“You… what?” Kevan gave me a look that looked remarkably like what one would make when informed that their chair sat on plastic explosive. “No way. No, no way, I don’t believe you.” He twitched, narrowing his eyes forwards at Coronet, thinking. “Wait. I saw that tree. That-?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got the Pokedex data to prove it.”
He stopped in his tracks, looking entirely poleaxed. I stepped beyond him, then stopped, watching him carefully as the various Pokemon filed past us. Blake, who had long simply accepted that it had happened and filed it away by this point, gave the frozen Ranger a look of amusement as he walked by.
It was hours after we’d finished packing up our camp and started back down the stream towards the Route. The rough nature of the traversal meant that we’d not had the breath or energy to really speak until we reached the relatively clear and rocky Route trail. When we had, Kevan had pressed me for a complete breakdown of our entire time spent on the river fixing the dam, planning to include it in a report to his superiors. Clearly, he’d gotten far more than he was ready for: the absol? Rangers ran into them, if not regularly, then often enough. The ghosts? Malicious Pokemon were rare, apparently more common among Dark and Ghost types, but they did exist. Even the graveler were something explicable, local Pokemon banding together to try and address a local crisis. But a legendary showing up, shoring up the dam, then leaving? It seemed a little much.
“You alright?” I asked after a few seconds.
Kevan’s arcanine, a huge dog that was easily as tall as me, trotted up. A small sigh escaped their muzzle, and they licked the side of Kevan’s face, causing him to twitch and scowl at him. He simply raised his eyebrows, looking entirely unimpressed until Kevan turned his attention back to me.
“You know, I think the higher ups were completely correct in reassigning me to your little cross-mountain trip. I think that, if I wasn’t here escorting you, you’d burn down half the region before we realized that you pissed off a legendary or something like that.”
I thought for a moment, glancing up at the sky. “Being entirely fair, I don’t think there are any legendaries in this region that could do that. Unless you’ve got a moltres hanging around.” Arceus could, but I didn’t think it wise to say that.
“That- that’s not the point!” He made an energetic chopping gesture. “The point is that they were completely right about you and the fact that you’re like a human absol! And now you’ve got an actual absol that’s figured you for a contact, which has taken your already-existent ability to run into trouble and-”
“We’re falling behind the group.” I observed levelly.
Kevan glanced around, startled, finding us quite a ways behind the larger group and falling farther behind every moment. He said a series of things under his breath, then broke into a jog, with me following behind him and trying not to laugh. I was quickly learning that Kevan outside of a crisis was an extremely animated and energetic person, full of rapid gestures and flitting energy. He made an interesting counterbalance to Blake’s laid back nature, with the Champion seeming quite entertained by his antics. I had to admit, it was quite pleasant to see them getting along: I always had a bit of worry about introducing friends to each other.
Kevan’s arcanine, which didn’t have a nickname as far as I could tell, had immediately hit it off with Devi. They both immediately came off as serious and responsible, taking their spot at the head of their respective partner’s teams as a signifier of their duty to shepherd situations. From their long suffering looks and tones as they spoke, I figured that they were sharing some of their stories of managing the less responsible Pokemon and humans around them.
The pidgeotto, however, hadn’t appeared much at all. Kevan had stated that she wasn’t particularly social: not so much shy as just an individual that avoided others when she could. She spent most of her time in the air, scouting ahead and around, keeping an eye out for anything else that could slow us down or prove to be an obstacle. Occasionally, she circled back in to check on us, but she was never there for very long and didn’t seem particularly inclined to interact with the rest of us.
At some point, the conversation between Arcanine and Devi appeared to reach a point where they started addressing the third Fire type in the group. Ajax was ahead of the group, falling in, as he did more and more as this journey went on, with Mika and Noble. When Devi called him back to where the two of them were walking together, however, he came almost immediately. I wasn’t sure if that was sheer respect on Ajax’s part, or whether he was just that eager to be introduced to Arcanine.
Their conversation quickly turned to Arcanine testing my houndour, making him run a lap, spool up an Ember, and demonstrate a few different techniques. It occurred to me that, while Jive and Drake had had the shared experience of being quadrupedal and having the same typing, Ajax and Devi didn’t have the same sort of luck. Devi couldn’t be quite as effective teaching Ajax as Jive had been for Drake, simply because their anatomy was that different. Arcanine, however, was much closer to Ajax in size and anatomy.
I had to wonder, watching Arcanine putting Ajax through his paces to get a better idea of his physical conditioning and skill, whether training was something of an icebreaker for Pokemon. It was something that most of them could be assured that they enjoyed, and thus shared the enjoyment of. I hadn’t met the Pokemon yet that didn’t enjoy flexing their bodies and their power. Most of the time I’d seen two Pokemon in a neutral or amicable position who had a power imbalance between them, the stronger started giving tips to the weaker.
One of those things where Pokemon and getting stronger were so intrinsically linked, socially and anatomically, that it was often either the start of a conversation or the topic of one. I had to wonder if that inherent teamwork was why a lot of Pokemon trainers were pretty decent to each other, either picking up a bit of the inherent friendliness of their Pokemon or thriving in an environment where that was so prevalent. I didn’t imagine that a lot of haughty or unpleasant trainers made it that far, and those that did were most likely stopped dead at some point. Friendship was power, in this world, in just about every way that the word could be defined, and I doubted they could form the relationships they needed.
I looked around myself, at the Pokemon mingling and interacting around me, even as we moved down the trail. They played, they interacted, they had conversations, but in the background of all of that? They compared notes, discussed techniques, and shared their ideas. They made themselves and each other stronger just by interacting, by figuring things out together, becoming something more together than they would’ve ever been apart.
Hm. I was waxing philosophical.
We stopped at midday when we reached a flat piece of land. The mountain had been rising underneath us over the course of the day, changing from the relatively flat surfaces that had been the plateaus before into more of a slope. From here, the Route worked its way up the side of Coronet, dealing with sharper and sharper inclines until it started to come back on itself just to make it possible to climb without gear. Belatedly, I reflected that some of that would’ve been handy, even if it was just a few pitons and some rope. The rock climbing experience I had was all free climbing, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have the general idea of what to do with more serious equipment.
Devi, of course, immediately took charge of the arrangement. The rabbit had unilaterally declared himself the chef of first Blake’s party, then overall when we’d come together, so why should that change with a mere human and two Pokemon being added to our number? Ajax handed over our pouches of supplies without a single complaint, obviously already eager to see what the rabbit would make out of what we had. Kevan, and Arcanine by extension, were not so willing.
“I don’t see why I should just hand my stuff over.” Kevan grumbled, clutching his pack closely and watching Devi suspiciously. The cinderace gave him an impatient look in return, tapping one of his feet. “You know, I paid good money for this stuff. And I can handle my own meals, you know!”
“M’sure you can.” I said, trying valiantly not to show amusement at the situation. “Still, you better hand it over before Devi starts getting really impatient and does something that you’ll regret.”
Now it was my turn to eat a suspicious look. “... Like what?”
“Like cutting you entirely out of the dinner loop and whatever Devi plans to make for it, which will make whatever he’ll figure out for lunch look like nothing in comparison. After all, he’s just working with whatever heat he wants to generate right now, not a dedicated campfire.”
“You sure trust that rabbit with a lot of your food.” He remarked, tightening his bear hug around his pack.
Devi sputtered in indignation, standing up to his full height and looking as dignified as possible. While, of course, looking vaguely insulted by the insinuation that someone wouldn’t trust him with whatever food they happened to have on hand when he asked. Or perhaps he was just trying to look vaguely irritated that Kevan hadn’t handed over the goods the moment he asked, I just couldn’t tell.
“Best give it to him, or you’ll never hear the end of it.” Blake said lightly, adjusting one of the pouches on the side of his backpack.
Kevan raised his chin haughty, clearly playing it up. “I still don’t see why I should.”
Blake looked at him for a moment with a smile, which, after a moment, made Kevan shift uncomfortably. It was a smile that said ‘I know something you don’t’, and clearly, the Ranger didn’t appreciate being left out on the loop on this one. He looked at me, eyes pleading for help, but I immediately held my hands up.
“You’re on your own for this one, mate.”
He groaned, turning back to Blake. “Okay, fine, whatever. Why should I care?”
“Devi is a walking, breathing toaster. If you don’t appease him by giving him whatever you’ve got on hand, then he’s either not going to toast your bread at all, or he’s going to do it improperly.”
Kevan immediately looked stricken. Reluctantly, he looked at the bag, then at Devi, then back to the bag. He struggled with the decision for a moment, milking the dramatic moment for whatever it was worth, then, with an air of defeat, held the bag out to Devi. The rabbit merely nodded, as if this had been the inevitable result all along and he was just waiting for the Ranger to catch up to him, and took it out of his hands.
“I swear, the bunny better fix something pretty good.” Kevan grumbled, though I could hear that there wasn’t any real heat to it.
Honestly, he sounded more curious about what Devi was going to get around to making, and from the expressions on his Arcanine’s face, the fire dog felt the same way. Pidgeotto had even come down from on high, probably from some kind of perch where she could brood while overlooking us all, just to get a closer look.
Devi inventoried everything with the rapid efficiency of someone who knew exactly how to catalog a chaotic spread of supplies across a number of different storage methods. Going off of what I knew of Blake, I suspected that that was pretty accurate to reality, with Blake potentially picking up other trainers like he had me. Devi was most likely used to just dealing with having no idea what kind of supply spread he was dealing with until he rifled through all of it himself and got a good idea of it. With inventory done, though, he immediately got down to work.
Arcanine was obviously deeply interested, as Devi dove head first into assembling and throwing together, making something that could be done with minimal heat. Even Pidgeotto, who had affected an air of polite disinterest, had mostly forgotten about the mask as she watched Devi’s rapid paw movements with naked interest. Devi, on the other hand, was entirely and completely invested in his craft, rapidly assembling a series of varying sandwiches. He’d fished what looked to be provolone cheese out of somewhere, and was using the cheese and a bit of heat to glue sandwiches together.
Sure, there wasn’t much cooking to a sandwich, but I had to admit that when I received my own, it was perfectly toasted. Inside, the cheese was exactly the right heat to make it gooey without melting it so much that it was sloppy. That, right there, was years of careful practice and a lot of skill at work.
Kevan kept complaining right until he had a bite of his own sandwich. The moment it touched his tongue, he chewed once, then stopped. I watched closely, hiding the twitching of my mouth behind a hand, as his face did a series of incredible contortions that I didn’t think were possible for a human in that short a time. Eventually, he sighed, closed his eyes, and absolutely demolished the rest of it.
“Sorry, Arca.” He mumbled to his Pokemon through a mouthful of cheese, meat, and various sandwich components. “Guess we’re handing control over eats to the rabbit.”
I sensed that Arcanine might be a little miffed at the loss of control over something that they’d bought and brought, but he was too busy savouring his own offering to object. Pigeotto, as well, was rapidly working her way through her third sandwich, scraping anything that she happened to miss on the first pass with her beak.
With lunch complete, and Kevan having finally and completely surrendered full command of anything even vaguely edible to chef rabbit, it was time for us to move on. The mountain pass up the Route called to us even now, a marker of the rough halfway point of the journey to Oreburgh. It’d taken me a long time to get this far, days and obstacles without mentioning the dam and the time spent there, and I was eager to climb the mountain and get through the pass. Hopefully, Kevan was wrong about things, and there wasn’t more trouble waiting for me ahead. One crisis was enough, and I hoped desperately that it would be smooth sailing from here out.
We found the weather clear and the path relatively straight forwards, from there out. With the lack of forests around, the amount of obstacles that had made their way onto the Route had dropped drastically. Occasionally, a boulder or a pile of stone had fallen in to block our way forwards, but the former was easy enough to roll out of the way and the latter could be simply negotiated. Every time we encountered an obstacle that we couldn’t easily clear on our own, Kevan marked the location to relay back to the Rangers, presumably to be cleared later by a team.
The other thing that grew less common as we worked our way up the mountain was Pokemon. Farther down, we’d seen quite a few wanting to challenge me or Blake, had gotten some good training off of them. Up here, however, with the altitude rising, they became less and less frequent. Whether that was because they didn’t exist, because the local Pokemon had no desire to fight random trainers passing by, or otherwise, they weren’t there. Which meant that, increasingly, practice matches were between the three of us and our teams.
----------------------------------------
Ajax threw himself out of the way of a blast of flame, Arcanine steaming with heat in the cool air as he cycled Fire energy in his aura. It wasn’t quite what I’d seen Devi do, owing to the fire dog not being quite the equal of the Champion-ranked rabbit, but it was impressive nonetheless. More than Ajax could manage without a running start, that being time to gather a head of steam.
Where Drake tended to dance around attacks, Ajax often used his superior strength to nearly chuck himself out of the way. It was slightly faster, but markedly less flexible, leaving him open to follow up attacks if our opponent guessed which way he was going to go. We were working on doing more from a stop, leaping over or diving under techniques to decrease the likeliness of a hit. The problem was that the alpha houndour was a big target, and a tempting one at that. Hard not to hit something so large. It didn’t help that he was decently slower than Drake was, not as light or as quick on his feet, and quite a bit physically denser. Higher strength, lower speed.
This meant that things that Ajax didn’t think he could dodge, he usually tensed up to tank. Bracing himself was sometimes a good tactic, if he really could tough something out, but it also left him vulnerable. Freezing in place like that added ‘easy’ to ‘big target’, a habit that we had to train him out of.
“Move!” I yelled, as Ajax saw the next blast and his muscles began to tense, preparing to tough his way through it. With a growl, he instead leaped to the side instead. “Charge an ember!”
The Fire TE in his aura flared, like magnesium exposed to flame. It coiled around him, ready to spring to his command, eager and barely contained. It was rather beautiful to watch, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to be distracted looking at it. The system was that, if I called for him to bring up an ember, he was going to hold it for the next three attacks that Arcanine threw at him. If he couldn’t do it, then he had to dodge a series of attacks, followed by trying again. We’d worked this out as a way to break his habit of bracing, as well as working on his control and his ability to hold constant Type energy without losing it.
The eventual goal of the process was to make it so that Ajax would hold a level of Fire energy in his aura near-constantly, which was one of the basic requirements for the Flash Fire technique. With the ability to constantly hold the energy in near-perpetuity, you had the vital step to catching and repurposing Fire energy thrown at you. Arcanine had learned the technique through long and grueling training, as it was apparently a must with any Fire type Pokemon that wanted to work with the Rangers. That and Sunny Day, apparently, which involved a more advanced process that involved diffusing Fire energy into the environment, and which Arcanine didn’t think Ajax anywhere near ready for.
He dodged the first, skating out of the way and sending the pebbles that littered the ground scattering, the ball of flame leaving a line of scorched earth in its wake. The strain was already clear on his face, the narrowing of his eyes and his mouth pulled back into a grimace. From what I’d gathered, holding the pattern for a technique in your aura without the training to make it second nature was something like planking: it started easy, then became exponentially more difficult the longer you held that awkward position.
The second fireball skated by. Ajax had dodged it as well, but his landing hadn’t been perfect, stumbling slightly as he tried to split his concentration. Eventually, this would take no focus at all as he exercised his aura and his ability to generate and hold TE, but that’s what this training was all about. Slipping on the scree, he nearly lost his focus, holding it at the last minute- just in time for the third fireball to nearly impact his side. In a moment of desperation, he threw himself onto his side, sliding against the ground… and still holding the energy in his aura. He kept it cycling for a few moments more, breathing in and out as he pushed himself to his paws, then looked at me. I gave it a beat, two- then nodded. With a sigh of relief and a visible slump, he released the TE.
“Nice! Nice work!” Kevan clapped from the other side of our impromptu battlefield, enthused. “See? I told you you’d get it.”
I walked up to Ajax, grabbing his head between my hands and rubbing it with a smile. He gave me his own smile back, exhausted but proud.
“What do you think?” I asked. I heard Kevan hum as he came closer.
“You’re getting closer, Ajax.” He said, thoughtful. “You’re getting it, and about as fast as I figured for a Jinnouchi houndour- if what I’ve heard is right.”
I thought about the various pieces of information I’d scraped from the Jinnouchi’s files on it. Going off of what I’d seen, we were on track, maybe a little ahead. Somewhere between Ajax’s talent and his unwavering drive, we were seeing very good improvement. When we’d first met, he’d maybe scratch out a win in a rank one match, going off of what I’d seen of rank one trainers online. Now, however, he’d give a rank two a run for their money. It was hard to express how proud of him I was.
“I think we’re at a good place for Type energy control, yeah?” I asked. Ajax nodded, and Arcanine gave us a single nod, giving Ajax an approving look that made the houndour straighten up. “We’re already working on the bracing habit. I think it’s time to take a little break from the more physical stuff, today. What do you say, Arcanine, want to teach Ajax a technique?”
The big fire dog puffed out a breath through his nose, giving Ajax a measuring look. Ajax reacted by trying to straighten up even more, like a soldier being inspected by a commanding officer. Drake would’ve sent a measuring look right back, and it just highlighted the difference between my boys. I could see how Ajax hungered both for the approval of what he thought of as his superior, and for their knowledge, and showed it by watching them closely and trying to show how dutifully he listened whenever the opportunity arose.
A moment, and Arcanine huffed again, nodding. He turned away, flicking his tail, obviously a signal to follow. Ajax fully leapt to his feet, obviously trying to contain his excitement, and followed directly after the larger canine. It was somewhat odd, seeing a canine that was even larger than Ajax’s already impressive size, but I was slowly growing used to the pony-sized fire dog. Just one of those things that you had to get used to, in the Pokemon world.
“So, what do you think of him?” I asked Kevan, settling down on a nearby rock.
Far enough away that we wouldn’t be affected by the heat, Arcanine breathed in and out, Fire energy flaring around his form. It concentrated around his mouth, wrapping his canine fangs with heat. When he bit out at a piece of scraggly wood, it burst into flames, directly exposed to the extreme heat that radiated from his mouth and fangs. Ajax watched in open-mouthed awe, as Arcanine turned back and valiantly resisted preening.
“I think he’s strong, got quite a bit of talent under the hood. He’s going to catch up to Arca real quick, and then probably surpass him.”
I gave Kevan a glance, surprised at the flat observation. “I’m not sure you’re giving Arcanine enough credit.” I said.
“Oh, no, I absolutely am. Thing is, strong as Arca is, he’s a Ranger Pokemon. We don’t focus on power or strength training, he’s only as strong as he is because-” He glanced away with a smile. “Well, anyway. The point is that Ajax has power already, he’s got talent, he’s got an amazing family history. And above anything else, he’s got so much room to grow it’s incredible. It won’t be long before he’s going to be able to bring more to bear than Arcanine can, just because it’s his goal.”
I let out a soft hum.
“You know, I have to wonder if this is right.”
Kevan gave me a quizzical look. “Dunno what you mean.”
“Well, just- I have doubts, I suppose. I know Ajax wanted to come, that he chose to do so, but I guess I hesitate sometimes, knowing I’m training him to fight. And Drake, as well.”
I looked at Kevan, realizing that he was blinking at me with an expression that was equal parts taken aback and intensely curious. I felt myself flush slightly, looking away in a moment of embarrassment, and somewhat regretting that I’d said anything.
“Ah, sorry, just-”
“No, don’t worry about it. I’ve never even heard anyone really express an idea like that before.”
I twitched. “Really?”
“Well, yeah.” He gestured out there, to where Ajax was trying to form his TE into the right patterns. “Look at them. They live for this. And not because they were told to, or because it’s their destiny or something, it’s because getting stronger? Beating opponents? Honing themselves, and conquering challenges? It’s what they’re all about. Pokemon rejoice in sharpening their edge, in clashing against those that are also honed. They challenge each other and themselves constantly, to be the best that they can be. Besides being our friends, it’s one of the biggest reasons they listen to us, because we can make them sharper than they could ever hope to be on their own.”
“Huh. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard anybody put it like that.” Come to think of it, the only person that I could think of that really didn’t like Pokemon fighting was N, and I’d never played Black/White. “I guess that I didn’t really consider that they might seek it out as much as you say they do.”
“Well, yeah, how-” He glanced upwards at the sky, which was slowly turning purple with the coming sunset. “Ah, yeah, you’re amnesiac, aren’t you? You just wouldn’t remember.”
“Remember?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“It’s something that everybody learns early on. Pokemon won’t attack you without very good reasons, but they seek challenges and obstacles, things to overcome. Especially strong Pokemon will set up shop in berry groves or places with abundant resources, both to guard and nurture them for others as well as providing a place where they can field challenges from weaker wild Pokemon. Pokemon practically line up along the edges of the Routes, looking for trained Pokemon to fight, and sometimes seeking out a trainer to partner with themselves.”
“Oh.” I thought about it for a moment, picking it apart. “They really do seek out being stronger, then. It’s, what, an instinct for them?”
“More like a unified desire. There’s no happier Pokemon than a Pokemon that feels the strength of the muscles flexing under their coat, the power that flows easily through their aura. Pokemon aren’t stagnant or static, they change constantly day to day, chasing an unattainable ideal. Ultimate strength.”
“I suppose you’re never really perfect, are you?” I mused. “There’s always more to learn. There’s always someone better, more powerful. And I guess Pokemon in general see that as a challenge, as something they can commit themselves to.”
“See?” Kevan smiled. “You’re starting to get it. Becoming better, achieving a higher peak than the last, is their goal for their entire lives. They might be brave, or laid back, or nervous, but they all want to be stronger. And one of the best ways to be stronger is to have a pack at your back, one that will back you through thick and thin, lift you up when you don’t quite have the strength.”
I thought back to the origin story of the Jinnouchi that Sakae-sama had told me, that lone Jinnouchi befriending a houndoom. A friendship so powerful that it had echoed through time, and made the Jinnouchi one of the powers of Sinnoh. I thought about Blake, who brought together all his Pokemon, the core of their group that every one of them revolved around, and who knew all their quirks inside and out. I thought all the way back to the first time I’d ever met Drake, a desperate plea to a Dark type sitting in a window, achieving something neither of us could’ve done alone.
You knew intuitively that ‘ape together strong’ was as much true as it was a meme. But, to be honest, it wasn’t something I’d really considered. Here, the relationships between trainers and their partner Pokemon was what made their strength, not the trainer or the Pokemon themselves. They were what they were and they had the power that they had because of the both of them, together. They weren’t strong because one of them had read a ton of books and attended lessons, or because the other was a creature that wielded mystical powers. They were strong because they came together, because they faced challenges together, because they pushed through with determination.
It was something to think about, when we finally turned in for the night. Lying there, awake, with Drake pressed against my side and Ajax’s deep breathing pushing out the chill of the night, I turned it over in my head. What being a trainer really meant, how it really mattered for us.
“Hey, Drake?” I nudged the Dark type gently. He made an unintelligible sound, then lifted his head, looking at me. “I’m really glad you decided to come with me.”
He sat there for a moment, turning what I’d said over in his head. Slowly, something resembling a smile worked its way across his face, and he nuzzled my hand with his nose. Smiling back at him, I ran my fingers over his head.
----------------------------------------
As we slowly climbed up the slopes of the mountain, the average air temperature slowly ticked downwards, making the days less warm and the nights markedly colder. With all three of us possessing Fire types, however, it wasn’t something that significantly affected us in any meaningful way. It just made us cuddle closer to the organic space heaters at night, though Kevan kept a wary eye on the thermometer in between the high-energy antics and jokes that I was growing used to.
Ajax and Drake’s training intensified, the two of them working closely with their respective matching Type mentors. Jive had needed time to figure out how he was going to teach Drake in his entirely new form, but that just meant he pushed all the harder when he did. We’d figured out a pattern of two training days, with a third day devoted to just making distance and resting when we did find another campsite.
I had expected to find prepared campsites, things that had been set up ahead of time by trainers, more and more rare as we got farther up Coronet. Instead, I found that we’d settled into a schedule, making it from prepared campsite to prepared campsite as we climbed upwards. With the terrain rougher and much less flat, the Rangers had done work to set up campsites for future patrols and trainers following the Route. We were bedding down in campsites that were relatively flat and stone free, often with fire pits already set up, an interesting change from the long section of our journey where we’d made do with any piece of flat enough ground we’d come across.
Occasional rains chilled into slush, then light snow. It was common to wake up in the mornings to find the area around us coated in a light layer of frost, and our breaths puffed constantly. Ajax steamed almost constantly in the chilly air, something that he found greatly amusing, though the other Fire types seemed to consider it a moderate annoyance. From Devi’s grumbling and waving of his paws, I figured that it was a matter of the steam interfering with them having a clear sight of their surroundings. Understandable, honestly.
I took to taking pictures of our campsites and sneaking pictures of my traveling partners, often candid. The album on my nav slowly swelled with a number of images; Arcanine and Kevan wrestling, the fire dog obviously somewhere between taking it easy on the squishy human and trying not to make him too flat but still enjoying it immensely. A picture from behind of Devi and Blake, seated on a long flat rock, steaming cups of tea set down next to them, staring out at the view. Drake, focused intently on something that Jive was explaining to him, Jive’s claws sketching something in the dirt.
It was starting to make me a little nervous about the fragile little device, kept charged by Mika’s efforts and what solar cells we had between us. I knew how fragile electronics could be, especially on the road, and I didn’t want to accidentally fry or destroy my only record of all the images I’d taken. I was starting to understand how my mum felt when she worried about the condition of all the photo albums that she had stashed about the house, and I wasn’t sure that I liked the feeling. I vowed to figure out if there was a proper online storage solution when we hit Oreburgh, and, in the long term, start putting aside a bit of my monthly League allowance for a laptop. And some decent photovoltaic cells. And, hey, why not a Sylph backpack while I was at it.
We crossed a second river, this one much wider than the one that the dam had blocked up and running much faster. Thankfully, fording this one wasn’t necessary, as a series of bridges crossed the gaps over it. A few of the heavier Pokemon had to be recalled, and I really didn’t like how the bridge creaked underneath our feet, but we made it just fine. Despite me desperately trying not to look down at the fall into whitewater rapids beneath my feet.
I tried very, very hard to push thoughts of Death in the Grand Canyon out of my head, and the entire sections devoted to falls and the river. Not something you wanted to think about at all, suspended tens of meters above a roaring river in the mountains.
With the river crossed, we were finding ourselves approaching the halfway point of our journey. Soon, we’d be at the pass that split the spine of Coronet and the wider Sinnoh region, allowing the 207/208 crossing of the ridgeline. First, of course, we’d be coming across the fork where the 208 turned into the 207, and where the 211 led north along the side of Coronet. It ran all the way up the mountain range, almost all the way to the northern tip of Sinnoh, terminating in Greenstation Town according to my nav.
One day, I might find myself following that path northwards in that direction, out of curiosity and exploration if nothing else. I was somewhat wary of something that took me so close to the summit of Coronet, even if the 211 was kilometers away from it. I was already weird enough, and had attracted the attention of one legendary. I was pretty sure that Arceus themselves hung around the peak, and I had zero desire to tangle with Pokemon uppercase-G God.
I should’ve known, however, that the trip was going a little too smoothly.
----------------------------------------
“From what I know, it’s about coating yourself in flames and tackling your opponent. So it’s kind of like Tackle, but instead of Normal energy, you’re using Fire.” I explained to Ajax.
He looked dubious about it, and I wasn’t even quite sure that I was explaining it adequately myself. Flame Wheel would be an incredibly useful technique to add to Ajax’s arsenal, which I wanted to balance with a mix of ranged and melee techniques. I wanted to make him a nightmare at any range: I’d learned my lesson from Drake being almost entirely a knife fight combatant. It was also something I wanted Ajax to try figuring out for himself based on what descriptions I could scrape together from the dex, without Devi or Arcanine’s help. Would be a good exercise for him.
“Yeah, I know, it’s not the best description. But I think it’s all we’re going to get, unless-”
“Cam!”
I turned my head towards the front of the pack. We’d been trekking up a mountain trail by this point, winding and cut into the stone as it rose upwards. The sedate and occasional rise had been left far behind us, and now the ground climbed in much sharper degrees, fast enough that the Fire types had been feeling a bit of the altitude difference rather than it being gentle enough for them to adapt to day after day.
I frowned slightly at the voice, Kevan’s I guessed? Which sounded somewhat urgent. Abandoning my lackluster explanation of Flame Wheel, and with Ajax right on my heels, I moved up the trail and towards the front of the stopped group. Drake, who had been working with Jive on a Dark channeling process, fell in next to me.
It was, as I guessed, Kevan. Blake was nearby, however, looking markedly grim as he had a whispered conversation with Devi, who was opening and closing his paws. There was a note of tension among the group that I hadn’t felt since…
The thought was cut off as Kevan noticed me, giving me a nod.
“Your friend is here.” He said, voice low.
Something inside me clenched. My eyes flicked to our right, in the direction that Kevan had been facing, and the direction that I belatedly realized that Blake and Devi had angled themselves in.
Sure enough, there, among the gray stone, was the white and black of the absol. They stood proud on one of the rocks, frost hewn all around them, looking down on us with the imperious bearing that I remembered from the last time we’d met her. Examining her closer, however, I could see how her fur was somewhat bedraggled, like she hadn’t had the time to clean herself recently, and markings of dirt mixed into the silver fur made that quite a bit more likely.
This time, Blake didn’t stop me as I went to get closer, Ajax lingering behind while Drake stayed at my side, expression completely serious. I stopped a good respectful distance away from the rocky perch that she’d taken up. Sure, we’d worked together to mitigate the dam disaster, but I wasn’t going to assume for a moment that that would make her comfortable with us. I wasn’t going to press boundaries unless she made the first move to.
“Hello!” I inclined my head respectfully, and Drake, taking my cue, copied the gesture. “I would say that it’s a pleasure to see you again, but I suspect that it’s not just a pleasant visit?”
She shook her head, and I was slightly pleased to see a flash of regret, like she regretted that it wasn’t just a visit for pleasure. Hey, I wasn’t going to argue with getting in good with the local disaster alert system. Though, I thought speculatively, I supposed that her approaching me for the third time in a row about something meant that she was already at least somewhat comfortable with me.
She turned away, nodding off the trail again and to the south, away from the river. We were between two forks of it, one tracing farther up Coronet before terminating in a mountain valley, and the other which we’d just crossed. If there was anything happening, I guessed, then it didn’t have anything to do with the rivers. Which I was decently happy about, given that I thought I was well and truly done with water disasters for the moment. Still, it was hard to make levity over something an absol was calling me for.
This time, when she walked away in the direction that she’d pointed, she didn’t look back to make sure we were following. For our part, we hadn’t hesitated to follow when she started walking away, but perhaps she simply knew that we wouldn’t. Ajax came up to join us as we followed, the rest of our party trailing after us. Glancing backwards, I realized that they were spreading out, forming a sort of perimeter and keeping an eye on our surroundings. Blake, himself, sent a glance eastward and scowled, touching the gap in his belt that had held the Pokeball he’d used to grab the gengar.
Unlike the dam disaster, however, the absol didn’t lead us directly towards where the dam was. This time, she meandered a bit, serpentining across the mountainside. Occasionally, she’d stop and focus, her horn glowing as she frowned. I remembered how sure she’d been, leading us to the site of the dam, and to where the onix had made their nest. Did that mean that she’d sought us out the second that she’d sensed something instead of scouting it out herself? Did different forms of disaster make different levels of feeling, and this was a lower grade one?
My musing was interrupted as Kevan jogged up next to me, eyes sweeping the area around us. His level of alert was different than Blake’s, though I struggled to say how. Still, he seemed to be specifically looking for something, maybe? What I wouldn’t give to not be in a constant wrestling match with my own brain meats for information about other people.
“Do we know what it is, yet? Any ideas?” He said to me, voice low.
“Not sure. From how she’s leading us, and how she’s feeling it out as she goes, I think she doesn’t know what she’s sensing either.”
“Can you give me anything more?”
I shrugged. “My dex has pretty limited information about absols, they’re way too solitary and antisocial for a good body of study to have been put together about them. I only know so much, definitely not enough to tell anything about the disaster that she’s leading us towards.”
“Any guesses, then?”
I hesitated, and shared an uncertain look with Drake. I wasn’t going to just toss unsubstantiated thinking out there, and I certainly didn’t want to lead us towards a false conclusion based on guesswork. Still…
“Well… you remember the onix?” He nodded. “Maybe roughly equal to that? She doesn’t seem to have the urgency that she had when we were running up to where the dam was with all due haste.”
“Well, it’s something.” he muttered. “Thanks. I’ll relay it back.”
He patted me on the shoulder, then slowed his walking, falling back to where Arcanine trotted and starting a quick discussion with the large Fire type. I turned forwards again, to where the absol had found herself a vantage point, and was staring into the middle distance, horn glowing softly. I frowned. If only I had a way of speaking to-
My palm met my forehead in a soft ‘paff’, my lengthening hair providing too much of a cushion to get a good slapping sound out of it. I turned to Drake, who was watching my behaviour with a detached sort of interest, clearly more focused on our surroundings just in case this was a repeat performance. I doubted it, but I’d already accepted that my Pokemon weren’t going to be convinced otherwise.
“Drake. Do you think you could talk to her?” I gestured in the direction of the absol. “She might have a better idea of what we’re looking for, how urgent it is, how major of a disaster we’re looking at.”
He weighed what I said, blinking, then nodded. Clearly, he hadn’t considered just talking to the mystery absol, though, being fair, he was more focused on other things right now. Given how he’d struggled to protect me on his own before, I thought it was understandable that he might very much not want to be taken by surprise. He glanced around, then let out a small bark, bringing Ajax in closer from where the houndour was moving along the edge of the rough path farther back. They had a quick discussion, and then I found myself under the guard of my Fire type, while Drake took a deep breath and stepped forwards.
I watched as he walked up to the rock where the absol was perched. She’d been waving her horn back and forth, trying to get a sense of the direction she wanted to go in perhaps, when she paused and turned her attention to Drake. They spoke between themselves, a low exchange that, I noted, still lacked true urgency. Drake made a noise that I guessed was inquiring, and the absol nodded in response. He nodded in return, then turned back and walked in our direction.
“What’d she say?” I asked him as he approached us. Ajax was similarly intrigued, despite how he was supposed to be keeping an eye on our surroundings. I couldn’t find it in me to fault him for it.
Drake frowned, staring into nothing and attempting to piece together what he wanted to express and how he wanted to express it. The language barrier was something that I felt keenly in moments like this: typically, it wasn’t so much of an issue when I could get the gist out of their expressions and body language. Here, however, I was suffering from a lack of specific information, and Drake’s inability to communicate it in more than a simplistic manner. After a few moments, however, he nodded to himself and turned back to me, tilting his head.
“... You want me to ask?” He nodded. “Alright, uh. Is it dam severe?” A shake of the head, no. “Okay. More in line with the onix, like I guessed?” He thought for a moment, then nodded, stopped, and bobbed his head back and forth. “Kinda. Alright. Does she know what it actually is, or is she in the dark about what the exact nature of the event is?” He gave me a look. Ah, yes or no questions. “Does she know what it is?” Head shake. “So she’s in the dark about it as much as we are, and trying to figure it out. Thanks, Drake, that at least puts me a little more at ease. Kevan and Blake should relax a little, too.”
I cupped the side of his head with my hand, rubbing the inside of his ear with a thumb. His eyes slid closed as he pressed into the attention, making a soft thrumming noise that I associated with enjoyment. Ajax licked my other hand and gave me a piteous look, being left out. I gave a small chuckle and splayed my fingers over his head as well.
“Don’t think I forgot how you’ve been guarding us. Good job.”
He did a little tippy-tappy dance with his paws on the stone surface of the trail, obviously enthused at the attention and the compliments I was giving him. I gave them both a little attention, thankful that the crisis was a little less urgent than I’d initially assumed, before sending them on their way. I turned and made my way back towards where Kevan and Blake were speaking with each other, with Devi nodding or shaking his head to an occasional question.
“- we have enough people and Pokemon that I feel comfortable with running three shifts, if this is all that bad. We might not have a lot of space to work, but it’s something we’ll have to figure out when we get there.” Blake rattled out, clearly thinking his way through dealing with the crisis already.
“Sure, sure. I can’t imagine either of mine objecting to anything. What do you think, any problems?” Kevan addressed the last to Devi, who simply shook his head. He smiled. “Good. And hey, you did a pretty great job managing the last crisis, so I can’t see how either of you’d trip over yourself at this one.”
Devi huffed through his nose, creating a small plume of steam in the cold air. He gently punched one of Kevan’s shoulders, who immediately played it up as if he’d wounded the poor, fragile human. Devi simply rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t hide the amusement that played across his face. The amusement faded into a wary sort of curiosity as his eyes flicked over and he saw me coming. Following his gaze, Blake tensed slightly, and something harder slid in behind Kevan’s eyes.
“So, what are we looking at?” Kevan asked.
“We’re still not entirely sure.” He groaned, and Blake grimaced. “Like I thought, she doesn’t actually know what she’s looking for any more than we do, just that it’s big enough to attract her attention.”
“What do we know, then?” Blake asked, stepping forwards.
“We know that it’s not as severe as the dam. Along the lines of my theory that it’s closer to the onix. Which was still a major event, but not one that endangered thousands of people.”
Blake looked up at the sky, thinking for a moment. “I guess there’s nothing to do but keep following the absol and try to figure out what we’re doing on the fly.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it I think.”
It wasn’t the answer I’d wanted to give them, or the answer that they wanted, but it was at least more information than we had before. Which sounded somewhat lackluster, even inside my own head, but it was what I had to deal with. Nothing to do but keep moving forwards.
“So, what’s your guess?” Kevan asked.
“Nnnnot sure. Could be a rockslide.”
I hummed. “Could be. Would have to be pretty major, for it to attract the attention of an absol.”
“Maybe. I just feel like we’re missing something.” I raised an eyebrow at Blake, who answered it with a shrug. “Yes, I know it’s obvious that we are. I’m stating that I feel like we’ve overlooked something.”
Kevan spun in a circle, giving everything around us a critical gaze. “I’m not sure what we could’ve missed, not like there’s much around up here. A few pines, rocks, some snow…”
He paused, eyes narrowing. Following his gaze, he was staring at a snow bank, the white pile of stuff stacked against the slope-facing side of a tall pine.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. He twitched, eyes flicking to me, then back.
“Just a thought, but… this trail takes us higher up the range, to the side of the pass itself. As we’ve been ascending in altitude, snow has been appearing more and more, in increasing concentrations. Could be nothing, but…”
“You think that it might be an avalanche in the making, or something similar?” Blake was now focused, looking curious. I supposed that avalanches weren’t something that someone from Galar thought about with any regularity, but with the steep slopes and cold air here…
“Maybe. We’ll have to get closer to actually make any kind of determination, but I think we’re on the right track for that one.”
I thought about how avalanche prevention was carried out back home. I knew that a large number of surplus artillery guns were purchased by organizations responsible for it, for the purposes of carrying out targeted artillery strikes against a large amount of built up snow. The explosion from the artillery shell was often enough to trigger the entire buildup starting to slide down the mountain, thereby preventing it from building up enough that it was a significant danger to people. Devi or Arcanine might be enough to trigger an avalanche, but that was a rather dangerous way of doing so.
“If it is an avalanche- and I’m not saying it is, just working with the idea that it might be.” I said. “How are we going to deal with it? We don’t have anything like remotely detonated explosives, nothing to trigger something like that in a safe manner. Unless you want-” I nodded to Devi- “to stand in the way and melt his way through it…”
“Could be done.” I gave Blake an incredulous look, but he seemed entirely serious. “If it comes down to that, and given just a little bit of buildup, Devi could probably punch through the center of an avalanche hard enough to turn a large amount of the snow instantly into steam. What we’d be dealing with then would be a steam explosion, though one softened by the avalanche itself.”
“Huh, could work.” Kevan said, speculatively. “Between our three Fire types, they could pretty well stop an avalanche in its tracks, though they’d have to be in its path. The steam would be vented upwards, what didn’t kill itself battling the momentum of the rest of the snow. I’ve heard of this tactic being used before, though I’m not usually on the mountain details that have to play it out. Champion-level Fire types being called in to carry it out is pretty common.” He grinned at Blake. “Good thing we’ve got one right here then, huh?’
Blake simply nodded, then turned to Devi. “What do you think, mate? Willing to give it a go?”
The rabbit narrowed his eyes at the mountain in front of us, obviously thinking about it. After a moment, he nodded, then shrugged. I looked to Blake for clarification, being the one most used to interpreting Devi’s communication.
“It’s a yes, though he’s going to have to take a look first. If it’s too big, then he’s not sure that he could deal with it.”
“Alright.” I nodded, adjusting my hiking bag on my back. “So we have a way to deal with the resulting avalanche. How are we going to set it off in the first place, then?”
“Oh, that part’s easy. I’ve got a pidgeotto, after all. A strong enough wing attack or whirlwind will start that avalanche easy enough, and she’s trained in the process of doing so, though we never expected to actually put that training to use.”
“Great. So the Flying type starts an avalanche, and the Fire types just stand in the way and try to vaporize the snow.” The three of them nodded together, though Drake looked quite a bit more dubious. “This certainly isn’t a terrible idea at all…” I muttered, then shook my head. “Well, before we make it concrete, I’d like to actually see the severity of what we’re dealing with beforehand.”
That seemed to be logical enough, and they accepted it without comment.
The trail curved up the mountain, negotiating its way up steep slopes and past ridgelines and small cliffs. I had to wonder whether this had been a trail carved by Pokemon, or by the Pokemon partners of some mountain climbers, given the way that the stone was often smashed or scattered along the trail as makeshift gravel. I didn’t think that it had been done with tools, because I didn’t see any of the telltale marks of tool usage along some of the rock walls that we passed. Additionally, I remembered the whole thing about using vehicles or tools of any kind this far from human civilization of any kind.
As we climbed farther and farther, the snow became thicker, landing in deeper drifts and layers around the trail. The trail itself seemed to have been kept mostly clear of the stuff, without any of the blockages that I expected. Clearly, whether this trail had been cleared originally by humans or not, the local Pokemon had endeavoured to maintain it to the best of their ability.
Pine trees became more and more populous as we climbed, passing the zone of very little plant life and entering the band of high-altitude green before we hit the final band of white and gray that denoted the very peaks of the mountains. We wouldn’t be climbing anywhere near that high, given that the trail didn’t actually lead towards any of the peaks, but a glance at my nav and some back of the napkin math revealed that we’d already climbed above the entrance to the pass. Looking to our right, to the north, I could see below us where the gap in the mountains opened up for the 208 as it worked its way in.
“Oh.”
I was distracted from my musings by Kevan, who was looking forward with a grimace written all over his face. A glance at Blake revealed the Champion looking quite serious, and when I looked forwards, I realized why.
For a moment, I thought that, impossibly, a cliff had extended itself outwards from the stone, creating an overhang that I thought was somewhat impossible facing in the direction of the pass. After a moment, however, I realized that the entire thing was impossibly white, even under the overhang where no snow should be able to stick. And then, it hit me.
I wasn’t staring at a cliff with an overhang, this was one huge buildup of snow, layered over itself again and again. It was piled up on the mountainside, perhaps hundreds of metric tons, all ready to come down and block the pass completely. I imagined what would have happened had we simply gone into the pass as we’d intended, walked right under this huge thing, and made some loud sounds. The entire thing of snow could’ve come down on us, burying us along with the pass, and nobody would know what would’ve happened until somebody came through to check when the snow melted.
“Shit.” Kevan whispered, the most serious I’d seen him since we’d handed over the gengar. “I knew there had been a blizzard through here, a bunch of clouds squeezed dry by the mountain range, but I didn’t expect something like this.”
“Yeah.” I kept my voice low, quiet. My head was filled with scenes from movies where a loud enough sound set something like this off. “Must’ve stacked up, and without the Rangers doing avalanche prevention, there was nobody to notice or deal with it.”
“Guess it comes down to us.” Blake was simply seeing this as another problem, just something we needed to deal with.
“Honestly,” I said, my voice hedging towards thoughtfulness, “It’s not as bad as the dam. At least in this case, there’s only whatever’s in the pass right now in danger. Even if it were to come down on its own, all it would do is block the pass completely- ah, and endanger anybody in it.”
I very carefully didn’t point out what I’d been thinking about, that it could’ve been us in its path, but from the way that they both straightened it had come across anyway. The absol, now pacing at the head of our little group, looked perturbed, but not particularly concerned. I guessed that she’d come to much the same conclusion that we had, that thought this wasn’t a non-issue, it wasn’t as life threatening as the dam. I had to wonder if that was the difference that made this particular disaster something that she’d had a bit of trouble actually tracking down.
Blake breathed in, and out. “We should backtrack a little, find a place to set up camp.” He glanced at the sky, weighing where the sun was. “Late enough in the day that we’d need to set up camp soon anyway, and I think this is going to take a few days to solve.”
With that, I waved down the absol and Ajax, who had drifted to the front of the group and had been staring at the sheer amount of snow with awe. Their attention attracted, we started working our way backwards, seeking a flat enough area to set up for the night and figure out what we were going to do about this.
Behind us, the mass of snow creaked ominously.