Unfortunately, despite her actually joining the team in a completely official manner, Absol- Delphi- did not magically heal from her wounds upon exiting the Pokeball. While it certainly chafed her a bit to leave us to handle it all on our own, it was obvious that she was much more at ease with it than she was earlier. The promise that I’d made her, and the manner in which I’d made it, had apparently made large differences as far as she was concerned.
Still, this didn’t mean that things were done. There was work to do, and nobody else to do it: there were patches of avalanche out there that needed handling, and already we were behind on the entire job. We’d hoped to be finishing today, but, like I’d suspected before, it was becoming less and less likely as the day went on. So, we grabbed food and ate a very quick meal, before marching back out onto those slopes.
Without the distraction that was an entire force of Rock types bearing down on us, the job went quite a bit quicker: in fact, we were getting steadily faster at it as the day went on. Ajax was getting the hang of the work, and the others had more than enough energy to keep up, meaning that we were getting rapid and quite efficient about it.
By the time that the sun was dipping towards the horizon, casting the snow around us in light shades of pink as it fell, we were mostly done. There were a few trouble spots left, snow stacked up high enough to be a threat, but they could wait until tomorrow. When we began the trek back towards the camp, Mika and Noble showed up and joined us in very quick order, making our group nearly complete… Well, save for Delphi.
I couldn’t help but worry over the absol. She was tough and strong, no doubt, and the injury itself hadn’t been all that bad, but I couldn’t help but feel concerned. I glanced at Kevan and Blake, the former towards the back and speaking with Arcanine, while Blake was towards the front of the group, watching Mika and Noble play out in front of us. Kevan would know more about general medical care, but Blake would know more about injured Pokemon, particularly battle-injured Pokemon, and how fast they could heal.
“What do you think, who should I ask about Delphi?” I asked Drake.
The poochyena, after an extremely long day and an extended fight, was pretty well wiped out. He’d ended up laying over my shoulder, his back paws in my hood and providing a good brace to keep him in his perch. There on my shoulder, he had a clear view of wherever I happened to be looking, which seemed to satisfy him quite a bit. I wondered if he’d be happier when he eventually evolved into a mightyena and gained some more height, or if I’d have to figure out how to carry him in order to give him a higher vantage point.
My words seemed to have pulled him out of some thought that he was having, as he gave me a look of slight surprise, then considered the question. Some consideration later, he turned and nodded his muzzle towards Blake, all the way at the front of the group. I hummed to myself softly, thinking.
“Yeah, I thought of that. He’s got more experience with Pokemon healing from battle-related wounds and such, I was weighing it due to the fact that Kevan’s got actual medical training.”
Drake tilted his head one way, then the other, giving a small noise of acknowledgement. Still, he nodded his head towards Blake insistently. I shrugged, giving him a small smile.
“Well, if you say so.”
I gave one of his ears a scratch, then increased my speed, making my way through the group towards Blake’s position near the front. On the way, I passed Ajax, who was focusing on something and thinking quite hard. Me passing by seemed to jolt him from whatever he was thinking, at least for a moment, and he nodded to me. I smiled back, ruffling his ears and running my fingers over his skull plate, getting a noise from him that was halfway between indignant and appreciative. As I passed by, he fell into step with me, obviously curious about what I was after.
Devi, obviously sensing my approach, turned his head to regard me with barely a glance. He nodded to each of us in turn, getting a return nod from Drake and a small bow from Ajax. Blake, noticing Devi’s attention out of the corner of his eye, turned and glanced behind him, giving me a small smile.
“Cam.” He said. “Good work out there today.”
“Yeah, you know, I think I did a pretty good job of standing around and not freezing to death.” I agreed, pulling up next to him and slowing to match his pace.
“You know what I mean.” He said simply, pausing as he negotiated a little outcropping of rock into the path. “You didn’t make egregious tactical errors today. From what Jive has indicated to me, you directed the Pokemon that were under your command as well as could be expected. You’ve got a long way to go, but…”
He gave me a nod. I couldn’t help but look away, blushing lightly: compliments tended to get to me pretty easily, I never felt used to receiving them. Helped when the guy giving them was pretty cute. Still, I waved him off a bit.
“I did alright. Still, Delphi got injured pretty badly, and I have to wonder if-”
Blake cut me off with a chopping motion, frown on his face. “I don’t think you could’ve prevented that. She was already exhausted enough that it was surprising she could fight at all, it’s no surprise that she took a hit that bad. Pokemon can push their bodies all they want, and often, especially with the help of a lot of medicinal items that increase their natural healing, they can keep going for a long, long time. But Pokemon have hard limits; when their aura is totally spent, it’s spent. There’s nothing to do about that but wait long enough for it to recover.”
Hm. Despite how this world was divorced from the mechanics of the game, I couldn’t help but think about Leppa berries and Ethers. Did they exist in this world, or were they merely a fictitious creation of the games? If they did exist, how would they work? Would they directly restore the aura of the target Pokemon?
I went to note it down in the back of my head to look up later, then twitched, nearly slapping myself in the forehead before I stopped the motion. I had no idea why I was going to look something like that up when I had an experienced Champion-grade trainer right here.
“Are there…” I reconsidered my phrasing. “Is there some sort of medicinal item or food that does restore aura?”
Blake breathed out in a huff. “Well, yeah, there’s some. Leppa berries, for example, cause the aura to cycle faster, refilling the reserves of the Pokemon that ate it quicker. They’re not totally understood, but, if you’ve got cash to set fire to, you can get an Ether, which is essentially concentrated Leppa extract in a bottle.”
“Huh. How does that work?”
“Uh, well… the Leppa just allows a Pokemon to recover their aura and whatever Type energy they have in the tank faster. Ether does it a whole lot faster than that, but it’s not a long term solution: the longer a Pokemon’s Ether boosted, the more diminishing returns that it takes. Eventually, even the best Ether won’t restore TE to a completely exhausted Pokemon. As to how it actually works, chemically?” He shrugged. “A mystery. From what I heard, there’s a Pokemon Professor out there specialized in how medicinal items interact with Pokemon, and they’re studying the phenomenon intently. No idea if they’ve made any progress, though.”
I didn’t really have an answer for that one, either. I had some half-remembered things about Infinity energy, and something about… working off of the bits and pieces that I could remember about it, I would hazard a guess that a Pokemon’s aura processed Infinity energy into Type energy for use. While I wasn’t sure of the precise mechanics behind it, I got the sense that converting IE to TE was like flexing a muscle. Eventually, the aura could be exhausted, and it could only convert one type of energy to the other so fast.
If what Blake said was right, then the berry and the medicine derived from it didn’t so much restore the processed TE in the bank as it boosted the aura’s ability to process Infinity energy. Which, of course, would mean that over a long period of time, the aura would wear itself out and end up processing even less Infinity energy than normal.
Of course, all of this was basically speculation. I wouldn’t dare say I knew more than a Pokemon Professor, particularly because my theories were based on half-remembered understandings of the games and their mechanics, with a sprinkling of lore. Not the most reliable source of information, that. I’d do some research at a later time, see if anything that I’d thought of fit any observed phenomenon.
I shook off the thoughts, realising that I’d been silent for a little too long. “That’s really interesting, honestly. I might have to look that professor up, see if I can’t locate any examples of their work. If they’ve made any progress in figuring out how it works, I might be interested in seeing it.”
“Some of the cutting-edge research coming out of various labs is pretty fascinating.” Blake nodded in agreement, folding his arms. “Champions, Researchers, and Professors tend to have free and open access to a lot of this research information, so I spend a lot of time going over the newest stuff that strikes my interest.”
“Wait, Champions get the same access as Researchers and Professors? Why?”
“To entice them. If you’ve got a Champion that’s interested in the result of various research projects, they might donate. More importantly, they might volunteer to assist whatever research they’re interested in, which makes studying all manner of things a whole lot easier. Champion-grade trainers and the scientific community are in a sort of cooperational relationship, where the insight and strength of Champions assists research, and then the Champions then draw on that research to hone their Pokemon.” He shrugged. “Or maybe they’re just interested in the results of a particular line of research just because they find it fascinating.”
I couldn’t say that it was something that I’d really expected or really thought about happening, but, thinking about it, I supposed that it made sense. Made perfect sense that the category of trainers with strength and money to spare would be willing to spend either in pursuit of information that they personally found interesting.
… Wait. It suddenly occurred to me that we’d wandered way off topic, with the existence of medicines and research sidetracking me. I gave a little shake, trying to disconnect the thoughts that had so totally derailed me, and get back to what I’d originally intended to ask.
“Interesting as that was, uh, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask about. Specifically, you have a lot more experience with how Pokemon heal, right?”
He nodded, making a noise of understanding. “Yeah, I think I can see where you’re going with this. And I would say, don’t worry about it. While Absol…” He gave me a sudden look. “You said her name was Delphi, yeah?”
I nodded in return. “Don’t know where I got the name, specifically, but yes.”
“Well, Delphi won’t be fighting fit for another couple of days as the wounds heal and her ribs fix themselves, but she’ll be good to move under her own power by tomorrow.” A small smile crossed his expression. “You don’t have to worry about her, she’ll be alright.”
Something of a relief. I knew it already, of course, but I couldn’t help but worry, especially now that she was one of my team. Before, I’d worried about her in a much more general and nonspecific sense, the way that you worry about an acquaintance or a coworker that you knew. Now, it was much closer and more personal. Side effect of bringing her on board, I supposed. Not that I minded in the slightest, but it was something to consider.
The conversation turned more general and less specific after that, as we discussed various portions of the job that we were doing and what we were planning to accomplish tomorrow. Having made it more than three quarters of the way down the pass, we were nearly finished with the entire thing, enough that we could comfortably pack everything tomorrow. We’d be on the road by noon, and easily make the far end of the pass by nightfall, which would allow us to confirm that the job had been done properly and call it in to the Rangers.
As much as I liked traveling and camping, I found myself looking forwards to pulling into Oreburgh and having an actual place to stay that wasn’t just a tent in a clearing. My sleeping bag and the foam mattress that went under it were perfectly comfortable, it was just that, at a certain point, you start missing a proper bed. While I’d been camping before, of course, I’d never gone this long, particularly without access to any sort of civilization other than the things and people that I’d brought with me.
“I’m pretty used to it,” answered Kevan when I queried him about it. “Rangers are typically on the road for extended periods of time, and even when we aren’t, more often than not it’s because we’re doing localized patrols, figuring out some issue in an area, or providing some kind of security for something. Your average Ranger spends more time in a tent than they do in a proper building.” He grinned at me. “The longest ones are the archeological digs. Ruins are typically filled with Pokemon, so you need a Ranger contingent on hand at all times in case some of them start acting up.”
I thought about what Blake had said about Champions and research papers. “Do Champion-grade trainers come along on those digs?”
“Hm.” Kevan thought about it. “Well, I’ve only been on one or two, and… occasionally? Champions are usually interested more in Pokemon related research than in digs, though you can’t discount the ones that do it as a hobby. And, of course, the ones that became Champions entirely to do that sort of thing.”
“There are trainers that do that?”
“Sure. There are a large number of locations that are considered too risky for your average team of Researchers, even with a Ranger escort. What’s the solution? Well, achieve the Champion grading to prove that you can kick enough ass to make them let you in.”
“Wait, like the pass, right? We’re here because I’ve got League affiliation, and you’re a Ranger.”
“Yeah, basically. This was marked too dangerous for your usual low-rank trainer, but between the three of us, nobody’s going to give us any difficulty for being up here. It’s generally accepted that a Champion almost never gets themselves into a situation where they’re in over their heads, and Rangers have the training… though, in this case, the threat was considered low enough that anybody with League affiliation wouldn’t be prevented from heading up.” His foot knocked a stone loose, sending it skittering across the ground and down the slope. “Though after all this, they’ll be locking it down quite a bit tighter until they can get a full Ranger team through here and secure the Route.”
“Probably a good idea regardless,” I mused. “Even if we manage to clear out the entirety of the avalanches without further complications, I wouldn’t put it past this mountain to just be hiding something else behind the next boulder.”
Kevan couldn’t help but give a chuckle at that one. “Yeah, between everything that’s been thrown at us since the beginning of this, I can’t help but think that the damn mountain itself is out to get us.”
“You know, I’m not sure if it would’ve been better or worse if I’d ended up with a Ranger team, like we planned originally.”
I got a hum of consideration in response, Kevan glancing towards the far horizon as he considered it. Drake had followed most of the conversations that I’d been having, but I could tell he was struggling to stay awake after an extremely long day and an extended battle. With him burning just about every bit of Type energy that he had access to, he was just about spent, snuggled up against the side of my head and comfortable lying on and partially in my soft hoodie.
“Well, you most likely still would’ve had Blake, you just wouldn’t have had me. So, definitely a lot more firepower… things probably would’ve gone a whole lot smoother for you, yeah. Honestly, if I knew how much trouble you were going to get into in such a relatively short amount of time, I would’ve insisted that they assign a Ranger team to you and damn the consequences.” He gave me an amused look. “Not entirely against assigning you a Ranger detail on a more permanent basis, if this is how it’s going to end up every single time you go out.”
“I very much hope it won’t.” I said, slightly nervous. “I feel like I’ve been barely riding on top of a tidal wave from day one, and I’m just worried that eventually, one of these times that I try to hang ten, I’m going to wipe out.”
“You’re telling me. Vinewood, Emeragrove, Hearthome, and now twice coming up Coronet. I’m almost sure that someone upstairs is either pretty mad at you, or is using you as a cleanup detail.”
I practically cringed into my neck thinking about that, face pulling into a grimace. “That’s not a comforting thought in the slightest. I would really hope that they’d tell me about that, first. It’s just a dick move to send me into these sorts of hyper dangerous solutions on purpose without proper prep or warning.” I hesitated. “If, of course, it’s happening. Which I haven’t ruled out, either.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Kevan said, stepping closer and nudging my shoulder with a fist. Drake gave him a disgruntled look, then settled back into a comfortable position. “With the sheer speed and regularity with which you make friends, I’m sure that you’ll just happen to meet some famous trainer that’ll solve all your problems for you. Or, hey, maybe you’ll just happen across a Dark-type that’ll smash whatever gets between you and your goal.”
“Mm. Yeah, it’s certainly starting to look that way, isn’t it?” I said, thinking. “Three Dark types in, I might have to admit that gran might’ve had a point.”
That got Kevan’s eyebrows to raise. “Gran? Recalling something?”
“Oh, uh, no.” I was quick to shake my head, realizing how that might have sounded. “The matriarch of the Jinnouchi clan. She all but stated that she thought that I was a Dark-type specialist. That’s not really an uncommon sentiment.”
“Arceus, I really am not used to you calling her gran.” Kevan muttered.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s like…” he searched for a moment, trying to figure out a proper analogy. “It’s like if I was talking about the Regional Champion, and somebody came up to me and went ‘oh, Akira? Yeah, I was at his house last week.’ It’s just weird to hear.” He waved his hand, dismissing the idea. “Anyway, yeah, I had you figured for a Dark specialist as well. Between the hoodie and the poochyena,” Drake opened one eye, then closed it again when he realized Kevan was just talking about him, not to him. “It was a pretty easy assumption to make. I can pretty easily see how others have made it.”
“Yeah, I get it. Anyway, the longer I go about this, the more that I think they may have had a point, if not at the moment than after the fact. Drake, then Ajax, and now Delphi… I think I have a type, and that type is Dark.”
Kevan let out a breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a small laugh at that, coming out as a small plume of steam in the cold air. Arcanine, who had matched paces with us, wasn't so restrained. His bark of laughter created a much larger gout of steam that plumed outwards, pure heat against the chilly atmosphere.
“Hah, yeah, I can see that happening. Some humans are just in tune with a specific type, I suppose.”
“... Literally?”
“No, not- well…” He glanced upwards, frowning. “Okay, there’s some speculation about aura and human-Pokemon friendships, and how both relate to the strength of a Pokemon, but… I can’t say that there’s that much proof one way or the other about whether any of that is accurate.”
“... Huh. Something to think about.” I said, softer.
The rest of the hike was made with relative silence. Mostly, I felt that everyone was starting to focus on just getting back to camp so they could collapse in their various forms of bedding: Blake’s team excepted, of course. I had more than one moment of watching Devi and Jive’s usual rivalry antics, or Noble and Mika playing out ahead of the rest of us, where I wondered where the hell they got the energy for that from. And then I would immediately remember what they were, and would feel a little stupid for questioning it.
When we came over the ridge, the sun was nearly touching the horizon, casting the mountain in shades of orange, red, and purple near the base. I’d focus more on the sheer beauty of the vista, if it weren’t for the fact that I felt like I wanted to curl up and sleep for a week. Kevan and his team seemed to agree with me, Arcanine and Kevan shuffling off towards their tent while Pidgeotto settled near the edge of camp on a perch with decent sightlines and tucked her head under a wing.
I gently prodded Drake, who had been fading in and out for the entire hike, but now was gently snoring against the side of my head. He shifted with a grumble, slowly opening one eye and staring at me. Gently, I lifted him off of my shoulder and set him on the ground. He whined a little, having been divorced from my body heat, then shook himself awake a little more.
Ajax was already moving towards the tent, plodding footsteps following in his wake. He gripped the zipper in his teeth, pulling on it as gently as he could, drawing it around the entrance to the tent and opening the flap before stepping in. Drake looked after him, obviously seriously considering following the Fire type into a warm, enclosed space with soft places to lay down, before he looked back up at me. Slowly, he shook his head, then pressed closer to my leg. I couldn’t help but smile.
We settled by the fire, Devi having lit it in a display of energy that was making me exhausted just thinking about it. Drake couldn’t quite manage to jump up into my lap in one go, instead hopping up onto the stone next to me, before worming his way under my arm and into my lap, where he curled up. I set my hand on his head and started stroking.
A quick meal later, however, and I realized that I just wasn’t going to make it until later. I was exhausted, and now I was full, and those two things were actively plotting to murder me between them. Not that I was against letting them, honestly, I was really feeling the long day that I’d been through, and I hadn’t even been fighting myself. Drake had wholly passed out as a ball on my legs, snoring gently again and already sleeping pretty deeply.
Blake sat across the fire from me, warming his hands with a mug of something. He seemed quite a bit more awake and alert than Kevan or I did, and I had to wonder if he was just used to tests of endurance like this. I supposed that it made sense, considering what the League Tournament must be like. One long string of fights, direct from one to the other.
My team definitely didn’t have the stamina for something like that yet. Drake’s was impressive, given what he did every time we got into a fight, but he was still learning and growing. One day, he’d be closer to Jive’s sheer strength and stamina. One day.
“Long day, huh?” Blake said softly, barely audible over the crackling of the fire.
I nodded silently in return, stroking my fingers over Drake’s back. The poochyena shifted and growled softly in his sleep, paws twitching. I wondered if he was dreaming about something, or if he was just responding to my touch.
“So, what’re you going to do after we come down into Oreburgh?”
That was a question that I didn’t need to consider the answer to. “Spend a day or two in the city, refresh our supplies and rest a little after so long on the road. Then, move on, head for Sandgem. Still the final leg of this journey to complete.”
Blake nodded, staring into the flames. He adjusted the steaming mug in his hands, then took a sip out of it, firelight reflecting in his eyes. Looking closely, I could make the tentative guess that he was deep in thought, though I was getting about as much as usual from his body and face. Still, something I needed to practice.
“Thinking?” I asked.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He glanced up towards me, eyes not reflecting the firelight for a single moment as he raised his head. And then the moment was gone, and his eyes reflected the light again, hidden from me. Unreadable.
“What about?”
He shrugged. “Just about the Championship. Things in the region. The local Gyms.”
I simply nodded, waiting for him to continue. For a long minute, he didn’t say anything else, just sampling his drink and watching the fire burn. Behind him, in the shadows cast at the edge of the camp by the fire, I could see Devi and Jive together. The Pokemon were having a quiet conversation of their own, occasionally glancing in our direction.
“Like I said,” Blake suddenly continued, “we climbed the mountain.”
My mind flickered back to a conversation that we’d had, before Kevan had joined us, when we were still working on the dam. Him laying out how his journey had gone, all the twists, the challenges they’d overcome to being a team that could fight their way to the Regional Champion.
“I remember.”
He breathed out through his nose, and brought his mug up a little to take another drink. Halfway to his mouth, it paused, wavered. His arms settled back on his legs as he hunched forwards slightly, staring into the flame intently.
“I made my whole life about achieving that goal, no others. And then I did it. What do you do, after you get to that point?”
“Train Jive and Noble until they evolve?”
He gave me a somewhat amused look. “That’s something, but individually, they’re strong enough to be Champion-ranked without their final evolutions… Jive can only get stronger, once he’s mastered his new form. Just…” He trailed off.
There was a pause between us, one that I would’ve struggled to get through without nodding off just a few minutes earlier. Now, however, I found myself very much awake, and paying close attention to what he was saying. Even despite my oblivious nature, I could tell that this was vitally important to him, that he was reaching the end state of working through the hurdle that he’d struggled with from before I’d even met him, long before I’d even ended up in this world. The final challenge that was summed up in its entirety by a mere two words: what now?
I didn’t know if I had an answer for those words, not a good one. Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do in the end, when I was a Champion. Maybe I’d go out into the world, find archeological digs, discover things. Maybe I’d go find some legendary to bother, and wouldn’t stop going until I did. It was something that was so far out in the future for me that I wasn’t really thinking about it in real terms. How can you predict what you’ll be doing potentially years down the line, and establish solid planning for it?
But Blake was there, at the end of his line, having achieved the thing that he was striving for. I looked across the fire at something that could be me, at some future time, though I wasn’t certain. I supposed that it was better to say that Blake was a representation of what I might become in the future.
“I don’t know if I have an answer for you, there.” I said, honestly. “Once I hit Champion, I don’t know what I’ll do specifically… though I don’t doubt that I’ll figure something out.” I gave a small smile at that. “Yeah, I’m certain I will. I’m not very good at sitting still.”
“I can tell that much.” Blake said with an edge of humour, though it dissipated a moment later. It was that dense of a cloud, I supposed. “I’m just not sure where to go from here.”
“Well…” I said, trailing off.
What was there to do, for him? I mean, there was something to the idea of becoming a Master, but I wasn’t even sure what that would entail. Gran had been a Fire and Dark master, and I assumed that, much like becoming a Champion, you had to have demonstrated Mastery-ranked techniques. But that wasn’t a solid idea, wasn’t something I could really suggest… at least, not on its own.
I brought my hand up to my mouth and gently worried it between my teeth, thinking.
Blake had punched his way through the Galarian League. But, if what I’d seen was true, then generally, it was less about winning and more about demonstrating that you had the appropriate level of understanding of technique, of skills, of leadership of your Pokemon. I had gotten the sense that you could lose a fight, but still win the battle, if your opponent thought that you had demonstrated a mastery of the involved techniques. Likewise, you could brute force your way through a fight, but lose the battle because sheer strength doesn’t mean that you have the skill or technique to properly use it.
So, then, I imagined that when Blake had told me that he’d gotten through the Elite Four and the Regional Champion, I expected that it was a balance of winning fights and demonstrating that he had the skill and the technique required. I doubted that he’d won every time, but he and his team had the strategies, the training, the endurance. And that… tickled something, in the back of my mind.
“So… do it again?” I said, the end of my sentence curving upwards, uncertain. Blake gave me a searching look, and I cleared my throat, trying to make myself sound a lot more firm, a lot more sure. “You did it once, pressing through at the ranks that the Gym leaders thought matched your expertise, your rank. But, what if you did it again, but this time, you pressed through at the highest level? Hone yourself, and take on the Regional Champion’s actual team?”
Yeah, I wasn’t sure that was how it worked at all. I knew the Gym leaders tuned their teams to the opponent, and nearly never used their actual full-strength teams. I wasn’t sure at all that that applied to the Champions, I was just guessing that it did, that they were just the final exam instead of an out and out brawl with both sides pushing as hard as they could. I knew, for example, that Fantina could’ve stopped showboating and turned me to paste anytime she’d wanted to. But she hadn’t wanted to: the entire purpose of Gyms was to press you as hard and as far as you could go, to make you demonstrate that you’d learned and honed and trained enough that you and your team deserved a badge for the next rank up.
“... No.” Blake said, at length.
I let out a small breath of relief, that I hadn’t been thinking along an entirely incorrect route.
“There’s a whole region here, a League that you haven’t fought. Gym leaders that you haven’t matched Pokemon with. Badges you haven’t earned. If you go in there, looking for a fight, do you think that those Gym leaders will throw out a Gym trainer with their team, or do you think they’re going to come out themselves? That they’ll match you with their best, just to be able to press you as hard as they can?”
I lifted Drake from my lap, gently setting him on the rock and pushing myself to my feet. I paced back and forth, focused, getting into the swing of the idea. Blake’s eyes tracked my every move, and, in the distance, I realised that Jive and Devi were quiet. Their eyes shone in the firelight, at the edge of the circle, taking in me and what I was saying. I swallowed the spark of nervousness that stirred in me, pressing on, trying to get it out before I talked myself out of doing so.
“So what’s stopping you from going out there and doing that? Training your team to take on the best that Sinnoh has to offer, and punching your way through? Right on up to the Champion and the Four, doing your utmost to win every fight. The answer is that there’s nothing stopping you from doing any of that, from pressing forwards, from just doing it again but better.”
Blake’s look was one of intense focus, parsing out what I was saying, listening to my words. I could see it in his eyes, in Devi’s, in Jive’s, as they picked it apart, digested it. I could see Devi’s back straighten, the way that Jive’s eyes glittered. Blake steepled his hands, then folded his fingers together, staring into the flames.
“I think…” He trailed off, eyes narrowing. “I’m going to have to think about that.”
“Yeah.” I muttered weakly.
The head of steam that I’d built up felt spent, and I settled back down next to Drake. To my surprise, when I glanced down, I could see his eyes staring back up at me. At some point in my monologue, he’d woken up, listened to everything I’d said to Blake. There was something searching in his eyes, trying to understand where I’d come from when I’d said everything that I’d said. I’d have explained it to him, but I felt too tired to puzzle out the confusing knot of emotions that had driven me to say everything I did. It was a conversation for later, I thought.
“I’m… going to turn in.” I said, finally.
I was afforded a nod from Blake. “Goodnight. I’ll stay out here, for a bit longer.”
I pushed myself to my feet, Drake getting up from his rocky perch and stretching. He glanced in Blake’s direction, his eyes flickering towards Jive, then he jumped down from the rock and followed in my footsteps. The tent flap was still somewhat open from Ajax, who had tried his best to close the thing, but zippers hadn’t been designed to be operated by mouth. I had to wonder if there was a modification, like some kind of silicone addition, that I could make to the zipper to make it easier for Pokemon to work it their own. Something to look into.
I unzipped the flap completely, stepping aside as Drake leapt over the short rise of fabric that defined the bottom of the tent’s door. I slipped out of my trainers, taking them in one hand and setting them on a little thing for them, feet inside the tent. I reached for the zipper to seal the flap, then stopped, glancing back in Blake’s direction.
He was still sitting exactly where he’d been. I noticed that he’d set the mug aside, and that it no longer steamed, either empty or having cooled off. He rested his chin on folded hands, eyes narrowed as he stared into the heart of the fire, the flames playing a shifting series of shadows over his features. I was reminded a little of a statue, some ancient art piece depicting an individual in deep thought about something unguessable and impenetrable.
I blinked, pushing the observation away, grasping the zipper and pulling the flap closed behind me.
As I sealed the door and turned around, I found myself face to face with an inquisitive looking Drake, who was watching me closely with a small frown. Behind him, I could see Delphi’s eyes glittering in the dark; she’d obviously heard everything that I’d said to Blake as well. I stepped past the poochyena and settled down onto the foam mattress and sleeping bag combination that made up my bed.
“Do you think he’ll go for it?” I asked the tent at large.
Ajax simply breathed softly, completely passed out from a long day of work, the hardest of any of us. Drake and Delphi, however, shared something of a glance and a small exchange that I couldn’t interpret. When Drake looked back to me, he shrugged, uncertain. I thought I got the gist of that, that it was up to him to make his own choices. A sentiment that I agreed with.
“I hope that he figures himself out, regardless.” I said.
That one got an unambiguous agreement from both of them.
----------------------------------------
The next day came with a flurry of activity.
Delphi was the one who woke up first, stretching herself and making several satisfied noises as her joints cracked. That was enough to cause me to stir, partially out of worry over her accidentally screwing up her healing, but she seemed fine. Ajax was up next, which woke up Drake, the little poochyena poking his head blearily out of a small nest of blankets and blinking at the big houndour as he yawned and stretched.
Stripping Delphi’s bandage off revealed that the wound had mostly faded overnight, leaving just a few red marks under her fur. I imagined that the potion and its capability to accelerate healing had done it, and to a degree that impressed me. With the wound completely sealed and well on its way to healing entirely, I didn’t think that it was necessary to put another bandage on, something that Delphi seemed pleased about. I didn’t think that she’d appreciated the bandages and how they’d messed with her look. It would be another day or two before the rest of her injuries were healed enough that she was cleared for battle, but for now, she was fixed enough that she could travel, and that was good enough.
The four of us stepped out into the light of early morning. I rubbed my eyes as I tried to get used to the light, brighter than the inside of the tent even despite the clear plastic skylights. With more space, Ajax could begin a series of stretches that were closer to the ones that Delphi had practiced right after waking.
Kevan was already up, working with Arcanine to disassemble their tent. Pidgeotto was making a hopping circle around the campsite, scanning the ground intently, looking for anything that might be left behind. When I looked over at Blake’s side of the campsite, however, I realized that he was already all finished. His tent had been compressed into a bundle of nylon, aluminium supports, and tent pegs, stacked with a few different backpacks and a small harness for Mika.
Devi was making a final check over the pile, inspecting every piece of luggage and nodding in satisfaction as it passed muster. Noble was up in the air, circling the camp, and I could see Mika on a nearby rock. He was uncharacteristically quiet and still for the bolthund that I knew, staring away from camp and over the ridge. After a moment of thought, I realized that he would have a view straight down into the pass from there.
Ajax moved forwards to double check and make sure that the fire was properly out and smothered. Drake glanced over the campsite, then turned to Delphi, the two of them exchanging a few quiet noises before going back inside the tent. Through the opening, I could see them take one of the blankets and stretch it out flat between their paws and mouths, before folding it somewhat and starting to roll it. Great idea, honestly, I’d have to go in there with Ajax’s harness in a bit to start packing the various things that wouldn’t fit in my hiking bag.
For now, however, I meandered over to Kevan. He removed the last stake, sliding out an aluminium support, causing the tent to collapse into a pile of nylon. Arcanine moved in, then, taking the tent and starting to pull it flat, before folding it much as Drake and Delphi were doing in my own tent. He glanced backwards, giving me a nod.
“Morning.” I said, glancing around the campsite one last time. Still no Blake, and no Jive.
“Morning!” Kevan replied, chipper as ever.
“... Where’s Blake, anyway?” I asked.
“Mm.” Kevan helped Arcanine with the last fold, starting to roll the tent into something more compact. “Left early this morning, not long after I woke up. He said that he needed to see to something. I don’t know what he was talking about, by the way, so don’t ask me, but he took Jive with him and left the rest here to pack up his camp.” He shrugged. “Can’t have been that dangerous or vital, because otherwise he would’ve taken them all out in force. Can’t help but wonder what he’s after, though.”
“I have no idea.” I replied. “Maybe he’s going for one last sweep of the avalanche areas? Or another go over the pass?”
Kevan shrugged. “Maybe.” He agreed, then gave me a curious look. “Did you say anything to him last night? I remember the two of you talking, but I was just about passed out so I didn’t catch any of it.”
“Not- well, uh.” I went over the conversation that we’d had last night, somewhat uncomfortable. It didn’t feel right to speak about it with Blake not here. “Just some personal things. I doubt that it has to do with whatever he’s doing now, I just hope he’s back soon. We’ve got work to do today, and we need him and Jive.”
Well, perhaps not Jive, I was increasingly sure that we were staying out of the range of the avalanche more than anything as time went on and we didn’t encounter anything else that needed our interference. It made me feel somewhat useless, but I understood that there just wasn’t that much I could do right now.
I gave Kevan one more nod, then turned around and walked back to my tent. Inside, Drake and Delphi were trying to fold and pack as best as they could without opposable thumbs, Drake directly Delphi through a series of complicated motions that he’d figured out that would result in a more or less nicely folded blanket. Leaving them to their work, I started on the sleeping bag, quickly falling back into the routine that we’d established over a month of traveling.
We stowed and packed and gathered, making sure to collect everything that we could. The folding table went in a pouch for it strapped to Ajax’s harness, the sleeping bag and foam mattress were strapped to the underside of my hiking pack, various bits and bobs from around the inside of the tent either went into the harness that Drake carried, into my bag, or into Ajax’s. I glanced at Delphi, making a mental note to purchase a harness for her when we hit Oreburgh. Couldn’t hurt to have three Pokemon capable of carrying things, and Delphi would be able to carry much more than Drake did right now.
It struck me that this was the second time that I’d disassembled a long-term campground since I’d found myself here, in this world. It was always an odd experience, taking apart a place that you’d lived for at least a small amount of time, and leaving behind not much more evidence of your passing than a ring of rocks and some ash. It didn’t strike you so hard when it was a site that you’d spent a single night at, not having gotten used to its surroundings. I’d glossed over the feeling the first time because of Kevan’s arrival, and how he’d changed the group dynamic.
Now, however, I had the time and the awareness to look around the campsite. Kevan’s tent was entirely folded up, my tent was just about done, and Blake’s entire presence had been reduced entirely to what he and his team would be carrying out of here once we moved on. Three piles of various bags and carrying harnesses, and a single fire pit, that was all that remained of us being here. Weird and bittersweet feeling.
I checked the position of the sun, finding that it had completely divorced itself of the horizon, beginning the climb into the sky of an early morning. Blake still wasn’t here, and we’d just about finished everything that we could do to wrap up the campsite. His team, lacking anything else to do, had collected at the top of the ridge, Mika still taking his spot on his rock while Devi and Noble were in the midst of a training exercise to work on their speed, mostly consisting of them attempting to keep up the balance of Normal and their respective natural Type energies in their auras.
With Blake still a no-show and all of us more or less just sitting here, I figured that it was time that we follow Noble and Devi’s example.
“Okay, looks like we’ve got a little time.” I said, pulling in the attention of my team. I pointed at Drake and Ajax. “You two, mock battles, alright? Try not to use any Type energy that you don’t have to, we’re at the beginning of a long day and I don’t want you worn out. Practice holding Normal energy in your auras while dodging and making hits. Drake’s got a better idea of it, so you’ll be following his lead, alright?” I turned my head towards Ajax, who nodded, almost comically serious. I huffed a little laugh, slapping him gently on the shoulder. “It’s not life or death. S’alright to have a little fun with this one, aye?”
His expression softened a little, chagrined, and he nodded sheepishly. Drake regarded him with a similar sort of amusement, then turned towards a different boundary of the camp and stalked off. After a moment, Ajax realized that Drake had left, and hurried to follow in his footsteps, leaving me alone with Delphi. The absol regarded me with wariness, then hesitated and shook her head. When she opened her eyes again, a lot of that wariness was gone, pushed downwards. Wasn’t really useful, given everything, but I supposed that old habits were hard to break.
I settled down on the stack of various items that we’d left behind, making myself comfortable using the folded nylon bundle that was the tent. I motioned her over to me, and she sat down next to me, watching me contemplatively. I patted my pockets down, then pulled my Dex out of one of them, flipping it open.
She was pretty well scanned by this point, the thing having already been linked with the Pokeball that I’d caught her with. After it had scanned Drake and pulled out every technique, I’d researched the device a little bit more: apparently, successful uses of a technique left impressions on the aura, which were readable with the right sensors. A link to a Pokeball was preferable, but not needed.
For Delphi, it listed a number of different techniques, a decent smattering of things. I’d already noted the Double Team that she’d used yesterday, which had appeared to blur her to the point of making it seem that there was more than one of her. Drake had already known Tackle as a technique, but I thought that Double Team might give Delphi a better idea of how to pattern her aura in order to achieve Quick Attack. She’d held the tech for a long period of time, as well, speaking to her experience in focusing and maintaining.
Knock Off wasn’t something that I expected, and I had to wonder how that would actually work in combat. Was it a blow designed to rattle an opponent enough that they’d drop something they were holding or wearing? Maybe part of the technique was putting them on the backfoot hard enough with an overwhelming amount of Dark that they couldn’t prevent something being taken off of them? In comparison, Night Slash was practically expected, though I had the thought that I might encourage Delphi to teach Drake how to use it. Bite had its downsides, particularly that you had to actually be able to get your teeth into the target, downsides that I didn’t think Night Slash shared.
What was a real surprise, however, was Detect. It was labeled with the orange of Fighting, and I had to wonder how she’d picked it up. Had it been something that she’d figured out herself, or was it something that she’d known implicitly? I thought back to the battle yesterday, when she’d been dodging blows like she could see them coming, even when they should’ve been coming from a blind spot.
“Were you using Detect for the entire fight yesterday?” I asked.
Her mouth twitched, and she glanced away, before looking back with a curious expression. It occurred to me, then, that while Drake had a trainer before me and had been honed to some degree, and Ajax had grown up among some of the top-level contenders in the region of his kind, Delphi was an actual wild Pokemon. I doubted that she’d encountered a lot of the names and terminology for a lot of what she did, she just… did it. Which meant that I’d have to try and put names to it.
“Okay, uh. So… the Dex is telling me that you know, more or less, four techniques. Detect is the technique that… you know when you call on a Type energy that’s somewhat opposed to yours, and you can feel things coming?”
That connected something, I could see, when her expression cleared somewhat. She nodded, then, looking a little more contemplative as she did.
“Yeah, that’s Detect. It uses Fighting energy, which is somewhat opposed to Dark, so that would explain why it’s harder to use.” Something clicked, at that one. “You weren’t just exhausted, were you? Calling that Fighting TE was preventing you from keeping Dark in your aura.”
She blinked at me, sorting through what I was saying, figuring out what I meant. I could see her working it out, brow furrowed as she tried to match the terms that I’d used to the experience that she’d had utilizing techniques and the like. I could see the moment where she fit the puzzle pieces together, a small look of surprise flickering across her expression before she regarded me with naked curiosity.
It was now occurring to me that a wild Pokemon might not just have a non-existent understanding of terminology, they might not truly understand how typing or TE worked. If she’d figured out Detect based on some Absol-specific draw to precognitive abilities, then it would’ve been something that she’d felt out by trial and error. She didn’t fully understand what she was doing, she just knew that if she forced certain amounts of energy out and into certain patterns, then they produced the desired effects. It was impressive that she’d even figured out a technique that required a Type energy that dissolved Dark on contact, however: it had to feel somewhat wrong just calling up Fighting energy for her.
“Fighting’s orange, yeah? Orange energy.” A flicker of confusion, but she nodded. “There are three types of energy that dissolve Dark energy: Fighting, Bug, and Fairy. They’re anathema, you understand? Things that are opposed. But, at the same time, Dark energy will break up techniques formed of dark or Ghost energy, making it much harder for someone using those kinds of energy to harm you. Dark will out and out dissolve Psychic, to the point that Psychic-types won’t even get a hold on you at all.”
I was losing her to some degree, using a lot of terms that she didn’t really have all that much context for, but I could see that she was getting the general picture of it. Certain types of energy out and out beat others, that was easy enough to understand. I pushed myself to my feet, stepping over to the firepit and picking out a partially burned stick with an end totally charcoaled. Nearby, there was a relatively flat rock surface where the stone had been sheared by a crack some time in the past. I proceeded to use it as a whiteboard.
I gave a crash course in basic typing, weaknesses, strengths, and neutrals. Resistant, where the Type energy would break apart on contact and struggle to find any real purchase, to straight out immune, where even contact would cause the TE in an aura or an attack to dissolve outright. I listed out every Type matchup that I could remember off the top of my head, then referenced the Dex for the rest and how they worked.
I didn’t expect, or even really want, Delphi to memorize all of it. The important thing was to remember what specific types of attacks could be absorbed or tanked in the moment, and what had to be avoided. It was preferable to take a Normal strike to a Fairy one, because while Normal would just pierce the TE in the aura, Fairy would obliterate it entirely. That made it harder to form the next technique, put you on the backfoot.
“Now, I’m not going to be able to give you orders every moment, and I doubt either of us wants that. You’ve got your own battle experience, and you can operate on your own. But one of the things that we’ll have to work on is that you can’t spend time processing my commands, figuring out what I mean, anything like that. If I say something in the heat of the moment, it means that I most likely saw something you didn’t, that I’m directing you to dodge it or deal with it.”
She didn’t much like that as an idea, I could see that in her face, but she wasn’t necessarily opposed to it. It ran counter to her otherwise solitary persona, which was something that we’d have to work on as well before she could fit in perfectly working with a team.
“Yesterday, you did just fine, but if I’d been watching, I might’ve seen that blow coming and warned you. But that might not have mattered at all, because what would you have done at that moment if I shouted for you to get down or dodge?”
Something defiant flickered across her face, and she immediately winced, a very subtle reaction as she realized that was exactly my point. She wouldn’t have listened to me, or she would’ve looked around to figure out what I was talking about, which means that even with a warning she would’ve gotten hit.
“A lot of that is just experience. We’re going to have to go into battles where I command you, and we’ll have to work on it until it’s instinctive.” She didn’t seem particularly enthused about that, so I figured that it was time to switch tactics a little. “Think about it this way. You only have so much focus, and you can only see so much from your position on the battlefield. I can see more, and I have focus to spare, which means that I can add it to yours. Think of me more of an extension of yourself than a commander or something like that, an external edge that gives you just a little more of an advantage over a wild Poke.” I held up a finger. “But remember, every Pokemon on the team of a competent trainer is going to have that same edge.”
There was conflict in her expression about that, and I thought I understood. Like I’d observed, this went against her nature as a solitary fighter and a single being, one that had plenty of experience fighting and surviving in the wild. Experience that, to be fair, neither Drake nor Ajax possessed. There were things that she could do perfectly well on her own that I expected them to struggle with, just because she had an edge of experience on them.
Now, the goal would have to be working her into a balance between the two things, letting her experience guide her when appropriate and following my commands without hesitation when she needed to. Between the two, I could already see that she would be a force to be reckoned with, something like a complete sidestep from the two more trained members of my team. An edge all her own, besides her ability to call on a bit of precognitive ability.
“So, are you willing to work with me on this? Get yourself down to the point where you’re comfortable throwing aside what your instincts might be telling you, in exchange for something that I say?”
She hesitated. I could see it clearly, how her idea of what was good and what worked clashed with that, and I understood. Because it had worked, she’d made it this long without serious injury, and was perhaps the most battle-tested of my team. Here, however, she was starting to recognize that it wouldn’t always help her, even if she disliked it. After a long moment, she nodded, back straightened, determined to do her best. I smiled wide, and gave her an encouraging nod in return. Her smile was hesitant, but it was there. Then, her eyes twitched past me.
Turning, I could see Blake’s team on the ridge. Devi and Noble had brought a sudden and complete halt to their training, and were staring down towards something in the direction of the mountain path. Mika, as well, was on his paws, focused intently. I felt something solidify in my gut, wondering for a moment whether we should be ready to fight, but… no. They weren’t gearing up for a brawl, they were excited, if anything.
I started walking towards their position, waving to Kevan where he was speaking with Arcanine and drawing his attention. With quick steps, I mounted the ridge, coming up next to Devi. The cinderace gave me a glance, and, to my surprise, a small smile that seemed excited. He was more withdrawn from the others, but he still couldn’t hide that small reaction. I followed their gaze down the side of the pass, and, almost immediately, I could see why.
Blake waved to us from the path, a wide smile splitting his lips, and though he was near as composed as Devi was, I could see his excitement. Jive followed behind him, a looming mass of muscle and fur, but the image was reduced some by the fact that he was nearly giddy, sharpening his claws against each other in a sort of idle anticipation. But none of that was attracting my attention.
Most of it was focused on the smaller figure that sat on Blake’s shoulders, red claws resting on Blake’s head, red spike of fur swept to the side. The sneasel regarded the quickly gathering Pokemon and humans on the ridge with a mixture of anxiety, and something very much like the excitement of the human whose shoulders they were riding.