“Bug Bite.”

It started with a flicker. Small sparks followed. They illuminated even smaller circles before disappearing. Each gave a tiny glimpse of color, the packed dirt displayed through lime lenses, but too briefly. You couldn’t focus on a detail, on one stone or pebble, before the glimpse was gone.

The sparks multiplied and a deep vibration itched David’s bones.

Venonat twitched, no doubt feeling the vibration all the deeper with its antennae. It wasn’t a Move they could maintain for long. Venonat dived forward, pushing through the pain to attack. Wood disintegrated as they landed, shredding, collapsing and grinding to powder under the otherworldly energy.

“Great job,” David called, feeling a surge of joy as the broken chair became sawdust. Venonat had come so far in such a short time, and this demonstration was progress. Visceral, terrifying progress.

He was still a little uneasy about Venonat’s reactions to the Move, but that was one of the reasons why they were demonstrating it here tonight.

The target of the demonstration's reaction wasn’t verbal. Finn’s mouth widened, the corners spreading further and further until it became concerning. His shoulders dropped. All strain disappeared. One eye after the other, Finn’s eyes closed. Then Finn cooed. He actually cooed.

Perhaps he had a verbal reaction after all, just a delayed one.

David’s eyes rose unwillingly. It was far from the reaction he’d expected. You didn't coo at destruction. People didn't really coo at all.

Finn groaned. “Don’t judge me like that. You have no idea how that all feels.” He waved his hand behind him, out of the training grounds and at the nearby buildings.

David- no, he was Fred now, grunted back. He wasn’t apologetic. The cooing had been a strange reaction to a Pokémon’s new Move. “If you say so.”

Finn made a face and some of that strain resurfaced. It showed most in his shoulders as D-Fred had come to learn. He opened his eyes and looked at Venonat. “That was very impressive. You’ve figured it out quite fast. Plus-” he licked his lips. “-it's always calming to destroy something.”

Davi-Fred eyed the pile of sawdust and fragments of wood again. There was only one chair leg left intact. He would not need to return the old wooden chair to where he found it on the side of the road. “True. Great job,” he repeated, focusing on Venonat. One full night of training with the last of the treated paper, and one full night training without, and the Move was now about eighty percent reliable.

Still, it had its issues.

“Did you notice anything? When Venonat attacked?” The words gained momentum and rushed out. It had been bothering him since the last time he’d met Finn. ”I think we’re doing something wrong. It’s hurting Venonat. The vibration.”

Finn winced, looking away from David. “Ah. That’s what that was.” He said no more.

“And?” David asked.

“Hmm? Oh, you mean the vibrations? That’s normal.” Finn waved his hand. “Venonat’s antennae are sensitive, and they aren’t used to such loud emissions coming from their own body. It’s kind of against their usual behavior.”

David blanched. “Bug Bite is hurting them?” He hadn’t known. He wouldn’t have trained it if he had. He wouldn't have pushed. Shit. They’d spent days working on this. Days when Venonat was hurting themselves. On his orders.

Finn frowned. “No.” He relented under David’s questioning stare. “Okay, perhaps a little but nothing bad. I was told it's kind of like if we clapped ourselves over the ears. Annoying, disorientating, but nothing permanent. Especially for a Pokémon.”

David eyed him with distrust for the first time in a while. Finn had provided the training plan. Not once had he mentioned this. Should David really be trusting him now? The Voyant had been very open with the techniques. Too open? It was surprising behavior from a family that everyone seemed to regard with wariness at best. Eloise and Oliver had many other thoughts on them.

He tried to blanket his thoughts. Retreating. He was Fred.

“It’s for the best.” Finn sounded peeved. “If Venonat didn’t want to do it, they wouldn’t. They do learn to use vibrations in their attacks eventually, just externally. Adjusting to the internal pressure now will make them only stronger later.”

Fred eyed the Voyant closely. That last sentence was spoken differently to the rest. It was a recital. Finn’s voice had been steady, but it had lost some of the annoyance then. It'd gone blank.

Finn rolled his eyes. “If you don’t trust me go to the Pokecenter.”

“No,” Fred said, surprising himself with what he was about to say. “I trust you.” Weirdly he did. Only for a brief moment had he suspected Finn, and that hadn’t even been about Finn. It had been about his last name. It’d been nearly a week since they introduced themselves now, but he had grown to like the expressive, outgoing Psychic.

He grimaced. “I'll step back our training. We won’t be using it as often or for as long.” Walking forward he sidled up to Venonat who was watching the night anxiously, twitching at something David couldn’t see. David rubbed the fur by the base of their antennae. He wasn’t going to touch the sensitive organs themselves, but he wanted to express his regret in some way.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yeah,” Finn said absently. His expression had changed again. His eyes were wide in surprise and a small smile graced his face. With a blink he shook himself. “What’s your plan for tonight then?”

“Hmm. Evasion training maybe?” Venonat was used to avoiding Cloudburst’s attacks now, but there was a huge difference between escaping aerial attacks and a ground chase. Fred was going to be doing a lot of running tonight. He blinked tired eyes.

“What about yourself?” He looked at the three pokeballs on Finn’s belt. “You finally going to introduce your Pokémon?”

Finn’s face twisted, a nasty snarl overtaking it. “No. I asked again, but it was denied as soon as negotiations began. They seem to think I’ll go on a rampage if I’m allowed to release my Pokémon. Or they want concessions that the higher ups aren’t willing to trade for me.” He directed his glare out of the training grounds and at the same buildings as earlier. He exhaled and his face relaxed. “It’s fine. We train in the mornings and I get ported here in the evenings.”

Fred made a noise of understanding but he was fighting to calm his own tension. This conversation was straying dangerously close to why Finn was here in Fuchsia. He didn’t think he could stay calm if the conversation turned to the Voyant’s search. There was no way he wouldn’t react if Finn spoke his real name or mentioned Pidgey.

When he looked back at Finn, the Voyant was shaking his head. His shoulder-length indigo hair swished back and forth.

“What?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Huh?”

Finn stopped shaking his head with a little sigh. “Want to see a magic trick?”

“Eh..” Where did that come from? “Like cards and stuff?”

“No,” Finn scoffed. “Proper magic.” He closed his hands and started to wave his right hand at Fred. “Right now you are thinking-”

‘Shit. Oh fuck. Crap.’ Fred tensed. Was this the moment where the lies came out? When his carefully stacked cards fell? Weirdly it was a... relief. David wasn’t a good liar. He wasn’t a good Fred. His hand carefully fell to his belt. Venonat was out, but he might need to release Cloudburst quickly.

Finn groaned. His hand fell and he opened his eyes. “You make no sense! And we can’t read minds! That’s just a stupid legend.”

David frowned at him in confusion. He was disappointed, but not? “What? What was all that?”

“Never mind,” Finn said sourly. “Here.” He waved his hand at the ground.

David’s eyes widened as without a sound two pebbles began to glow pink. The glow overtook the stones until any hint of gray was hard to spot amongst the blinding pink. The stones rose in the air and began to circle around each other.

“Shit.” He glanced at Finn. Why, he wasn’t sure. To confirm he wasn’t the only one seeing it, maybe. What he saw only made him more surprised.

Finn’s eyes, usually blue, had disappeared. Two beacons of glowing pink stared back at him, casting shadows from his long nose across sharp cheekbones. Indigo hair swayed in a breeze that didn’t exist.

“Shit.”

He couldn’t figure out if he should watch the stones circling each other and spinning through the air or Finn’s glowing eyes.

Then the light faded. The stones landed with a thump and Finn, with his usual eyes that couldn’t be seen in the sudden dark, scowled at the buildings outside the training grounds.

“That was incredible,” David said, heart beating even as he sought out Venonat. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen magic in this world. Pokémon bent reality every day, but this was different. David himself could orde-ask Cloudburst to carve up the sky. Venonat was willing to shred matter on his word. But, Finn could skip that. He could alter reality with a thought. It was as amazing as it was appalling.

Finn sniffed, turning back from the buildings. He searched David’s face for a second, searching for something he didn’t seem to find. “Yeah. You should see the family festivals. There’s nothing else like it.”

“Oh don’t I believe it,” David said with a snort. He couldn’t even imagine what a family of psychics would come up with generations of practice. What could they do if they weren’t chasing him? What could they have done if they hadn’t spent all their history doing horrible things in Fuchsia?

“Mmhm.” Finn grunted, looking away, suddenly uncomfortable.

A silence stretched out. Still a little shaken, David wasn’t willing to leave it linger.

“Is the festival soon?” He had no intentions of going, but it was the only thing that came to mind.

“No, it’s at the end of the season.” Finn was closing off.

David himself stilled, brought back to reality by the reminder of his own impending deadlines. Two weeks left now. Today was day forty-six of the season. Day fifty-nine in this world.

“Any plans for the season?” He asked blandly, trying to push away those thoughts.

“I’ll start with a gym up north,” Finn said reluctantly. “I won’t be able to go while I’m on assignment here, but with the contributions from this I should be able to have an easy time of it. It’s crazy how easy things are when you have access to the resources. The training aids I’ve bought already have been a great help.” Finn’s voice was slightly bitter. He turned and stared back out at the buildings across the road.

Following his gaze, David saw a blur of motion on the roof. Finn was being followed again.

“I think I’ll even train for the Fuchsia gym,” Finn admitted darkly. “Some payback would be nice. What about you?”

“No plans beyond Fuchsia. I’ll have to see how Cl-Venonat is doing after that.” David scowled at his own near blunder.

Finn hummed, but didn’t comment on the sparse answer. Discomfort lingered. Something had changed.

David turned his attention back to Venonat. Time to run.

-.-

With a brief nod to the campsite manager, who didn’t look up from his book, David flew through the campsite. It must have been a favorite of the man’s as he was still reading it over a week later. Making very little noise to avoid disturbing his neighbors and the other campers, he made his way in the dark to his tent.

He gently pulled a blade of grass free of the two zippers and, opening the tent, crawled in. It was a security measure based off of a movie he’d seen. It was usually tape, but he didn’t have that or a proper door. If the grass had fallen from where it was looped around the zippers. Quickly he rearranged the inside, moving all this scattered belongings out of the way so he could sleep. They too were set out in a pattern such that he would know if they’d been disturbed.

These weren’t attempts to prevent robbery, a tent wasn’t very secure as the hole Venonat had made proved. Besides, David left nothing in the tent worth stealing. No, these tricks were to let him know if someone, a Voyant perhaps, had accessed Fuchsia’s records and tracked down where he stayed.

Sleep came easily. David was tired. His muscles were sore and not just from the running with Venonat. It was weeks of work with no rest and little sleep catching up with him.

Tomorrow though, was a reluctant rest day. One David definitely needed and his Pokémon would enjoy.

Tomorrow they were visiting the Safari zone.