The moment that the crowd of Rock types were long gone, with the group relaxing and starting to speak among themselves, I could see the remaining fight drain right out of Absol. It was obvious that she’d pushed herself above and beyond for this one, far past what her body was willing to give her, and it had exacted a very heavy toll. I walked up and gave her a small pat, her giving me a look with a half-closed eye as she did.
I glanced around, finding Ajax speaking with Devi towards one side, motes of Fire energy still drifting around his paws. When he glanced in my direction, I held up a hand and waved him over; he had an exchange with the fire rabbit, then made his way to me across the rough and rocky terrain. Any remaining snow and frost thawed somewhat in his wake. It was obvious that he was unwilling to relinquish the energy that he’d built up just yet. I understood the sentiment, it felt like I was on edge since the Rock types cropped up.
“Are you doing alright? Any of them hit you?” I asked him, voice low. I felt a wash of relief as he shook his head, mastering it to focus on what was going on. “Can you do something for me, before Blake takes you and the others out to handle the rest of the avalanche zones?”
There wasn’t any hesitation in his expression when he nodded. His eyes went down to Absol, and I could see that he’d already figured more or less what I wanted. He shifted over, laying down parallel to the wounded Pokemon, nudging her with his muzzle. She gave a disgruntled groan, but, with some help and steadying from me, got to her paws. She was somewhat wobbly, though from sheer exhaustion or pain I couldn’t tell. Regardless, she managed to get her paws on either side of the hellhound, settling down onto his back with a sigh of relief. Despite the fact that she came up above my waist, she was about the same size, maybe a little smaller, than the big houndour.
It was an odd thought, that Ajax was most likely younger than her, and even stranger to think of the fact that he wasn’t even fully grown. If what I’d read was true, his evolution would leave him almost half again my height, about two point eight meters or so. Extremely odd thing to think about, when I considered it, but that had been about the size of Jinnouchi-sama’s houndoom.
He lifted her easily as he stood up, and together, we turned and began climbing the hill towards camp. Drake gave us a worried look in passing, clearly somewhat uneasy about leaving me without his protection so soon after something had happened. Ajax, however, barked something to him that seemed to make him settle down somewhat, his expression flattening into something quite a bit less concerned. He seemed willing to surrender my safety to his teammate, which I thought was a rather good sign of trust between the two of them. Was nice seeing, actually.
“How are you holding up, anyway?” I asked Ajax, as we slowly mounted the slope.
The houndour glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, still mostly focused on climbing without overbalancing and tipping Absol onto the hard, rocky ground. Because of the lack of a path and the nature of the slope, we were having to make something of a zig zag pattern, just to make sure that he wouldn’t overbalance. Still, we weren’t making bad time up the thing.
He considered my question for a moment, flexing and stretching his legs. A careful shrug flowed over his shoulder, Absol letting out a small sound of discontent as she had to shift herself against the motion. Ajax gave what sounded like an apologetic whine in return. My mouth twitched towards a smile.
“Alright, so you’re doing okay?” A nod. “I just want to make sure. You were going pretty hard before, with clearing those different areas of avalanche, and I want to make sure you’re in good condition for the rest of it.”
He gave me a somewhat offended expression, lifting his head high and puffing out his chest some. I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped my chest, shaking my head gently.
“I don’t have any doubts about you, not a single one. It’s more of the fact that- Devi’s a Champion-grade Pokemon, and Arcanine’s been following a Ranger around for years, he’s got years of experience doing things like this and clearing obstacles with his abilities that you don’t have. You’re strong, and you have deep wells of energy, I just don’t want you completely wiping yourself out trying to keep up with them.”
An indignant huff came from his mouth, more playful than anything else, but I could tell that he was seriously considering what I was saying. A few moments passed, and he nodded his head, acknowledging the point that I was making. I took a few steps closer, placing my hand on the bony plate that adorned his forehead. I noted how warm it was underneath my palm, somewhere between Ajax’s naturally higher body temperature, all the heat that he’d put out during the fight, and the Fire energy that still swirled in small motes through his aura. It actually wasn’t unpleasant, hovering about at the temperature that I’d associate with a hand warmer, especially with how cold the surrounding air was.
“I just don’t want you to hurt or strain yourself, okay? You and Drake…” I trailed off, trying to figure out what I was going to say. “Blake, and Kevan, their teams… I don’t know. They’re my friends, you know, camping and traveling like this will bring you closer to anybody, and they’re pretty great people. I owe both of them a lot.”
I thought about all the different things they’d done for me, Kevan vouching for me, Blake and his Pokemon training Drake and Ajax. I shook my head, dispelling the thoughts from my head.
“Despite all that, though, they’re not… you two. Even despite our friendship, they just don’t feel as close as you do, as Drake does. You’re… my boys, I guess. My team, my partners. There’s something deeper and more meaningful there, if you get me…” I smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I’m not communicating this very well. Basically, the two of you mean a lot to me.”
Ajax looked up at me, and I found myself surprised, and suddenly somewhat self conscious, when I realized that his eyes were somewhat wet. I glanced away, a bit of embarrassment swirling around me at having bared myself so openly, but that didn’t make anything that I’d said less meaningful or serious. Ajax bumped his head against my side, and I smiled, using my thumb to scratch the inside of his ear and earning myself a happy little canine noise from him.
Absol watched me with a single half-open eye, her face adorned with an expression that I couldn’t quite read. When I looked in her direction, even that bit of expression was gone, her eye sliding shut as she let out a deep, tired sigh.
We came over the ridge and into the camp, coming down the much gentler slope on the other side of the ridge that defined one side of the kind of bowl that the camp sat in. The signal fire that I’d lit right when this all started happening had somewhat burned down, the green wood that we’d managed to collect mostly burned down, and the vast majority of the smoke gone. It was mostly coals now, glowing slightly with heat and light, a little bit of red tucked into the pile of black in the firepit.
I stopped by the remainder of the fire for a moment as Ajax moved towards my tent, stepping inside to deposit Absol. The action came accompanied with a variety of disgruntled sounds from her; clearly, though she accepted the necessity of it, she was still rather irritated at the idea of being carried anywhere by anybody.
I couldn’t help but crack a small smile, stamping my feet a little and trying to soak up what heat I could from using my e-tool to turn over the coals. The fire came back to life some, touching on fuel that hadn’t been entirely burned the first time and affording me some measure of warmth, which I easily welcomed. I figured that it was about ten below at the moment, and without the adrenaline of an event or a warm Pokemon hanging nearby that I could steal heat from, it really underlined the temperature.
I vastly preferred cold to heat. Heat was a terrible thing that was impossible to escape, but cold? Well, you just wrapped yourself in a nice coat and there you were. There was nothing quite so comforting as sitting by a fire on a cold night with a blanket and a mug of something warm.
Still, it did make me wonder as I looked out over the wider region, the view still stunning even from the depression that our camp was made in. We were pretty firmly at the tail end of winter, with most of the region stripped of snowfall. It didn’t surprise me, per say, that there was still snow here on the peaks, but the fact that there was so much of it and that so little had melted did. Sinnoh was at the transitory time between the fading edge of winter and the coming wave of spring, and the rest of the region had embraced this, but here? It might as well be the depths of winter.
I thought of the blizzard that had passed through here, burying an entire enraged force of Rock types. I’d theorized that it was the efforts of a number of Ice types, but now I wondered if their efforts hadn’t solidified winter for a while longer here in the mountains. With the climate of Sinnoh still settling from the chaos that had characterized the past month, I had to wonder whether anyone had even really noticed. Most likely, much like the sudden snowpack buildup, it had slipped under the Ranger’s radar: something that had avoided notice, because there were more immediate and important concerns to focus on.
I shook my head slowly, turning my back to the fire to warm it as I stared out into the distance, over the greenery that coated the land below like a carpet. As ever, I could see the glittering snake that was the river that ran down the glacial valley below, and I traced its flow with my eyes. After a moment of consideration, I slipped my phone out of my pocket, snapping a picture of the landscape. When I was in an area with more reliable connections, I’d pass that along to the Jinnouchi.
The mystery of the cold and snow in the pass was something that would probably remain a mystery. Legendary Pokemon activity or simply a conflict between a family of powerful Ice types and Rock types, I would probably never know. It was one of those moments where I had the tingling realisation of how big the world was, and the relatively small part that I played in its grand scheme. That was a sensation that I’d found pretty common in this world, the idea that there were huge and mysterious things at work out there that I could barely comprehend. I wondered, almost playfully, if some of the comics I’d read were right about the Mystery Dungeon world being sectioned off from, but connected to, the human world, and whether there was a Pokemon-turned-human out there thinking much the same thing.
I set aside the thought as I heard the gentle hiss of snow against a hot surface, Ajax stepping out of the tent and causing the remaining frost around his paws to hiss and steam. I gave him a smile, taking a bucket of soil from the fireside and smothering the fire with it. Ajax had a somewhat disappointed look at that, but sighed, clearly thinking of all the work that we still had yet to do.
“Sorry. I’d let you sit in the fire if we had time, but there’s plenty that we have to do out there.”
He nodded sadly, then shook it off and walked to the top of the ridge that ringed the camp. I went to my tent, giving Absol a nod, which she returned, and sealing the tent’s zipper. I checked the campfire one last time, ensuring that the coals were all properly smothered and that nothing was going to go after any of the tents, then followed Ajax’s footsteps up the ridge and to the top. The two of us came down the other side, starting down the mountain to rejoin the rest of them.
And so began a supremely exhausting day of scoping out the rest of the avalanches.
None of us wanted a repeat of the earlier occurrence. The idea of getting swamped by another group of Rock types, even if we were ready for something like that to happen this time, wasn’t appealing to any of us. We were going to be a lot more cautious about these things moving forwards, with me and my team closer to the rest of them, and all of us going over the cleared area after the avalanches had been set off.
The weavile and their contingent of sneasels, now that they were here, seemed pretty unwilling to leave. I could understand why, the worry that this was just going to happen the second they left driving them to stick around for the rest of it. Didn’t cost them anything regardless, and I could tell that the younger sneasels were obviously fascinated by the process. As we moved to get in position, the weavile’s group trailing after us and checking out the cleared areas with interest, I glanced upwards.
There, framed against the blue expanse of the sky, was a small black dot. As I watched, it circled, then sharply dove towards the front of the group- towards Blake. It circled his head once in a very tight manner, then landed on his shoulder, where I could more easily make out that it was the black and blue of Noble. The Flying type seemed somewhat perturbed, feathers ruffled, but as Blake talked to him, his feathers began to flatten out and relax.
Given that the weavile had shown up with their contingent after I’d lit the fire, I had to wonder if Noble and Mika had seen the signal fire and decided to try and bring the weavile into things. I had to imagine that the bird hated to be apart from his best friend, but needs must. Appearing to have confirmed that things were alright with Blake and that the crisis was over, Noble took off from his shoulder, doing a quick and complicated aerial dance with Pidgeotto before banking off towards the other side of the pass. Most likely looking to rejoin Mika, I thought.
We repositioned for the first section of avalanche, clustered somewhat closer. Jive and Drake stood by me, the weavile a small distance away, where they could direct their subordinates and corral them before they could go playing in the snow that we were about to send sliding down the mountainside. I went through the process of plugging the ears of Jive and Drake, then turned to the weavile contemplatively. I wasn’t sure that they would accept the ear protection, but… no harm in trying, I supposed.
Their red eyes found me as I approached, examining me with a sort of relaxed readiness that I associated with experienced Pokemon. Clearly, this was a leader of their particular colony that had seen a lot of action over the years, if they weren’t worried about me in the slightest. I wondered if I was the first trainer they’d ever seen, or if they’d fought their fair share of them.
“Hey, so…” I mulled the words over in my head, figuring out how to phrase it. Simple was best, I supposed. “The avalanches are loud, loud enough that they can hurt hearing. Would you and the sneasels like a form of hearing protection, just to make sure that doesn’t happen?” I waved my hand at my own ears, and the wads of tissue that made everything sound muffled and far away. “My team and I already have some in. They’re a very slight discomfort going in, but aren’t an issue otherwise.”
They gazed at me contemplatively for a moment, then, appearing to figure that it was meant in the way that I said it, shrugged and nodded. They barked something at the sneasels, who stopped what they were doing and came over, collecting in front of us in a very loose group. The younger Pokemon gathered, the weavile gave me a nod.
True to my word, they seemed to find the wet little piece of tissue somewhat annoying. Some of the sneasels waited until they thought I wasn’t looking to try and dig one of the plugs out again, only to be stopped by a barked command from their weavile leader. Hey, they might not like them now, but they’d be a lot more enthusiastic about them when they realized how loud the avalanche was and how much grief a little annoyance was saving them. With that dealt with, I turned and walked back to my team of two.
Drake was even more alert and wary than he was before, scanning the avalanche itself and the areas that we’d already cleared for further enemies. He’d seemed somewhat divided on the subject of the weavile and theirs, unsure how exactly to classify them even in light of the assistance that they’d rendered to us. As I stepped up to him, I placed a hand on his back, feeling how his muscles tensed, then relaxed. Clearly, he wasn’t happy about the potential for further danger here, but the reassurance that I was here and still alright despite everything that had already happened today appeared to ground him somewhat.
Jive, on the other hand, had lost most of the lax sort of interest with which he’d regarded the goings-on. Now, there was a laser-like focus that underlined his gaze, obviously unwilling to be caught flat footed again. I thought that he might be being somewhat unfair to himself, given that he’d done everything that he could be expected to do about as well as he could have been expected to do it before, but… well, I supposed that it wasn’t my place to say something about it.
“Remind me to tell Blake about how Jive’s feeling, okay?” I muttered to Drake. His ear twitched, and he nodded. “I don’t feel comfortable saying something, and Blake would know better, just… worried.” The poochyena frowned somewhat, eyes flickering in Jive’s direction, and he nodded again in agreement.
Far in the distance, I watched as the points of firelight appeared again, the three Fire types building up the heat to erode away the foundations of the next section of snow that we’d defined. It quickly turned into so much steam and vapor, soaking the rocky ground underneath them and rising as plumes in the cold mountain air. Pidgeotto waited a moment for the steam to clear in the winds, to get a better view of the snow, then used blue-laced blades of wind to section out the snow.
When it went, it was almost as if it was even louder than the ones that had come before it. That was somewhat ridiculous, given that it was around the same size as the others, perhaps even smaller. However, I guessed that it was somewhat magnified by tension that hadn’t been there before. I couldn't help but wonder if this snowpack, too, would unveil a group of Pokemon that would wake up and go straight into fight mode.
It was obvious that the Pokemon were wondering the same thing, with how they were all intently focused on the area of now clean mountainside that the snow had left behind, still somewhat obscured by a veil of disturbed powdery snow floating in the air. Even the sneasels had stopped entirely with what they’d been doing, scraping their claws against each other and staring outwards.
I felt it, the palpable sensation in the air, when the last of the veil cleared, revealing… nothing. No suspicious boulders, nothing moving against the backdrop of gray and white. While the blizzard had dumped this incredibly thick snowpack all the way up the side of the pass, clearly only the first section had been right on the heads of the Rock types.
Being fair, they hadn’t hesitated to leave once we’d made the offer, and hadn’t even considered the other sections of avalanche. That had pretty well indicated that they were all that there was, but it was better to be safe. Underlining that, however, was the certainty shared by all present that we weren’t in the clear until we’d confirmed it with complete certainty ourselves. And now we had.
With the threat demonstrated to not be in the first snowpack, everyone seemed to relax a lot more, prepping for the next section. It would be too much of a stretch to say that anyone truly let their guard down, we were all still watching closely and being cautious about how close we were to any unstable section of snowpack at any time. However, there was a more casual sense to the air as Blake and the Fire types prepared to tackle the next section of snow.
With every section that we collapsed, revealing no further Pokemon to make enemies of, everyone relaxed a little bit more. Eventually, even Jive dropped the intense look that he was giving every subsequent section of snow, choosing instead to strike up a conversation with the weavile. The two of them had settled together on a nearby rock where the weavile could keep an eye on the sneasels. The smaller Pokemon, with a lack of anything else to do, had defaulted to playing in the snow, and making more of their own when the snow that was there didn’t meet their needs. It kept them close and entertained, so none of us were objecting.
Drake and I had more or less snuggled up with my back against a rock, him at my side. My thick pants and jacket, with my hoodie underneath it, ensured that none of the cold was getting to me, but it didn’t make me wish for a fire any less. I could even construct a quick firepit out of the many rocks that surrounded me, but Drake wouldn’t leave my side to fetch fuel for it, I knew that without even asking. Jive, on the other hand, despite how he’d relaxed, wasn’t going to leave a position from which he could keep an eye on everything.
The poochyena tried to tough it out, but his fur had never been meant to withstand cold like this for long periods of time, especially without moving anywhere. He was happier in the occasional times where we shifted position to keep a better eye on Blake, but was miserable in between, resigned entirely to keeping a deeply uncomfortable position.
“You’re adorable.” I told him.
He snorted, giving me a look, something to the tune of reminding me that we had more important things to focus on right now.
“Nope, can’t play this off. You really think that you can just sit there, pretending you’re not freezing your tail off in an attempt to… look cool?” I smile a little at the pun.
Drake, on the other hand, looks away. Something slightly embarrassed comes over his expression, and I realize that I might’ve been closer than I thought. He didn’t want to look like a little cold bothered him, when he should- no, I should be saying this out loud.
“You don’t want to seem like a little cold bothers you, when you should be the stand-up Pokemon that can protect me, right?”
He hunches his shoulders a little, somewhat embarrassed at being caught. I can’t help but feel something in me soften at that; I’m just fond of the little hyena. There’s no reservations about that, I just am.
I pat his shoulder, making him turn his head to look at me. Once I have his attention, I take the zipper of my coat and draw it down, motioning him towards the opening. He glances up at me, surprised, but I merely roll my eyes and motion again. He hesitates a moment longer…
“It’s very cold, and I’m letting all the heat out waiting for you.” I say simply. He frowns. “And I’m not closing my coat until you’re in it, so every moment that you refuse is a moment that I’m just losing more body heat.”
That does it. He glances up at my face, sees that I’m serious about this, and lets out a long sigh. Yes, you little yeen, because you’re being put on so heavily, being forced to endure such terrible things as being invited into a warm and comfortable place. How will your pride ever recover? His muzzle scrunches like he heard my thoughts, probably at the open amusement that’s splashed across my face. Finally, however, he does pad over and slide into my coat.
I zip it up somewhat, though not so much that Drake can’t pop his head out of the opening and still look around. Immediately, I can feel him relax as the additional insulation and the larger, warmer body against him starts working its magic, driving the cold out of his fur in short order. For my part, I’m appreciating the source of warmth that I’ve just cajoled into my coat, which is making me feel that much more comfortable.
The effort with the avalanches stretches throughout the day, stream of snow after stream of snow cascading down the side of the pass and slamming into the trees below. More than half don’t quite make it over the Route, but at least a third do, and I could see the weavile watching especially closely when they did. Thankfully, while at least one of them reached the section of forest that I guessed was home to the colony, it was mostly spent by that point. They appeared to be in no danger, and the weavile relaxed a whole lot more after that.
Once or twice, the avalanche that Blake and Kevan set off would have knock-on effects, setting off a few of the sections down the line. This was somewhat unnerving, when it happened, but I had faith in Blake that he knew what he was doing. More than that, I had faith that Ajax was doing the best job that he possibly could. Once or twice, the falling snow even set off a rockslide, either in its path or to the sides.
On one occasion, a particular avalanche removed supports from a few rocks, which started a peculiar landslide that I’d seen only once in a video before. It was almost like a stream of rocks, cascading down the side of the pass in a V-shaped indent in the slope. Extremely odd to look at, enough that I made sure to get a small video of it. It was something to see something so odd, and remember that this was completely natural, that this happened, albeit rarely, in my world.
We broke for lunch when the sun rose overhead, about around noon. We were making good enough progress at it that I thought that we might be done tomorrow: the Rock types had set us back enough that we definitely wouldn’t get them all today, though we’d be more than three quarters done. Still, after enough sitting around and simply watching, I was glad to get a chance to stretch my legs and do something other than keeping an eye on Blake and the Fire types from a distance.
The break also gave me a welcome chance to check on Absol, back at the camp and no doubt bored out of her skull with nothing to do. At least I could alleviate some of that with a visit, but I didn’t think she’d be ready to move on her own again for another day or two. The healing power of Pokemon was prodigious, especially when helped along by the application of a good potion. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was actually figuring that accurately, or whether I was giving a correct guess to the amount of time that she’d be down and out. When I mentioned that to Blake, however, he waved off my concerns.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“You’re worried for her, and I get it, really. You’ve saved each other, and that’s not something easily ignored. But, trust me, she’s a wild Pokemon and she’ll be alright. I don’t doubt that she’s taken blows like this in the past and come out relatively fine after a week or two of licking her wounds.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I replied.
A bruised rib, and the various lacerations she’d eaten, to be perfectly fair, were decently serious wounds. Nothing life threatening, but something that could impair proper capacity for movement and such. But even a squishy human wouldn’t have trouble walking around with injuries comparable to what Absol had, though it would definitely hurt.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Blake watching me closely. Eventually, I turned and raised my eyebrow at him, making him glance away and scratch the side of his neck.
“Are you thinking about something?”
He did a one shoulder shrug. “Just wondering when you’re going to pop the question.”
I blinked in confusion, taken entirely off-guard. The phrase immediately lit up its association with asking someone for their hand, but that didn’t fit anything that I could think of that had to do with me. Seeing my immediate and extreme confusion, Blake let out a little huff of a laugh.
“No, not like that. I meant the fact that, by this point, most other trainers would’ve long ago asked a Pokemon to join their team. I don’t just mean in the midst of the entire dam event, I mean all the way back when you first met that absol, when you faced the onix nest together. A trainer goes through an event like that with a Pokemon, and they’ll ask them onto their team, in almost every case.”
“Oh!” I said, then winced, feeling somewhat embarrassed. Not wanting to dwell on it, I decided to move the conversation along to a more comfortable subject. “I don’t know, it never felt like I had the grounds to ask her. It’s clear that she’s dedicated to her responsibilities. She feels that it’s nothing short of duty that she do what she does, going around and informing people and Pokemon of coming events so that the minimal amount of hurt occurs.”
He shrugged, this time with both shoulders. “Maybe. I think, though, that she’s been following you for a long time. Hell, she was obviously comfortable enough to sleep in your tent multiple different times, so there’s clearly a good foundation of trust there between the two of you.”
“I don’t think that means that she wants to be my partner.” I muttered.
I kicked a small rock and watched it clatter and bounce down the mountainside, rapidly disappearing from sight as it accelerated downwards. Several of the Pokemon turned at the noise, watching it like I did, before turning back to what they’d been doing.
“I think acting like she doesn’t is you being stubborn and not wanting to see what’s right in front of you.” Blake said, more firmly than before. “She wouldn’t have stuck around you and followed you all this way if there wasn’t a significant amount of interest there. And the amount of land over which she followed us is ridiculous.” I shrugged awkwardly, trying not to look at him. “Look. Talk to her. Ask the question. If she refuses, then at least that’s cleared and out of the way, and I won’t bother you about it again.”
“... Right now? Doesn’t seem the most auspicious of moments.”
“Yes, right now. As soon as we get back to the camp, preferably.”
I… didn’t know about that. Maybe. I would have to ask Ajax and Drake first, see what they thought about it before I even considered asking Absol that. Maybe they wouldn’t want her on the team, in which case I wasn’t going to go against their wishes and ask her. I had doubts that that was the case, however. Mostly, I supposed that I didn’t want to intrude on her by asking her something like that, something so personal and invasive.
Joining a trainer’s team as a partner was a significant thing for the Pokemon and the trainer alike. The Pokemon would leave wherever they had lived before to follow the trainer on their journey, train to be their best, and the trainer would have to figure out the personality and likes and dislikes of a whole new individual. Not to mention, of course, that they would be sharing the vast majority of their time together. Calling it a big deal was something of an understatement.
But, I supposed that Absol was uniquely primed for pretty much exactly that. Given the length and breadth of land and time that she was willing to follow me over, it was clear that she had no real specific ties to a location or any individuals; at least, not any that I’d had any indication existed. Clearly, she was perfectly willing to have plenty to do with me, to spend time around me. Thinking about it, I was starting to see what Blake meant about the whole thing. I had little doubt that he would’ve asked quite a while ago about this.
I raised my head a bit, something solidifying in my mind at the thought. To be honest, he was completely right, and it was past time that I asked Absol whether joining my team was something that she wanted to do. I’d take Ajax and Drake aside when we got to the camp, ask their opinion, and then ask Absol about it if both of them seemed open to it.
Blake chuckled softly at my sudden change of attitude. “Somebody made a decision.”
“Yeah. No, you’re right, I’m going to ask her. Figure out what my partners think first, of course, but I’ll ask.”
He nodded. “Good. Leaving things like that hanging in the air only complicates things, and the longer it goes on, the harder it is to talk about them.” He glanced at me. “Though, I do have to ask. What was the reason you didn’t ask her before?”
“Honestly? I didn’t think about it.” His head snapped towards me, eyebrows lifted. I gave him an awkward shrug. “Look, it just never occurred to me before you said something, alright? I’m just not the kind of person that even asks about something like that unless someone approaches me first, or someone else points it out to me. Which you just did.”
He let out a sound that I couldn’t quite parse, shaking his head. “Wow. I bet that you’ve never initiated a relationship in your life.”
“I don’t think so.” I muttered, thinking back on the fact that just about every relationship I’d been in had started with the other person asking me. And then I twitched, realising how that sounded. “Not, uh, that I can remember any of it, I just get the sense that… well, if I was in any, I wasn’t the person that asked first, if you catch my drift.”
Blake spent the remainder of our walk back up the slope and back to camp clearly wanting to tease me about it in some way, and resisting the urge to do so. Thankfully, however, he didn’t appear to be willing to bring it up with anyone else, meaning that I was at least safe from anyone else giving me a ribbing about it either. The last thing I needed was to have Jive or Kevan start formulating gags about it, though Jive would be doing so mostly with expressions and body language. Wouldn’t make it any less embarrassing, of course.
The campsite hadn’t changed any since we’d left, something that was as unsurprising as it was welcome. Meant that the Rock types weren’t circling back around to take their ire out on the campsite, which meant, in turn, that they’d most likely left on their own recognizance for greener pastures. Rockier pastures? Mm.
The fire had been totally smothered by the bucket of dirt that I’d carefully laid across it, but now that everyone was gathering back in camp for a warm meal, Devi and Blake set about clearing the pit for a fresh bit of firewood. In no time, they had a good little campfire going in the pit, with dry wood this time so the amount of smoke was strictly minimal. While the rest of the Pokemon and the other two humans spread out into the camp to address whatever they were getting up to, I waved Ajax and Drake over to the side.
They shared a glance as I shepherded them over to the edge of camp, on the other side of the pit from my own tent, just to make sure that Absol couldn’t hear us. I took a quick breath in and out, steeling myself a little.
“Alright, so, I have a pretty big question to ask the two of you-”
Immediately, the two of them shared another look, though this was far more exasperated than the previous one. Pointedly, they both looked at me, then stared towards my tent, before finally looking back at me. I glanced between the two of them without comprehension, then froze, eyes widening, then narrowing.
“... You know what I’m going to ask.” Drake shrugged, not denying it, while Ajax glanced away awkwardly. “Did- did everybody figure I was-” I stopped, thinking for a moment, and groaned. “Hell, the list of those who didn’t figure it out is shorter than the list of those who did, isn’t it.”
Ajax looked increasingly awkward, fidgeting and using his paws to fiddle with a pebble that he knocked out of the dirt. Drake just stared at me, eyes lidded, giving me one of the flattest looks I’d seen on his face. He wasn’t asking me what or why I was asking, he was asking me, as plainly as I could see, why I hadn’t asked already.
“Look, I’m just- I’m not very good at this, alright?” Drake let out a snort of disbelief. “You were an exception! We were in a very particular and dangerous situation, and I thought- I don’t know, you looked like the one that could help me, and you were.”
He shrugged at that, conceding the point. Still, it didn’t change his expression much, and I frowned at him. My arms crossed, somewhat defensively.
“You know, you could’ve mentioned something about this at any time that you wanted.” Neither of them reacted to that, and I sighed. “I’ll ask anyway. Would you be alright with me asking Absol to join-?”
They were both nodding before I even finished the question. Frustrated, but in that slightly warm way that you get with family members and close friends, I threw my hands in the air. I, very briefly, considered giving up the entire thing as a bad job, but I figured that Drake would openly pester me about this now, and there wasn’t any way that I was escaping from that even if I wanted to. Which meant that I might as well walk on over there and get it over with.
On my way to my tent, I passed Kevan and Blake, the two of them settled by the fire and trying to work some of the cold out of their limbs. They both gave me identical knowing looks, which I glanced between with exasperation. Immediately, I stared straight at Blake.
“Did you-?” I closed my eyes and grimaced. No, I had been way too obvious about it. “No, you didn’t even need to, did you?”
“Do what?” Blake asked, innocently.
“Yeah, nobody needed to tell me.” Kevan said, a slight grin quirking the edge of his mouth. “I think the only one that didn’t know that you’d be asking that absol to join your team sooner or later was you. Which is quite funny, when you think about it.”
“I’m not very amused.” I ground out. He shrugged.
“Well, it’s funny to me, and that’s what really counts.” He said, confident.
Blake picked up a stick and used it to shift around some of the wood in the firepit, trying to get a more even burn. “Yeah… it was obvious to anybody that looked at the two of you for more than five minutes. Like I said on the trail coming up, it’s obvious that she’s perfectly willing and practically just waiting for the invitation to your team. So go in there, hand her an invitation. You’ve got a spare Pokeball, don’t you?”
I touched the third ball at my waist, the empty one, and the only one that I had. I hadn’t exactly been expecting to fill it on this trip, maybe not until Sandgem, but I supposed that I hadn’t been expecting to fill any of them. I wasn’t precisely the type to just catch Pokemon, Ajax had been a surprise. Well, to be fair, Drake was arguably something of a surprise. Now, though, I found myself in a situation where I might be out of empty Pokeballs. Weird thought, that one.
“Yeah.” I said finally.
“Well, there you go. You’ve got an empty Pokeball, plenty of slots on your team, Ajax has settled in so there’s no conflict between new team members. And, clearly, if you’re even considering it after pulling the two of them aside, your team is perfectly accepting of the situation. If anything, I’d bet Drake was going to start giving you grief if it didn’t occur to you yet.”
Okay, being entirely fair, that did sound like him. He’d definitely lose his ability to just sit by and watch both me and Absol sit on the situation, and he would’ve definitely pressed me to resolve it one way or the other, even without Blake just blowing the whole lid off the thing. Strangely, the thought triggered a surge of affection towards the hyena, just the idea that he was looking out for me and understood me well enough already that he’d know when to press. Which he most likely did, even though we hadn’t actually reached the point where he’d started feeling like he needed to.
I turned and left the two traitors that had been perfectly happy to just watch this go down to their fire and the stuff cooking over it, turning and walking towards my tent. I stopped at the entrance, drawing in a breath and letting it out. The warm air from my lungs fogged in the cold, a plume of steam.
I’d entered and left my tent multiple times completely fine before now, even with Absol inside, but this time felt different. It wasn’t like when I was just coming in or out, this was specifically going into a major and serious situation and asking her an extremely important question. This lent a lot of weight to an action that I’d carried out without thought not that long ago today. It was like standing at the office door of someone whose opinion you valued, before going in and treading on the knife’s edge of ruining your rapport with them or making a bad impression.
Which was silly. I took a breath in and out, pushing the sensation down: it was useless anxiety, and wasn’t helping me right now. It was just making me look ridiculous, standing here in the entrance to my own tent like some kind of nervous teenager. I had little doubt that, if she was awake, she already knew that I was here from sound alone, and I could practically feel the eyes of everyone in the camp on my back. With deft motions, carried out before I could have a second thought about this entire endeavor, I reached for the zipper. It practically hissed as I pulled it through the series of movements that unsealed the front flap of the tent, stepping inside.
The interior was mostly lit by sunlight that came in through transparent plastic set in the walls of the tent that acted as ad-hoc windows. It was more than enough to light the interior of the tent itself, which, to be fair, was their purpose. It meant that the inside, while not bright as it was outside, was decently lit. I’d hung a lamp that I’d purchased with the rest of the camping supplies at the apex of the tent’s roof, a small cable going to a solar panel on the exterior of the tent that charged the internal battery during the day.
Of course, all of these were things that I knew, because I’d purchased the tent and that lamp, set them up, and spent a lot of time with them over the past few weeks of camping. I was looking at them now and thinking about them because I was stalling. I forced the observations out, refocusing on the reason why I’d come in here.
Absol was sitting up now, alerted by the unzipping of the tent flap. She’d settled in one of the side alcoves, where she’d slept last night, and had apparently been asleep before being woken up by my entrance. She squinted at me, glancing past me and out the tent flap, to the Pokemon milling around the campsite, then turned her eyes upwards. A note of frustration crossed her face as she appeared to realize that she couldn’t see the sun, and therefore couldn’t use the easiest method of figuring out what time it was.
“It’s noon, if you’re wondering. It’s been a few hours since we dropped you off here.” Talking about the time was a lot easier, and made a decent icebreaker.
She gave me a nod of thanks. With her question answered, however, she focused more intently on me, obviously trying to feel out what I was thinking and why I was here now. I stepped around the tiny folding table, then settled on top of it, trying not to put my entire weight on the little thing or sit on any of the stuff that I’d left scattered on it. I wasn’t particularly sure how to broach the topic…
“How’re you feeling?” She frowned, tilting her head first this way, then the other. I guess that meant so-so. “Ah. Well, I’m glad that it doesn’t hurt so much anymore, though we’ll probably have to change that bandage at some point.”
I indicated the white gauze, almost lost in the silver fur that surrounded it. It was stained slightly pinkish from the small amount of blood that had escaped the punctures before the potion and Absol’s healing had done their job and ensured that the wounds had sealed. I didn’t imagine that I’d have to exchange it for a fresh piece of gauze more than once or twice, even without the machines of a Center, Pokemon healing was astonishing. It was what let them tackle such a rigorous training regimen while still being able to travel so much, after all.
Getting distracted again. Focus. Just say it, rip it off like a plaster, it’s not like you’re making things better by stalling, I thought. Doubly so, since I could see the edge of a suspicious expression steal across Absol’s face. I sighed, then pushed myself to my feet.
With Drake, I’d had to get closer to his level to make us more equal in height. It was symbolic and psychological as much as anything else, a communication that I thought of us as equals. With Ajax I hadn’t had to do that nearly as much, given that I’d been kneeling already and the houndour was more than half my height anyway. Here, with Absol lying down, I had to sit on the floor of the tent to bring our gazes closer to level.
“Before I say anything else, I want to say how much I respect and admire you. Your courage, your dedication to your duty. I can see that you’d bleed yourself dry in order to do whatever it took to protect people and Pokemon, and that’s a noble thing.”
She seemed somewhat surprised, and slightly confused, but inclined her head to me in a nod of thanks regardless. I meant everything that I said thoroughly, and I thought that she could sense that. It made the next part somewhat harder, but it was something that needed to be said.
“You remember what I said to you, earlier today, after that hit downed you?”
This time, she couldn’t meet my gaze, eyes skittering away from mine as a grimace of discomfort stole across her expression. A moment later, however, she pushed the reaction under something harder, forcing her gaze back to me and nodding.
“I meant it. You’ve done incredible things even just in the time that I’ve known you, and you at least accepted that you needed us, that you couldn’t entirely do it alone. But, you tried to mediate the colony and all those Pokemon on your own. You’ve handled more things than can be expected of you, spreading yourself thin. Too thin, because you’ve hit a level of exhaustion that I’ve never seen from a Pokemon before.” Her head jerked up, indignant. I held up a hand immediately. “I know that you think it was necessary. I don’t necessarily disagree, I just…”
I trailed off. She relaxed slightly, putting together that I wasn’t berating her for anything, but that curiosity and a bit of defiance still hung about her expression. She wouldn’t admit that she’d pushed herself too far, even though she had.
“You completely exhausted yourself because we weren’t there to help you, not every single time you needed that help. And you need to realise that you don’t just need help with the big things, the things you know you can’t handle on your own.” I extended a hand towards her. “You need to realise that it’s not just about the big things. You need people that can stand by and behind you. Pressing yourself like this, going on and on until you collapse…” I trailed off again, something clenching deep inside me.
Because that was going to get her killed. I could see it, from what I knew of her, the time that I’d worked with her. She didn’t know when to stop, and she’d keep going until she fell apart, or until she hit a wall that was harder than her. She didn’t just need people, and Pokemon, to help her, she needed us to tell her when to fall away. When to withdraw, before it destroyed her. I supposed that the greatest irony was that she was so capable of seeing the things that could hurt the creatures around her, while she was blind to her own pain.
I swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in my throat, pressing it down. I had to say the rest of what I needed to say. And she needed to hear it. Even as she was avoiding my gaze again, muscles tensed, paws pressed into the material underneath them.
“You can’t help anyone if you smash yourself to pieces trying to help everybody. And if you’re not there to help them, then who will?” I gestured to my chest with a hand. “I’d like to try, but I’m oblivious to a lot of things. I might miss when people are in trouble, I might not realise that I need to do something. Drake’s more concerned with my well being than the wellbeing of others, and as good and as powerful as Ajax is, he’s still learning. We’d never see everything, never help every time we needed to. But… there’s another option.”
I took a deep breath, shoring myself up, straightening my shoulders. My fingers went to the rig at my belt, touching Drake’s scarred Pokeball, brushing over Ajax’s, then landing on the third. It came away with only a moment’s resistance, growing to the typical size of a Pokeball. I weighed it in my hand, the heft of the metal and the imagined weight of the promises that went with it. And then, I held it out, and placed it on the tent floor between us.
Absol stared at it, shock in her eyes and in her expression. I hadn’t imagined that anybody had ever made an offer to her like this before, and that, maybe, she’d been as oblivious about this as I had been. Perhaps she hadn’t even realised how much she’d signaled, or that she might want to join my team at all, a desire that had lingered in the back of her head like a shade. For the first time, I saw a hint of nervousness in those eyes.
“You don’t have to take it.” I said, quietly. “But I want to say this. It’s not just an offer, it’s a promise, an oath between the two of us. That I will do right by you, that all three of us will lend our strength to you whenever you need it. This, and a name, is the best and most solid promise that I can make you. That, when you truly need us, instead of having to hunt us down and convince us, you’ll have us at your back.”
She stared at the red and white ball. As I watched, something wet gathered in her eyes. Her eyes met mine, and I gave her a small, slow nod. I gazed into her eyes, trying to express the sincerity of what I was saying, how I meant every single word. I needed her to know that I meant it all, that I would stand by her.
She brushed a paw across her face, then gave me a smile. Before, she was regal, like something almost otherworldly and unknowable. Here, in my tent, gauze sealing a hole in her side and with the best and most earnest promise I could give, she was something far more vulnerable, but not any lesser than she had been. Because that regality was as much of a part of her as this vulnerability was.
“First, though.” She glanced up at me. “I have to tell you. I don’t come from here, I come from another world. I don’t keep secrets from my partners, and-”
She huffed, cutting me off with the motion of a paw. She couldn’t care less, caring more for the Pokeball that I’d placed in front of her than for some extraneous detail like that. It didn’t change the promise that I was making to her.
Her paw hesitated, kneading at the fabric of the tent floor, and the blanket that she’d made a nest out of. She did the same thing that I had done, the breath in, the squaring of the shoulders, the way that she raised her head. Stiffening her spine, to do the thing that she knew she wanted, regardless of whatever feelings held her back. Her paw went out, and it pressed the small white button in the center.
It clicked, the ball opened, and she was reduced to red energy that swirled into the container. The moment it was in, the ball clicked again as it shut. It beeped, once, and I smiled to myself, something deep within me loosening into something far more light and feathery. Carefully, I picked up the ball, pressing the button again.
It popped open, releasing Absol as red energy that immediately reformed into her. She shook herself out, wincing as her leg twitched, reminding her of her injury. She looked at the ball that I held in my hands, then at my face, the proud smile that it held.
“Thank you.” I said, quietly. She nodded in return, trying to stand as straight as she could. “The other half, the name. Do you want one?”
She hesitated. I didn’t know how it worked among Pokemon, whether they had their own names for themselves. The games had always referred to them as nicknames, and I had to wonder if that meant that the names trainers gave to their Pokemon weren’t theirs, but more a sign of the bond that they had. Still, she nodded, and I felt a spark of relief.
“Good.” I said, smiling, then looked up thoughtfully.
We went through a number of names, an exchange of quiet words and explanations as I tried to tease out what she wanted in it. After Drake and Ajax, I thought that this was a vital part of the process, something that solidified the new bond between us.
“Cassandra…” I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “No. Cassandra was a figure of mythology that knew of tragedies to befall people, but wasn’t believed.” Greek, though, felt right. Maybe something more… general? Not a specific name… “The… Oracle at Delphi. They were a great figure, someone who carried the warnings of the god Apollo, telling of the future. Wisdom and prophecy, a guide and the center of the world.”
She raised her head, something sparkling in her eyes. There was something in the air, in that moment, the tingling sense of electricity.
“Would you accept the name Delphi?”
There wasn’t consideration or nervousness in that gaze. There was only a solid certainty as she nodded her head.
“Welcome to the team, Delphi.”
----------------------------------------
The town was almost smaller than he remembered it being, just a few buildings in the woods coated in vines. He was as impressed as he’d been the first time that this place even had a Center, but the thought fell underneath the determination.
Rangers had kept him out of the town for the time. They’d been assisting those that needed help, bringing together and briefing those that needed it, establishing ad-hoc dwellings for trainers in the area that had been caught in the event. Not that he’d been here for it, he’d still been out there, but when he’d come back the Rangers had still been present. He wasn’t sure that he could slip past them, and was doubly unsure that any of his excuses and explanations would hold against the direct scrutiny of authorities specifically focused on straightening things out.
So, he’d had to wait, wait for them to move on, wait for them to take those that had been afflicted with them. And they had, eventually, precious weeks down the drain. Every moment he spent here was a risk of being caught, of his trail being picked up again, but he couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t. He dodged the few residents of the village that were out and about right now, slipping in through the Center’s front doors. Immediately, he had a sense that something was off, a bad feeling that he couldn’t shake. Like something coiled deep in his gut, ready to fire.
The inside of the Center didn’t reveal anything to him. There was a trainer hunched over a laptop at one of the corner booths, a buizel lounging across from them, but the Center was otherwise empty. Completely empty. Especially, and most tellingly, the window seat. The bad feeling settled like an iron ball, and his hands curled into fists. He had to stop himself from slamming a hand down on the bell at the front desk.
“A moment!” Came the call from the back.
A half a minute later, the person in charge of this particular Center came out from the back rooms. Despite the event having already passed, she still looked tired, a bit of the exhaustion hanging around her eyes and mouth. Still, she gave him a smile, her eyes going to his belt and the Pokeballs it held.
“Hello, sir. Can I help you with something?”
“Uh…” He affected an uncertain tone of voice, glancing around. “I was through here, I dunno… a month and a half ago, maybe? And when I came through here, I saw that poochyena, over there, in the window seat…” He pointed towards it.
Something pinched came into her expression, and she examined him more closely. He kept his body language clear except for that shred of uncertainty, the nervousness of asking. It seemed to pass muster, as she leaned backwards a little.
“Not sure why you want to know about that one. He’s long gone, anyway.”
Clench. “Gone?”
“Picked up by one of the trainers that got hit in the event.”
His heart fluttered slightly. He swallowed.
“Did they say where they were going?”
“Emeragrove, to look for a ride to Hearthome, I think. I could-”
But Alice didn’t get the rest of it out, because the man turned, making for the doors with all due speed. She stared after him in confusion.
“... Odd.” She muttered, as he stepped through the front doors and into the bright noon sun. “Wonder what that was about.”