Night fell fast in Cianwood. I had realized that when we first landed in the town, and I was reminded of the fact again as our group walked down the path. We had left the edge of town at the cusp of dusk, but we still had to light a lantern before we even made it halfway to our chosen lookout point. The farmland seemed peaceful at night, all quiet and still, but it made my skin crawl anyway. Who knew what could be out there?
On the walk we decided to split the watches in half, with two humans and three Pokemon on each shift. It was kind of like the watches Florence and I had held on the ship, except that now we had multiple people staying up at each point in time, all the better to assure that no one fell asleep and ruined the whole thing. That also meant that we’d get a lot less rest, but we could always go back to the dojo and sleep during the day. Right now, it was most important that we keep a careful eye out for the monster at the time it was most likely to attack.
We drew straws to decide who would hold which watch. I ended up on the first watch with Charity, my team, and Snubbull. Maisy was technically on the team too, but everyone (except for Charity) had agreed that the Slowpoke would be useless as a lookout.
Our strategy for the night had Echo as the linchpin. It was her job to see (well, hear) in the dark far out into the distance, to give us an early warning when the monster appeared. The rest of us were mostly there as backup, and to ensure that nothing happened to her. Natu would play a similar role on the other team, though she would use her mind-sensing psychic abilities to monitor the surroundings instead.
Once we reached the little strand of trees, Florence and Isaac set up the bedrolls on a canvas tarp and settled down to sleep right away. I got comfortable in my own position behind one of the trees that bordered the path. I was close enough to the trunk to hopefully blend in with it, especially in the night, so I figured it would be safe. Pausso and Charity sat against different trees, Snubbull lay on her stomach under one of the bushes, and Echo hung from a carefully-chosen branch that gave her the clearest auditory view of the surrounding landscape.
And then… well, we just sat there. Isaac had put out the lantern after we’d all gotten situated, so it was super dark at first, but as time passed my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Granted, it wasn’t completely dark; the sky was littered with thousands upon thousands of stars, like tiny pinholes had been made in a dark fabric that stretched above us all. I had been stuck in the past for over half a year now, yet I was still awed by the night sky every time I went outside after dark. Modern Goldenrod had nothing that could compare.
I found myself paying more attention to my other senses as time wore on. We were surrounded by the sounds of night insects, and the occasional cawing of a Murkrow made it clear that some nocturnal Pokemon were out and about too. I breathed deeply through my nose, appreciating the crispness of the air. It almost smelled like it could snow soon, but hopefully that wouldn’t happen for another month at least. The late autumn air was chilly on my face, but I was bundled up in my heavy wool cloak so it didn’t bother me that much. How did the people of this era get wool, anyway? I highly doubted that anyone herded Mareep flocks. I’d have to ask Florence once she decided to stop being unjustly mad at me.
“Monroe,” Charity said in a hushed voice, “are you awake?”
I glanced over in her direction. She was still huddled up next to her tree and mostly hidden under her own cloak, so I could only really see the pale oval of her face. “Yeah,” I replied, keeping my voice quiet too.
“I’m bored,” she said petulantly. “Aren’t you?”
I shrugged, not that she could see. I had been bored out of my mind for my own first night watch, but over time I had gotten used to it. Keeping watch felt a bit like meditating, now, so it didn’t really bother me. “It gets easier,” I told her.
The undergrowth surrounding her rustled; she must have shifted position. “Would it be alright if we talked?” she asked, sounding wistful. “It would help.”
On one hand, we were supposed to be entirely focused on keeping an eye out for the mysterious monster. On the other? Echo was absolutely capable of sounding out the monster long before any of us spotted it, especially at night. If we kept our voices down, it shouldn’t bother her and we’d be able to shush if anything started approaching from afar.
“Okay,” I told her quietly. “What are we talking about?”
She was quiet for a few moments. “I do not know,” she said eventually. “You pick.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were the one who wanted to talk.”
“Please?” she said, whining a little.
“Fine, fine.” I scratched at my ear as I thought. “Umm… what did you think of the stuff that Sheng showed us earlier? Pretty cool, right?”
“It looked boring,” she said easily. “And the parts where you moved so slowly looked silly.”
I huffed in indignation. “We’re learning! Besides –“ I was interrupted by a reproachful squeak from Echo overhead, and I hastily lowered my voice. “Besides, it’s easy to be a critic when you didn’t try it yourself. Learning this stuff is hard.”
“Oh, I can believe that,” she murmured in reply. “I will stick to my own work, thanks.”
There was a flicker of something in the distance, so I fell silent to watch it carefully. When I figured out that it was just a Venonat scurrying across a field, I glanced over at Charity and picked up the conversation again. “What are you working on, then?”
She perked up so visibly that I could see it even through the darkness. “Mostly I am still working on targeting, and the idea there is simple enough. I think if we use tumblestone on the outside of the ball, it might be attracted to majū in the same way that majū are attracted to the stone.” She waved a hand in the air as if she was brushing something aside. “My new idea is much neater, though, and I think it might help with this monster!”
I had just been humoring her before, but now I was curious. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, if this monster is so powerful, it may also be harder to make it stay in a ball, yes?” Charity said. I frowned and nodded silently; I hadn’t accounted for that. “Usually majū break out by forcing open the button. What if we make the buttons stronger? The harder they are to break open, the easier it should be to catch a majū.”
“And you have an idea for how to make the button stronger already, I’m guessing.”
“Yes!” she said, eager now and a little too loud. I shushed her and she continued in a quiet (but still excited) voice. “Drowzee’s poke ball gave me the idea. The outside is metal, yes, but there is also a metal structure around the button. What if we added metal around the buttons of our own poke balls? That would strengthen the barrier, would it not?”
“Maybe,” I replied. I was a little skeptical, but I supposed it was still worth a shot. “That’ll make building the poke balls even more complicated, though.”
“So we do not do it for all of them,” Charity said easily. “Just a few, for majū that are particularly dangerous or particularly strong.”
Well, I was still skeptical, but I was also on board with exploring ideas that could help against this crazy monster we were hunting. “Seems like it could work. Are you gonna talk to a blacksmith to get ideas for what kind of metal to use?”
“Maybe,” she replied, though she sounded a little wistful now. “It would be easier if we were back at home.”
“The blacksmith here probably knows what they’re doing too.”
“Yes, but…” she hesitated, then sighed. “The people here are all so different, and I do not know any of them.”
Before I had been busy watching our surroundings, keeping a careful eye out for any movement. Now I glanced to the side to look directly at Charity instead. She was watching the path as well, but the way she sat with her arms wrapped around her legs felt melancholy. “I thought you liked meeting new people?”
“Usually I do,” she said quietly. “It just feels different here.” She paused for a long time, then finally spoke again. “I miss Azalea.”
“You’re homesick?”
“I suppose so.” She sounded almost disgruntled about it, which would have been funny if she didn’t also seem sad. “I always thought travelling to new places would be fun, but now that we’re here I just feel out of place all the time.”
“Yeah, that’s homesickness alright.” I sighed quietly as I leaned back to rest against my tree. “If it helps, it gets easier over time.” I still missed home, sure, but spending time with my team and the rest of the crew felt natural now. Heck, it had been weeks since the last time I thought about something like fast food or the internet.
… and now I had a desperate craving for fries from McDonphan’s. Shoot.
“I do not want it to get easier,” Charity muttered rebelliously.
I pushed away my distracted thoughts about hot, crisp fries in a paper bag and looked over at her. “Huh?”
“I do not want to keep spending time away from home,” she continued simply. She sounded more confident now, like she had made a decision. “Once this mission is done and we go back, I will stay there, I think. Azalea is more than big enough for me.”
Personally, I didn’t get it. I liked that I had gotten to see so much of Johto already, even if the circumstances weren’t great. But if Charity felt differently, maybe that was okay.
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“But enough of that,” the girl said energetically as she sat up straight again. “Even though I have not talked to a blacksmith yet, I have a few ideas for other ways we could use metal to make our poke balls better…”
~
That night passed without incident. Charity and I talked quietly during our whole shift about poke ball design and general crafting, and then about more nebulous things, like what we wanted to do when we grew up. When I told her I wanted to be an inventor, she perked right up and made me tell her about some of the little ideas I’d come up with before, and then she told me about all the inventions Isaac had made.
We saw absolutely no signs of a murderous monster. And when we went back to the town the following morning, no one had reported any problems there either.
The day passed quickly. I spent some of it training and the rest napping in the dojo, and before I knew it, it was time for our next session with Sheng. We started by reviewing what we had learned the previous day, and because I had made a point to practice my stances and blocks while Pausso and Echo were busy training their movesets, I was able to follow along with the Sheng’s instructions decently well.
We spent maybe twenty minutes on review, then another half hour practicing punches and kicks until I could actually perform a side-kick properly without falling over. Then Sheng decided we were ready for something new.
“The Way of the Machamp,” he told us, “is the art of fighting efficiently. Rather than expanding your own energy on attacks, you use an opponent’s momentum against them. Observe.”
Wei was his opponent today. The two men gripped each other by the shoulder and arm. Then Sheng stepped forward, pulling Wei just slightly to the side as he moved.
The next part happened so fast I almost missed it. In the blink of an eye Sheng swung his right leg forward, then back, and somehow Wei was falling onto the ground. He hit the floor with a grunt, but quickly leapt to his feet again a moment later and returned to the stance he and Sheng had held before.
“There are three parts to a throw,” Sheng told us. “First, you must unbalance your opponent. See how when I pull, his stance is disrupted? This means he is vulnerable.”
They repeated the same initial movement as before, but this time I watched Wei’s feet. Yes – when Sheng pulled him, his left foot was brought just a little off the ground.
“Second, you must position yourself for the throw,” Sheng continued. He moved more slowly this time, so I could see how he angled his leg so it extended past Wei’s back. His other foot was planted firmly on the floor, and his grip on Wei kept him balanced. “Just as we discussed yesterday, this involves the body as much as it does the limbs. And finally – watch carefully, now –“
It happened again, but this time I knew where to look. Sheng’s lower leg angled back down again so that it hooked around the back of Wei’s right leg, and in a single sweep the younger trainer was off his feet again.
“The execution of the throw,” Sheng finished as he offered a hand to help Wei back onto his feet. “Did you see how little force I needed? My opponent was already off-balance, so with the slightest movement I was able to turn his weight and position against him.”
That all seemed interesting, but I was still confused by one thing. Sheng must have seen it on my face, because he nodded at me to speak.
“Umm,” I said, “is that really how Machamp fight, though? I thought they were all about punching things.”
Wei chuckled slightly in the background, and Sheng shot him a look before he turned back towards me. “Against most opponents, yes, a Machamp’s extra arms allow them to overwhelm their target with attacks. However, if you have the opportunity to watch a Machamp face off against one of their own kind?” He shook his head. “Their style is entirely different. They focus on grappling and throwing their opponent, and disrupting an opponent’s stance is the best way to do that.”
“Machop fight that way too,” a soft voice said. I glanced to the side, startled to hear Wei talk. Had I ever heard him speak before? “It is the easiest way for them to bring an opponent to the ground, where they can be attacked more easily.”
“Correct,” Wei said with a nod. Then he stepped forward and motioned towards Florence and me. “My apprentice and I are too tall to be your opponents, and Hitmontop and Tanaji are only experienced in the Way of the Hitmonkin. The two of you will need to practice throws with each other.”
I looked over at Florence, already feeling slightly apprehensive. She hadn’t been hostile that morning, not exactly. She’d still participated in our group meditation during training, and she had passed me a bowl of rice during lunch when I’d asked her to. But she hadn’t talked to me at all since our argument yesterday afternoon, and now she was looking at me in a frosty way. Did I really want her in a position where she could toss me around?
To make matters worse, Sheng decided that Florence would be the one doing the throwing first. He positioned the two of us carefully, then had us walk back and forth between the first two steps of the process ten times. That was unsettling already, because I kept feeling like I was going to fall over when she pulled me off-balance.
Then Sheng told us to practice the whole set, including the throw. To his credit, he did warn me ahead of time about how best to approach the fall, that I should twist sideways and use my shoulder to cushion my head, and he had both of us practice that backwards fall a few times before he let Florence attempt the full throw.
No surprise, she pulled it off on the first try. I hit the ground with a smack that resonated through my side and grunted at the sensation. And this was just for practice?!
“Again,” Sheng said remorselessly.
I sighed and staggered back onto my feet, ready to get into position.
~
I had thought that maybe spending five minutes throwing me around would make Florence get over herself and stop being mad at me. I was wrong.
To make matters worse, when we drew straws on the walk towards our stakeout location, she and I both drew the second slot of the evening. Florence shot a glare at me, like it was my fault we were both holding watch at the same time, and then stalked off down the path without another word.
The martial arts session had left me tired enough that I fell asleep right away, but I was also feeling antsy, and I woke up before Charity and Isaac’s watch ended. So I just lay there for a while, half listening to the murmurs of their conversation and half thinking my own thoughts. After a few minutes of that Pausso stirred from his own sleep and sniffed at me, feeling concerned. W̸o̸r̸r̶y̴i̸n̶g̷ ̴ a̵g̸a̴i̷n̵?̸ he thought groggily to me.
I shrugged, then nodded. “There’s just a lot going on,” I told him quietly.
He looked at me steadily for a moment, then glanced sidelong at where Florence lay curled up under her own blanket, with Skiploom and Natu asleep in their nests nearby. Y̷o̷u̷ ̵ s̶h̶o̷u̷l̸d̴ ̴ t̷a̸l̵k̴ ̴ t̷o̴ ̶ h̴e̷r̵.̷
“She’s the one who’s being stubborn and won’t talk,” I grumbled.
His ears slightly flattened, and I felt his disapproval in my mind. I̴s̸ ̸ s̵h̸e̸ ̶t̷h̴e̸ ̷ o̷n̴l̴y̷ ̷ o̴n̷e̷?̷
I didn’t dignify that with a reply. After half a minute Pausso snorted quietly and turned back over again, burrowing back into his blanket to get just a little more sleep.
I got my notebook out and sketched in the dim moonlight until Isaac stood up, stretched, and walked over to where the rest of us had camped out. He looked a bit surprised to see me already up, but he didn’t ask any questions; he just moved over to shake Florence awake instead.
“All quiet,” he told us once everyone was alert enough to pay attention. “A small pack of Poochyena cut across the path an hour ago, but they left us alone. You are prepared?”
We all murmured our agreement and got up to move to the strand of trees. Once we got there Charity and the other Pokemon stood up, shaking out their limbs and leaves as they moved, and left us to seek their own beds. Echo had been with that group, since Natu was assigned to the second watch with us. She briefly winged down to squeak at Pausso and nuzzle her head against my cheek in greeting, then flew off to a tree set further back so she could settle down for the rest of the night.
I made myself comfortable against the same tree I’d used the previous night, though this time Pausso decided to sit right next to me instead of finding a different spot. Skiploom was up in the branches of Florence’s tree with his eyes darting intently across the landscape below, and Natu stood very still at the base of one of the trees with her eyes closed.
We were all silent at first, and that suited me just fine. Sure, talking with Charity the previous night had been fun, but I liked the quiet as well. I could use the watch to get my thoughts in order. Like, for one thing, talking with Charity the previous night had made me realize that I hadn’t come up with any ideas for inventions in ages. And okay, sure, most of my invention ideas in the past had been fanciful things that I knew would never actually work, but daydreaming about them was still fun. When had that changed?
Maybe part of it was because of being in the past. After all, what was the point of coming up with a cool invention idea if I couldn’t share it with anyone for fear of messing with the timeline? At least poke balls were supposed to have been invented somewhere in this time frame. I highly doubted my original idea for a handheld TV-calculator-combination would slot in nicely the same way. That thought made me snort quietly, so I covered my mouth and nose with my hand to keep the noise in.
I could tell Florence, maybe, but then she’d want to know what TVs and calculators were, and I was absolutely sure she would think both were useless after I told her more about them. I glanced over at her, but she was busy watching the distant path, alert and ready for anything to happen.
Looking at her made me feel a little melancholy. As far as I could remember, not a single day had gone by since I’d been sent back to the past when I hadn’t talked with Florence. We’d bonded over training, the poke ball project, our secrets and dreams… everything, really. Sure, she could be rude and demanding, but she was also supportive in a gruff way, and I knew that she always had my back. Impossible tasks like the one we were currently facing felt much more doable when she was on my side.
I was tired of not talking to her. And fine, maybe Pausso was right. Maybe I was being just as stubborn about this as she was.
“Hey, Florence,” I said out loud in a low voice. “Can we talk about this?”
She glanced over at me for a second, then looked back at the path. “Now is not a good time. We need to focus,” she told me in a cold voice.
I rolled my eyes. “C’mon, don’t give me that. You and I both know that Natu is going to sense anything that’s out there before we can.”
“We do not know that,” she replied shortly.
“Okay, fine, we can’t be a hundred percent sure. But Drowzee and Skiploom are also here as backup, they can take over and pay extra close attention for a bit. Right, guys?” Next to me, Pausso’s trunk wagged easily up and down, and I could hear Skiploom’s affirmative chirp from up in his tree.
Florence scowled. “Perhaps I do not wish to talk, then.”
Mew help me, she could be annoying when she got her head stuck in the sand. “Too bad. We need to talk about you and your team.”
She sat up straight, then, and fully turned so that she could glare straight at me. “Not here,” she hissed, her eyes darting over to where Natu and Skiploom sat.
Okay, fair, maybe it would be easier to talk somewhere where her team couldn’t hear. “Fine. Let’s walk and talk, then.”
She looked like she was going to keep protesting at first, but then she looked back up at where Skiploom rested in the branches and sighed. “Fine,” she hissed back at me. Then she got back up on her feet and stomped away from the strand of trees, heading off in the opposite direction from where Isaac and Charity had bedded down for the rest of the night.
“Call me back over if anything happens,” I murmured to Pausso as I got up myself. He trunk-nodded immediately, and I could feel that he was pleased, probably because I had taken his advice. Well, he did have good ideas sometimes.
Then I walked off in the direction where Florence had gone. It was time for us to have a long-overdue conversation.