Ostensibly, I was helping the older woman through her house. In actuality, I could feel how iron solid her grip was, and it was obvious how certain and confident her steps were. That they were slightly shuffling didn’t mean much; I doubted that she actually needed my help for much of anything. The phrase ‘old battleaxe’ rose unbidden to the surface of my mind, and I had to admit, if the turn of phrase applied to anybody? It’d be the person who’d attached herself to my arm like a hydraulic clamp.
As we walked through one of the halls of the family’s home and business, the grandmother would occasionally give me small tidbits of the family’s history and the history of various artifacts. Apparently, the clan had been here since before the city had really been a thing- hundreds of years of history, reaching back generations and generations. They had a larger estate out of the bounds of the city, a place that grew a few different crops and had something approaching a manor as the central building. All told, it wasn’t that the family was wealthy, per say- well connected and with a rich history, certainly, but none of them lived in extravagance. What they had were mostly artifacts and land passed down from generation to generation, mostly paying for its own upkeep.
“And all of this extends back to when this land was known by a very different name- Hisui. This was a long time ago, of course, before even the Diamond and Pearl clans settled in the region. Ours was one of the first to arrive, and establish permanent roots.”
She gestured to a long and detailed tapestry, depicting an individual of completely indeterminate age and gender face to face with an easily recognizable black and white dog.
“This was long before the tunnels were discovered or expanded, but one of our ancestors- founder of the Jinnouchi- formed a bond with a houndoom. Perhaps not the smartest decision, but they forged a relationship so strong that houndoom have been the family’s traditional companions and guardians since. In the end, I can’t fault them.”
The houndoom following us huffed quietly, though I noted that she bowed her head to the tapestry as we passed. In a rough sort of sense, I was reminded somewhat of the Aura Guardians and their lucarios, though I supposed it wasn’t a one to one comparison. It was more a sense of the history, of the duty that I clearly saw between even the modern members of the family and their Pokemon.
“Ah, but I think you’ve heard enough of history from an old woman.” She gave me a grin, then gestured with a hand to a door. “Here we are.”
I opened the door for her, and she finally released me, stepping through and into the room. Her houndoom was on her heels, regarding me with a neutral look as she brushed by me. My fingers twitched and I suppressed the urge to swallow. Being stared at from across the room was one thing, but she was big enough that she could’ve been counted as an alpha Pokemon, and something of that size resembling a hellhound was intimidating by presence alone. I breathed, in and out, then followed them into the room and shut the sliding door behind me.
The room that we’d entered was well appointed, though not in any way ostentatious. It had the air of a place that was respectable from age more than wealth. A low, long table took up a large section of the room, slightly off-center, sturdy construction and polished beautifully. Traditional supplies were carefully arranged across its surface, and an ancient lamp took up one corner, making it more of a desk than just a table. To the right and against the wall, a variety of wooden shelving filled with material that ranged from scrolls arranged in lacquered cases to books that had obviously been printed in modern styles. Front and center, taking up the middle of the room and in front of the desk, lay what I, at first glance, thought to be another table with a checkerboard pattern on top, cushions sitting on the floor to either side of it. As I stepped closer, however, I glanced into two pots that sat next to it filled with black and white pieces, and I realized that it was a Go board.
I helped the Jinnouchi matriarch into kneeling on one of the cushions, the woman settling into a seiza sitting position that made me wince a little. I’d never been good at sitting like that, and just watching someone do so made my legs ache.
“Ahh… thank you.” She gestured across the board, to the cushion on the other side of it. “Take a seat.”
Ah… that wasn’t a request.
“Um, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t sit like you are?” I said, anxiety colouring my voice. That got a small laugh out of her, as she waved her hand.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m simply used to sitting this way. Now…”
She gave me a cooly expectant look, and I hissed gently through my teeth. This wasn’t an order that I could really refuse, not from someone that I greatly suspected could kick my ass, age be damned. I nodded, moving to the other cushion and settling down in a seating position that I found comfortable. Still, I found myself wanting for a backrest.
“If… you want me to play Go with you, ma’am, I’m sorry to say that I have no idea what the rules are.”
“Ma’am.” There was a note of amusement in her voice as she repeated the word. “Well, you’re certainly not Sinnohan.” She raised an eyebrow. “Galar, or perhaps Unova? You have a little of both their ways of speech.”
I shrugged, carefully thinking about what I was going to say. I wouldn’t put it past her to smell a lie on me if I spoke it aloud.
“I appeared in Vinewood a little more than a week ago. As far as I know, I’ve never been to Unova, or Galar, for that matter..”
“Hm.”
A drawer slid out from the side of the Go table at her touch, and she withdrew a stack of rectangular cards held together by a piece of twine. With deft and sure movements, she undid the binding, sliding the cards free and shuffling them with impressive manual dexterity. Her houndoom settled behind her, sitting regally just to her right.
“Now, it’s been a few years since I’ve been so directly involved, but you hear things when you’re old and you have a lot of friends. The elderly do love to gossip.” She stacked the cards, shuffled them again, then looked up at me over the rim of her glasses. “I suppose that the same goes for Koi-Koi?”
I shifted. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sighed, though she didn’t stop shuffling the cards. “Ahhh… it’s difficult to find opponents from outside the family these days. Back in my youth, all the trainers in Sinnoh worth something knew how to play.” The cards flipped against each other, and she formed them into even stacks, setting them down on the board in front of her. “Namely, when you’re elderly and something interesting happens, all your friends seem to want to talk about it, especially after everything that happened in the wake of events. Aftershocks across the entire region, though thankfully Coronet seems to have shielded us from the worst of it. I’ve spent the better part of the last week and change encouraging people, straightening things out again.”
I shifted in place. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with me, or why she’d taken me aside. She seemed to note my uncomfortability, the edge of her lip twitching upwards.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get around to it. When you’re on the phone with a bunch of doddering old people all day, you start hearing things about what they’re handling or what interesting things they’ve noticed. Including, as an example, a trainer fighting their way out of a Ghost-type incursion with just a poochyena on their side.”
I tensed, involuntarily, then forced myself to relax. I glanced at the houndoom behind her, who regarded me levelly with one eye before turning her attention back out the window to my right. Suddenly, I felt ambushed.
“Interestingly, the trainer was purported to be an amnesiac- and yet, they left town the next day, only to immediately be caught in a brawl with an onix nest in Emeragrove. And then, a fight with a known menace here, in my city.” She folded her hands in her lap, peering at me with that calculating, measuring look I’d seen on her face when we’d first made eye contact. “I had descriptions, pictures. Someone causing that much trouble is someone to keep an eye on. And then, they register for a gym battle and lie low for an entire week, training. You can imagine my surprise when I hear of an unranked defeating Fantina herself. But then, the trainer walks through my doors, poochyena in tow. So, tell me, Cam… What are you after? It cannot be a coincidence that you end up here, a Dark type the only Pokemon to your name, a single newly-won badge in your hands.”
I gave in, swallowing, a nervous smile making its way onto my face as my eyes flickered between her chin and the bridge of her nose. “W-would you believe it, um, was? A coincidence?”
Her gaze intensified, and I froze. It seemed to pierce me, and suddenly I was very aware of the hellhound that loomed large over her shoulder. My hands tightened into fists, and I felt my heart quicken as I tried not to move, not another muscle even twitching. She stared at me across the game board, an unbroken gaze that sent iron ramrods into my very soul, completely silent.
When she broke the silence to let out a small chuckle, I out and out flinched.
“You… ah, you’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”
I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding, a small relieved smile stretching my lips. “Yeah- yes, actually. I promised Drake that we’d get him the hottest food in the city, after everything he did. I asked around about it, ran into Mirra in a battlebar…” I trailed off.
She laughed, one hand going over her mouth, and shook her head.
“I didn’t know what to think, such an individual appearing on my doorstep like that, but apparently I’ve grown paranoid in my old age.” She shuddered with another laugh, shaking her head again. “A coincidence. Sheer chance. What a mysterious world we live in.”
The houndoom was now watching the exchange with some amount of amusement, herself. I simply felt relieved that whatever suspicion I’d been under had been dispelled, along with some measure of confusion. I hesitated, and steeled myself- answers aren’t forthcoming to those that don’t ask, after all.
“Why would I come here with some manner of plan, outside of that?”
This seemed to take her even more off-guard than before. “Surely you-?” she made a sound that was made of a latticework of emotion that I couldn’t even begin to interpret. “Of course. You have no idea, do you?”
“... Idea of what?” I suddenly had the deep suspicion that I’d walked into something that was far more complicated than a simple ancient family-run restaurant.
“This place is part food, to be sure, but it’s also a place where powerful trainers and their Pokemon gather. More than that, it is a shrine that is home to a family of the strongest houndoom in the region. Thousands of years of training have produced strong trainers and strong Pokemon, and there have been more than a few that thought they could simply make that power their own. Certainly, it was with more numbers and force during the time this region went by its other name, but these days thieves and thugs still believe they can take a piece of that power for themselves. Whether they aim to use it for their own goals, or sell a stolen egg to the highest bidder…” she trailed off.
My brow furrowed. “And you suspected me because of-?”
“No. Shota might be suspicious of you, bless his young and righteous heart, but I am under no such illusions. Houndoom are both Fire and Dark, though people tend to focus on the former and ignore the latter where we are concerned. I watched a trainer rise from nothing and suspected-” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m quite pleased to find that I was wrong.”
“Ah…” I shifted. “So, if I’m no longer under suspicion-?” I began getting up, then froze as she fixed me with another stare, though it was markedly less severe.
“Sit back down.”
“Yes ma’am.” I whispered, settling back into my seat.
“I no longer suspect you of anything. Now, I admit, I’m simply interested. You found yourself in a dangerous situation, but one that you could have easily escaped, safe in the shelter of a Pokecenter. You did not, instead convincing a poochyena to follow you into the fog and fight your way to a Ranger camp. You did not have to tangle with the onix, but relayed the information about the absol to the local officer, accompanied them, and even fought by their side when things turned sour.” She folded her hands on top of her legs again. “I don’t believe you’re an amnesiac.”
I went rigid.
“You knew Dark was effective against Ghost. You knew not only what an absol was, but the truth of their nature. Twice now, you have thrown yourself into dangerous situations for no real gain on your part.” She nodded, slowly. “No, I believe you remember more than you say.”
“... So…” I said, quiet and anxious.
Revealing that information might end up souring what friendships I had, even my League membership. Everything would be harder after that, and I didn’t believe it would help that I was most definitely a Dark-aligned trainer. It would be simplicity itself to convince people to turn against some mystery trainer with a poochyena, I’d already seen the effects of people’s suspicions against me.
“So?” She shrugged, and I twitched in surprise. “Whatever your story might be, I believe your intentions to be good. While I admit my curiosity, it’s plain to see that you’re a poor liar and at least a decent person.”
I blinked in confusion. “... Thhhhhank… you?” Was that a compliment, or backhanded? She merely laughed again at my look of consternation.
“I’m attempting to compliment you, young man. It was easy to see how strong the bond between yourself and your Pokemon is, and no one so poor at lying could so easily trick their companion into looking at you like your Drake does. No, I suspect that it’s the symptom of something else.” There was a hum of thought as she pursed her lips, looking me up and down again as if seeing me for the first time. “In fact… perhaps there’s something else that you can assist me with, if you’d be willing.”
“I suppose?” Even if this wasn’t someone who I very dearly wanted to not be on the bad side of, refusing now would be highly rude.
“One moment.” She turned her head to her right, her houndoom companion leaning forwards. She whispered something, and the hellhound seemed to think a moment before nodding. The Jinnouchi matriarch smiled, then whispered something else, the houndoom nodding again before stalking to the door. “I think I’ll take a moment to myself, here. Rutsubo will take you to retrieve Drake, and then to what I shall need you to do, if you are amenable.”
“I… suppose.”
I hesitated, and she nodded her permission. With that, I pushed myself to my feet and followed the large houndoom as she pushed open the sliding door with her nose, sliding it shut behind myself once again.
----------------------------------------
She listened as the clicking of her companion’s claws and the soft footsteps of the boy retreated down the hall, until they became inaudible. She waited a few heartbeats more, to see if they would return for some reason or another; when they did not, she reached across her desk, retrieving the phone from where it sat underneath her desk lamp. Fingers certain, she hammered out a series of numbers and held the receiver up to her ear, listening as it rang. On the third ring, the phone clicked, and she smiled.
“This is Jinnoichi Sakae.” Pause, as she listened to the query from the other end. “Yes, I’m quite alright. In fact, I’ve had quite an interesting visitor, just now- Kevan’s case.” Another query, this one more urgent. “No, no, I’m quite alright- and I wasn’t in any danger regardless. A nice trainer, terrible at deception. They were here quite by accident, if you can believe that.” She listened, and smiled. “No, I wouldn’t either, if it hadn’t just happened.”
She looked out the window, Coronet looming far in the distance, a spear of stone thrust into the sky.
“You can tell the old man that he owes me another favour. Ah, and I understand that they’re headed his way. Tell him that they have my full approval, and, should what I suspect be true, he’ll see the evidence of it when they finally come around.” She listened, and smiled. “Yes, you take care as well- and keep up the good work.”
Sakae returned the phone to its cradle, humming to herself as she sorted through the various papers scattered on her desk. It was shaping up to be quite a good day. Now, if only some of the various issues that orbited Coronet like storm clouds would clear themselves up; then, the day would be perfect.
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My first and second trips through the house had been at a much slower pace, accompanied by a person with a deep understanding of the history of the place. The houndoom I was following, however, wasn’t anywhere near as chatty, and appeared entirely focused on their destination. Together, we quickly retraced the route that I had taken with… internally, I wasn’t sure how to refer to her. The head of the family worked best as a descriptor, I supposed. Regardless, it didn’t take long for the houndoom to nose open a sliding door, and, upon following her through it, I found myself back in the courtyard I hadn’t left so very long ago.
My absence didn’t seem to have been really noted, or changed much of anything. I found myself pausing for a moment, however, when I saw Shota and Mirra engaged in what appeared to be a high-level match in the open space in the center of the courtyard. The man’s houndoom danced, surrounded by flames of orange and spears of white heat. The hellhound was matched, move for move, by Mirra’s grovyle- who, if I didn’t mistake things, appeared to be treating this entirely casually. Something that appeared to be pissing off Shota and his houndoom something fierce, if I was reading their expressions right.
The Grass lizard’s eyes found me for an instant through the smoke and flame, before leaping out of the way of a tongue of bright yellow fire. The other three, however, didn’t even appear to notice me, Mirra too busy needling Shota and his partner both while they gave their all to crush her lone Pokemon.
The hellhound I was following diverted to the left, towards the counter where Natsuki and the red-faced man were speaking animatedly to each other and a very satisfied looking Drake. I spared one more glance to the fight that was so far above my league that it might as well be orbital, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. I didn’t want Drake or myself tangled with either Shota or Mirra, not without quite a few more badges and a lot more experience and training. And even then…
I pushed those thoughts away as we approached my Pokemon and the two people that had basically volunteered to take care of his desires. Drake spied me almost immediately, giving me an extremely happy, if slightly drowsy, look. The other two were a little too distracted to notice me or the houndoom approaching, however, and continued.
“- never seen a Dark type with a stomach like this! One of your parents a Fire type?” The man directed the question at Drake, who merely blinked at him, obviously too stuffed to really give a more intelligent response.
“I dunno about even that, some of the houndour couldn’t handle what he just ate.” Natsuki settled her hand on Drake’s head, stroking it as she grinned. “Betcha you could even give a few of the houndoom a run for their money, though not even you could dream of coming near Rutsubo.” The hellhound in question huffed, a confident affirmative that finally brought the attention of the two of them to the fact that we’d arrived. Natsuki grinned. “Speak of Giratina! You’re in one piece, so granny couldn’t have been too hard on you. What did she want you for, anyway?”
I thought about the lengthy, and decently dangerous, conversation the two of us had just had. I swallowed my anxiety, managing to give what I thought was a somewhat easy smile.
“Ah, nothing much… just curiosity. I couldn’t answer many of her questions, though.”
“Shame.” said the man, slapping the top of a beer bottle against the worn wood of the counter, popping the top off with one movement. “I was hoping for some myself, though I hope you don’t mind being drawn into her web with everybody else.”
“... Web?”
He shrugged, then took a pull of the bottle in his hands. “Don’t worry about it. So, what’s your intention now?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Ah-” I scraped my mind for any Japanese honourifics I could dredge up. “Jinnouchi… sama, directed me to follow her houndoom here to retrieve Drake, then again to something that she said she’d need our assistance with.”
The two of them shared a look that I couldn’t divine the meaning of, and returned their attention to me before I could make the attempt.
“Sama is a good one.” The man noted. “However, I would try ‘kakka’, next time you see her. Much more appropriate.”
I nodded, accepting the advice from someone who no doubt knew the culture better than I did, then stopped when I noticed Natsuki biting her lip. I gave both of them a suspicious look, but I couldn’t figure out where they were going with this. I shrugged internally- if it was a trap, then I supposed the only way to tell what it triggered was to step on it and then direct the fallout in their direction. Still, after a moment, they appeared to master their reactions and adopt more serious expressions.
“Something you can help Granny with?” Natsuki tapped a finger against her arm, thinking. “And she didn’t ask one of us, first?”
“Oh, it’ll make sense once he’s done with it, one way or another.” The man said, swirling the liquid in his bottle.
“That sounds vaguely ominous.” I said, and was not reassured when the man nodded without hesitation.
“Could be. Depends entirely on you, a’course. Just trust your gut and your partner, and you’ll be fine.”
Drake, who had woken up from his near food coma a little at the tone of voice, shared an uncertain look with me. I got the sense that he was about as bewildered about this turn of events as I was. I supposed that it was at least somewhat encouraging that it wasn’t just something I’d missed, if my partner seemed to know about as much as I did.
“Oooookay… well.” I motioned with my hand. “Come on, Drake, we’d better see what this is about.”
My Pokemon nodded, stretching luxuriously and bowing his head to the man in thanks, before leaping down to the floor with ease.
“See? Now that’s a polite Pokemon! Someone could stand to learn a lot from them.” The man stated, giving the grill behind the counter the stink eye. I blinked, then twitched as the grill let out a burst of flame. “Exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I think you two are perfect for eachother.” Natsuki said, amused and rather certain about it. “Really, you’re practically mirror reflections.”
Another houndoom stuck their head out from under the grill, and both they and the man gave her identically offended looks. I suppressed a small laugh.
“Come on, let’s go before we’re embroiled in more family drama.” I muttered.
Drake gave me something of a long-suffering nod, then huffed in the direction of Sakae-sama’s houndoom, whose name seemed to fall right out of my ear the moment after I’d heard it every single time. The much larger Pokemon gave him a glance, looking up at me with a question in their eyes. I shifted slightly, then nodded my affirmation.
“Well, I’ve committed so far, haven’t I? In for a penny, in for a pound.”
The second half was said more to myself than to either of the Pokemon, but they still gave me an odd look. I supposed that wouldn’t be a turn of phrase here, would it? Would it be… in for a Pokedollar…? But it’s like yen, there’s not really a smaller denomination of Poke than one Poke. Without pounds and pence, the idiom didn’t really work. Whatever.
“Means I’m already involved, so I might as well be more involved.”
They both nodded in understanding, the houndoom seeming quite pleased now that she understood my meaning. She stepped in front of us, heading back towards the door to the interior of the house that we’d just come through, Drake and I both trailing in her wake. She nosed the sliding door open again, and Drake hopped over the short doorframe, with me sliding the wood, glass, and reed door shut behind us.
This time, the route was different immediately. I was quickly lost in the maze of hallways, artifacts, and art pieces, though I was at least decently certain that I didn’t recognize any of what we were passing. I definitely knew that we were nowhere that I recognized when the well-worn wood of the traditional house gave way to stone, which, if I wasn’t mistaking things, had a decent downward curve to it. Not so much that it would need actual stairs, but still.
I noted that the stones beneath my feet, and clustered in the center of the hallway, were worn smooth enough that they’d lost all their roughness to a mirror-like sheen. Towards the edges of the hall, I could see where it was truer to the original texture of the cut stone blocks that formed the floor, much more coarse in texture. So, either a lot of traffic in the short term, which was unlikely, or a middling amount of traffic over an exceedingly long period of time. Given everything I’d found out about the family and how they’d come to be here, I’d definitely believe the second without hesitation.
Here, the stone formed an archway with a large wooden door in it, split in half down the center and painted red. The light of torches, rather than the electrical lighting behind me that had been worked into the structure of the ancient house, flickered across the stone and wood. Careful carving into the wooden surfaces of the double doors made them mirrored images, depictions of houndooms rearing up on their back legs, tongues of flame leaping from their mouths in intricate patterns that glittered in the light of the torches. At a glance, it gave the effect of it being a very real flame. Round handles made of black iron were attached firmly to them, though lower than I would’ve otherwise thought they would’ve been.
A moment later, of course, I saw why. The houndoom that’d escorted us walked straight up to the doors, taking one of the iron rings in her muzzle and pulling. The door opened with an almighty creak of ancient metal on ancient metal and wood against stone. As it came open, I noted that the bottom of the doors actually appeared to be split and hinged. A way for Pokemon to get in and out without opening the entire door up? I wasn’t left a lot of time for idle contemplation, as the houndoom walked through the now-open door without a moment’s hesitation, and into the flickering light of the room beyond it. Drake and I shared an uneasy look, and he took point as we walked through and through the door.
The moment I was through, I found myself stopped in my tracks. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. We appeared to be on a raised platform at one end of a large room constructed entirely of stone, with a ramp down to my right. Down on the floor beneath us, families of houndour and houndoom played among blankets and toys and a variety of stimulation sources. Scorch marks on the stone floor and walls revealed the very good reasons that the wooden structure had stopped long before we’d arrived here. As the houndoom we’d been following stepped forwards, however, a quiet swept over the room. Houndoom parents calmed their children, eyes drawn towards the three of us- the matriarch with reverence and respect, Drake with curiosity, and myself with measuring gazes. I felt somewhat uncomfortable, pinned by mere gazes for what felt at least like the tenth time today, but I endeavored not to show it. I might not practice stiff upper lip normally, but if there was any time for it, this seemed like one of them.
Rutsu… something, I just couldn’t recall her name no matter how I tried, settled at the edge of the raised stone platform we were on. There was no sound, nothing uttered or said, she simply sat there at the edge of the polished stone platform. As I watched, the motion that filled the room slowed, the ambient noise petering down to nothing as every individual in the large room turned their heads towards her.
She regarded them, head slowly sweeping across the room, and I was reminded of a monarch gazing over their subjects. One who knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were a true ruler, no hesitation or uncertainty. They looked to her with respect, with admiration, and the young houndour looked up with naked awe.
When she was sure that she had their attention, she pushed herself to her feet and leaped down from the raised platform with regal grace. As she padded forwards, tongues of flames licking at her pawsteps, those in front of her divided to the sides. Their heads bowed in respect, in deferment to their alpha, as she raised her head high. She spared one glance backwards, and with a start, I realized that she wanted me to follow her. Awkwardly, I stepped down onto the same level floor as the houndour and houndoom that filled the room. As I passed, they raised their heads to watch me- curiosity, wariness, appraisal. They split like the sea for the matriarch, but they seemed to have little intention to do the same for me.
As she passed them, they would close in, approaching as if to take my measure, and Drake’s. There was a mutual sort of wariness on either side of that; Drake watched them, and they appeared to be sizing him up, though for what I wasn’t sure. It didn’t take very long before I realized that they were doing the same to me, observing me keenly and closely for a purpose that I couldn’t begin to guess.
As we approached the far side of the stone room, I realized that it ended much as it began. However, this time, instead of merely a stone platform that formed a sort of raised landing for the entrance, this was slightly different. At first glance, the idea that it was a dias came to mind, a raised place from which someone important would survey their surroundings. Rich red carpet coated the stone, rather than the blanket nests that many of the other houndoom seemed to have built. Still, there was something like their nests at the center back of the dias, and as the houndoom matriarch stepped up to that raised height, I got a look at what was there. I swallowed.
There, as regal as the one that had led me here, was what appeared to be another alpha houndoom. Rutsu approached them, and, with a surprising tenderness, their muzzles met against each other in an affectionate rub. I paused at the steps up to their level. Perhaps this was her mate? A male alpha, an actual monarch to her matriarch, though I was pretty certain I knew which of them was in charge. In a moment, however, their display of affection was over with, and the male alpha turned his attention to me. I glanced back and realized, heart sinking slightly in my chest and stomach clenching, that the houndoom behind me had closed ranks. The only way back through the room would be through them, and given their purported ability and how Drake was suddenly looking very nervous, I didn’t think that was going to happen.
Drake glanced at me, then back towards where the Dark and Fire Pokemon behind us had closed ranks. His eyes went to the monarch and matriarch, content for the moment to watch us for what we did. Finally, his eyes found me, and I let out a very soft hiss of breath between my teeth as he gave me a helpless expression and nodded towards the two hellhounds awaiting me. I knew he was right, that there really wasn’t another way out of this than to follow their lead, not when we were already so deep.
I was really starting to regret accepting Sakae-sama’s offer, even if it had been more of a command. Nothing for it, I supposed. I shared one more nervous look with Drake, then climbed the steps up to the dais.
The hellhounds didn’t seem inclined to react, only raising their heads to follow mine as I raised myself up the short stairs. Standing on top, feeling the gazes of a room full of powerful Pokemon at my back and two even more powerful Pokemon at my front, I felt the sweat bead at my temples and run down the side of my face. I took a breath, and took heart from the fact that even if I had my back to a room full of Pokemon weighing me for something I couldn’t quite figure out, at least I also had Drake. I could almost pick his gaze out from the pressure of the crowd, helpless feeling quashed by the steel he’d demonstrated again and again. It was enough, enough for my heart to calm slightly, enough to take a breath and steady myself. If Drake believed in himself, believed in me, then I felt that no matter what happened… it’d be alright.
I met their gazes, drawing myself up to my full height. I was anxious and perhaps even scared, there was no denying that, but I wasn’t going to pretend I wasn’t. I was going to stand here in spite of it instead, and I was going to look them in the eye. I didn’t know why I was here, why I’d been sent here, but I’d be damned if I just let a little fear bowl me over.
The two in front of me stared for a moment longer, and I could feel the temperature of the air increase as I had a staring match with two empowered hellhounds. As the air grew hotter, I felt my uncertainty spike, the caveman deep within me stirring at the fact that I was being stared down by two different powerful predators and their entire pack. But I grit my teeth and pushed that aside, shoved it down, refused to let it cloud my judgment or my mind. I- I think they were attempting to frighten me on purpose, and while it was working, I simply swallowed it.
Then, the pressure was gone. They looked from me and to each other, and I felt myself sag with relief. But only for a moment, as I reminded myself that this, whatever it was, was most likely far from over. All this show, all this lead-in, for a simple staring match? No. No, there was more, and just because this one thing was passed…
They didn’t look at me. Instead, they stood, turning away from each other and walking in opposite directions. I watched as small flames trailed after their pawsteps, balls of light that floated in the air or clung to the carpet without burning it. Their light was flickering and strange, casting shadows at random across the floor around them. As I watched, the alpha houndoom moved past me on either side, then curved back towards each other and passed behind me. Their steps drew a slow and deliberate circle, centering between my feet. The firelight they left behind layered and latticeworked, and the more they left behind, the more I felt drawn to look at it.
I could feel my attention slipping from the two alphas, the ones that my hindbrain had insisted were the threat, the thing to watch. Now, though, I found that part of myself and my mind quieted, doused by the light of the little fires. I stared into their flickering little hearts, where the orange they were sheathed in turned to a glowing core of yellow. I found myself mesmerized by their flickering, their change, the way the tiny flames shifted and spun.
I found myself kneeling on the cold stone, except that it wasn’t cold any longer. The carpet that covered the surface was warm, and soft, and I was sitting on it… I blinked slowly, and I could feel how my eyelids had stuck together. My arms twitched at my sides, and I wavered, but I was… I was tired. And the warmth felt so nice… it was… I could just… I’d had a long day, a very long day. It had been tiring, draining in fact. My eyelids drooped, and I… I brought my finger up to my mouth and bit down as hard as I could.
I shuddered a little as the pain drew me out of it, just a bit, enough to recognize that… something affected me? I could feel how sluggish my thoughts were, how I fought just to think about the fact that I was suddenly so tired. It couldn’t have happened magically- or, well, it basically could’ve, Pokemon and all. Things like Yawn existed, after all. Could yawn truncate mibibli yaroza? …. What?
I blinked as I tried to pry apart the sentence I’d just thought. Something was wrong about it… the series of words. I could actively feel myself becoming more incoherent, reminding me of those phases of sleep at the beginning and end, where you’re still asleep enough that nonsense thought patterns and completely off the wall justifications seem perfectly rational. Why was everything so dark? Oh, I realized, it was because my eyes had failed to complete the latter part of the blink. They were still closed. Well, it was certainly less tiring, and the ground was soft enough to… and it was pretty much precisely comfortably warm…
I didn’t remember falling asleep. My head didn’t even make it to the carpeted floor before the darkness overtook me.
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Inbetween waking and dreaming, somewhere that wasn’t quite awareness or sleep, I drifted. Things and objects appeared, entire scenes, stretching and shifting without a thought to reality. Thoughts fragmented nonsensically as I tried to force the malleable fog into a shape that was structured, that made sense. It slipped through my metaphorical fingers like so much water, and I couldn’t quite seem to hold it- and then, it would shift into something that felt real.
I often dreamed lucidly. Not all of the time, but enough that I could generally recognize and manipulate a dream, often imposing more structure or a real narrative on the dream itself. Here, however, for just a moment I would forget that it wasn’t necessarily real, and I become easily enraptured by narratives and environments. Flickers of light, islands of consciousness- a sense of binding an injury, a choice that held consequences. The careful weighting of outcomes. I could feel a map of points forming, even though I couldn’t make sense of it, nor how those points were formed. Between the tiny islands of rational thought I was a cloud of half-awake thoughts, and in the clear bounds of those islands I was involved completely in the story they told. There was no room for anything else.
Still, I couldn’t help but try, struggling to draw out something that made sense of what was happening. The puzzle pieces of drifting thought and memory shifted in my grip, shuffling themselves even as I attempted to form a complete picture. Drake, I thought, where was Drake? I’d… I’d fallen… asleep. But that left Drake…
I struggled against bonds that I could barely feel. For myself, I would’ve simply slipped into a full sleep and dreamed, but for my partner? Flickers of thought, of how he hated being alone, of how he’d panicked. I struggled for his sake more than mine, trying to make sense of where he was, if only so I could reassure him. And every time, I was simply pushed back down, the soft pressure attempting to lull me back into a deep sleep.
It was played back and forth, rising and falling, but every time I came back up and was pushed down I felt myself a little closer to the surface. Just that much nearer to the edge of true consciousness, the waking like the refractive surface of water above me, though ‘above’ meant nothing in this realm of dream. Every time the tide came back, washing over me and seeking to sweep me deeper into the melding chaos, I would be pushed back for but a moment; and then, I would rally. There was darkness, there in the place between dream and wakefulness, and I felt how it responded to my desire. How my ill-defined and confusing determination shaped the black that pierced the tide. The wave would break on spikes of night, crashing like a wave against breakers, and then it would retreat and rally as I ascended a bit closer to the shimmering surface of consciousness.
There was a sense of… I couldn’t make it out. It moved around me, touched me inside and out. I felt it attempt to tease out my thoughts, to see the structure that was me. And I would forget and remember, and it would be driven back with the tide, there and not. Incorporeal shifting characterized the place that I found myself, little sense to be discovered in shifting landscapes and overlapping situations that I didn’t see coming and could barely remember after they happened. I would drown in the flow, but my refusal to abandon Drake buoyed me aloft, carrying me atop waves of black and intermixed purple and white. The borders between the colours fizzed with energy that I could not describe, the sight sliding away from me the moment I looked away, leaving only the impression of itself behind. That it was there, and not much more than that.
But even as the waves came, again and again, I felt myself rise further. While they attempted to drown me in memory and thought, I could only reach higher and farther. Each wave weaker, each rise taking me just a little higher. Three steps forward, two steps back, again and again. But, soon, it became one step to one step, and then… and then it was a step back, and two forwards. I grit my teeth as I clung to the idea- Drake. Drake, alone, wondering why I had left him. Even as I flashed between images and places, jumbled messes of artificial and natural that made little sense and contributed less, I pressed my fingers into the skein of gossamer that held me.
And then, it tore.
I was certain in my choices. Tested and measured for worth, that was the way things must be. But this one was different, so few like it, a poor, broken, blinding creature. I could feel the marks across body and soul, the slight warping of the mind. Such was it when giants attempt to sculpt clay. Starbursts of thought, a webwork of soul, flared all around as it was tested, and not found wanting. There was no perfection in its being, but then, when was there ever? All beings of flesh had within them imperfections and failings, and this one was no different. The difference, then, was that its failings were not ignoble.
But then… no, there is something else, something among the threads. A line, a hand reaching out to grasp. Felt along, like a wire strung in the dark. There was leading, but that was not meant to be: it was not supposed to be something that could be done. I marveled for a moment at the impossibility, and then I sheared through the cable-
I inhaled sharply, eyes springing open. My hands found themselves quickly under me, pushing myself up in an undignified scramble that still left me on my knees. I made to rise further, but my stomach rebelled, clenching and writhing inside me. Desperately, I squeezed my eyes shut and grimaced, swallowing and breathing deeply, attempting to calm my rebellious insides. After a few moments, the internal storm died down, the heaving that I’d been doing petering out as I gained control of it. When I was certain that I wasn’t about to paint the rug I’d been lying on with the contents of my insides, I carefully leaned back so that I was sitting on my legs rather than on all fours.
The circle of flames that surrounded me flickered and died, leaving bare sparks that drifted upwards into the air and vanished. The houndoom that had made them stood before me, staring at me with a look of deep curiosity. She met my eyes without hesitation, searching my gaze for something. A moment passed, tense and weighty. Then, she inclined her head and broke the gaze, expression changing to one closer to satisfaction. I wavered for a moment, uncertain.
“Drake.” I muttered to myself, back straightening as I looked to my side.
The little hyena was pushing himself to his paws as I turned my head to him, unsteady and seeming barely awake. His legs shook slightly, and he seemed almost to overbalance, eyelids drooping slightly as he fought to keep them open. He wavered, leaning to one side, and I shuffled closer, balancing him with my hands. He turned his head towards me, and I saw in his eyes a panicked determination warring with sleepiness, which turned rapidly to relief as he saw that I was alright.
“Yeah, I was- I was worried about you, too.” I whispered.
Drake nodded slowly, blinking heavily, then nosed my hands away and shook himself. I watched him for a moment more, making sure that he wasn’t going to collapse as he shook off the dregs of whatever the houndoom had done. I breathed out as he nodded to me, once, then followed his gaze as he looked forwards.
The matriarch was still sitting before us, watching the small exchange we’d had with a look that I realized, after a moment, was approval. Drake and I shared an uncertain look, which was interrupted by the houndoom making a soft growl. I twitched, but Drake simply tilted his head, then sat down and glanced at me. I paused uncertainly for a second. Well, if… Drake thought so… I settled back onto the rug, though in a more comfortable cross-legged seating style than the seiza-ish position I’d been in before. Given that the houndoom seemed perfectly content with that response, and the fact that no more instruction or objection seemed to be forthcoming, I assumed that this was what the matriarch had wanted. I presumed that we might be waiting for something, though I wasn’t sure…
I stopped in the middle of that thought, glancing back and forth, then turning my head to look over my shoulder with a frown. The patriarch houndoom, obviously the mate of the hellhound that sat before us, was no longer present. Glancing around the room, which was stuffed full of various houndoom and houndour of varying sizes and ages, I realized that I couldn’t see him anywhere in the room. Though, looking around had the unexpected side effect of making me somewhat anxious, as I realized that the crowd of Pokemon were sitting completely silent. Every one of them was staring up at us, raised as we were above their floor level, and even as I turned my gaze back to the matriarch for some clue, I could feel their eyes on my back.
But a clue didn’t seem to be forthcoming. The big hound’s face had shifted to one of a patient sort of tranquility, unmoving except for the occasional blink. Drake didn’t seem to have answers either, going back and forth between examining the room and attempting to mimic the sort of peaceful stillness that the houndoom had adopted.
I bit my lip. I didn’t think that she’d let me get up, or do anything major; or, at least, I wasn’t willing to risk her ire. Already, I could feel myself getting twitchy, terrible as I was at sitting still for long periods of time and waiting. No stimulus, and no convenient sources of entertainment or distraction, meant that it took mere minutes for me to begin shifting uncomfortably. I tapped my fingers against my legs, beating out little tunes, though softly so as to not disturb the silence. I went over lists of my equipment, trying to think of anything else that I should be getting for the hike over the mountains. Whatever gossamer thin strings of distraction I could come up with, I reached for, one after the other.
I’d reached the point where I was counting the bricks in the wall behind the matriarch, all surrounding a small stone arch that was covered with a dark curtain, when my thoughts were interrupted. My eyes were drawn to motion as the fabric that covered the arch rippled, relief flickering through me as a dark muzzle nosed its way under the curtain and pushed it upwards. The houndoom patriarch lifted the cloth high above his head, allowing it to slip over his horns and onto his back, where it pooled against him and left the archway clear. Another motion drew my attention, and I looked downwards.
Between the houndoom’s huge paws, a much smaller figure stood. A white helmet of bone crested their head, eyes with black irises peeking out from underneath the ridge of stark white. Dark gray coat, with a reddish-brown muzzle, and a patch of fur the same colour that suggested the underside was the same.
Houndour, I thought to myself. And, glancing to the sides and taking the measure of the others, I realized that the houndour was to the patriarch what the normal houndour were to the more normal-sized houndoom that surrounded them. The same rough scale of size? That probably meant that… These two were the pup’s parents? That seemed to make enough sense to me, though it didn’t make me feel any less lost at what was going on.
The houndour looked up at what I guessed was their father with uncertainty in their eyes. I wasn’t sure how to measure age for a Pokemon at a glance, let alone this specific evolutionary line, especially when the examples around me were obviously not really applicable. Their father gave them a small nod, and they lifted a paw, hesitated, then walked out from underneath the patriarch and out onto the dias.
From that interaction alone, I could guess that they weren’t close to their evolution. Already long weaned from milk, I thought, but not old enough or experienced enough to have their own confidence in their actions. Not that that was much more than guesswork, on my part.
The alphas were nothing short of regal, the male striding forwards and taking his place at the side of his mate without hesitation. The houndour rushed to follow in his wake once he was moving, but the moment he stopped, they went back to being uncertain. They peered at me around their father’s bulk, curiosity dancing about their scrunched muzzle, and I had to take a breath to make sure that I didn’t utter a comment on how adorable that was. As much as I thought the houndour was cute, I wasn’t forgetting that they were flanked by parents that could disassemble Drake and I in seconds, individually, and not even blink.
I swallowed. I was this nervous, and these weren’t even really legendaries, just mostly mundane- if monstrously powerful- Pokemon. Realistically, I was starting to hope that I wasn’t going to attract any of the personal attention of the biggest and baddest Pokemon on the block. I was starting to think that my heart might not be able to handle it.
The pup paused for a moment, looking up and taking the support of their parents, the father nodding them forwards while the mother leaned down to nudge them gently. The little creature steeled themselves, then stepped forwards, chest puffed out and head held high. They came to a stop, just in front of me, trying to make themselves seem as large as possible. And I… was at a loss.
Was this some sort of ceremony? A ritual, maybe? Multiple members of the family had mentioned a trial of some sort, and even the grandmother had asked about it pretty point blank. None of them had mentioned any of the details of what it was or what it required, nor why someone would seek them or this place out to undergo it. But, what I’d just gone through… it had felt like a trial of sorts. The question now remained, for what purpose?
The houndour glanced backwards at their parents again, uncertain. The two of them simply gazed calmly back, then looked up at me, meeting my helpless gaze. I looked to the side, where Drake still sat, to find him watching the goings-on with bemusement written across his face. As he made eye contact with me, he shrugged, providing no further clues as to what sort of situation we’d gotten ourselves into now.
In the middle of the shrug however, he went stock still as one of the houndooms made a low noise at him. His ear perked, and he turned towards them, an unspoken question obvious in his body and face. He received only another noise much like the first, and as I watched, his small brow furrowed as he tried to parse out whatever the hellhounds were saying to him. Then, suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he recoiled slightly in surprise.
“What-?” I began, then flinched in perfect coordination with the houndour, who regarded me warily.
Drake, sitting there and blinking, seemed startled by whatever the houndoom had communicated to him. At my one word question, he twitched, eyes flicking back to me. He breathed out through his nose audibly, then gave a questioning look at the houndoom alphas, who dipped their heads in assent to whatever he was asking permission to do. The little black and gray hyena picked himself up from the carpeted stone beneath us, then padded over to me, looking me in the eyes before turning behind me.
I hadn’t ever taken off my backpack during our entire time in this place. If I’d had the chance to sit down, where I wasn’t the focus of every person in the room and could actually think for five seconds, I might have actually set it down before now. As it was, it hadn’t left my person the entire time, and now it was still a weight on my back. As Drake focused on it, my mouth twitched in an unasked question, wondering what about it he found so interesting. Obviously, it had something to do with-
I froze. My eyes flicked between the alphas, the houndour that was still waiting just in front of me, twitching slightly in anxiety and impatience. The completely silent audience of houndour and houndoom that surrounded us. The trial, the thing that I’d just gone through. If… what I suspected was happening, was happening… and then Drake approached me, and nudged my backpack. Specifically, his nose nudged a very specific portion of my backpack.
The pouch that I’d chosen, more or less at random, to host my small supply of empty Pokeballs.
My breath caught in my lungs. My mind whirled, as I realized that the trial was a test, yes; a test… to see if a trainer was worthy of one of the Jinnouchi’s line of incredibly powerful hounds. A measure of one’s character, to see if they could handle, direct, and train potential like that, potential that was otherwise only reserved for the members of the family. And now, here I was, apparently having gone through the trial and passed well enough to satisfy the alphas. Well enough that they had, somehow, deemed me worthy of taking on their own child. Provided, of course, that I was reading the situation right.
With slightly shaky hands, I unzipped the pouch, fingers slipping past the zipper and into the fabric interior. I felt around for a moment, then grasped a sphere of cool metal, drawing a single Pokeball from the pocket’s depths. The red, white, and black of the ball shone dimly in the light of the chamber as I looked at it, turning forwards as I reached out, setting it down gently on the soft surface beneath my feet. I spun it, facing the white button towards the large houndour, then sat back and watched.
They hesitated one more time, a glance at their mother and father. They drew a breath, raising their head high, and then leaning forwards. There was the smallest click as their nose touched the button set into the front of the ball, then a larger metallic click as it snapped open, the familiar noise of a recall, or, in this case, a capture, sounding out. The houndour was transformed into so much red energy, drawn inside the open ball, which sealed shut in its wake with a loud CLACK.
I watched it carefully. My breath froze in my chest, and I found that I couldn’t look away from the metallic sphere, that I had eyes only for it. And as I watched, it rocked once, slowly, to the left and to the right. And then, it centered, and let out a soft ‘ding’. Capture successful.
I reached out, transfixed by the ball, and took it in my hands. I could feel the warmth of the device against my palms, the metal radiating a very gentle heat. I imagined that it was from the Fire and Dark type inside, warming the metal. I turned it in my hands, words leaving me in this moment, brushing my other hand across the slightly scratched red metal of the top half of the ball. The button clicked at my touch, and the ball popped open again. The houndour coalesced in a bolt of red light, shaking themselves as if flinging away water, then looked up at me.
And I… I couldn’t help how I smiled wide.