PART FIVE: MONSTER ON THE MOUNTAIN
I fully expected that some kind of catastrophe would happen as we sailed past the Whirlpool Islands, but for once nothing went wrong. The whirlpools and eddies all stayed in their usual territory and didn’t inch towards our path, no pirates or distress calls hailed us from far parts of the sea. Everything was fine. I kept my eyes trained on the waters of Lugia’s domain, but there was no sign of the legendary Pokemon, not even a feather. Eventually we passed through the inner sea and reached the northernmost point of Mitono Island, and I had to admit to myself that all my paranoia earlier in the trip had been misplaced. We had been delayed simply due to bad luck, not any kind of divine intervention.
Our entrance into Cianwood was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. Zuri’s talk about how much peril the town was in had made me think the people would be waiting for our arrival with bated breath. But the town’s small dock was mostly empty; only a few moored ships and a teenage boy fishing at the end of the pier were waiting to greet us as the crew carefully led the Relicanth in and tied her up in an empty spot.
In retrospect, I supposed that made sense. The town had no way to know when we would arrive. In fact, they had no reason to expect us at all – Zuri had gone off to buy poke balls, not hire a whole team of people. And it was already early evening, since the sun had just fallen out of sight beyond the mountain that towered in the distance. The whole world glowed with the remnants of dusk’s golden light. It was pretty, but it also meant that people were moving quickly to finish their work and get back to their homes. In an era without electricity you could technically get around in the dark with a lantern, but it was still a hassle, so most people tried to do their work in the daylight instead.
I shifted my feet impatiently as I stood at the side of the ship with my travel sack over my shoulder, waiting for Zuri to give the signal that we could disembark. We had finally reached our destination, which meant we would finally get our answers; that was good. It also meant we had to take care of our end of the deal, which was a bit more intimidating. But I was feeling more confident than ever after my team’s win against Jasper and Skarmory. This was just another challenge for us to face and overcome. We could handle it.
As the crew finished the last steps of the usual docking ritual Zuri came up from belowdecks with a small bag of her own. “Henry, you have command as I escort the group to Sheng,” she ordered in a business-like tone. “Tanaji, come along with us, I may need you to run errands. Everyone else can take shore leave at Henry’s discretion.”
Henry nodded and immediately started calling instructions to the others, but I only halfway paid attention. Sizhen had just slid the plank bridge out into its place, and as soon as she backed away Zuri strode over it and motioned for the rest of us to follow. I ran across after her and onto the dock, this time prepared for the oddity of standing on stable ground. I then had to bounce impatiently as everyone else filed off the ship one by one. With all the Pokemon out of their balls it took forever to get organized.
Pausso snorted at my antics. W̴h̴y̵ ̶ s̵o̴ ̵ h̴u̷r̴r̶i̵e̸d̵?̷ he thought to me as we finally started moving forward and into the city.
I glanced over at where Florence and Tanaji were chatting about the town and shrugged. “Dunno. Guess I’m just glad to be off the ship.”
Echo swooped down from where she’d been gliding nearby and latched onto my head, then squeaked at me reprovingly. I furrowed my eyebrows at her in a glare she couldn’t see. “What? I am!”
Not that that was the whole story. To tell the truth, what Jasper had said about battling again in a year or two had gotten under my skin. I wanted to believe that this lead we’d gotten from Zuri would work out and I’d be able to go home soon, but what if I was wrong? What if we were still stuck in the past a year from now? Worse, what if we never found a way out?
Y̴o̷u̵’̸r̸e̶ ̴ w̷o̶r̷r̶y̶i̶n̶g̵ ̶ a̷g̴a̶i̷n̸, Pausso thought to me with a feeling that mixed concern and disapproval. T̴a̷k̴e̵ ̷ i̷t̴ ̶ o̴n̴e̷ ̸ d̵a̴y̵ ̸ a̵t̸ ̸ a̶ ̴ t̸i̸m̵e̶.̷
“I know, I know,” I muttered at him as we stepped off the docks and into the city proper. I rubbed my arms and looked around, deciding to distract myself by seeing more of what Cianwood was like.
… not that there was much to look at, because Cianwood was surprisingly small. Not as small as Florence’s village, and it felt much more permanent than their nomadic dwellings had ever been, but still. There was a grand total of one inn near the docks, a simple place with a carving of a mug of beer on the sign out front. Most of the shops we passed on the way into the town were simple, advertising only the everyday essentials that people in a town like this would need. All of the other towns and cities I’d seen so far had felt much more established than this place. How did they even manage to survive out here, living by themselves on an island separate from the rest of the region?
A stocky woman who sat on the stoop of a cobbler’s shop called out a greeting to Zuri as she passed by, and we all had to pause and wait while the captain chatted with the woman and got caught up on the local news. Echo took the opportunity to fly off and examine the local architecture while Pausso shuffled over to sniff at a shuttered window in a nearby building.
Charity sidled up to me with Maisy the Slowpoke held up in her arms, her eyes sharp as they swung over the surrounding buildings. “This is a very small town,” she told me in a critical tone.
I raised my eyebrows back at her. Sure, I agreed with her, but it still felt rude to say something like that out loud. “How would you know? I thought you’d never travelled before.”
“I read books,” she told me haughtily. Then she grinned and tilted her head to the side. “Though seeing a real place feels very different. Where are all of their Slowpoke?”
“Spoken like a true Azalean.” I perked up as Zuri said goodbye to the woman on the stoop and set us moving forward again, now at a quicker pace. The light was quickly fading across town, so we’d need to reach our destination soon. “Have you read anything about Cianwood before?”
“Not much,” she admitted as we passed a storefront that had a brightly-decorated Krabby made of metal adorning the front. “The city was already established during the last Johto-Kanto war, but they did not intervene. I do know they grow yuzu and oranges here, the grocer back home told me that he gets his shipments from them.”
Oranges. That didn’t really help. “This is a newer town, right?”
She waved her hand from side to side. “I think it was first settled by a group from Hoenn? But that would have been at least a hundred years ago.” She huffed and shrugged. “You should ask someone who lives here if you are so curious.”
“Eh,” I replied with a shrug. “I think I care more about what’s going on with the lead trainer here. What was it Zuri said before? Something about his ancestors having weird powers?”
“I suppose we will find out,” Charity replied cheerfully as Zuri turned towards a building ahead of us. We had already reached the end of the cluster of buildings that formed the town, though I could see lanterns scattered across the darkness of the land ahead: farms, maybe? This building was constructed in the classical structure, like the houses in Ecruteak, but it was larger than usual and simple, little more than a roof on stilts with thin paper walls.
The doors leading into the building were open, so I could see that there was a lot of movement happening inside. I walked in after Zuri and blinked at the scene in front of us. There were perhaps a dozen people… rolling around on the ground? I stared openly at the odd scene. Yes – there were several pairs of people rolling about on the ground, wrestling around with each other in strange, wriggling piles. What?
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I glanced over at Charity, then Pausso, but they both seemed equally confused. Zuri didn’t seem alarmed, though. She just gestured for us to join her along the back wall of the building where we stood and watched the odd scene.
I quickly noticed a few thing that stood out. For one thing, one of the men on the ground was wrestling a Pokemon, a Mankey that grappled just as well as a human. The squat Pokemon didn’t appear to be using any moves, but it did use its tail for leverage as the man it wrestled tried to flip himself on top.
The Mankey wasn’t the only Pokemon, either. At the back of the room a Hitmontop crouched near a pair of wrestlers, its head bobbing slightly as it followed the progress of the match. Next to it stood an older man dressed in a loose shirt and slacks tied with a broad belt in the middle. The man was also focused on the wrestling pair, and the deepening frown on his face showed that he was not happy with what he saw.
“Freeze!” he finally called in a gravelly voice. After the pair of men stopped writhing about he leaned forward and tapped a hand against a bare foot. “You keep forgetting to lock your ankles, Itaro. They need to be hooked together to provide proper leverage. Rolf, your elbow placement has been sloppy this whole time. Whether it is tucked in or pushed out, you need to commit.” The man took a step back and roughly clapped his hands. “Reset, try again.”
The two men disengaged and jumped to their feet, then slammed into each other with renewed force. My eyebrows practically levitated off of my face as the shorter man somehow wrapped his arms around the other man’s body and twisted him, lifting him into the air and then slamming him down onto the ground in one fluid motion. How?
W̵a̶s̸ ̷ t̴h̴a̵t̵ ̴ a̸ m̴o̵v̴e̴?̶ Pausso thought to me, confusion tinging his words as he tilted his head to the side. I̷ ̷ t̸h̶o̷u̸g̸h̶t̸ ̴ o̶n̵l̵y̶ ̶ w̴e̷ ̷ P̷o̶k̸e̴m̴o̵n̸ ̷ c̸o̶u̷l̴d̸ ̸ d̷o̵ ̸ t̸h̴a̶t̴.̵ Echo must have shared his confusion, because she chirped an echo of the question from her perch on top of my head.
“No,” I said slowly as I looked around at the rest of the room, watching as people occasionally paused their wrestling to change positions and try again. “They’re practicing martial arts.”
In retrospect that should have been obvious. I’d seen exhibitions on TV back in my own time, even watched a live sumo tournament with my parents once at a cultural festival. But there was a big difference between seeing someone wrestle in an official sumo wrap or a crisp white outfit tied with an official-looking belt versus… well, it kind of looked like these people were just wearing the everyday clothes they usually worked in. Only the older man and the person who was wrestling the Mankey wore anything close to a gi.
The older man nodded in approval at whatever had changed in the pair of wrestling men and moved on to observe the next pair. The Hitmontop moved with him, and it quickly started gesturing and muttering short words. The man twisted around to better hear the Pokemon – his partner? – and as he did so I could see that his left eye was filmed over, probably blind. He nodded at what the Hitmontop said and barked a new set of instructions at the wrestling pair, telling one of them to ‘twist from his core’, whatever that meant.
Charity yawned from her spot next to me and slumped down to sit against the wall, idly playing with Maisy’s ears. I didn’t see how she could be bored. The more I watched the pairs of wrestlers, the more I started to notice specific things they were doing, techniques that could be used to flip a person over or slam them to the ground. I had never been interested in martial arts before; to be honest, I’d never been interested in any sports. But now my eyes lingered on the man who managed to turn so that the Mankey’s attempted Scratch met thin air. He caught the Pokemon’s legs and boosted it in a smooth movement, sending the monkey flying over his hip and into the floor.
I wanted to be able to defend myself so I wouldn’t be so useless in battle. Could I learn something like this?
The Mankey screeched in anger and threw itself back towards its opponent, but the man just laughed, stepped slightly to the side, and caught the Pokemon’s arm. He made the Pokemon twist in midair so that suddenly it was angled down, then he followed the Pokemon to the ground and pinned it. That only lasted for a few seconds before the monkey wrapped its legs around the man’s torso and flip itself on top, hooting in triumph as it successfully completed the move. I kept watching as the pair wrestled back and forth, neither one quite able to pin the other in a permanent position. Maybe if I watched for long enough…
“I do not recommend you try that without proper training,” a gruff voice said nearby. I glanced over and then stood up a bit straighter in surprise. The old man had slowly worked his way over to our side of the building, and he now stood by the wrestling pair closest to me. His good eye mostly stayed on the pair, but it slid over to glance at me briefly in acknowledgement before he looked back at the main event. “My nephew trained in the Way of the Grapploct for three years before he was confident in his ability to redirect his partner’s attacks. Even now Mankey does not use her full power when they train together.”
I flushed and ducked my head, making Echo squeak in surprise as her position shifted. “I won’t,” I muttered, setting aside stray thoughts about trying to learn by having Pausso use his Pound attack on me. Then I looked up again as an idea came to me. “Do you think –“
“Not now,” he interrupted curtly. “When the session is finished.”
I swallowed a protest and nodded, and the older man turned his attention back to his current pair. I had thought it fairly likely before, and now I was sure: he had to be Trainer Sheng, the lead trainer of Cianwood that Zuri had mentioned before. That Hitmontop was his partner, then.
I stayed quiet for the rest of the session, as the group transitioned from their individual matches to a cool-down session where Sheng led the others through a variety of stretches. After that most of them left to make their way back to their homes, leaving only Sheng and his nephew behind. Finally Zuri stood up straight from where she’d been leaning against the wall and walked up to where they stood in the center of the room, and the rest of us hurried to join her.
“You took longer than expected,” Sheng told her as he cast a critical eye over the rest of us. “And I thought you were bringing back some miracle tool, not a set of trainers.”
“I brought both,” she replied with a shrug. “These people are the ones who invented the new device. They refused to sell, but agreed to come with me to manage the capture process themselves.”
He grunted and looked us over again, his eyes now appraising. “I am Trainer Sheng, bonded to Hitmontop,” he told us after a few moments had passed. His Pokemon jumped and did a flip in the air, landing smoothly on the point at the top of his head. The fighter spun about easily, then leapt into the air again and sketched a bow as he landed on his feet. A muscle in Sheng’s cheek twitched, almost like he wanted to smile, but he didn’t comment on his partner’s introduction. “My apprentice here is Trainer Wei, bonded to Mankey.” The young man and monkey bowed more formally than Hitmontop had, and without thinking about it I bowed in return.
We went through the usual lengthy process of introducing everyone on our side, and I noticed that Sheng frowned a bit when I introduced Pausso as my first partner and Echo as my second. But he didn’t make a fuss, and soon we were ready to get down to real business.
Isaac stepped forward and cleared his throat. “We are willing to help, on one condition,” he explained. “Captain Zuri here said you own a device that was once used to imprison majū, much like our poke balls. We would like to learn more about this device and investigate it, to help further our research.”
Sheng scowled, but the look was directed at Zuri, not Isaac. “I told you my family’s history was secret,” he said, his voice severe. “You swore not to tell anyone else!”
She raised her arms in a what-can-you-do gesture. “People are dying, Sheng. Claudia told me that two more bodies have been found since I left. Are your secrets more important than their lives?”
He growled and turned back to Isaac. “Let us pay you,” he offered bluntly. “Our village is not as rich as the ones on the mainland, but we can still put a bounty together. We could –“
“We are not interested in money,” Isaac replied, cutting him off. “We need that information.”
“They are good people,” Zuri said in a softer voice. “They will not abuse your trust.”
Sheng waivered for a moment. Then he put his shoulders back and breathed deeply through his nose, closing his eyes. He held that pose for perhaps ten full seconds. Part of me wanted to interject, but something held me back. It felt almost like there was a strange energy in the room, something just outside of the range of my senses.
Finally the man let out the breath he’d been holding, and the tension in the air relaxed. He opened his eyes and nodded solemnly, like he had just reached a decision.
“I will tell you,” he said. “But not until you fulfill your end of the bargain. Help us defeat the monster that has caused so many deaths. If you do, I swear that I will tell you everything you wish to know about my family’s history and the device Zuri described.”
Isaac agreed, though he looked disappointed. Personally, I thought it sounded fair. I didn’t know Sheng, sure, but I trusted Zuri and she seemed to trust him. I didn’t think he would withhold the information he’d promised as long as we did our part. That meant all we had to do was figure out what exactly the monster was, track it down, trick it or fight it until it was exhausted, and capture it in a poke ball.
… maybe that would be easier said than done.