Trapped in a cave, surrounded by Dark types, was not a situation I expected most trainers to be comfortable with. I’d be riding a knife’s edge, right on the brink of calling a command to Ajax and deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, getting out of there with all due haste. And I doubted that the population of Dark Pokemon would be particularly welcoming to me, either, tense at best and outright hostile at worst. It would be an explosive thing that could, at any moment, erupt into something far worse.
But, that… wasn’t how I felt. That wasn’t how this felt.
I stood in a cave that was more shadows than shafts of light, despite the little bit of sun that leaked through the tiny holes in the walls and roof. The sneasels moved in the darkness around me, eyes peering at me. Ajax and I were outnumbered, maybe ten or more to one. But, for all of this, for all these things, I didn’t feel uncomfortable, threatened. I was calm, collected. I felt like I was in a place that I belonged in.
Paying close attention to the Pokemon in the darkness around me, I quickly realised that they were no more tense than I was. I could see their expressions in the dim light, not hostile or angry, but curious. Some were speaking amongst themselves in hushed tones, examining us from various angles. A good few looked confused, like something didn’t quite fit with their expectations. When I looked up at the weaviles that perched above the entire crowd of Dark types, their expressions were more neutral than anything else. Weighing me with their eyes, trying to take my measure.
I breathed in and out, sending another glance over the Pokemon that surrounded us, then focusing in on the weaviles that sat above us. Between being of a higher evolution and sitting higher than the others, I figured it was safe enough to assume that they were the closest thing to leaders that this group had. As I made eye contact with the one at the front, they gestured with a claw, curiosity flickering behind their eyes. Now or never, I suppose.
“I’ve come with a warning. I was led here by an absol,” the Pokemon in the room went silent, then started chattering among themselves, a tone of urgency underlining their words. “And they showed me that there’s an avalanche hanging over the entire pass. It could collapse at any moment, at which point this entire place would be under tons of snow.”
I glanced around, examining the stone. Honestly, they’d probably be safer than a lot of the Pokemon that we’d come across. Their home would most likely survive the avalanche with little to no damage, given the sheer weight and durability of the slabs of stone and boulders that made it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wouldn’t even be the first avalanche it’d endured. Still…
“Working with the absol and a Ranger, we decided that the best course of action would be to set off the avalanche early, to prevent it building farther or going off without warning.” Something flashed behind the Pokemon’s eyes, but they closed them before I could see what it was. “We’ve been warning everyone living in the pass, so that they can properly evacuate the avalanche’s path, just in case.”
The weavile breathed in and out heavily, opening their eyes and forming a growled sentence, punctuated with them flexing their claws. I… really wasn’t sure what to make of that, it wasn’t anything that I would consider comprehensible. Ajax, on the other hand, clearly understood exactly what they were getting at, attracting my attention with how he suddenly straightened his back. From the offended expression on his face, I would wager that they were most likely doubting our word in this.
Ajax growled and barked out a sentence that caused the smaller sneasils to retreat slightly into the shadows around us, his own speech punctuated with heat rippling the air and a burst of flame from his nostrils as he huffed. Clearly, he didn’t think very much of what they’d said, and was making that perfectly clear. The weavile’s face twisted into a silent snarl, their eyes narrowing, but after a moment they turned their head away and huffed. Clearly, they weren’t offended by Ajax’s response, but they weren’t precisely happy about it.
I could feel the time slipping away from us. We hadn’t completed our section of the forest, and we were already the last ones that would be. I could feel the time in the day ticking away, towards the inevitable moment when the avalanche finally fell under gravity’s domain. Every moment we spent now arguing with this group was a moment that we hadn’t spent out there, warning Pokemon that would just evacuate the area and leave it at that. I took a step forwards, the eyes of the weavile immediately on me. I held my head high under the scrutiny: even here, in the heart of their home, I wasn’t going to just bow.
“If you don’t want to believe us, that’s fine. The snow that will cover the pass is right up the mountainside, obvious once you get close enough; you can go and see for yourselves, if that’s what you need to do to believe us.” I pointed towards the southern side of the pass. “If you have concerns, questions? If you need something else? Then we have a camp, up there, up the side of the mountain and just outside the pass, out of the path of the avalanche. You’re welcome to see things for yourself, seek us out if necessary.” I lowered my hand, then crossed my arms, staring the head weevile in the eye. “Otherwise? We were only here to warn you. We’ve done our job, and we can’t just stick around to answer whatever concerns you have right now. There are more Pokemon ahead of us in the pass that need the same warning, and we have limited time.”
With that, I turned on my heel and walked towards the passage between the stone slabs that we’d taken to get here. Halfway there, I paused, a hitch in my steps. Two sneasel were blocking the exit, flexing their claws and looking somewhat uncertain. Ajax was suddenly at my side, the heat he radiated chasing away any of the cold that the Dark/Ice types would enjoy, growling softly. The sneasel looked at him warily, then glanced upwards at the weavile. I followed their gaze.
They stared down at us, then turned, conferring among themselves. I wasn’t sure that Ajax and I could beat the entire colony, particularly in their own home, but we didn’t have to. We just had to punch enough of a hole through them that we could get out, into the trees, where Ajax wouldn’t have to be so restrained with his use of Fire energy. We knew this, and they knew this. And both of us knew that there was no reason that they should risk any of their own to try and stop us. There was a bone deep certainty in me, that this was how things would play. If I had to guess why they were holding us up at all, I would say that they were sending a message that we couldn’t just walk into and out of their home at our leisure. A message to prevent us, or potential rivals, from seeing them as weak.
Finally, they shared a look with the sneasels blocking our path, who seemed perfectly aware that they weren’t going to stop us if we really wanted through. The head weavile, who I was figuring as some kind of chief or pack leader of a sort, gave them a nod, and then shuffled aside. The expected response… but I carefully kept my face blank. If they wanted to do some kind of small powerplay to prevent a loss of some kind of face, then I wasn’t going to stop them, as long as it didn’t interfere with what we were doing overmuch. I afforded the leader a polite nod, then turned and walked through the opening, crouching downwards to slide my way through. I could feel the heat of Ajax following right behind me, all the way out.
I breathed deeply of the cold, crisp air as I slid myself back out into the sunlight again, steadying myself against the stone surface that formed the outside of their home. I felt a slight shivering in my extremities as a bit of adrenaline rocked my form. All of those sneasel could have jumped us. I didn’t think they’d actually be able to do anything before Ajax incapacitated enough of them that we could get out. However, that didn’t change the fact that I’d just walked right into a Pokemon den, then walked right back out again, unharmed. I turned and afforded Ajax a grin. The houndour just seemed relieved that we were out of there.
We reached the edge of the woods before I looked back, towards the rocks that the colony had made their home in. To my surprise, there was a single sneasel there, their claws pressed against the inside of the stone slab, watching us. Curiosity flickered in their gaze, watching Ajax, weighing him. Had he impressed them? Before I could get a better measure of them, however, they glanced up at my face. They seemed to bristle slightly as they realized I was watching them, then slid backwards into the shade of the stone. I lingered a few moments more, but they didn’t reappear, and so I turned back towards the woods ahead.
We didn’t see the moving shadows, or a single sign of a sneasel, throughout the woods. I figured that they’d stuck around to have a conversation among themselves, see if they could figure out what they were going to do with the situation that we’d presented them. I had no doubt that they were already choosing the members of their own colony that would be going out and confirming the information that we gave them. Hopefully, they’d see that we were telling the truth, and take the proper steps. Still, I dropped a GPS marker on the location of their rocky home. I’d come through again before we set off the avalanche, to make sure that they were gone or had bunkered up.
Eventually, we left the clawed trees that signaled their territory behind, and we started finding more normal Pokemon enclaves here and there. Many of them were flurries of activity as Pokemon appeared to be gathering whatever they thought they might need, preparing for the journey away from here in an inopportune time of the year. With these groups, we simply confirmed that they’d received the warning, before moving on to groups that still needed to hear it. I was somewhat heartened at how quickly it was spreading among the pine forest, even without our direct involvement. Meaning that there were many Pokemon, some of which we might have missed, that were going to be gone or at least duly warned.
We didn’t meet another group like the colony. I noted that most of them were much smaller groups, and that few, if any, had Dark types among them. I thought back to the clear marking of a large area of territory, the complete lack of other Pokemon within that area. Was there some amount of tension there, maybe?
“Hey, Ajax.” I said, my voice low.
We had just left a group of Pokemon behind, a small enclave of Fighting types that were even now prepping for a journey away from here, either farther down the pass or up into the mountains. I figured that this was as good a time as any to ask, and even if Ajax knew nothing about it, he could ask the question to the next group of Pokemon that we came across. He turned his head towards me, curious.
“Do you think you could ask the next group of Pokemon about the sneasels and weaviles? If there’s some kind of issue there, I’d like to know about it before it causes something that we’d have to deal with. We’ve got enough happening with the avalanche hanging over our heads, I don’t need to have an inter-Pokemon struggle happening right in the middle of it.”
He frowned, but nodded. As I understood it, he wasn’t sure about asking the question, but saw the logic in it from the way that I’d framed it. He’d ask, I didn’t have to worry about that, but he obviously wasn’t particularly eager to do so. If I was right, and there was some kind of tension there, I wouldn’t be particularly eager to do so either.
As it happened, we came across another group of Pokemon in the next clearing that we found. A group of bidoof, far enough away from the dam that I didn’t think they belonged to the group that the gengar had driven away, occupied the gap in the trees. They’d shorn through a number of the trunks that surrounded them, carving up the timber and using it to construct a shelter of sorts that they’d used to protect themselves from the elements. They paused when we entered the clearing, giving Ajax clearly nervous looks. Honestly, given the looks of the hellhound at my side, I couldn’t really blame them, but I had to wonder how they’d react if he was already evolved.
I stepped forward and made my speech; it was much like the one that I’d made to the weavile leader, a general warning about the disaster hanging over the entire pass. A note about it being visible, about us making a concerted effort to warn the Pokemon of the pass. This time however, I shared a glance with Ajax and waved him forwards. Lowering his head a little and generally trying to appear smaller than his already huge size, Ajax gently growled a question to the collected bidoof.
The reaction was immediate and obvious. Several of them hissed or made generally unpleasant noises, and I caught one or two of them sending anxious glances around at the forest behind us. I held up my hands, drawing their attention back to me as I made an effort to not make myself appear any larger than I already was.
“We’ve no intention of interfering with you beyond that. We just wanted to warn you, and ask you that question.”
Still, it was obvious from their now-collected stance, drawing closer to their shelter, that they weren’t going to be amenable to further questioning. I carefully took steps backwards towards the edge of the clearing, Ajax with me, making sure to make no sudden or threatening movements. It wasn’t like we needed to stick around for anything else, and we weren’t getting anything by sticking around. Just, as I’d noted before, wasting time better spent on further warnings.
Once we were beyond the edge of the clearing and completely out of sight and hearing of the inhabitants of it, I glanced at Ajax.
“Were they as hostile towards the idea as I gathered?”
He winced, nodded, then raised a paw and flicked it. I took that to mean that they were as much, if not more, hostile than I’d thought. It was my turn to wince.
“That… might cause a problem. This is going to be stressful enough, with us encouraging so many Pokemon to evacuate. We really don’t need a conflict between factions among the Pokemon themselves.”
Ajax nodded to himself grimly.
----------------------------------------
By the time we made it back to camp, the rest of the Pokemon and humans had as well. Most of them were gathered around the campfire, speaking with each other while something sizzled on a grill over the flames. I glimpsed the absol, standing beyond the edge of the camp, who nodded to me once and started down the path. She gave me a surprised look, however, when I stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“I don’t think you should leave just yet. You want to help, right?” She eyed me, warily, then nodded. “Then you’ll want to hear what I have to say. Just hang about a few minutes, and I’ll fill you in, yeah?”
She seemed to weigh it in her head, glancing at the pass behind me and clearly thinking about the things that she could be doing down there instead. After a moment, however, good sense seemed to win out, and she nodded to me. I smiled.
“Good.”
As I entered the camp, I took a sudden step back as a bundle of black and gray bounded towards me so fast that they were almost a blur. Drake collided with my chest hard enough to blow air out of my lungs, and nearly cause me to fall on my ass. Still, I couldn’t find it in myself to be mad in the slightest, hugging the warm ball of fur to me. He buried his nose under my chin, and I didn’t have the heart to stop him. I understood how worried he must’ve been, especially after we’d taken longer than we’d intended.
We sat there for a minute, and then I began walking towards the campfire again, where they’d recognized my approach. There was a palpable sense of relief that washed over them that I could sense even from here. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of offense at that: what had they even been worried about? Had I gained that much of a reputation for getting myself into situations already?
Drake drew his muzzle out from under my chin as we approached, a curious look in his eyes.
“I’ll explain it to everybody at once. Simpler that way.” I muttered to him. He shared a glance with Ajax, then nodded his acceptance.
It was apparent that Kevan and Pidgeotto had beaten me back to the camp, though the latter was beyond the warmth of the campfire and not even looking in our direction. I wondered if she was really that antisocial, or whether she just liked to put on the airs of an antisocial. Something to table for another time.
Kevan himself was sitting at the fire with Blake and Devi, the cinderace tending to the somethings that were cooking over the fire, and carrying on a conversation in hushed tones with Arcanine. Jive had taken up a position behind his partner, his huge arms crossed, and I reflected for a second that he now looked as intimidating externally as he’d already been internally. Noble and Mika, together as they ever were, seemed subdued, probably avoiding making too much noise for fear of setting things off.
“Sorry I’m late. We had a little bit of an encounter, delayed us a little, and that echoed out a bit.”
I settled at an empty place by the fire, Drake leaning against my side and Ajax laying with his back pressed against the burning logs. I gave him a look of concern, but he seemed perfectly happy with the burning wood on his fur, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done so. I’d have to make him dive into the snow a couple times before we went to bed tonight, though.
“I was about to take Pidgeotto out and find you.” Kevan said, with a small smile, though his expression was a lot more serious than it usually was. “Especially with all that talk you had about hikers going missing. I only held off as long as I did because you were with Ajax, and because the absol didn’t seem particularly worried.”
He glanced at the Pokemon in question, who had settled a little farther out, where the firelight didn’t clear the lengthening shadows of evening. She gave him an even look in return, eyes flashing in the light of the flames.
“Ran into a colony of sneasel and weavile.” I said.
Kevan sat up, looking truly alarmed for the first time, while Blake looked immediately concerned. Before they could speak, however, I started speaking again.
“Nothing came of it, we certainly didn’t fight them. They let us walk right into the middle of their colony, and I explained what was going on to a weavile that was, near as I could tell, their leader. They seemed perfectly willing to listen, took our warning pretty seriously, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that they appear to have claimed a large amount of territory, with a large buffer separating them from any other Pokemon in the area. With the chaos of evacuating and bunkering down so many different Pokemon, I can easily imagine something erupting.”
“You walked right into the nest of a bunch of Dark types, said your piece, and then walked right out again, fresh as daisies?” Kevan seemed aghast, almost off-balance. “I know I identified you as a potential Dark trainer, but I didn’t think…”
“That was dangerous and foolhardy.” There was a hard edge to the Galarian trainer’s voice, Blake’s eyes staring straight into mine in a way that made me look away, uncomfortable. “What if they hadn’t been so amiable? What if they’d taken offense to you, and another Dark type, violating their territory?”
I felt the almost childlike urge to defend myself, to insist that it didn’t matter if things might’ve not turned out alright, because they had. I suppressed the urge, however. I recognized that they were correct, there, that walking into your average Pokemon nest without those Pokemon specifically inviting you to was probably one of the stupider things a trainer could do. Still, I felt confident in my position.
“I don’t think they would’ve harmed me. They didn’t even stop me from getting closer or try to warn me away, and I know they were watching me almost the moment I entered their territory. If they’d wanted to block me from reaching their nest, then they could’ve blocked my path at any time, and I would’ve backed down.”
Kevan gave a long, drawn-out, and entirely exasperated sigh. “You’re a walking, talking headache, and I’m going to have to file so much paperwork because of you.”
“Uh.” I said, somewhat wrongfooted by that statement. I hesitated, then gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry?”
“Sorry doesn’t make the bureaucracy fairies disappear, Cam.” He groused, shaking his head. “Whatever. The important thing is you’re alright.” He pointed directly at me. “Don’t do that again. Alright?”
“Aye, yeah, won’t.” Probably.
Kevan stared at me suspiciously for a moment, Blake muttering something under his breath and rubbing his face. Still somewhat dubious, he turned away from the topic, seeming content to let it drop. For the moment, anyway.
“Pidgeotto and I finished our inspection of the snowpack.”
He set his own nav down on a camp table. Blake picked up his chair and moved it to one side of the table, to get a better look, while I scooted closer. The display showed the mountainside, though if it’d been the wrong angle or if I hadn’t known what to look for, I would’ve missed it entirely. Knowing, however, revealed the near-fin of snow that protruded from the mountainside, casting a shadow on the shallower snow beneath it.
“It’s meters of snowpack of varying density. Slab, not powder, so if it comes down, it’ll crack at the base and come down all at once.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.
“Bad. A powder slide might get bogged up among the trees. The sheer weight and momentum behind the slab, hundreds of tonnes of snow all moving as one, or several, big pieces, it’ll smash right through. Any trees in its way are either going to be flattened or swept along for the ride.”
He traced his finger along the ridgeline, and I could see that the edge of the sheaf of snow that would become the avalanche. It ran down a significant portion of the pass, sticking out from the mountain and hanging somewhat over the drop into the pass.
“Once it hits the bottom, it’ll break up and spread itself, most likely filling much of the pass. The Route will be covered, and much of the forest this side of it will be gone. The other side?” He shrugged. “Can’t say, reliably. Covered in a meter or two of snow, at best. Annihilated at worst.”
“So, a full evacuation of all the Pokemon is necessary, then?” Blake asked.
Kevan nodded. Blake, frowned, then dug around in a bag at his side, before moving a paper map. He unfolded the thing and spread it across the table, where I saw that it was a relatively detailed height map of the entire pass. I had to give it to him, he was impressively prepared for things like this. As I watched, he took out his own nav, zoomed out to show the rough columns that we’d had to divide among ourselves.
He took a marker, tracing them out, then started referencing Kevan’s nav instead. With a careful hand, he sketched out the ridge of snow that hung over the pass, outlining where it ran. I watched, reminded a little of how I’d looked at a map that showed the river, guessing at the size of the lake behind the dam and how much water would sweep downhill if the dam failed.
Based on Kevan’s aerial photographs, Blake’s map, and a number of landmarks that we were able to pick out, he determined that the snow itself was ready to fall all the way out to the three-way meeting of the 208, 207, and 211. A couple kilometers of snow, which could go at any time, filling the pass below and killing untold Pokemon and whatever animals were still hanging around in the winter conditions.
With that done, we started marking out the Pokemon we’d noted, their territories, and notable features of the land. The groups blended together somewhat for me, but I tried to parse them out as much as I could, the absol listening closely and Ajax trying to help as much as he could. The map filled out with circles, dots, little symbols that we quickly had to write out our own key for. One of the largest was the nest that I’d visited, though our markings for the range of their territory were mostly guesses. We drew from what I’d seen of their marked trees, of other Pokemon in the area, and the map markers that I’d dropped in the process.
Still, it wasn’t particularly good looking. A huge area of forest was going to be hit by the avalanche, an area with few Pokemon that might be able to help us. Any large effort might set off the avalanche, even if they could be coordinated like the graveler and their geodude had been back at the dam. Ultimately, it was a problem of this being an issue that could go off at any time. But…
“Hey.” The absol turned her head slightly at the sound of my voice. “Do you think that you could do something like you did before, give us a better idea of when this is going to happen? A time frame, anything?”
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She nodded, then narrowed her eyes in focus. In the dimming sunlight, I could see the slight glow of her horn, like starlight reflecting off of the blue material. It sparkled as she scrunched her muzzle, screwing up her eyes, then faded as she let out a breath. A frustrated expression stole across her face, and she shook her head.
She couldn’t? Dammit. What was different…? She’d predicted the dam disaster, down almost to the hour. But here, she had nothing? I didn’t have enough information to even begin guessing at why that was the case, there were so many different factors. Still, I pushed past it. If it wasn’t a piece of information that we could rely on, then it wasn’t something we had.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“We make another sweep, make sure that the Pokemon have gotten out of the way, or are at least bunkering down in places where the avalanche can’t get to them. We brace them as much as we can, and then we figure out how to set it off safely. Then, the day after tomorrow, we set it off. Hopefully, nothing changes in that time. It’s controllable, so we should be perfectly alright.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I said.
From there, the conversation turned to lighter things. Having collected all our information and come up with a plan, both the present humans and Pokemon, who had spent the planning session in rapt attention, seemed far more at ease. We weren’t quite returned to the completely relaxed environment that we were used to around the campfires at the end of our days, but it was something more relaxed than we’d been before.
Kevan had the training, and felt that we’d done everything we’d had to mitigate the situation. His team was divided between the completely apathetic Pidgeotto, who didn’t seem particularly concerned with the feelings of the rest of the group, and Arcanine, who was more involved with speaking with Devi over the map that Blake had made.
Blake seemed somewhat more dubious, but, even discounting the dam, I didn’t think that this was the first crisis that he’d been involved with. His team, as well, seemed in a state of relaxed readiness. It reminded me of how quickly they’d responded to the ghosts both times they’d engaged us, off-guard to fighting the moment they knew that there was a threat. He was speaking with Jive, reviewing something or other, but I couldn’t tell whether it had to do with the avalanche or not. Mika and Noble had excused themselves at some point, looking to burn off some energy before they tucked in for the night.
Drake was worried. It was rather obvious that, specifically, he was worried about me. I’d felt his fur nearly stand on end as I described walking into the nest, and he’d given Ajax a look that, translated, looked roughly to mean ‘why the hell did you let him do that?’ Ajax hadn’t offered more than an embarrassed shrug, at the time. Now, however, the two appear to have made up, given that I’d made it out entirely uninjured, and there were larger problems to focus on. Drake had settled in my lap, curling up into a ball, facing the fire. Ajax had waited until Devi removed the grill, then had settled fully into the flames, clearly glad to soak in the heat after a long day of biting cold.
Night came over the camp, sunlight fading over the other horizon. I stared out at the dark occasionally, thinking about the huge wall of snow out there, hidden in the night. Before, I think I would’ve been frightened by it, by the possibility of it. Now, however, I felt… focused. Sharpened. Was it an effect that this world had had on me? Was it a reaction to what I’d been through, what I’d encountered already? I wasn’t sure, but I felt better about being the one dealing with these things than I had before.
Slowly, those out here with me trickled back to their tents, turning in for the night. Ajax had well and truly fallen asleep in the coals, and I felt reluctant to wake him. Instead, I simply sat there, running my hand over Drake’s back and thinking to myself.
When I eventually looked around for her, I realized that the absol was gone.
----------------------------------------
“Cam.”
I groaned, turning over and burying my face in my pillow.
“Cam, get up, we have to move. We have a problem.”
I sat there for a moment, trying to parse the words. It felt far too early for something to be happening- it should be illegal, for things to be happening as early as it felt. And it felt even earlier than the time that Ajax typically woke me up at, or, rather, the time we’d finally compromised on. So I shouldn’t be bothered unless there was something on fire.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, eyes suddenly wide as a spike of adrenaline flowed through me. I snapped my head towards the entrance to the tent, where Kevan was crouched, already geared up and looking completely serious. I scrambled out of my bag, grabbing Ajax’s bandanna in one hand and my pants in the other.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
“Don’t know. Pidgeotto went out to scout the area, came back agitated as hell. Blake’s already up and moving, and we need to get down there and figure out what’s going on as soon as possible.” He glanced at the black tac-pants I was holding in my hand. “Get dressed, quick as you can. We’re leaving in five.”
With that, he closed the flap of my tent, giving me privacy. I sighed through my nose, then started pushing the sweatpants off of myself, preparing myself for my actual pants. I was suddenly extremely thankful that one of my two tentmates was a houndour, keeping the inside air at a nice and comfortable temperature throughout the extremely cold night: I’d had the experience of struggling into pants that had been sitting in temperatures close to freezing before. Never fun.
I got my stuff on, tied Ajax’s bandanna around his neck, and pushed aside the smug reaction at him being somewhat bleary and confused. Not the time for it. My trainers I’d left by the exit flap, and I quickly fitted my socks back on and struggled into them as well. The tent flap came unzipped maybe two minutes after Kevan had woken me.
The campground was a rash of activity. Arcanine was having a tense conversation with Pidgeotto, who was obviously just as agitated as Kevan had said she was. Blake’s Pokemon were moving around, collecting some food that would be easily eaten on the way to wherever what was happening was. Drake hopped out of the tent just in front of me, taking in the other Pokemon in a sweep of his gaze, then turning his attention to me.
“Go talk to Pidgeotto and Arcanine, see if you can’t figure out what’s going on.”
He nodded, once, then turned and dashed in their direction. I stepped out of the tent, holding the flap open for Ajax, who shook himself in the cold early morning air.
Checking my nav revealed the time to be before six. With us still in the throes of winter, the sun hadn’t risen above the horizon, leaving us in mostly darkness with a sliver of something that might be the coming dawn. Still, that meant that it was still dark as pitch for the most part. The Fire types of the group were essentially living torches, serving well to light up the campground, and torches would work on the way there, but I had to wonder what was happening that demanded that we have to move right now. In half an hour or so, we’d be close enough to dawn that there’d be enough light to see by. In an hour, it’d be proper daylight. For us to have to move now, something must be happening that demanded our attention immediately.
As I made sure that my laces were tight and that we were carrying basic, but vital, equipment, Drake came running back to us. A look at his face revealed that he was distinctly worried, glancing back in the direction of the pass and searching the dark with his eyes, as if searching for something.
“Drake, focus.” I said, making my voice just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the camp. “What did you find out?”
He flicked his gaze back to me, several emotions crossing his expression in rapid succession. I didn’t press him again, figuring that he was trying to decide how he could communicate whatever he was thinking to me. He had an exchange with Ajax, a quick series of growls and noises, which made Ajax’s eyes widen slightly and a distinctly surprised and concerned expression settle on his face.
“Okay. Bad then.” I mumbled, thinking. “Avalanche going early?” Headshake. “Uh, ssssomething going on with the Pokemon in the pass?”
They nodded together, very emphatically, while making expressions that marked exactly how much they wanted to get out of here. Something…? Maybe tensions flaring up between Pokemon groups, or a group that really didn’t want to evacuate? But that wouldn’t be picked up by Pidgeotto just doing a flyover. So, then, there had to be something bigger. A fight, maybe?
“Cam!” Blake called from across the camp, waving to me, a torch in his hand. “Come on, we’ve got to move!”
Whatever, I’d figure it out when we got there.
The trip down the mountainside to the base of the pass was as quick as we could make it without endangering ourselves in the dark. I could tell, though, that we weren’t even making the speed that we’d been coming down during the day without being in a rush, and I could tell that it was chafing against more than a few here. Hopefully, we could pick up more speed once we were on more level ground.
I went back and forth with Ajax and Drake, trying to get a better idea of what we were walking into as we made our way down, but they were of limited help. Not from lack of trying, it was clear that they were doing their best to communicate what it was, but this was one of those situations where the language barrier was more like a language fort. Whatever was going on, it was just too complicated to sketch out with a quick game of charades on the run, and it was clearly frustrating for both of them. They knew what was happening, I knew they were trying to tell me, we just couldn’t figure out how to overcome the difficulties of actually getting a complex idea across the divide between us.
Eventually, when we hit the bottom of the mountainside and the ground flattened out into the much gentler slopes of the pass, they gave up the effort entirely. Between the added difficulty that moving faster would bring and the already present difficulty of just trying to communicate at all, it was clear that they figured that I’d have to see for myself, no matter how much that irritated the both of them.
We did pick up quite a bit more speed, crossing the bottom of the pass. We made the 208 that divided the valley between peaks faster than it’d taken us to get to the bottom of the pass from our camp, and our excellent progress bled at least a little of the tension from our group. Still, I noticed that many of the Pokemon had arranged themselves in a ring around the humans, watching the forests around us, placing the Fire types at three corners to ensure that there was good coverage from any firelight that they generated. I would’ve missed the effort, if it hadn’t been for the effort that Arcanine and Devi had made coaching Ajax into what they wanted him to do.
When we hit the 208, there was a quick debate among the Pokemon, before they turned down the Route itself and started moving as quickly as they could without leaving us behind. Here, there was enough room and few enough obstacles that I was sure that Kevan could swing himself onto Arcanine if he wanted to. He hadn’t, however, from the advice of his partners from what I could tell.
As I jogged, thankful for the exercise that the past month had put me through, I picked up the trail of thought that I’d left behind when we’d sped up. If we were moving along the Route instead of heading into the woods, then it didn’t have to do with the avalanche: or, at least, not in a direct sense. It was deeper in the woods, which was why we’d taken the quicker and clearer Route, rather than a straighter line. And it was important enough that we were moving at all possible speed, which meant that the Pokemon were directly and presently worried about it.
“Is there, huff, fighting happening?” I asked Drake.
The hyena immediately brightened and nodded, appearing relieved that I’d managed to put it together and that he didn’t have to struggle and fail to get the concept across to me. Yes or no questions were straightforward enough.
I stared forwards, into the dark, reasoning it out. We’d skipped the first half of the forest instead of heading straight in, so I thought it was a relatively safe bet that it was either not on the southern side of the 208 or close to the Route. It also wasn’t near the edge where the pine forests that coated the pass thinned to nothing. I turned it over in my head, trying to recall all the things that the other groups had encountered in their sections of the forest.
My thoughts were interrupted, however, when the canine Pokemon in our group started perking their ears and staring to the north. I focused, but I couldn’t hear anything, and was taken off guard when there was another swift discussion among the Pokemon before they surged right off the Route and into the trees. I found myself falling in besides Kevan and Blake again, the group having spread out some on the Route, bunching up again as we slipped into the forest and it was slower going.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” I asked Kevan. The Ranger shook his head.
“Something urgent, that’s all I could get. Pidgeotto was too agitated to communicate anything else, left almost the moment we were ready to go, and Arcanine struggled to get the point across.”
“Something about other Pokemon.” Blake mused. “Maybe a fight. Devi was able to communicate that much to me.”
“Drake confirmed that much.” I said. “I’m not sure who’s fighting whom, but we know we’re walking into either a brawl, or something that’s very close to…” I trailed off.
“What? You have an idea?” Kevan asked, suddenly interested.
“Uh? Maybe. Not sure.”
I slipped my nav out of my pocket and checked our location. About a third of the way to where the 208 turned into the 207. I zoomed out, biting back a swear as the vibrations from us moving quickly made me much less precise on the touch screen. Still, I managed to zoom out, get a picture of it. And the fact that we were heading straight for the territory markers that I’d put up.
My head twitched up, and I shown my own torch among the trees. Out there, I could see the first with claw marks in their bark. Below our feet, in the snow, I could see footprints, which definitely hadn’t been there yesterday when I’d come through. Something heavy settled in my stomach.
Now that we were in their territory, it wasn’t hard to make out the noises. It wasn’t a huge area, and now we could make out the songs of Pokemon snarling at each other through the trees, though it was faint. I didn’t get the feeling of being watched that I had before, and shining the torch through the trees, I couldn’t see any movement out there in the shadows. Sure, they could just be hiding themselves better, but I didn’t think that was the case.
“It’s the sneasel colony.” I said. “They must’ve run afoul of another group of Pokemon somehow, maybe because their territory is in the way or something like that. They might’ve been riled by a bunch of Pokemon passing through their territory rather than going around.”
Kevan made a noise of displeasure. “Yeah, that would explain it. I doubt they’d be happy in the slightest about something like that, and Dark types are already pretty solitary but for their own kind, so there would be pre-existing tension. They would’ve tried to either drive the other Pokemon out of their territory, or at least stopped them from coming through.”
I turned that over in my mind. We had a general idea of the situation we were headed towards right now, but now I had to wonder about what the specifics of it were. We could probably fight off some large groups of Pokemon, we’d done it before, but this sounded like a situation that would benefit far more from deescalation than just punching everyone until they stopped fighting. They still needed to evacuate, and incapacitating a bunch of Pokemon that were just looking to leave was a terrible idea.
I didn’t have any more time to think about it, however, as we burst through the treeline and into the clearing that surrounded the pile of stone slabs that the colony called their home.
It’d taken us some time to get here, and the sky was steadily brightening with the coming dawn. Among the thick pine trees out there, there had still been shadows as dark as night clinging to the snow and shade that the trees provided. Here, however, with the area more open, the light of the sky could filter down over the scene in front of us. It was still dim, but it was enough to see.
A large number of bibarel and bidoof lined one side of the clearing, hackles raised. Mixed in with them was the smattering of Pokemon that were usual for this area, ranging from nervous to hostile. Arranged around the stone structure that was the colony were the number of sneasel that called it home, clearly extremely agitated that the other Pokemon were here. The weavile were at the front of them, the larger leader as stoic as they’d been when they’d interacted with me, and the others pacing back and forth, clearly ready for a fight. In the center, there was a gap between the two sides, an empty stretch of clearing between the rocks and the forest. In this gap, my eyes found the absol.
She was clearly stressed, looking even shabbier than she’d looked before. She was sporting some minor wounds and marks on her fur, testament to the idea that she’d probably been the only thing that had kept this from escalating into a full blown fight. From what I could see, she was facing the scattering of Pokemon on the forest side, making noises at them that they replied to. Maybe trying to negotiate, or calm things? Whatever she was doing, I could see from her expression that she was harried. When her eyes glanced over in our direction, relief stole across her face.
There was an immediate ratcheting of tension as the two sides noticed us entering the clearing. Quickly, I moved towards the front of the group, Drake at my right and Ajax at my left. Some of the tension in the sneasel side seemed to bleed out of them as they realized that I was there, someone with whom they’d had relatively neutral to positive interaction. Clearly, they thought that they could at least trust me not to intervene against them, and I wasn’t about to disappoint.
The other side appeared distinctly concerned about us, many of their members watching us warily from where they stood, but they weren’t making any hostile movements. While I couldn’t see much recognition among the bibarel and bidoof, many of the others definitely had it when looking at various members of our large party. Most likely, I figured they were individuals that some of us had interacted with at some point yesterday during our walks through the pass. That made it somewhat easier, as they wouldn’t see us as a distinctly hostile group muscling in.
“What do we do?” I muttered to Kevan, watching the forest side of things closely.
“We move ourselves between the two factions. It signals to both that we’re not on either side, and that we’re fully willing to step in if any of them try to escalate. From there…” He clicked his tongue, seeming concerned and slightly irritated about this. Made sense, given how it would be delaying our efforts. “Hopefully our partners can de-escalate, talk both sides down, figure out why this is happening.”
“Let’s hope this doesn’t take too long.” I said. I didn’t need to specify why.
We slid between the two factions, and the palpable relief that practically radiated from the absol made me square my shoulders and straighten my back a little. It was a good reminder that this was serious, that a Pokemon that had been regal even when pushed to the limit was reacting so strongly and so obviously to our arrival. It made what we were doing that much more important.
To my surprise, Ajax stepped forwards immediately to approach the leader weavile. His head was held high, and he had an air of confidence around him that I’d never seen from the hellhound pup. I supposed that he’d had some kind of training on how to react to situations like this. At that moment, I thought I could catch a glimpse of what he could be, someday.
After a moment of quiet discussion among the present Pokemon, Mika stepped forwards to approach the Pokemon that clustered around the edge of the forest. He was smaller and much less threatening than the others, a Pokemon that was much closer to their level, by physical appearance if not by strength. Ajax had an easy in with the weavile, being that they’d communicated once before and had the shared ground that was their typing, but it was clear that Mika would have something of a harder time.
They didn’t want to seem to accept him immediately, several of their number shying away from the electric dog and glancing at the larger and stronger of their group. Mika seemed to know exactly how much distance should be between them, where to stop and sit down, and keep a balance between not being an immediate threat, but implying strength enough to deal with an attack through stance and expression. I had to wonder if he’d done this before: he seemed the ideal negotiator for situations like this, where overwhelming strength might not work to his advantage.
Despite their immediate wariness, one of them still approached him. It was an older bibarel, a little gray mixed into the shades of brown that made up their coat, and a number of scars visible underneath their fur. The leader of the group, then? Looking closer, I could see how the other Pokemon held themselves slightly apart. Not one homogenous group, but a number of different groups that had gathered together for this.
As they spoke, I thought I could get at least a little of their conversations and the undertones that defined it. Mika was calm, collected, and completely unshaken, not even glancing at the Pokemon that sat behind the older bibarel, something that clearly unnerved them to a degree. Still, the beaver Pokemon stood tall, glaring down at the electric hound, clearly not about to be intimidated when backed by what I believed to be their entire tribe. Herd? Group? What would you call a gathering of beavers?
Whatever you call them, they really appeared to be agitated, though I couldn’t quite tell over what. Still, our presence here meant that the tension between the two sides had stopped escalating. A single absol they might have been able to overwhelm before engaging the other side, but even if I couldn’t guess as to what had caused this event to start rolling, I could see that both were reluctant to engage us now.
Watching the bibarel closely, I could see how they kept looking at the rock pile that the colony had made their home in, and kept jabbing their paw in the direction of it. Not the sneasel and weavile themselves, but at the pile of rocks that formed the cave underneath it. So, then, it wasn’t so much about the Dark types as we’d first thought: it appeared to be more about their home. Perhaps-? I paused, thinking, then turned.
“Hey, Blake.” I whispered.
The Galarian trainer looked away from where Mika was negotiating with the bibarel. His hand was on the Pokeballs at his side, despite their empty state, clearly preparing to call orders to his partners if it became necessary. Still, he raised an eyebrow.
“So, these are a bunch of bibarel and bidoof, yeah?”
He frowned. “Well, obviously, yes.”
My eyes swept over them, noting dirt in their fur, how some of the smaller bidoof were being carried and looked distinctly exhausted. I weighed how far we were, and how much time must’ve passed. Then, I turned back to Kevan, my head slightly tilted.
“Didn’t we think that that dam was constructed by a colony of bidoof and bibarel?”
He froze, his eyes widening and finding mine instantly. A bare moment of eye contact, and his gaze was sent skittering across the gathered Pokemon, weighing and examining them. Picking out the things that I had about them, that they’d obviously been traveling a fair distance, that they were exhausted and dirty and definitely too large a group for us to have missed them. And, finally, the fact that none of them seemed to recognize us as the other Pokemon had.
“Son of a bitch.” He muttered. “You don’t think-?”
“It fits. They would’ve traveled in this direction, maybe wanted to be as far from those ghosts as possible, if they thought they were going to cause the dam to fail. There’s more rivers across Coronet, they could’ve found better territory there.”
“Damn. Damn, you’re right. Mika!”
He called for the bolthund, who turned his head, clearly surprised. Blake motioned him over, and started whispering things in the electric dog’s ear. Confusion, surprise, and a bit of hope flashed across his face in very quick succession, and then he turned and walked back towards the bibarel, who was attempting to hide his confusion and apprehension at the sudden interruption. The two began communicating again, only for the bibarel to practically jump in place, eyes going wide, then narrow. But Mika definitely wasn’t lying, and wasn’t trying to deceive them in any way.
It seemed to catch them all off guard, then, when the head bibarel suddenly turned towards the rest of his group, waving them closer and making loud noises. There was a sudden wave of exhausted happiness among the collected Pokemon, and quickly they began collecting around each other, turning back towards the trees. It was still early in the morning, and I would guess that they’d want to get back to their former territory as fast as possible before something else moved in.
The rest of the collected Pokemon watched their sudden change of heart with much more apprehension, bordering on panic as they realized that the vast majority of them were just leaving. There was a frantic sort of communication between several of the Pokemon that I guessed were the leaders of the smaller groups and the head bibarel, but from all the shaking the bibarel’s head was doing, I guessed that he was turning down their pleas to stay. It wasn’t long before they were filtering out of the clearing, a hopeful sort of haste speeding them along where they’d seemed demoralized and exhausted before.
Of course, that left what remaining Pokemon there were stuck. They obviously were unwilling to put their backs to us, and with the majority of their numbers having just left, they were now outnumbered. An entirely colony of Dark types, combined with three humans and their Pokemon partners, three of which were Dark types themselves. Clearly, they were deeply anxious.
“So, what? Do you think they wanted to take refuge in the rock cave, and were relying on the sheer strength of numbers of the bibarel and bidoof to force the sneasel and weavile to let it happen?” I asked, speculatively. Kevan shrugged.
“Hey, maybe. Probably, to be honest. I don’t think that they really knew the situation, they were just looking for some temporary shelter before they moved on. I don’t think they’d stick around here, not with the lack of rivers to build around and in, they just picked up a bunch of locals looking for shelter from the avalanche.”
“I think the rocks would hold against it.” Blake said, examining the pile of stones as he did. I hummed in agreement.
“So, a bunch of Pokemon see the lot of them filtering through the trees, figure that they can use the numbers to try and force their way into the colony? Only, now, they’re out the numbers and they’ve crossed the sneasel and weavile that live there, so they’re in bad sorts.” I shrugged. “Not unfixable by any means. Honestly, if they’re willing to host a few local Pokemon, just long enough for the avalanche to come down, they could reinforce the colony and have better relationships all ‘round.”
I didn’t know if they’d actually go for it, given how hostile the local Pokemon had seemed towards the sneasel and weavile when I’d mentioned them, but I supposed it was worth a shot. It made it less likely that something would happen to force them out of their home, and Pokemon that might be unwilling to move too far from their home territories wouldn’t have to. They could shelter in place without having to travel much farther up the pass, or up onto the hostile mountainside.
“Ajax, c’mere.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, then exchanged a few growled words with the weavile before walking over with a curious look on his face. “Do you think you have their basic measure?”
He thought about it for a moment, tilting his head, then nodded. He seemed confident enough about it, and I was perfectly willing to trust his opinion on this. Honestly, I felt impressed at how well he seemed to know what he was doing, here.
“What do you think, would they let the other Pokemon stay here, help them shore up their colony and prepare for the avalanche? Wouldn’t be forever.” He frowned, then tilted his head one way, then the other. “Maybe?” He nodded. “Okay. Go tell them that’s what we’re aiming for. If you need to, offer our help, either as peacekeepers or additional labour. Tell them that we’re willing to pitch in to make this work out.” I glanced at Kevan and Blake. “That alright with you?”
Kevan nodded. “What are Rangers for, if we’re not helping humans and Pokemon alike?”
“If it’ll bring things to a more peaceful resolution, then I’m all for it.” Blake said. “They might be ready to fight for this, but none of them can afford to, and they know it. If nothing else, then they can just move to the side or behind the avalanche. I just don’t think they’re willing to move that far.”
With that, we could move forwards with actual negotiations. Every hour we spent on this made us all a little more eager to move on to other things, but I knew that the more we put into making sure that this issue was put to bed, the less likely it was that something else would happen here. The weavile seemed to react negatively to the proposal at first, but as Ajax continued speaking with them, they slowly opened up to the idea. With us offering our help and the assistance of the other Pokemon looking to stay, they could reinforce their colony far more than they could on their own, ensuring that they wouldn’t have to abandon it and risk it collapsing when the avalanche hit. The Pokemon that had come here looking for shelter were out and out relieved as they began to realize that they might actually still find what they came here looking for.
Negotiations completed with only a few of us staying behind. Kevan was lingering in order to direct them, Jive as the muscle, Mika as someone that could fit underneath the rocks easily, and Noble to scout the area for materials that they’d need. That freed up the rest of us to make our final checks over the length and breadth of the forest, looking for any other Pokemon that hadn’t evacuated or might need help doing so.