten stepped on by Henry as a result. The little bird let out a loud, startled cheep, then teleported up to the highest point on the center mast. Florence groaned and moved closer so she could try to talk the bird back down.
I sighed and looked out towards the rapidly-disappearing town again. “Yeah. This should go well.”