Jaunts through the forest pretty quickly revealed that most of the local Pokemon had either cleared out, either ending up at the colony or leaving this section of the pass entirely. A few stragglers were scattered here and there, still prepping for a journey, and we did our best to hurry them along. The idea of them being unintentionally caught in the way of the avalanche once we set it off was something that hung in the back of our minds.

Occasionally, you could hear the creak of the snowpack hanging over our heads when the wind shifted. The sound echoed over the entirety of the pass, faint but noticeable, a sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end every time I made it out. With the forest around us so silent, especially with the Pokemon that had resided in it now gone, there wasn’t much to cover it up. It almost made me want to make more noise, if only just so that I didn’t have to sit there and listen for the next creaking, except that I was worried about setting it off early if I made too much.

Pidgeotto, for her part, had split from our group. She’d circled us once, before winging off in the direction of the avalanche, presumably to check up on it to see if there was any more evidence of stress or collapse in the snowpack. None of us were that concerned about it, figuring that she’d make her way back to Kevan on her own.

After the success that we’d had with the colony and its residents, I’d noticed that Ajax was holding his head a little higher, the added confidence showing through in his body language and his expressions. He had had large shoes to fill his entire life, and for the first time, he’d gone out and done something purely on his own merit. Even with the dam, he’d been muscle more than anything else, and any Pokemon could be muscle. Here, however, he’d obviously leveraged the lessons of his family to make a difference in diplomacy, an achievement unique to him. It even balanced out how nervous I was feeling about the avalanche somewhat, just seeing him happier and more confident.

Without individual Pokemon groups causing us to make our way slowly through the terrain, we moved a hell of a lot faster and covered a lot more ground than we had the previous day. Lingering Pokemon were much rarer, and we only ran into a handful that had been missed by both the Flying types that had spread the message and our own efforts. While it had taken all day yesterday to cover all this ground, today we were done long before nightfall, making our way back to the colony to check up on Kevan and his Pokemon.

We had split ourselves along similar lines, scouting out the area around us once again, though each of us had taken more area to make up for the fact that we didn’t have Jive, Noble, or Mika to help. Thus, when we recollected and started our journey back to the colony, we were a smaller group in total.

The lack of Pokemon in the path of danger had lifted much of the heavier mood that had hung over us, the urgency of attempting to get something done before the sword fell. The Pokemon of our group had collected into two groups, in front and behind, leaving Blake and I with each other towards the center. I got the feeling that that was at least partially purposeful, an almost instinctual effort to put us towards the center of all present Pokemon, the safest place to be. It appeared that at least a little of the paranoia that Drake had acquired after we’d been attacked in Hearthome, and only intensified by the Ghost types at the dam, had rubbed off on the collective group. Even despite the occasional glance that Drake threw my way to make sure I was alright and hadn’t wandered off, I couldn’t help but notice that he was much happier and more relaxed now than he had been before.

“He did well, you know.”

I turned my attention to Blake, somewhat surprised by the sudden comment, more because I’d gotten used to the comfortable silence that we’d had going than not expecting him to speak. The Galarian trainer was looking in the direction of Drake and Ajax, but I could see that he was focusing on the latter, his eyes flicking to me and back to the hellhound.

“Yeah,” I agreed after a moment. “He really did. I’m honestly proud of him, I don’t think that any of that would’ve turned out as well without him.”

Blake shook his head. “I’ve seen a few disputes that were somewhat like this between groups of Pokemon, and they typically don’t end this peacefully. Dark types never give ground if they’re not forced to, especially when their home is under threat, but having other Dark types there negotiating for them?”

“Did it really make that much of a difference?” I asked, curious.

“‘Course. They really seemed inclined to listen to you and your Pokemon. Whatever you said the first time you visited them, the two of you seem to have made quite the impression on them. They seemed almost relieved when they saw that you were interfering on their behalf.”

Had they? I couldn’t say that I’d noticed. Maybe I hadn’t been paying very close attention to their body language and how they responded to us, though thinking back, that was mostly due to me being focused on figuring out the situation and defusing it. There just wasn’t a lot of attention left to spare to figure out how they were reacting to our sudden presence there, let alone how they might’ve been feeling about us individually. If Blake had noticed, then I assumed that it was one of those things that you had to train yourself to be aware of at all times.

I recognized that I had attention blind spots. I tended to overfocus, to tunnel vision when I had a goal in mind. Here, I’d been so engaged with the problem that I hadn’t seen the responses of the Pokemon that had surrounded us. Here, it was an extraneous detail, something that I had missed that had no negative affect, had even assisted us in our goal. Still, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that missing details like that could make all the difference in higher level battles.

I’d always been poor at reading human expressions and body language. For some reason that I couldn’t properly divine, however, I had a much easier time of it reading Pokemon, taking cues from their expressions and bodies as to how they were feeling and what they were thinking. Now, I was starting to realize what a disadvantage that was. Maybe trying to train myself to read trainers was something that I should look into? Rumbling plans and guessing intentions would be much easier with that information, and, thinking back, I was realizing that I tended not to look at my trainer opponents at all unless they spoke up.

I replayed my match with Fantina, trying to do a play by play as much as I could of my decisions and what I’d been paying attention to. I’d certainly kept my eyes on the opponent Pokemon, tried to guess what her plan was from the moves and Pokemon choice alone, but I didn’t think I’d looked at her once outside of when she made a comment. I hadn’t even tried to get a read on her, try to see what she was thinking or intending by expression and otherwise. Sure, I was bad at it, but that didn’t give me an excuse for ignoring an entire datapoint that could’ve been important.

“Did I ever tell you that I’m terrible at reading expressions?” I asked aloud. Blake gave me a quizzical look, trying to gauge where I was heading with this. “I mean, I can read easy stuff okay. If you’re smiling at me, I can usually tell that you’re happy, that sort of thing. But I have a lot of trouble with actually reading the more subtle language and expressions, smaller things that people make without thinking about it.”

“Ah, I see.” Blake nodded. “That’s a pretty severe disadvantage. If you can’t read your opponent, then how are you going to guess how confident they are with what they’re doing? People tense up when they’re nervous, and trainers do it all the time as a signal of how they’re feeling. If you can’t see it…” he trailed off into a soft hum. “How did you get onto that topic, though?”

Ah. Yeah, one of those moments where I jump from thought to thought in a way that made sense to me internally, but when I say something, I get weird looks for saying something that sounds like a non-sequitur. And, of course, one of those moments where I realize that it makes perfect sense to me, and absolutely no sense externally.

“Well, I was thinking about what you said, about the Pokemon. I missed the reactions of the colony to our arrival, and it occurred to me that I might be missing all sorts of details around me, if I’m tunnel visioned that hard on something I’m doing or intending. And that led me to realize that one of the biggest details I tend to miss is the signaling of an opponent trainer, either because I’m just not very good at reading them, because I just don’t pay attention to them nearly at all, or some combination of the two.”

“Oh.”

He frowned, tilting his head back to stare towards the sky. While the sun was weak and colder than usual, the expanse above us was mostly clear and blue, dotted with a few clouds. The combination of it being winter, the altitude, and the amount of snow coating the ground and reflecting the sunlight meant that even during the day it was pretty well below freezing. Clear weather didn’t mean much when it was cold enough that it had sheer momentum enough to overcome even the clearest sunlight. Still, I was glad to see that there was a lack of clouds, meaning that another snowstorm winging by and dumping more snow on the pile before we set it off was unlikely.

“I can definitely see how that might be a problem.” Blake said finally. “You’re giving up a lot of information, details, and advantages, both not being able to read the trainer and not paying attention to them like that.”

“Yeah, that’s why what you said about the colony made me think about it. I was totally focused on one element of what we were doing, and missed details and subtext that might’ve been helpful. In the future, something like that could make all the difference.”

“It’s a matter of training and purposeful thought.” Blake said, rubbing his chin with a hand in thought. “I got to where I am through training myself to notice things, to pay attention to my environment. You catch me as someone who gets wrapped up in their own headspace pretty regularly.”

I flushed. “Yeah, there’s, uh, no denying that one.”

Blake grinned, then shrugged. “Don’t feel bad about it. You’re doing really well, for someone who hasn’t trained for this before now- or, at least, doesn’t remember doing so.”

“So, how’d you train your ability to do this, then?”

“By doing.” I frowned, and he shrugged again. “There’s no better training than that experience, and there’s no better experience than trying to do it yourself whenever you see the chance. It’s something that you’re going to have to work on over the course of time, figuring out how to read people while not missing the things around you. The ability to automatically see the tree you’re focusing on and not tune out the forest around it is something that you achieve through long practice.”

“Oh.” I said. I’d figured that it was just something that I had to practice, so I wasn’t really surprised that there wasn’t just a magical way to suddenly get better at it. “So, would you…?”

“You kidding? Of course I’m willing to help.” He grinned. “I like you plenty, you’re alright to be around-”

I scoffed playfully. “Wow, just alright? Ye-ouch, my poor feelings.”

He laughed, giving my shoulder an equally playful shove. I laughed in return, quickly scooping up a bit of snow and splashing it against his jacket, which he shook off with a smile.

“Yeah, alright. Keep behaving and learning, maybe you’ll even graduate to ‘fine’, or even the high accolades of ‘alright bloke’.”

“Planning to give me a big head, are you?” I pretended to inspect my fingernails. “I’ll have you know that I’m the alrightest bloke you’ll even meet.”

He snorted. “Oh, shut up. Augh, where were we, you distracted me- oh, right.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sticking around because I think you’re pretty good at the whole trainer thing, even if you’re inexperienced. People typically don’t start as late as you did, if you started this late, but they usually don’t have a Gym win, much less against the Leader, within the first couple weeks of them getting their first Pokemon.”

I wanted to say something joking, maybe fake overconfidence, but I found that I couldn’t speak past the lump that was in my throat. I swallowed it as best I could, giving Blake a smile that felt like it came straight from the core of warmth that came in my chest.

“Thanks, man. Means a lot, coming from you.”

“Hey, I’m not just gonna let it go unremarked. I said you did well, and I meant it.” He pointed a finger at my chest. “But I don’t want you getting cocky, either. One win doesn’t mean that you’re remotely in the clear, just that you’re good enough to go the distance. You’ve mostly been fighting Kevan and me, with our Pokemon, but you and your Pokemon are going to need a lot more combat experience before you take on more Gyms.”

I nodded, feeling a little more solemn. “I don’t think I’m ready for the Gym in Oreburgh, not yet. I was planning on skipping it and heading for Sandgem, see if Rowan would be willing to take me under his supervision for a month or two, let me bring Drake and Ajax up to snuff under his direct tutelage.”

Blake nodded. “It’s a good plan. I haven’t heard that much about Rowan, but from what I have, I think he’ll be willing to help. I estimated that Drake is ready for a two-rank, maybe a three, but Ajax is hovering around two rank- and the three of you just don’t have the experience you’d need to pull out a win. Especially given that, now that you’ve won against a Leader in your rank one match, I’d bet that every Gym in Sinnoh is at least aware of you.”

I froze, and nearly lost my balance, barely remembering to put my foot down. I looked at Blake, my eyes widened and something markedly more uncertain curling in my chest. Farther ahead, Drake glanced back at us with concern, eyes sweeping the area before landing back on me. I shook myself and kept walking, picking up a little more speed to catch up to Blake.

“Every… Gym?”

Blake gave me a look of amusement. “Yeah. Back in galar, all the Leaders were the gossipy type: loved to talk between themselves about whatever interesting trainers might’ve stumbled into their Gyms. You? You strolled into your first Gym battle, fought a Leader- even with a lower grad team- and won three on one.”

“Oh.”

I felt the urge to swear, and pressed it down. No reason for something like that. I’d picked up two Dark types by this point, so whatever I did, I was always going to stand out if I really wanted to chase this angle. And, considering that I was here and still moving, I would think that I was committed to it fully by now. Still, I figured that it would take longer than this for the bigger players in the region to notice me. I felt the wavering uncertainty of taking on something truly difficult, beyond that which everyone else was facing: I didn’t even have to ask Blake, I knew that those Gyms would press me harder now that they knew I existed.

I took a breath, in and out, doing my best to settle the fluttering in my chest and square my shoulders. If things truly were going to be that difficult, if the Gyms really would seek to press me that much harder, then I would just have to push back. We’d train harder, do what we could to be ready when it rolled around. I glanced ahead of us, to where my two partners were walking together, embroiled in a discussion as they experimented with Type energy. Drake was already close to figuring out Feint Attack, and Ajax was making progress by leaps and bounds, his confidence following swiftly after. We’d make ourselves ready, no matter what came.

“There it is.”

I twitched in surprise, giving Blake a quizzical look. He merely smiled in return and shrugged.

“You’re nervous. Chronically anxious. That much I’ve noticed about you… not that it’s really that hard to see, you’re terrible at hiding things like that.”

“I’m not that terrible!” I protested, then hesitated. “Am I?”

Blake patted my shoulder. That didn’t make me feel any better.

“But my point isn’t that you’re chronically anxious, though you are, it’s that you push past it. You want to do this, for yourself and for your partners, and you aren’t going to let that anxiety stop you.” He nodded. “I think it’s admirable. You just need experience and training.”

“Thanks, I suppose.” I said, uncertain.

It’s not like the people I surrounded myself with had a habit of pointing those things out, though now I felt somewhat self-conscious about what I was showing off to everyone that wanted to look. I could immediately see how not having a very good poker face might be a disadvantage in a Pokemon battle, something that I would have to get better at. Add it to the list, I suppose.

By the time we’d gotten back to the colony, it was obvious that they’d manage to hash out something of an agreement in our absence. The newcomer Pokemon were working with the colony’s current residence, though obviously not without some amount of tension, shoring up the stones and sealing the openings between them. Snow had been cleared from various areas around the colony, where soil and rocks were being removed to create earthworks sealing the lower entrances and bury the rocks deeper. Presumably, they were attempting to make a much more solid bunker out of the pile of rocks, something they could enter through some of the holes at the top and weather the avalanche in.

Kevan waved to us across the clearing. Pidgeotto was preening herself by his side, apparently having finished her scouting trip and not found anything that concerned her overmuch. I could see Jive in the deepest of the pits they were digging soil and stone out of, clawing away at the dirt and removing impressive amounts of it with every swing. I supposed that badgers were, in a general sort of sense, very good at digging, and obstagoons were basically badgers, weren’t they? Made enough sense that I didn’t want to ask questions.

As we moved in Kevan’s direction, I glanced towards the colony, noting where Mika was digging holes and shifting dirt towards the colony. Noble fluttered over the heads of all here, occasionally dipping down to chirp at one of the Pokemon working and directing them towards this or that.

“How’re we doing?” Blake called. Kevan gave him a thumb’s up.

“Pretty well! Think we’ll finish by the end of today. They’ll bunker down with the place reinforced, and they should be perfectly fine. If everything stays on track, we should be good to set it off tomorrow and move on. Though I’ll need to do one last flyby with Pidgeotto, see if I can’t scout out weaknesses in the snowpack, figure out how we’re going to be bringing the whole thing down tomorrow.”

“Probably a good idea.” I mused, watching one of the weaviles direct a group of sneasels through gathering a large amount of snow and paste it over one of the entrances, before converting it into a solid sheet of ice. “Probably a good time to do it, too, now that we’re here, and before the sun goes down.”

“If you’re willing to keep watch…?”

“Of course. Go ahead, mate.” Blake grinned.

Kevan gave us a quick salute, then waved Pidgeotto over and climbed up onto her back. With a gust of wind that sent particles of loose snow scattering around the clearing, and caused a few Pokemon to glance over, they shot into the sky. They circled the clearing a couple times, then banked off towards the snowpack in the distance.

We quickly found ourselves integrated into the effort to reinforce the colony. Almost immediately, we discovered that the newcomer Pokemon were immediately uncomfortable being close to my partners. However, they were much more comfortable near the non-Dark types that made up most of Kevan and Blake’s teams, excluding Jive, who appeared to be someone that neither side could make heads or tails of. In contrast, the weaviles and sneasels in residence welcomed Drake and Ajax both, though from shared typing or simply liking them I couldn’t really tell.

Still, it didn’t interfere with the work of reinforcing the colony all that much, and we were making good time on the effort. We sealed the various entrances to the interior with a mixture of stone, packed dirt, and layers of ice to glue the masses of material together and prevent them simply falling inwards into the caves. Layers of ice headed off the risk that any of them might melt and weaken the overall stability of the blocks they were putting up, sticking rocks in place and using the boulders that formed the caves underneath them as anchoring points to keep it all in place. I had some concern about how the Pokemon were going to get inside the colony itself with all the lower entrances sealed, but one of the angled boulders provided a good enough ramp that they could clamber up and enter through one of the upper holes.

Kevan and Pidgeotto eventually finished their newest scouting mission, the Ranger grabbing Blake and pulling him aside. The two of them commandeered a nearby stump, placing their devices down and spreading out paper that they quickly used to sketch out a rough map of the pass, which was then promptly covered with a number of different lines. From what I caught of their discussion, Kevan had noted a number of weak points in the snowpack that could be hit with a ranged attack and potentially trigger the avalanche, and they were now working to decide which ones to hit and in what order.

Given my team and our experience, I expected that I’d be stuck behind the snowpack and above the snowline from it, where we wouldn’t be endangered by the avalanche when it happened. The most action we might see was maybe Ajax throwing some fire at the snow from a distance, which I was entirely fine with. Blake had experience and Kevan had training, and not only did I trust them completely to do what was needed, I had no desire to get in their way while they did so. It would be just my luck to accidentally interfere with something and send the avalanche along an entirely different path than the one we chose.

With as much Pokemon labour as we had and the power of the Pokemon that we were working with, it wasn’t a surprise to me that we finished before the sun even set. A lot of the Pokemon didn’t even stick around to appreciate their work, however, filtering out into the trees around us. I wondered about that as they slowly disappeared until the first came back with an armful of berries that they’d found… somewhere. It made sense that they might want to put some food reserves together for when the snow buried just about every source of food in the pass.

Honestly, though, I had to wonder where the hell they were getting those things. Were there berry bushes out there that were still producing? Did berries in this world not have any kind of downtime, even during the winter? Thinking about it, I supposed that I remembered some berry bushes being active even in winter conditions in the games, though I wasn’t sure how that tracked here. Maybe I was overthinking all of this, and they actually came from stockpiles that the Pokemon had made before the snows had really hit.

Still, with the actual labour done, we found our usefulness to both sides of the colony pretty much over. At some point after Blake and I had left, the absol had wandered off, presumably back towards our camp. She’d looked completely exhausted and somewhat hurt, and I made a note to treat some of her wounds and make sure that she was properly fed, if she was back at camp when we arrived. She deserved that much, at least.

The entire air of our journey back through the pass was a lot more upbeat, though we still made a very careful and conscious effort to keep our volume down. Things were going well, and none of us wanted to ruin that by accidentally making a noise just loud enough to set things off a day early, before the colony Pokemon had had a chance to collect all their food stores and bunker down fully.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

I couldn’t get what Blake had said earlier out of my mind, the note that it would only be harder from here on out, that Gyms would push us harder now that they knew that we could take it. While I couldn’t deny that it made me nervous, as it had when I’d first heard it, I felt a second emotion as well: excitement. I had faith in my partners, that they could pull it out, that we could push through no matter what they threw at us. It wasn’t a matter of question, it was a matter of training, and we just needed to make sure that we were ready for whatever we might face. With these thoughts at the forefront, I made an effort to draw Ajax and Drake aside.

We fell towards the middle of the group, Blake’s group behind us and Kevan’s ahead. The Ranger and the Galarian Champion had slowly fallen into something of a friendship over our journey, apparently greatly enjoying each other’s company. Right now, they were in front of us with Kevan’s Pokemon, Jive walking by his partner’s side and all of them basking in the warm aura that Arcanine radiated continuously. Kevan was telling a story that involved a lot of gesturing and miming, and which had Blake bouncing between surprise, incredulousness, and amusement.

“Blake said something to me earlier today.” I stated. Ajax immediately looked curious, while Drake tried to read my expression, trying to get a feel for what I was getting at. “So, you know, Ajax, how we- Drake and I- beat Fantina?”

He nodded. Obviously, he was still somewhat impressed by it, given the expression that crossed his face. When he made a few noises at Drake, however, the little hyena looked suddenly embarrassed and glanced away. I couldn’t help smiling at his somewhat awkward discomfort at what I guessed to be compliments from Ajax, but I wouldn’t be distracted from the point that I was getting towards, specifically what Blake had told me.

“Well, he mentioned that it’s only going to get tougher. From what he said, the Leaders like to talk, and by now word of a rank zero beating Fantina have probably crossed the region. They’ll know about us before we even arrive, so the element of surprise is gone.” I hesitated. “Probably. I’m not sure how much I believe the idea that they’ll all be spreading rumours and studying us. Most that’ll happen is that they might recognize our names, though with the different team composition…”

I trailed off into muttering, considering whether the Leaders would actually know who we were, and missed Drake and Ajax exchanging a glance. I didn’t fail to notice, however, when Ajax bumped my leg with his shoulder, causing me to stumble from the sudden weight against me and putting me off balance.

“Okay- yeah, yeah, I get it, not wandering off topic. So, what I’m saying is that, whether they actually spread a bunch of rumours about us or not, we’re going to have to be ready for it.” I turned to Drake. “Do you think you can manage to get Feint Attack down by Oreburgh?”

He let out a soft and considering noise in his throat, looking ahead and through the group walking in front of us, staring into the middle distance. After a moment, he gave me a determined look and a nod. I answered it with a grin.

“Excellent. Ajax, I want you to pull Arcanine and Devi aside as often as you can. I’d like it if you could pick up the Quick Attack technique, but right now we have the perfect opportunity for you to strengthen your Fire typing with a variety of ranged and general fire-based attacks. Focus on that first, okay? Learning movement techs can come later, when you’ve got options to stay at range.”

He didn’t even hesitate, giving me a nod that was every bit as determined as Drake’s.

We spoke for a few minutes more, figuring out where the both of them were on various things and where they thought we should be going next. After a minute, Ajax wandered off to go pull Arcanine aside, to get something out of the other fire dog. Drake stuck by my side, breathing in and out as he channeled Dark energy through his aura. I noted that it appeared to flow easier and smoother than it had before, none of the hesitation or variation that I’d seen. The more control that Drake had, the closer we were to holding very specific patterns for extended lengths of time.

Eventually, we walked back into our camp, closer to the end of the day than afternoon. The temperature was already dropping, and the sun was dropping behind the mountains, leaving this side of them in shadow. Night came a little earlier in the shadow of the peaks, which made me wonder if it was going to feel odd when we finally crossed to the other side of the pass and found our mornings a little more delayed and our nights a little farther back. Though, on consideration of that point, I supposed that it wouldn’t feel all that different: would just about even out.

I shook off the wool-gathering, glancing down the mountain, then up at the sky, gauging the weather above our heads. It didn’t look as if anything was forming, at least anything that might mean trouble for us, but that wasn’t an entirely sure thing. I didn’t know the local wind patterns, so for all I knew, serious weather formed on the other side of Coronet, and the first real warning we’d get would be when the clouds suddenly appeared and the snow started up.

I laid my fingers on Ajax’s warm skull plate, his high body heat communicating through the bone surface easily. Playfully, I rapped on it lightly, drawing an indignant look from him that I answered with a small smile. Turning away from the view, I made eye contact with Drake, who’d stopped to watch me. Satisfied that I wasn’t going to fall off a cliff to my untimely death, he gave me a nod and walked back into camp himself.

I didn’t immediately sight the absol upon reentering the campsite. She wasn’t anywhere in the exterior area, particularly the couple of flat rocks around that were the type that she seemed to prefer. I knew that she was her own Pokemon, and a particularly tough one at that that could no doubt care for herself, but I still fit the lingering worry in the back of my mind. I made a circuit of the campsite, wondering if she’d simply settled down somewhere where I hadn’t been able to immediately see her, but stopped short at my own tent.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I’d seen or what had made me want to stop. When I looked closer, however, I realized that the zipper that kept my tent sealed looked to be slightly open, as if someone had opened it, but then had trouble sealing it again. Gently, I took it between my fingers, pulling it to the side and down, just enough to give me a look into the tent itself. There, having apparently made herself perfectly at home in my sleeping bag, was a bundle of silver fur. Her black horn stuck up into the air from her head, and I could easily see that her eyes were closed from here. If I listened, I could just make out her breathing softly. Carefully, I closed the zipper again, this time all the way. I felt eyes on me, and turned to find Drake watching me.

“What?” I said, suddenly feeling somewhat self-conscious. “It’s not like I’m going to let her freeze. Might as well keep all that warmth inside the tent with her, y’know? And she’s warmed the tent for us anyway.”

He rolled his eyes in response, and I really couldn’t tell if he’d accepted my lackluster excuse or not before he turned and trotted away, towards the campfire. I double-checked to make sure that the zipper was properly sealing the warmth inside of the tent, then turned back towards the circle that formed the center of our camp.

Devi was near the flames, as usual, but this time he wasn’t manning the cooking utensils that he usually had set up on, around, and sometimes in the campfire. Instead, it appeared that he’d either taken on the responsibility of working on Jive’s dexterity with his clawed digits, or had been directed to. Whichever it had been, he was gently guiding Jive through the process of adding ingredients and frying them, though using a process that looked quite a bit more simple than his usual attempts. Probably something to account for Jive’s continued struggle.

I turned from the impending cooking disaster that I was almost sure was brewing, either purposeful to mess with Devi or entirely accidental, and made my way towards Blake and Kevan. Blake glanced over the Ranger’s shoulder, giving me a nod, Kevan himself glancing over his shoulder and giving me a lazy wave.

“So,” I said, settling down on a rock, “What are we talking about?”

“Figuring what we’re doing tomorrow, actually.” Kevan scratched the side of his neck thoughtfully. “Something I’m a lot less worried about at this point, we’ve basically figured out what needs doing and where people need to be. At this point we’re doing the formalizing work and wrapping up.”

“We have a plan, then?” I asked, curious. Blake shrugged.

“Beginnings? I mean, we’ve known the broad strokes of what we’re doing the whole time we’ve been here, it’s just the specific details that we’re hammering out.” He shrugged a second time, sending a glance in his Pokemon’s direction. “Devi’s worried about it, he’s never been the best at hiding his worry, but I’m not. We’ve got it figured, and I have faith in them, they’ll pull it out alright whatever we decide to do.”

“Which is setting off one of the closest natural disasters to a bomb, with us in the blast radius.” I noted.

Blake merely smiled in return. “Yeah, so you know where this is going already.”

“Please, you two, I’m a professional. I know what I’m doing. Devi shouldn’t worry his hot head, I’ll have it all handled and planned out.”

It wasn’t hard to hear the sincere confidence under Kevan’s voice. For him to be that confident… Well, Pidgeotto had been non-stop scouting the entire avalanche range for days now. If anyone would have figured out how to safely set it off, it had to be the Ranger among our number.

“You’ve got it figured out, then?” I gave voice to my thoughts, and Kevan nodded in reply, grinning with just an edge of smugness.

“I’ve got it down.”

He laid a map of the pass down on a small camping table, pulling it over and laying it between us. Leaning over it, I could see where he’d marked out the entire expanse of the snow shelf in blue. Down in the pass itself, there were a couple of spots marked with yellow, labeled as locations where the local Pokemon had decided to bunker down rather than evacuate. Going over it quickly, I found the spot marked out for the sneasel colony, set in a clearing. It wasn’t just a Route map, though the Route itself was clearly marked, this was based on what was either satellite or high-altitude shots. Between Rayquaza and Mossdeep, it could go either way, really.

There was one other notable thing about the map, however: the snow shelf was splashed with red markings down its length. They used a variety of symbols and markings, delineating between different weaknesses in the thick deposit of snow, and what Kevin thought of their potential to bring down parts of it. Tentatively, he appeared to have labeled a few of them with numbers in differing colours, obviously trying to think through the process of setting the whole thing off as safely as possible.

“This is… pretty comprehensive.” Blake said, just a little impressed. Kevan didn’t quite preen at that.

“I had very good teachers.” He said simply, then leaned over the map. “With the amount of scouting and observation we’ve done, Pidgeotto and I, we’ve put together a good list of the weak spots and potential for this or that. I’ve put out a couple basic plans, but ultimately, it comes down to how risky we want this to be and how much we want to bring down at one time.” He traced his finger down the length of it, tapping a number of spots marked in red. “Wouldn’t be hard to do this with our teams, the issue is doing it safely. We could march right up and lob fireballs into some of these, and that might set it off well enough, but-”

“Yeah, stupid idea, puts us all in harm's way.” Blake said, rubbing his chin as his eyes took in the markings.

“‘Xactly. So, I was thinking that the Fire types move in, hit a number of different places along the snow shelf. With a careful balance of heat, we can weaken the entire thing without setting it off completely. The idea, there, would be to weaken sections of it, ensure that there’s enough of a lack of support that a section will come down without having enough of a connection to pull down the others around it. Enough snow moving fast enough can create turbulence, which might even be dangerous to Pidgeotto. I have doubts that it’ll be a true threat to us when we’re in the air, she’s tough enough that it shouldn’t bother her too much, but I’d rather not take the risk and find us in a position where you’re going to have to be digging us out.”

“So, you’ll need Arcanine, Devi, and Ajax for this?” I asked.

“Yeah. Arca’s done this sort of thing before, he can show the other two the ropes. Might even come in handy in the future, if either of you have to do this again. Between three Fire types, I don’t think it’ll take all that long to accomplish: just hit a few points, move out of danger, then signal us to come in and collapse that section. We can move pretty quickly through it and pour most of the snow into the pass.”

“Without it happening all at once, the forest might even stop it from spreading too far into the pass.” Blake said. “It’s a good plan, I think. Any ideas for the rest of our teams?”

This time, Kevan didn’t look so certain, merely giving an indecisive third shrug. Being entirely fair, I wasn’t certain of what they were supposed to be doing during this. I loved Drake to death, the little hyena, but there wasn’t much that he could contribute to this particular effort. Even Ajax was a bit of a stretch: despite having the typing and the general skills to contribute, I had a lingering concern about how precise he could be with that heat. The wrong amount in the wrong place, and it could go while they were still working on it. I didn’t think that I needed to go into the reasons that that was bad.

“Most of them will stand by, I suppose. The best they can do is be ready to rescue any Pokemon, or any of us, that get caught up in the whole thing.”

“Understandable.” I muttered, then spoke up. “If you’re going with Pidgeotto and keeping track of which sections we’re working on, guiding us from the air and setting off sections of the snow shelf before moving on, I can take at least some of the rest and hang back. I think that we should split our teams between one behind the snow shelf on this side of the pass, and one on the opposite side, beyond where the avalanche can reach. That way, we get a rapid response from both directions.”

“Fair.”

Blake thought for a moment, his gaze passing over the gathered Pokemon, though I thought that I could guess where his thoughts were going without even thinking about it.

“Drake’ll stick with me. If you’re not opposed, it might be a good idea to send Mika and Noble to the opposite side, and leave Jive with Drake and I. That way, we have balanced teams in terms of numbers, and Jive’s a bit tougher than Mika and Noble.” Blake frowned at me, and I held up my hands. “I know they’re no slouches, believe me, but I know they’re not quite Jive’s rank.”

“Hm… honestly, closer than you think.” He said, contemplatively, glancing in the Dark type’s direction. “Pokemon evolutions tend to hit them pretty hard, they struggle quite a bit more afterwards, with their bodies changing so much. You wouldn’t know it, but it’s been hard for him, adapting to such a large bipedal form from his previous quadrupedal one. Occasionally he tries to go back to all fours on instinct, but he doesn’t quite have the bone structure for it anymore, which makes it awkward and uncomfortable.”

“Huh. I can’t say that I thought about that, but I guess it makes sense.” I mused.

Honestly, I supposed that Drake and Ajax were pretty lucky, in that aspect. Zigzagoon to linoone wasn’t that major of a change, the Pokemon just got leaner and more streamlined, but obstagoon was a drastic change of anatomy on top of the usual problems I imagined Pokemon experienced from such a huge bodily change. Drake and Ajax, unlike Jive, would only be experiencing a change that would make them into larger versions of what they already were, which was much easier to adapt to and deal with.

“Still, I think my argument holds true. Put him with me… or, ask him what he prefers, I suppose. I’d rather it all be closer to balanced out numerically, and if you count me as point-five, that leaves it at two versus two point five. Not bad.”

“I think you’re selling yourself too short, but I see your point. Mika and Noble keep being a duo and I don’t have to start an argument with them that I know I’ll lose, one way or the other, so everybody wins.”

“We’re agreed, then?”

Kevan nodded. “Sure, all that remains is hashing out the specifics of the plan and outlining it on our Navs so that we don’t have to reference the map every single time. Which would be ridiculous.”

Our overarching plan done, Blake and Kevan engaged themselves with hashing out the specifics, figuring exactly which parts of the huge buildup of snow that they needed to hit and in what order. I made the note to brief my own team later, before we went to bed. I figured that the two of them would’ve hammered out their plan by tomorrow morning and would be able to fill Ajax in on the rest of it.

Eventually, the smell of food filled the small campsite, emanating from the work of Jive and Devi over the campfire. Despite some rather sticky mistakes at first, Jive seemed to have figured out more or less what to do with his paws by this point, making the scent much more pleasant overall. It wasn’t surprising, then, when I heard the zipper of my tent come undone behind me, and I glanced back to see the absol working it with her teeth.

She still didn’t look in top form, exhausted and somewhat battered, but that didn’t completely conceal the undercurrent of pride and regality that underlined everything that she did. I could even see that she was hungry enough to be eyeing the Pokemon working the pans, but her head was still held as high as she could. I understood the desire not to be seen as weak or vulnerable from a creature whose entire existence revolved around warning people and Pokemon of impending disasters and preventing them were possible. Still, I found myself wishing that she’d let her guard down a little, at least enough to relax and recover some.

“Had a good rest?” I said out loud.

Despite what I thought, I didn’t really have any intention of voicing it aloud: I knew that the response from such a proud Pokemon would only be to dig her heels in farther. Given the state that she was in already, I had little desire to push her into driving herself further into the ground to prove that she could. That wouldn’t get any of us anywhere.

Still, she nodded after a moment, coming closer to the fire, her eyes going back and forth between me and the food that was being handed out. Oh wow, she was hungry, that certainly wasn’t a twist that I’d seen coming after she spent hours catatonic. Catatonic… were absols feline? A question for later, I thought.

There was some amount of tension as we worked our way through the meal, the Pokemon having little conversations among themselves while Blake and Kevan kept working on the map. It wasn’t a nervous tension for the most part, though maybe a little for Ajax’s part; for the most part, it was the tension of possibility. It was like the scent of ozone in the air before a thunderstorm, the potential for something hanging in the air. The scent of a rainstorm, clouds on the horizon, a storm rolling towards you but not here yet. There was a deep awareness of what we’d be doing tomorrow, and how major of a thing that was.

For the most part, that meant anticipation rather than anxiety. Arcanine and Pidgeotto had clearly done something like this before, but none of Blake’s team appeared to have, or at least nothing specifically like this. They actually seemed somewhat excited to get out there and carry it out, seeing the results of their work go down in such a dramatic and major way. I figured that it was something like the anticipation a demolition’s crew had before they set off the charges. Appropriate enough of a comparison, given what we were working towards.

When the camp broke up to make their way to the various tents, unlike before when it happened piecemeal with individuals heading off to bed as they grew tired enough, this time it was all at once. I guessed that everyone was looking to sync up their sleep cycles, ensuring that everyone was awake at more or less the same time. Which sounded like a rather good idea, and I knew that I was tired enough between the early wakeup call that we’d had and the long day of physical labour that had followed it.

Drake and Ajax didn’t need any wrangling, and had already finished the little bedtime rituals that they’d been carrying out. Apparently, while Drake needed to clean his teeth at least somewhat and clearly didn’t enjoy the grime that built up during a day, Ajax didn’t seem particularly concerned about it. All the Fire type had to do was blow fire over his fangs, and it seemed to dissolve anything that clung to his teeth. I imagined that unless his mouth was home to some kind of strain of extremophiles, it didn’t host any bacteria at all. I knew human mouths tended to be pretty colonized by a variety of bacteria, which was the main danger from a human bite, and I had to wonder whether there was any research on the flora of houndour and houndoom mouths. Something to look up on the Jinnouchi clan server later, I supposed.

The absol, however, appeared to be suffering under the delusion that she’d be sleeping outside again tonight. Even without how beaten she was, I certainly wasn’t going to allow someone who’d stalled today’s altercation long enough for us to respond and defuse it to sleep outside in the cold. It was the absolute least that I could do to have her sleep in the warm and comfortable environment of the tent, even if I was going to have to all but force it on her.

So, with not much more than a very unformed plan in mind, I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder as she headed off towards the flat rock at the edge of camp that she’d picked out as her perch.

“You know, it’s going to be especially cold tonight, and you’d be welcome in the tent.”

Instantly she frowned, almost a grimace in response to the idea. I wasn’t sure if she was reacting to the idea of sharing such a small and close space with the three of us, or whether she was reluctant at the very idea of imposing on us in such a fashion. I, being the height of diplomacy that I was, very much didn’t care in the slightest.

“Surely you can join us inside a nice, soft, warm tent for the night, hm?”

She wavered, a spark of uncertainty behind her eyes as she flicked them towards the rock that she’d been sleeping on. The cold, hard rock, even now dusted with a thin layer of ice and snow. Extremely uncomfortable, very jagged, and some gravel had ended up decorating its surface. It looked like hell to lay on, and she’d already slept in the tent once. This was a weakness that I was perfectly happy capitalizing on.

“Besides,” I continued, deciding to play my ace in the hole, “If something does go down or you sense something, would you rather have to deal with the zippers of one of the three tents to warn somebody? Or would you rather just get up, and go right to shaking me awake yourself?”

I could see it in her eyes: I had her. Justifications, excuses, and reasonings, there wasn’t any good reason to sit out here in the cold and suffer but pride. And she could, and definitely would, brush even pride aside when I implied that she could more effectively do her duty this way. I didn’t typically go in for any kind of manipulation, made me feel internally dirty, but I could live with it in this case. Certainly, I could live with it a lot easier than coming out the next morning to an absicle. Heh.

My tent was a good sized piece of fabric, sheltering underneath it a couple square meters and extending to the sides slightly. It had a slightly larger center area, then two wings off to either side that were slightly smaller. It was big enough, even all wrapped up with all the gear and components that anchored it and held it up, that I didn’t think I could carry it myself. I’d cheated a bit with it by buckling the thing to Ajax’s harness, given that the firedog was easily big enough to carry the wrapped up package of nylon and canvas and tent poles.

Still, despite the size of it, between the three Pokemon and the one human that inhabited it, it was starting to feel a little… cramped. Granted, a lot of that was due to Ajax’s sheer size, the huge firedog taking up the entire back of the tent and even encroaching a little into the wings. Drake had set himself up in one of these with a little nest made out of blankets, while I had set up my sleeping bag in the other, leaving the central area clear enough that it contained a small fold-up aluminium table with a number of items and gear strewn across it. It was one of those things that was a bit of a pain to tidy up when we had to move on after being somewhere for a while, but had turned out to be a huge convenience in the past.

Circling back to the point of things being cramped, all of this resulted in there not being much space for the third Pokemon. I glanced at Ajax, but without prompting he shifted more towards my side of things, leaving more of Drake’s wing open. Drake himself used his paws and teeth to smooth out his little nest more, leaving it overall thinner but stretched over a wider area that could accommodate the absol and him. She gave them both a nod of thanks, then stepped around the fold up table, making her way to the corner with Drake and settling down on the opposite side of the little wing from him.

I nodded to them, making sure that they were properly settled before going right over Ajax and dropping onto my sleeping bag with a huff. He gave me an amused look from the corner of his eye, then closed it and let out a long sigh. It was enough that I could feel the temperature of the tent go up just a little with it, turning it from ‘a little cold’ to ‘comfortable’ in a single breath. I’d opined on the usefulness of a Fire type in this regard before, but I couldn’t help appreciating him again.

I wrapped myself in the sleeping back, plugging my Nav into the power bank set by the side of my sleeping back and wriggling in deeper. I closed my eyes, and lay there in the dark, drifting off.

But I couldn’t quite sleep. It was like I was hanging right on the edge, between truly falling asleep and dozing. It was comfortable, and it wasn’t frustrating at all, not like sometimes when you wish to sleep but can’t quite manage it. I was merely just lucid enough to be aware that I wasn’t quite asleep, that something was… keeping me up.

There wasn’t a lot of sound on the mountainside. Down in the trees below, there was the gentle creaking and cracking of wood, the sound of wind through the trees, branches rattling and nocturnal Pokemon and animals moving around and communicating with each other. Up here, there was instead a great emptiness, and right now I could feel it pressing down on me like a blanket. It wasn’t hostile, not uncomfortable, but I could feel the pressure of it, like something was watching me.

If I listened closely, if I focused whatever parts of me were awake on it, I felt that I could almost hear something. Almost like a whisper on the wind, like sound waves carried beyond what distance they would usually cross by a movement of air. An echo that I couldn’t quite make out, something that didn’t make quite enough sense for me to confidently say what it was or what it was saying. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I was barely awake in more ways than one.

Still, I could almost hear it. It seemed to almost come from the west, which I wasn’t sure made sense. There was just more mountain that way, and not anything significant. If there was something significant to hear, wouldn’t it be drifting up from the pass below, or coming up the path that we’d followed to get to the campsite?

I felt the slightest sensation. It wasn’t so clear or so easy to interpret, but it was almost as if… as if someone had gently hooked my hoodie with a fishing line, and was tugging on it ever so slightly so as to not break the fragile line. Like I was being pulled from a spot at the base of my neck, the hairs themselves acting like iron filings drawn towards some great magnet. And then, of course, there was the whisper, words that I could nearly make out, so close, lie they were closer than they’d ever-

I jerked as something pressed against my side, my eyes opening up and immediately squinting in the light. I raised my hand up, rubbing the last vestiges of sleep away, and immediately the tension in my shoulders left me when I realized that it was Drake. His paw had landed on my shoulder as he attempted to wake me, and he’d managed it.

Already I could feel the vestiges of the previous night’s dream fading. It had been an odd one, to be sure; usually my dreams were a little more vivid and a lot less vague than a mysterious maybe-voice in the far distance. Not even a single explosion, or any kind of weird video game antics, or even a weird haunted house dream. I did get those on occasion. It had been a strange experience overall, but already it was faded enough that it felt like a word that was on my tongue, but that I couldn't quite recall. Belatedly, I realized that I’d been frowning the entire time, and now Drake was giving me a rather odd look. I gave him a reassuring smile, or at least as much as I could.

“Don’t worry about it. Weird dream.”

He stared at me a moment longer, then shrugged, appearing to decide that if I wasn’t going to make an issue out of it, then it must not matter all that much. Honestly, I didn’t think it did, and I’d already just about forgotten the thing in favour of what we were doing today.

I quickly prepared myself with a fresh pair of socks and my trainers, strapping on my various pieces of winter wear. Drake had swapped from waking me up to deliberating over the absol, who was still passed out in her little corner of the tent. Ajax was long awake, appearing to be waiting for me to open the tent so that he could go out in the morning light and stretch after being cooped up like that. Appearing to decide that we might need her today, Drake started pawing at her legs and shoulder, which quickly brought her up and blinking.

I smiled a little at that, then turned my attention back to the zipper and drew it back.

Today was going to be an interesting day.