“Crap.” David sighed, passing the offending material between his fingers once more.
In response to his outburst, Cloudburst let out a slow squawk. She continued to peck at her feathers up in that squat white tree. He wouldn’t be getting any help from her anytime soon.
When he released her this morning, she’d appeared on the ground as always. This time however, said ground was marshy. Pidgey did not like muddy ground. She especially didn’t like how the grime stuck to her feathers.
David sighed again and set the orange fabric down. There was no getting around it. His tent had a hole in it. An apple sized rip in the waterproof fabric by the front pole catch. It was jagged, not a clean tear but a rend that cleaved through the weaved pattern. Frayed threads wafted in the same general breeze that had woken David up this morning. His tent now had its own version of aircon - something which hadn’t upset David in the hot sticky night, but now it was morning and he could see the damage..
“We pushed too hard yesterday,” David complained, looking at Pidgey. “Four hours was too much. I was barely awake when we got here and-” He snatched up the orange fabric. “-this is the result.” He must have pushed the tent poles through the fabric without noticing. And that showed how tired he was. The fabric was tough and waxy. It would have taken a fair bit of effort to tear through.
Cloudburst let out a sad crone herself, but given how she was still cleaning her feathers, David didn’t think it was in support of him.
It helped anyway.
“Right?” He muttered, setting the ripped fabric down again. He started to roll it up, better to get the rip out of sight before he began to rant. If it rained before he got to Fuchsia...
No, focus.
Groaning one last time, David got back into packing up.
-.-
It took a good hour before Pidgey began flying along beside him. She was not taking the mucky feathers well. Even now she would only swoop back and forth across the Route 18 path before climbing in the open air above the squat trees.
It annoyed David a little. He had to suffer down in the marsh all the time. The ‘path’, if you could call it that, for the Route was firmer than last night’s campsite, but it was still bog. It was less a road and more a series of trails that wove back and forth, winding endlessly through the marsh. Long planks and flat stones had been laid across the worst sections, but they were old and slippery. David was only able to navigate using the sun and Cloudburst above. He'd given up all hope of finding anything in this mess.
After just an hour large amounts of questionable muck was splattered all the way up his shins. Sure Cloudburst had gotten a little dirty this morning, but that’s what the whole area was like. Was he meant to release her up in the tree or something? What if she got stuck in the branches or fell off, still half asleep when she appeared?
Eventually, when he was standing on a dry section, just after circling the rim of a pond of stinking, bubbling water, he’d had enough.
“Cloudburst,” David called, cupping his hands around his mouth.
After a few seconds, her clean, creamy brown form ducked below the trees ahead. She threw her wings out, slowing to check on David and make sure he was alright, but not landing.
David waved her over.
Pidgey flapped her wings and shot back up, above the canopy.
That was fine. David was happy to take a break.
A minute or two later, slower now that she knew he was alright, and her reluctance to get near the muck could take over, Cloudburst daintily landed in front of him.
David waited patiently as she slowly shifted and examined herself to make sure she hadn’t picked up any muck. When she looked up he began to talk.
“Let’s start training. I want to practise Qui-” David clamped his mouth shut.
‘Shit.’
He’d come up with a few names over the past few days. Dash, shot, streak, dart, pop, flicker. Nothing was sticking. Changing between the names wasn’t helping him or Pidgey. He was careful with how he referred to the Move whenever they worked on it, but progress had ground to a halt. She was unable to use it with any kind of consistency.
“Screw it,” David said finally. “Quick Attack. We’re going to be working on your Quick Attack.”
They should be arriving in Fuchsia tomorrow. They didn’t have time to train everything perfectly with code words. Especially when he was fighting the uphill battle that knowing the correct name of a Move was. A bird- no, a Pidgey in the hand was better than two in the bush? The saying didn’t translate quite right, but it got his point across. Speed over perfection when against the clock.
David stepped over the path, mud squelching under his foot. He crouched and dug at one of the fern-like plants. With a few tugs, one of the long leafy fronds came loose. He turned back to Cloudburst.
“I’ll throw plants like this up. I want you to hit them before they hit the ground.” David stomped in the mud to make his point. From the way she shied back from the splatter, it was clear that she understood the danger of hitting the target too late.
Pidgey looked at the slightly muddy frond, then at the marshy ground. Then at David. She let out a sad crone.
“I’ll throw them as high as I can,” David offered, feeling a little bad for the small bird.
Cloudburst shook herself, resettling her feathers and took to the air. She began to sway back and forth above the path behind David, dodging trees and preparing.
David started walking. He threw the frond up. Pidgey dived.
-.-
David groaned for the hundredth time today as Pidgey settled down on her new perch - his shoulder. He didn’t groan about the added weight, while Pidgey was several kgs now, she wasn't all that heavy compared to his backpack. She may have grown a lot in the last month, but she was still a very small Pokemon. It wasn’t about the pinching from her talons that he could feel through three layers of his backpack’s straps, his jacket and his t-shirt. Pidgey was being careful and her talons weren’t digging in.
No, he was groaning because Pidgey was getting revenge.
Dark mud and rotten leaves seemed to slough off her feathers and soak into his shoulder. He could swear that he could see some of the cream from her breast feathers reappearing, even as he was trying to avoid getting a face full of bog.
“Ugh, Pidgey!”
Cloudburst gave a little shake, spraying him with dirty droplets before letting go and gliding back down to a drier patch ahead.
David snatched up another leafy frond and began to wipe up the mess she’d left behind as best he could. It cleaned up a little but only spread the muck out more.
Training had been successful, but neither of them had been particularly happy about it. Cloudburst could now get a Quick Attack off about half the time on her own. If David called for the attack, that was boosted to roughly seventy percent of the time. He chalked that up to the ‘bond’ between a trainer and their Pokemon, and wished Danny was around so he could ask about it.
They still had several hours of walking in daylight left though.
“Next exercise,” David called as Pidgey preened, satisfied with her revenge. He crouched down and picked up a stick that had been partially buried in the mud. The wood felt soft under his fingers. It had started to rot, not enough that it fell apart as he lifted it, but enough that it would easily crumble under any kind of force. “I want you to carry this while you fly. Without breaking it.”
Pidgey eyed the stick. Mud dripped off.
David liked to think her eyes widened with horror as she looked at him and squawked.
-.-
David carefully hung his backpack on a branch and smiled up at Pidgey who was perched further up in the canopy. The two of them were covered in mud, but the backpack had remained mostly clean and David intended to keep it that way.
He started to set up the tent on a much drier section of ground than the night before. Pidgey had spotted traces of another trainer and following them, led him to this small campsite on a hill. There was still enough daylight for them to continue hiking for another hour, but the chances of finding a better campsite in this bog were slim. Both of them were tired enough that they settled down without needing any discussion.
As soon as the tent was up, David taking a little longer than usual to avoid stressing the ripped section, Pidgey swooped down and began chirping.
“Alright, alright. I’m hungry too. Give me a second,” David complained, hiding a smile.
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Dinner was eaten nearly as fast as yesterday, but without quite as many yawns. David kept the fire going for as long as he could as they watched the sunset. Cloudburst was recalled to her ball without a fuss, and David shimmied out of his mucky clothing and into the clean tent.
Sore muscles made sleep too easy.
-.-
Squeak.
David shook, jarred into waking. It was dark. His hand scrambled around the tent, searching for Pidgey’s pokeball.
Another squeak, this time followed by the screech of tape being pulled off a roll. It was close. Too close.
David’s hand found Pidgey’s pokeball. He turned towards the sound. It came from behind his head, towards the closed tent flap. Towards the ripped section of the tent.
David stared out into the morning dusk through the black hole in a wall of orange.
Two gleaming red eyes stared back.
For a second they remained still, the huge red eyes locked on David’s brown.
“Fuck,” David whispered. He moved first. He thrust Pidgey’s ball through the rip in the tent and pushed the button. Dropping her ball to the ground he scrambled for the tent’s zipper.
That was a Pokemon. That was a big Pokemon with big eyes. Pokemon battles were destructive. David was in the middle of their battle field. He needed to go. He needed to go now.
He kept his eyes open as the flash that accompanied Pidgey’s release lit up the campsite. His eyes stung, but he needed the light to find the zipper.
“Pii-idgey!”
The ground squelched outside. Impacts.
Pidgey let out a small shriek of pain. It was matched by a thin rattle.
David cursed, janking the zip with too much force, catching it. Cloudburst was a ranged fighter and he’d thrown her, half asleep, right into another Pokemon’s face. He needed to get out there. The zipper just wouldn’t cooperate.
There was a trill and the impacts stopped.
His vision was adjusting to the dark after the flash, but both Pokemon had moved too far from the tent for him to see anything.
Pidgey squawked and buffeted her wings, stirring up a breeze that made the tent shake and the zipper release.
David pulled the last of the flap open and leapt out.
Two Pokemon faced off across the campsite. Pidgey stood in front of David, protecting him and the tent. Across the way was... a purple bee?
Twin red orbs, easily twenty centimetres across, were the Pokemon’s most prominent feature. What David had mistaken as the pupils of a giant monster, were the entirety of this much smaller creature’s eyes. Eyes that were nearly the entirety of the creature’s face too. The only other feature poking through the heavy purple fur was a small pink snout with a pincer on either side.
The Pokemon let out another trill, shifting back and forth on two muddy limbs.
David prepared to run. He couldn’t remember the Pokemon’s name, but it was definitely a Bug type. Some Flying type Moves would end the fight quickly.
“Launch Pidgey. Cannon when you’re up.”
He began to move. The two red orbs tracked him.
Pidgey did not.
David slowed as the wild Pokemon didn’t follow him and Pidgey remained still.
Pidgey ruffled her wings and began a slow squawk, the kind she made when he was annoying her or she didn’t want to do something.
The bee-like Pokemon trilled back, shifting on its feet again.
Pidgey squawked one last time and sat down. The wild Pokemon did the same.
David watched them for a minute, not quite sure what was going on. The Pokemon continued their exchange, making new sounds at each other now. He thought it was over until the bee-like Pokemon rose and wobbled forward towards Pidgey.
David stiffened, ready to shout orders, run or..
“Hey!”
The purple bee Pokemon tilted slightly towards him, but didn’t let its prey go. It rose up again, passing the scrap of orange fabric from claws at the end of two tan forelimbs to the pincers around its snout, using the pincers like a third arm. Its mouth opened and a sliver of the fabric was torn away. The sound of tape ripping off a roll filled the clearing.
“You ate my tent. That rip, it was you?” Neither Pokemon confirmed his accusation, but David wasn’t dissuaded. “Wait, you followed us?”
Again, neither Pokemon answered him.
David sighed. The adrenaline started to leave. The ground squelched under his bare feet. He groaned. This was an encounter like the Bellsprout, not the Growlithe or the Geodude.
“Cloudburst, keep an eye on.. them. I’ll get changed,” David ordered. It wasn’t like he’d be getting back to sleep now anyway. Abrupt wakeup aside, it was dark now, but there was a faint glow on the horizon. Morning wasn’t far away.
Pidgey tiredly chirped back.
Five minutes later, David looked up from the now larger rip in his tent and fixed the bee Pokemon with a scowl.
It chirped at him, not Pidgey’s song like chirp, but a high pitch buzzing. It sounded a little like a grasshopper. Then it inched closer to him and the tent.
“No,” David ordered, letting the tent fabric fall down.
The Pokemon scurried back and made a trill.
Cloudburst let out a caw, her amusement rising above tiredness for a moment.
David rubbed his forehead and examined the wild Pokemon again. After retreating from him it had crouched slightly, and remained perfectly still. The creature’s limbs and eyes didn’t move a millimetre. He could have thought it a statue if not for how its purple fur and white antennae shifted in the wind. The slim white stalks rose from between the creature’s eyes into the air behind its back. The antennae rose only ten centimetres above the Pokemon’s fur, but it wasn’t a small Pokemon and they were level with David’s stomach.
As he examined the Pokemon a thought occurred to him. He reached into the tent - through the flap not the rip, and dug into his backpack until he found some of the biodegradable wrappers from Pidgey’s sachets.
“Here.” David stepped forward and placed one on the ground between the Pokemon and him.
Pidgey let out a short squawk but didn’t move.
The bee Pokemon let out a squeak and shook. Muck and dust slid off its fur like it hadn’t been caked on at all. Only the tan limbs holding it off the ground remained dirty. It hopped forward and snatched the wrappers off the ground with its claws. As it raised the paper to its mouth and began to eat, David began to talk.
“You’re that moth Pokemon aren’t you? Not a bee, a young moth.”
He didn’t know the Pokemon very well, he barely knew any Pokemon well, and maybe that’s why he had forgotten the fourth Kanto Bug-Flying type. After the Caterpie debacle he’d set his sights on Weedle, even though he’d hated it as a child - too many runs back to the Pokecenter due to its poison stings to ever want to use it. Scyther had been a hope, but far too rare to be a reality. This Moth pokemon however, that could work.
For one, Pidgey wasn’t trying to eat it. David couldn't deal with another Caterpie situation. Not this early.
The Pokemon wasn’t inherently hostile like that Geodude either. It was willing to eat the food he’d given it too. It was clearly Bug type as well, giving that needed advantage over Psychics.
“This could work.”
David reached back into the tent. The young moth Pokemon stopped eating as he did, eyes tracking him instead. This wasn’t quite how he’d expected this to go, but it couldn’t hurt to try. After a bit of rooting around, David found what he was looking for. He pulled it out and placed it in front of him.
“This is a pokeball. It’s what I, a trainer, use to carry a Pokemon around,” David began, poking the ball. “Cloudburst and I are travelling around now, trying to grow stronger. We battle other pokemon and trainers.”
The Pokemon was watching his hands closely, tracking the movement around the ball. It was idly passing what was left of the sachet wrapper between its hands and pincers.
Feathers rustling beside them signalled that Pidgey had gotten up and was paying more attention to the conversation. She hopped over and stood by David.
“Do you want to come with us?” David asked.
Neither Pokemon said anything. The wild Pokemon watched Pidgey now.
“Of course, you can’t understand me,” David muttered. He reached over and ruffled Pidgey’s crest feathers. “Worth a try anyway.”
He’d figured out how to catch a Pokemon eventually.
Cloudburst batted his hand away and chirped.
David exhaled and pushed himself back to his feet. The sun was rising now, the glow on the horizon growing more orange and red. It was time to pack up and head. Leaving the two Pokemon behind he retreated to the tent and began to empty it in preparation to leave. After hanging his backpack on a nearby tree, he took a moment to grab another wrapper.
The wild Pokemon retreated when he got close again, and David didn’t try to follow. He placed the wrapper down on the ground and held his hands out.
“A peace offering. It’s too late about the tent, and I get that you were hungry, but it has to stop.” David gave Cloudburst a disgruntled side glance. “Next time you won’t get away so safely.”
He'd figure some way to motivate her to fight before the entire tent was eaten to shreds.
As before, the young moth Pokemon gave no sign it had heard him.
David went back to packing. The sound of the two Pokemon occasionally talking behind him was a nice backdrop. They were able to make so many different sounds between all the trills, chirps, caws, crones and rattles.
One however was not the sound of a Pokemon.
David turned to see a tan claw batting at the pokeball. He smirked as it tried and failed to get a grip on the metal ball.
“I’m afraid you can’t take that either,” He said, walking over to the ball. “I’m going to need it and it takes a lot of work to get one.”
He crouched down to pick it up.
The Pokemon chirped. It was a lot louder up close.
Up close. It hadn’t retreated this time.
David looked up into large, gleaming red eyes. From here he could see that the eyes weren’t one giant orb, but an expansive pattern of small red dots separated by thin pink lines.
The Pokemon slowly reached forward and tapped the pokeball with a claw.
“You want to-” David trailed off. He rotated the ball around until the button faced the Pokemon. Should he push it? If the pokeballs were like the game and could break.. He might only have one shot.
The Pokemon chirped again.
David pushed the button.
The pokeball opened, falling from his hands with the force. A distinct chime filled the clearing. The young moth Pokemon vanished in a flash of white light.
The pokeball closed, still on the ground.
It shook once.
It shook twice.
The ball lay still.
David laughed. Pidgey let out a slow squawk.
He’d caught a Pokemon. He grabbed the ball, and while it felt weird in his hands without all the scratches that he knew so well from Pidgey’s, it filled him with excitement. His finger found the button in a practised motion and he pushed it.
In a flash of light, his second Pokemon reappeared.
They shook themselves lightly, standing up on their hind limbs and took in the clearing. Seeing nothing, they turned back to David and, claws falling back into fur limply, began to trill. And again. And again.
It reminded David of a time back when he was new to this world and couldn’t get another Pokemon to stop making noise. Back then he wasn’t sure if she was sick, hungry or wanted something he didn’t have.
Now he just clicked the button on the pokeball and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he turned towards the sunrise.
“Nocturnal?”
He turned to Pidgey who was busy preening herself.
“That might be a little complicated.”