“Well? What do you want to say?” Florence asked me gruffly as I walked up to her. She now stood next to a place where wild bushes had grown out of control, twining with each other until they formed a nasty thicket of branches and thorns. That was sensible of her, since we could put our backs to the bushes and still keep an eye on our other surroundings.
“The way you talk about your team,” I told her bluntly. “I don’t think it’s right, and I think you know it’s not right.”
She stiffened immediately. “There is nothing wrong with the way I treat my team,” she said with some heat. “I take care of them and give them everything they need, and for you to say otherwise is –“
“Not that,” I interjected. “I mean, like, how you always introduce yourself. ‘I am training these majū, but I am not bonded to them.’ Right?”
Florence narrowed her eyes. “So?”
“So, I think it’s not fair to your team that you keep saying that.” I crossed my arms and looked at her flatly. “And I think you know it’s not fair, ‘cause when I pointed it out yesterday you got all mad about it.”
“I got mad because you said I was not a real trainer!”
“What?” I blinked at her. “I did not.”
She stuck out her chin. “Yes, you did.”
I tried to replay the conversation in my head, then shrugged when I couldn’t remember it exactly. “Well, if I did, then I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way, honest.” I rubbed the back of my head and gave her a look. “But can we please talk about how you keep saying you aren’t truly close to your team? Because I do think it’s a problem.”
For a few moments Florence just glared at me. Then something in her eyes flickered, and she finally sat down on the ground with a huff.
“It is true, though,” she said in a quieter voice. “I caught Skiploom, Natu, and Snubbull. I did not meet any of them the traditional way.”
“But you care about them, right?” I pointed out as I sat down too, with my back against the bushes.
“Yes,” she said guardedly.
“And you would get upset if anyone tried to take them away from you?”
“Obviously.”
“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how you met.”
Florence sighed and looked down, clenching her hands in the fabric of her skirt. She was quiet for a bit before she spoke. “It is not about them, not really,” she said in a small voice. “It is just – well, for as long as I can remember, I always dreamed of bonding with a majū. Bonding the real way. I would find them someday out in the wild, and we would look into each other’s eyes, and I would just know that it was meant to be. Whenever I let myself get close to another majū… it feels like I am giving up on that dream.”
I sat there for a moment, just processing that. It made a little bit more sense, now, why Florence acted the way she did. Still…
“Do you remember how I met Drowzee, and then met Zubat?” I asked her.
She turned slightly to look at me. “Someone else caught Drowzee for you, correct?” she said after a moment’s thought. “And you met Zubat in Ecruteak, of course. In Brass Tower.”
“Right.” I glanced in the direction of the small clump of trees, then lowered my voice. “So according to your definition, you would say I am bonded to Zubat, but not Drowzee.”
Florence paused. “Well, no. You and he are clearly close.”
“Right,” I said with a nod. “But it took us a while to get there. I thought he was super weird at first, and I didn’t understand him at all for a while. Our connection – our friendship, I guess – it’s different from what I have with Zubat. But different doesn’t mean better or worse.”
She frowned. “And you think I can do the same thing with my team.”
“Yeah. It’s not like there’s some rule saying you can only be close to one majū.”
“Maybe that is how it works in your time,” she said quietly. “But here, it is unheard of to share multiple bonds that way.”
“So be the first to make the change,” I said, feeling frustrated. “I mean, c’mon, Florence. You’ve never let the world’s rules about who is supposed to do what stop you before.”
She was quiet for a while after that, and I was content to sit in silence as well, monitoring the space around us as she thought. Finally she nodded, just a little. “I will think about it.”
“That works for me.” I stood up and stretched, then tilted my head to the side. “Are we good now?”
She considered that for a moment before raising her eyebrows. “I want a proper apology first,” she told me grandly. “The one you gave earlier was very half-hearted.”
I just barely kept myself from rolling my eyes. “Okay, okay. Florence, I’m sorry that I implied you were anything other than a true trainer. You’re the real deal and I will never doubt your awesomeness ever again.” I grinned down at her and offered a hand. “Now, can we stop fighting? It’s no fun when you’re giving me the cold shoulder.”
She smiled back and accepted my hand, using it to pull herself to her feet. “Deal.”
~
“The final art I will teach you,” Sheng told us, “will move beyond unarmed techniques. Though this may seem less useful at first, it may prove necessary if you find yourself facing a foe who must be kept at a distance.”
The previous night had passed without incident. Florence and I had rejoined our Pokemon and spent our watch talking quietly about random things. I’d told her about how I’d run into Zuri at her family’s farm, and she’d told me about how she’d gone walking down Cianwood’s beach and had seen a Corphish sparring with a pair of Krabby. She’d tried to approach the trio, but they’d attacked right away, so Skiploom ended up getting some extra battling time in.
I also helped her talk more with Skiploom – well, Pausso helped, really. The grass Pokemon could understand a good bit of what we said now, but Florence still had trouble recognizing his responses. So Pausso translated for him when it was needed, and by the end of the night I felt like Skiploom and Florence were a little closer than they had been before. It made me optimistic for their future.
Now another day had passed, and we were training with Sheng again. We’d started by rehearsing the techniques we’d already learned, naturally, and that took up most of the session. But there was one last thing he wanted to show us.
“The Way of the Farfetch’d is the art of fighting with a long weapon, such as a staff or sword,” Sheng continued. He had moved off to the side of the room to grab a few long objects before; now he tossed one each to me and to Florence. I missed mine (because of course I did) and had to pick it up from the ground with a scarlet face. “These are practice swords. No, they cannot cut anything, but that is the point. Learning involves mistakes. Better to misstep with a bamboo sword than a steel one.”
I took a second to look over my practice sword. It was indeed made of several long bamboo slats that had been tied together at the top, middle, and just above the hilt. The hilt itself was rough against my palms, but I gripped it hard anyway as I turned my attention back to Sheng.
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“Like the other arts we have practiced, this way has many different forms to learn, but we will focus on a spare few. When practicing you should focus on your stance, as always. But you must also focus on your grip. Holding your sword must become as second nature to you, to ensure that you can place strikes with appropriate force and at the appropriate angle.”
Florence tentatively raised her hand, and Sheng nodded at her. “But trainers do not usually carry swords,” she pointed out, sounding puzzled. “Why learn to use one if we will not have it on hand when it is needed?”
“Any item can become a sword in a moment of desperation,” Sheng replied. “A branch is perfectly sufficient if it need only be used for a short time, to create an opening for your partner to intervene.”
Florence nodded at that and gripped her own practice sword more tightly, pointing it out into the air in front of her. That just made Sheng sigh and walk up so he could correct her grip, then mine.
Once he was satisfied, he showed us the first form we were going to practice, one that was supposed to make us more comfortable when we moved with the sword. He started with his practice sword held overhead and the bamboo blade angled in a direct line behind his head. Then he slowly moved it forward, keeping the blade pointed outwards and moving in a straight line down the center of his body the whole time, until it was pointed towards the ground.
“Watch my hands and arms,” he told us as he gently lifted the sword back over his head again, then slashed it downwards once more. “See how my wrists move at the very end? This is essential to complete the cutting motion.”
We watched him repeat the form a few more times; then he told us it was our turn. And, as always, I made plenty of mistakes from the start.
“You are extending your arms too much,” he told me after I got the strike wrong for the fifth time in a row. “And you are holding your wrists tight throughout, not adjusting them at the end.”
I got back into position and tried again, this time attempting to hold my arms and wrists exactly right. “Like this?” I said.
He grunted. “The wrists are still wrong.”
Florence had been busy practicing her own form off to the side, so I was surprised to hear her speak up out of the blue. “It feels to me like I am flicking water off the end of my sword. Perhaps try something like that?”
I lifted my practice sword up in the air again, then slashed it downwards in a straight line. This time, I tried to flick it at the end, and I could almost imagine the water spraying off the tip.
Sheng nodded with a small smile. “Better.” Then he clapped his hands and looked between the two of us. “Now, in our remaining time, let us discuss defensive techniques…”
~
When we reached our familiar stakeout trees that night my arms were sore from slinging around the bamboo sword, but I didn’t mind. The Way of the Farfetch’d was much more fun than I had expected, and I was already planning to ask Sheng if I could borrow one of the practice swords the following morning so that I could keep drilling the forms during our morning training session.
Our group collectively decided that we might as well finish out the last set of pairs, and Isaac and I agreed to take the first watch. We both settled down into comfortable positions in the little strand of trees. Echo was up in the tree again, and Oddish sat nestled next to Isaac’s side. Pausso was actually over by the sleeping area, at least for the first bit of the night. He’d told me earlier in the day that I hadn’t been dreaming much during the stakeouts and he was getting hungry, so the two of us had talked to Florence and gotten her permission for Pausso to eat her dreams that night. She had looked a little uncertain about it, but had eventually agreed when I explained how important it was and promised that the dream-eating had never hurt me at all.
So now I had the opportunity to watch Pausso eating someone else’s dreams, and it was… well, it was still pretty weird, to be honest. He had his trunk positioned right over Florence’s face and was breathing deeply through it with his eyes closed while she slept. Did he get that close to my face when I was sleeping? That was an unsettling thought.
I kept having to remind myself that my job was to watch our surroundings, not watch Pausso, and that that job was doubly important while he was taking a break. At least I wasn’t the only one who had trouble focusing.
“Isaac,” I hissed as I caught him watching Pausso for the third time. “Pay attention!”
The man looked over at me, startled, then looked back out towards the road. “My apologies,” he murmured. “It is just fascinating. I have never observed this behavior in a Drowzee before.”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised. “Really? He says he does this every night with me.”
“I sleep very deeply,” Isaac replied by way of explanation. “And truly? How does it feel to have your dream eaten?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t feel like anything. I just don’t remember any dreams in the morning.”
“Curious.” Isaac sighed as he studied the dark world out in the distance. “Perhaps I will make a point of observing more closely in the future, when the circumstances are better. It would also be intriguing to interview your partner, to better understand what his side of the experience is like.”
Had he just said he was going to watch me sleep? Well, I was sure he’d ask for permission first. “Y’know, I talked to him about that once. I’m sure he’d be willing to share more if you asked.”
Isaac smiled at that. “I must admit, I have been so focused on the poke ball project that I have made poor use of your telepathic bond. In the future I would be most grateful if you would help me conduct interviews with a variety of majū.”
“Sure, as long as they’re willing.” I paused, then, and looked back over at Isaac. “I thought you already had experience with interviewing majū, though? You mentioned it once before.”
He lifted a hand and waved it from side to side. Then we both stilled as Echo squeaked a warning from her perch on the tree. I tensed up and scanned the horizon, looking for whatever she had sensed. Was the monster finally going to appear?
She squeaked again, gentler this time, and I relaxed. It was a false alarm, then. A few moments later I saw what had caused it – a Stantler was wandering its way down the path. It looked perfectly normal, so I highly doubted it was our monster.
Isaac waited until the Stantler had disappeared to speak again. “I have conducted some interviews with bonded majū in the past,” he said quietly. He absentmindedly stroked Oddish’s leaves as he spoke, and the little grass Pokemon shook happily. “Usually their trainer served as the translator, though, which increases the possibility of bias and error. Another human may not tell me something that they think would be embarrassing or rude, even if it is the truth.” He shot a glance over at me and smiled slightly. “I hope you have never hidden the truth of your partner’s communications that way.”
Well, I hadn’t lied about anything Pausso had said, at least. Still, it was probably best to change the subject. “What’s the coolest majū you’ve gotten to interview?”
“That is hardly an objective measurement,” he replied in a dry tone. Still, he gave it a fair bit of thought before answering. “A ship came to Azalea’s port from Hoenn, once. Normally those ships only stop at Olivine and Cherrygrove, but this one needed an emergency docking due to unexpected illness among the crew. They had a trainer on board to help with the wild majū of the open sea, and his partner was a Castform.” Now Isaac smiled as he reminisced. “Fascinating creature. Did you know their bodies change according to the weather? A storm passed through while they were docked, and the majū’s body drew in the water until it looked like an oversized raindrop itself.”
I grinned as I was struck by a sudden memory from home. The weather reporter for Goldenrod’s most popular news channel had a Castform too, and the reporter always picked her outfits to coordinate with her Pokemon’s form that day. “Did the Castform have any other forms?”
“The trainer said it did, but I did not get to observe the other forms myself. They left before the weather could change enough to have an impact.” Isaac shook his head quietly. “Now I wonder if some of these ‘weather forms’ may have been related to the energy form we have observed in majū from our own studies.”
That was an unexpected segue. “Seems more like it would be related to elemental attacks to me,” I said cautiously. “Like how that Castform drew in water – that feels kind of like a water attack.”
“Ah, but that is what is so interesting!” Isaac said, speaking a little too loudly in his excitement. Oddish chirped at him and he hastily quieted down again. “According to the trainer, the change could even happen when the Castform was asleep. Have you ever heard of a majū using an attack of any kind while sleeping?”
That gave me a nagging feeling in the back of my head, like I actually did know about a move that worked that way. Maybe I had learned about it in school? Well, whatever it was, I couldn’t remember it now.
“Though you could be correct,” Isaac continued. “Elemental attacks are not particularly well understood. The fact that majū can generate elements such as water or rock from seemingly nothing goes against everything else we know about how the universe works.” I could tell he was getting into lecture mode now, so I settled back against my tree to listen. “But there are theories. For example, there is a researcher over in Kanto who has studied the behavior of a variety of grass majū. He has observed that these majū need some small seed or other flora to start with, and they can grow the vegetation at an explosive rate once given that seed. Granted, this runs directly counter to an older analysis out of Hoenn that observed water majū generating their own water even when removed from the ocean, so it is possible that –“
Echo suddenly squeaked at us urgently, and Isaac fell silent as we both strained our eyes and ears, trying to detect what she had observed. A moment later I heard it too.
A distant crash and boom, like something had exploded or collapsed. Then, so faintly I could barely hear it, the sound of a scream.
My head swiveled around to look at Pausso, and he looked right back at me with his ears down flat. Then I jumped to my feet and ran for spot where Florence and Charity were sleeping, already yelling for them to wake up.
We had made a mistake. The monster hadn’t taken the path to find its next victim; it had attacked one of the farmers instead.