Slate ran like his life depended on it, and maybe it did in some ways. Leaping over large tree roots, and ducking low branches, he wound his way through the wooded path as fast as he could, sweat dripping from his brow, his knees close to buckling. Gasping for breath and trying to ignore the stitch in his side, he spotted light ahead. The end was in sight.
Determined to reach his goal, Slate mustered up a final burst of speed, heading straight for the sunlight the green canopy overhead denied him. Upon crossing the wood’s boundary, feeling the setting sun’s warm rays on his skin as his eyes adjusted, he spotted Eevee and Cryote waiting for him in the grassy clearing, sitting atop a large boulder.
Slate smiled. Well, that was what he was going for, but he suspected his expression had been more of a grimace. In return, the two Pokémon let out barks and yips of encouragement. As soon as he reached the rock, his legs gave way. He collapsed onto his stomach, rolled over, and immediately reached for his Pokédex, which as usual, he had placed at the foot of the rock, beside his bag.
“Yes!” Slate cheered between laborious breaths as he tapped the stopwatch app, “Made it! And — with ten — seconds — to spare!”
The two Pokémon bounded down from the rock and licked Slate’s face in celebration. They were also breathing hard.
“Looks like — you guys — beat your best times — by a good amount — too! Good job!” he expelled happily, observing the first two timestamps and the paw print smudges on his device’s screen. He scratched Eevee and Cryote behind the ears. “Our hard work’s — paying off! I think — we’re ready!”
Slate lay there on his back for a few minutes, staring up at the cloudless, blue sky as he caught his breath and waited for his heartbeat to slow. He listened peacefully to the nearby sounds of water slapping against Almony Island’s cliff face and the panting breaths of his Pokémon partners. They had done it. They were getting faster, Slate included!
The small quadrupeds easily outran him through the wild terrain, but it only seemed fair that Slate trained alongside them, so he had devised a training regimen that they could all participate in. Every day from sunup to sundown, breaking only for lunch and to hydrate, he, Eevee, and Cryote went through a series of exercises to improve their accuracy, speed, power, and stamina.
This included target practice, evasion tests using balls, strength training with rocks, and running drills, culminating in a daily, timed sprint through Almony Woods. The island’s eastern wilderness wasn’t that vast an area, but it was a solitary one, and Slate mapped out an arduous route through it by marking trees with arrows drawn in chalk.
It had been a month since their first attempt, which had been an abject failure, especially for Slate, who had never taken Phys Ed all that seriously. Even Eevee, who had received some training in the past, couldn’t manage the workout. However, Slate refused to give up, and the two Pokémon seemed to understand the importance of the activity, so they stuck it out too.
Since then, Eevee and Cryote had developed by leaps and bounds, and Slate felt fitter and stronger than ever. They weren’t just completing his ambitious routine now; they were besting their daily records. Slate closed his eyes and reflected on how they had reached this point.
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They had moved his mother into the Larches’ apartment over two days. Just getting her there had taken a good chunk of the first day, seeing as how she would occasionally run away from Slate in a panic during the journey down to and across Marcona Village. Eevee and Cryote had fun chasing her down every few minutes. Slate did not.
Once they finally arrived, much to Slate’s relief, he found that April had already departed. The professor informed him that she had left to meet her brother, August, as they had previously planned to do together, and that she would be gone for an indeterminate amount of time.
“April wants to reassess the situation,” Professor Larch had explained in a regretful tone. “She, err, said to tell you to go on without her.”
Slate didn’t know what to make of this news. He had assumed April would be taking his mother’s room at their house in exchange for giving up her own, or else that she and him would be resuming their journey together immediately. He knew that April must have her own doubts about their quest, particularly regarding her battle capabilities, but he hadn’t expected his prideful companion to just give up.
Then again, in their short time together, they had witnessed some of the very real dangers that lay ahead of them. He couldn’t really blame her for being scared or uncertain, even if it meant he would have to go it alone.
Deflated at first, Slate decided that this meant he had options now. He wasn’t going to venture out unprepared again. As he had previously decided at the hospital, he was going to take the time to train. So, after a teary-eyed goodbye with his mother the next day, where he reaffirmed his promise to investigate Team Shade, Slate got to work.
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Still lying on his back in the grass, Slate’s thoughts were disturbed by his phone chiming. Checking it, he saw Professor Larch’s daily update. Since seeing his mother was out of the question for now, he appreciated the regular text messages, even though there was rarely anything new to report.
Without the guilt that Slate’s presence evoked, and perhaps fueled by his absence, Heather Davy was doing much better. While the professor researched technological solutions to the issues affecting the region, she analyzed the information the professor had compiled on Silph Co. and submitted her work assignments for the Pistachion Chronicle by mail. When this work was interrupted by her regular memory lapses, she was far less disturbed thanks to the professor’s presence.
Apparently, Heather often held on to memories of her Saffron College days, so she recognized the professor as Jan Larch, her old friend and roommate. This kept her calm, as long as she didn’t get distracted by how they had both aged. In addition, following Slate’s example, Professor Larch had surrounded Heather’s workstation and bedroom with flashcards and photographs.
Slate read through the professor’s text. As expected, it contained the usual content; that his mother was doing fine and sent her love, and that they were working hard. There was nothing about April, though. In fact, he hadn’t heard anything about April in the last month.
It wasn’t as if he had asked about her. He just thought the professor would have mentioned her in passing by now, especially since Slate had recently hinted in his replies that he was about ready to leave. As a result of his training, the island’s wild Pokémon were no longer a challenge for Cryote and Eevee. He expected that the professor and his mother would also be hitting a wall soon without internet access. It was time to go.
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The truth was, he had been putting it off for days now, but it seemed clear now that he really would be resuming his journey alone. He was fine with that, of course. He had Cryote and Eevee for company, after all. Still, he supposed he should give the professor advanced notice of his intention to depart in case she wanted to notify her daughter.
So, Slate typed out a quick reply, stating that he would be stopping by in the morning to say goodbye. “Okay, guys,” he said to his resting Pokémon partners, getting to his feet now that the pounding in his chest had subsided. “We’re heading out in the morning, so let’s end the day with one last battle!”
Familiar with the island’s wild Pokémon hotspots spots by now, within minutes, Slate came across a group of four Akant foraging for berries. Seeing him as a threat to their pile of food, they clicked their scarlet pincers and attacked.
“Four against two, huh?” said Slate. “Bring it on! Cryote use Bellow, Eevee use Swift!”
Cryote let loose its stream of mind-disrupting sound waves, which the Bug-type Pokémon couldn’t withstand despite their natural resistance, and Eevee released a volley of star-shaped rays with a flick of its bushy, glowing tail. The Akants immediately scurried away into the undergrowth. However, it seemed they hadn’t abandoned their harvest.
From the spot they had disappeared, emerged a much larger, red bug Pokémon. It stood upright, snapping its elongated mandibles angrily.
“Whoa, we haven’t seen one of those during our training,” said Slate, fishing out his Pokédex from his pocket and scanning the new opponent. *Ping*.
SPECIES
#017 Crimsant
DERIVATION
Crimson + Ant
CATEGORY
Colonial
COLORING
Red
Orange
Dark Red
TYPE
Bug
Fire
ABILITIES
Unnerve
Queenly Majesty
Strong Jaw
DETAILS
The evolved form of Akant. The strongest female in an Akant colony is designated their queen and supplied with food to trigger her evolution. While usually confined to the nest, a Crimsant will emerge to protect her workers from strong foes.
“It looks tough,” Slate remarked. “You up for it, Eevee?”
The adorable, brown-furred Pokémon gave an unassuming squeak before adopting a wicked grin, then stepped forward, and lowered its body into a surefooted stance.
In response, the Crimsant’s mandibles ignited, and it charged.
“Oh, cool, that’s Fire Fang,” Slate remarked. “Alright, Eevee, Quick Attack!”
Eevee propelled itself forward with incredible speed and bodied the larger Pokémon. The impact caused the Bug-type’s fiery jaws to extinguish.
“Follow up with Double Kick!”
Eevee complied, turning on the spot and jutting out with its hind legs. The Crimsant was launched into a tree trunk, where it dropped down and slumped against its roots.
“I guess now’s as good a time as any for our first catch!” said Slate excitedly, retrieving a purple Silph Ball from his bag.
Slate’s battles with wild Pokémon over the last month had generated enough League Points to keep him stocked with Silph Potions, which was important considering Almony Island didn’t have a Pokémon Center, and both of his partners despised the cheaper remedies available from the herbalist shop. He had only purchased a couple of pricey Silph Balls, though, and had chosen to save them for the right moment.
Finding the evolved Crimsant on their final day of training and eve of departure felt like a sign to Slate, reminiscent of facing a video game boss at the end of a level. “Here goes,” he said, taking careful aim before hurling the ball at his stunned target. “Silph Ball, go!”
Suddenly glad that he had participated alongside Eevee and Cryote during their target practice, Slate watched his throw hit its mark. When the capsule popped open, he knew that the data ring had successfully scanned the Crimsant’s DNA.
He watched nervously as his quarry’s cells were scattered in a flash of red and sealed inside the ball, which then dropped to the earth and began to shake, struggling to contain the beast within. A few seconds later, the ball froze, and its intermittent flashing ceased.
“Alright!” cheered Slate, punching the air before embracing his Pokémon. “We caught Crimsant! You were great, Eevee! You too, Cryote!”
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That evening, Slate and his Pokémon—barring his newly caught Crimsant, which remained in its capsule since it required a healing cycle at a Pokémon Center—celebrated their final night in the house by gorging themselves on the contents of the fridge. Slate rationalized that the perishable items needed to be eaten before they left. Eating the remaining candy and chips was harder to justify.
The following morning, he woke before the crack of dawn, unable to sleep any longer. After putting on his Trainer Gear and packing his bag, Slate returned the still-snoozing Eevee and Cryote to their balls, and locked up the house, he vaguely wondered how long it would be until he returned there.
By that time, would he have discovered a solid connection between Silph Co. and Team Shade? Would he have found an explanation for the strange phenomena affecting Nutera, or a cure for his mother’s memory sickness? Would he have become a Trainer worthy of his Pokémon?
As Slate pondered this while looking out toward the Nuteran mainland, his eye was drawn to a dark spot, silhouetted by the rising sun. It was too small to be a plane yet too still to be a bird. It looked to be almost human-shaped but with short limbs and an enlarged head.
Suddenly, the strange figure shot rapidly in Slate’s direction. Realizing it was on a collision course with his face, he stumbled backward and raised a hand to shield himself. It came close enough for Slate to make out a small Pokémon with a silvery-gray body and oversized, dark eyes. However, a moment before impact, it zoomed upward into the sky beyond the clouds, leaving a shimmering, blue trail in its wake, then disappeared with a distant twinkle.
*Ping*. “Unidentifiable Pokémon. No data available,” spoke the Pokédex affixed to the chest strap of Slate’s bag.
Inspired by the thrilling encounter with the unknown Pokémon and its resemblance to a shooting star, Slate closed his eyes and made a wish; that by the next time he returned to the Almony house, he will indeed have achieved his goals.
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