It was more than a little amusing, and absolutely a lot cute, to watch the sneasel interacting with the rest of their new team. It was obvious as Devi chattered to them, occasionally getting into verbal sparring matches with Jive before remembering what he was doing, that the Dark and Ice type was desperately trying to play it cool. Whether they were successful at that or not, none of the Pokemon present seemed particularly inclined to point it out.
Blake now moved with an animation that I didn’t think I’d seen from him since I met him. The Galarian trainer had always been a bit more subdued, relaxed and perfectly happy with taking the backseat out of situations where he needed to directly take charge. Now, however, he seemed… different. It wasn’t something that I could really quantify or trace back to some kind of origin, but his back seemed straighter, and there was something that shimmered behind his eyes that I couldn’t identify.
Between the two of them, everyone present seemed to have something to focus on or talk about. With Blake having returned, everyone that had left the campsite had been gathered back to it by Jive’s effort, and had seemed eager to do so. Ajax having exchanges with Mika, the two of them glancing in Blake’s direction, the hellhound looking curious while the sparkhound seemed excited, if anything. Drake and Delphi didn’t seem to quite know what to make of it, Drake giving the sneasel thoughtful looks while Delphi watched Blake with the slightly scrunched expression of someone attempting to figure out a puzzle when they had no idea what the final shape would look like.
It wasn’t like I was immune to it, of course; I felt plenty curious about the newest partner on Blake’s roster. I hadn’t expected this in the slightest, and couldn’t have predicted it coming around. I wasn’t sure that any of us could’ve called Blake suddenly deciding to walk down the mountain and, presumably, talk one of the sneasel colony into joining his team. Perhaps it didn’t have anything to do with it, but I couldn’t help but think of my conversation with him the previous night. Had that done something, or achieved something? In the month and change that I’d known him, Blake hadn’t even indicated the intention of seeking out more partners, and now he goes and purposefully seeks one out with no warning?
“What do you make of this?” I asked Drake and Delphi quietly. They seemed to be turning something over in their heads, which meant that they might have some kind of thought.
Drake glanced back and forth between Blake and the sneasel, ear twitching at my words and the corner of his mouth twitching downwards. He glanced up at me, but whatever he might’ve been thinking, it appeared too complicated for him to get across with some wordless gesture. Delphi, on the other hand, turned her head slightly in my direction with an intensely curious look.
“What, do you think I have something to do with this?” I peered across the now-packed campsite to Blake, who was focused on having a conversation with Kevan, probably about what had led to this. “I’m not so sure about that one. I had a talk with him last night, and I thought about that, but I’m not so sure that what I said could have led to this.”
Delphi tilted her head to the side, which I interpreted as a ‘maybe’, and one that definitely came off as not entirely believing me. I wasn’t entirely sure that I believed me, either, but I wasn’t sure what else could’ve spurred him to suddenly change his behaviour like this. I chased the thought in a circle, trying to put together a series of events that might have eventually ended up with this. Eventually, however, I simply ran up against the wall that was the fact that I just didn’t have all the information I needed to draw any kind of useful conclusion.
“I think I’m going to have to carry through with the most last resort and terrible of information gathering activities.” I intoned to my two partners, playing up how solemn my voice was. “Asking people questions.”
Drake rolled his eyes, shaking his head. Delphi gave him a questioning look, and he responded with a face that could only be labeled ‘long suffering’. Delphi let out a small groan, letting her head roll back slightly, her eyes squeezing shut. I pulled a face in return, bumping Drake in the shoulder with my foot.
“Oi, don’t you go soiling my name before I have a chance to soil it myself, you hear?” He nodded, seeming somewhat contrite, though a flicker of amusement still found itself on his muzzle. Pretending not to see it, I nodded authoritatively. “That’s a good lad.”
Leaving the two of them to whatever speculation they were hashing out between them, which was growing less awkward as time went on, I approached Blake and Kevan. The Ranger had his back angled somewhat towards me, and seemed more focused past Blake and towards where the rest of the Pokemon were practically swarming the poor sneasel. Thus, Blake noticed me first, giving me a genuine smile and a small wave.
“Hey, Cam.” His voice was casual and completely at ease, as if he hadn’t just strolled out of camp before any of us had woken up and come back with a new partner in tow.
“Alright.” I said in a tone of voice that brooked no nonsense, stepping up besides Kevan, who gave me a cursory nod of greeting that I returned. “Spill it?”
“Spill what?” He asked, entirely too casual and innocent.
“A sneasel. Out of nowhere, a sneasel. You didn’t even express any interest in the colony beyond what we were doing about and for them, and, as far as I could tell, the feeling was unanimously mutual. I don’t think one of them approached us at any point, but here you are, strolling with one of their number in tow.” I crossed my arms. “So, spill.”
To my slight surprise, he seemed somewhat embarrassed, glancing away and picking at the sleeve of his jacket in a self-conscious way that I hadn’t really seen from him before. From his expression, however, I could see that there weren’t any regrets about this.
“Oh, you know. They showed enough interest when we came through, helping them. I thought that, hey, I’ve got slots on my team and spare Pokeballs, why not ask around and see if one of them wanted to come along? That’s pretty typical for wild Pokemon, after all.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there was more to that story than what he was telling me. Honestly, he was doing a terrible job hiding it, though I thought that was more through a lack of specific and directed effort than a lack of ability. I stared at him for a long moment, which he pretended to not notice at all, before sighing and turning away. I didn’t really want to force the point, there didn’t seem to be any need or point to doing so, and I figured that he’d tell me if there was. We were friends, and if he wanted to talk about it, he’d come to me. I wouldn’t force it out of him before he had his thoughts together.
Watching the sneasel closer, I realized that they kept glancing at Jive as much as Blake for reassurance, seeming to take some amount of confidence from the presence of both. Obviously Blake would’ve had to convince them to join the team, but I had to wonder what the fixation on Jive was about. Was it because Jive had come along with Blake to do the convincing? Maybe they’d met Jive before, maybe while all the fighting was going on? I focused on them more intently, but I couldn’t make out any identifying marks that might section them out as one of the gang of sneasels that had come to help us with the Rock types.
“So…” I said, nodding to the combo type, where they’d settled on a rock that brought them somewhat closer to the eye level of Devi and Jive. “Do they have a name?”
“She.” Blake said. “And, no, not yet. I told her that we’d run her through a series of names, see what she liked, figure it out. We’ve got time, after all, nothing prevents us from just waiting.”
I nodded slowly. Different philosophies about this were always an odd thing to encounter, and Blake’s approach wasn’t something I could remember him ever mentioning to me.
“Out of practice on giving names to your partners?” I asked, a small smile on my face.
“Somewhat.” he said, answering it with a flash of a smile of his own. “It’s been a while since I added Mika and Noble to the team, so, understandably, I’m thinking about my approach to it.”
I nodded. “It’s something that I’ve always considered pretty important. I don’t know how other trainers go about it, but…” I trailed off, awkwardly.
Every one of my Pokemon’s names were something that I considered deep and heartfelt, something that I gave them because I valued them. They were oaths between each of them and me. I had an odd feeling thinking about it, somewhere between self-consciousness and being earnest about it. I meant every one of them, and I wouldn’t dream of withdrawing from those oaths, it just felt a little too vulnerable to state it out in the open. Like unveiling some private part of myself.
Still, there was that difference that I’d noted in Blake. Something in his eyes that hadn’t been present before, something that reminded me at least a little of how I felt when I gave my partners their names. When I made the promises to them that went along with those names.
“You should-”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to just tell him what he should do about the name of his own partner, but I’d already started the sentence, and Blake was staring at me curiously. I sighed, then squared my shoulders and pushed through my hesitation.
“The… names I give my partners are a part of what I swear to them. That I’ll do everything I can for them, you know? Those names truly mean something, to both of us.”
I felt somewhat awkward and self-conscious, suggesting these things to someone who had been in the game so much longer than I had. Still, it was somewhat heartening to look over and see that he had a contemplative look on his face, looking in the direction of the knot of Poke that had formed around the sneasel. A moment of thought, and he nodded to himself, patting me on the shoulder and smiling.
“I’ll think about it. I’m sure that I can come up with something that she feels is right, and even if I can’t, I can ask you, yeah?”
I winced. “Uh, not so much, maybe. Three names out of a lot of suggestions, and quite a bit of deliberation, isn’t that good a track record.”
He just laughed, which didn’t totally assuage my concern that I might be on the spot to figure out the perfect name that the sneasel approved of at a later date. I supposed that, in the meantime, I should start adding a capital letter to the beginning of that name, considering that Blake didn’t seem likely to be coming up with that name soon. Maybe a long day composed of the rest of the avalanche clearing and traveling would get his creative juices flowing, in which case I wouldn’t have to give my own advice on the subject.
With the Pokemon, and Kevan, seeming to have familiarized themselves enough with the new one in their number, attention shifted to the fact that our work wasn’t over yet. With the camp properly packed and everything ready to go, there wasn’t anything left to hold us back. Thus, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves crossing over the lip that separated us from the pass. Except, of course, Mika and Noble, who had left earlier to cross the pass and take their customary spot, ready to assist any Pokemon taken by surprise by the avalanches on the far side.
The sneasel had a moment of indecision, between the group of Fire types, which she eyed warily every moment she thought they weren’t watching her, and Mike and Noble. Her interest in the latter appeared to be as much a desire to get to know her comrades better as much as a desire to avoid a gang of three Fire types who were going to be spending hours vaporizing ice. However, I could easily tell that she was reluctant to leave the side of her partner of merely a few hours, but entirely uncertain of what she should be doing. It made enough sense to me that a wild Pokemon, much like Delphi, wouldn’t have much of a basis to understand how team dynamics worked. This wasn’t even mentioning, of course, the fact that the sneasel was, as far as I could tell, younger than Delphi by a fair margin.
Still, in the end, I didn’t have to interfere on that point by pointing it out to Blake. I was thinking about doing just that when she finally squared her shoulders, flexing her claws some and turning in Blake’s direction. Apparently, her desire to stick with her partner seemed to overcome her nervousness regarding the type that was directly anathema to half of her own typing. Glad that I hadn’t needed to stick my oar into the issue, I turned my focus towards the pass in front of us.
The snow that we had sent cascading down the mountain had settled into the trees at the bottom of the pass, burying the closer ones to their very tips. Little cones of green needles sticking up out of the piles of white snow, growing taller and taller as you crossed the pass until the far side, where the snow was down to the levels that it had been when we started.
It was a bit of a walk to the nearest section of undisturbed snowfall. I was rather proud of the amount that we’d gotten done the previous day, though it came with the mental caveat that I hadn’t had all that much to do with it. Oh, I’d participated in the Rock type attack, but me and my small team hadn’t been so much involved… Well, whatever, we’d been here and participated. I didn’t think that Kevan or Blake would begrudge me taking some of the credit for all this.
Still, with most of the snowpack now down in the pass and out of the way, we were essentially just performing cleanup on the remainder of the shelf that had landed towards the other end. By we, of course, I meant Blake, Kevan, and the Pokemon with them, who went out in front of me as I stopped at a good distance from the first concentration of snow. I watched them go, getting smaller as they negotiated the terrain between us and the next avalanche section, then shook it off and clapped my hands to get the attention of the present Pokemon.
Jive merely gave me a glance before turning back and watching his partner with an intensely focused expression that seemed somewhat uncharacteristic of his otherwise laid-back attitude. Given that he’d been separated from Blake while a large pack of hostile Pokemon was bearing down on him for the second time since our trip over Coronet began, I couldn’t say that I really blamed him, and I didn’t mind him looking out like that either. Drake and Delphi, on the other hand, gave me their undivided attention, though I caught the momentary divide in Delphi’s expression as she nearly disregarded me in order to pay attention to wider events before remembering, almost immediately, that she wanted to listen to me.
“Alright, you two. With Jive keeping a lookout for us,” I nodded to the badger, who gave me a small nod in return before returning to his vigil. “I think we’re free and clear to do some work. We’ve been slacking a little since we got here, what with everything we’ve been doing, but now we’ve got a little time where we’re not doing much.”
I motioned them over to a rock that was about the right height and smooth enough to make a passable seat, settling down on it and motioning them closer. I rested my chin on my hands, thinking for a moment.
“Alright, so. Drake, how close do you feel to Feint Attack?”
He grimaced, narrowing his eyes in thought. After a moment of thought, he tilted his head one way and the other, then nodded, which I took as a ‘closer’. I gave him a nod.
“Alright, I’m going to work with Delphi.” I turned my head towards her. “Do you know any Normal-based…” I hesitated, mouth twitching. “You remember the basic explanation that I gave you yesterday?” She nodded slowly, clearly somewhat reluctant to admit that she’d lacked so much information about the basics of her own abilities. “Okay, so. The technique that you used, where you utilize white energy to make it seem like there’s more than one of you. The name of that technique is Double Team, and the idea is that you form Normal energy, white energy, into something that basically resembles you, confusing your opponent in battle. That means that you’re already quite adept in forming and working with Normal Type energy. Understand where I’m coming from so far?”
She glanced away from me, past me and towards the peak behind me, not so much staring at it as she was staring through it. After a moment, she nodded, no real hesitation in the movement, and I thought that it was safe enough to assume that she had the general feeling of where I was going with this.
“Okay. So, you have that, which is a good support tech, but you don’t have any movement techniques, and you’re definitely going to need some. I think you might be closer to figuring out Quick Attack than Ajax is, just by merit of having more experience achieving a high-level technique. So here’s what I’m thinking.” I pointed at Drake. “You and I are going to coach you-” I pointed at Delphi, “through the process of using Tackle. It’s useful for small, short bursts of higher speed, by feeding Normal energy into the muscles, and forms a nice basis for Quick Attack. If you figure that out, you’ve got everything you need to move up to a real movement technique… and maybe, it’ll be enough to push Drake over the edge.” I grinned at Drake, who gave me a determined nod.
Starting with the process of having Delphi collect the swirling energy around herself, I could immediately tell that this wasn’t so easy for her. It was obvious that she’d either picked up Double Team through trial and error or had another Pokemon teach it to her, and then never used Normal TE for anything else. The moment that the Type energy entered her aura, I could see it trying to form the preliminary patterns that made up Double Team, only prevented from doing so by Delphi’s focus and effort. It was clear that, at this point, we were fighting ingrained habits and battle experience.
Drake, in this regard, had Delphi quite clearly beat. Long weeks of practice had left him in the state of being able to swap his aura saturation between Dark and Normal. It wasn’t quite instant, and it took quite a bit of concentration to pull off yet, but he was quite a bit farther in controlling a Type energy that didn’t necessarily come natural to him.
Interestingly, as we worked with her, trying to break her habit of immediately forming the available Normal energy into Double Team and instead keep it unpatterned, Drake quickly noticed that it was easier for her to swap than form it directly. If she started with Dark, she was capable of keeping the energy unformed in her aura; with quite a bit of careful focus and a gradual process, she was able to swap from the black mist of Dark to the white mist of Normal, though it made Drake doing the same look instantaneous. We noted, as well, that it was nearly as easy to bring out Double Team, then work our way back to unpatterned Normal energy, though Drake had to coach Delphi through the process of unweaving a move without letting the energy slip out of her aura.
Still, either strategy was something of a crutch. It worked, certainly, and allowed her to gather the right kind of energy in her aura for use, but it was a large delay and meant that she wasn’t practicing drawing it directly. For the moment, however, I couldn’t think of a better method of allowing her to get familiar with manipulating Normal TE and getting used to it swirling, unformed, around her body.
Another set of temporary earplugs made the communication and training somewhat harder, meaning that each of us had to raise our voices a little more than we were used to in order to be heard clearly. Still, whenever Blake and Kevan set off another section of snowpack in the background, I couldn’t help but be grateful for them. Every time the rumble began, we stopped for a moment to look into the distance, watching as a fresh mound of snow went tumbling down the side of the mountain and into the pass below. It was quite a majestic sight every time it happened, one that I found, in an odd sort of way, that I was getting used to seeing.
It was rather like any time when you saw the same incredible thing, over and over again. At a certain point, it didn’t so much strike you with speechless awe as it settled a cold certainty in you, a balance of the realisation of how incredible nature was, and how easily it could turn and obliterate you. A flash flood, an avalanche, a rockslide, any of these things could easily wipe a person, and even many Pokemon, from the face of the earth entirely.
As the day progressed, so did we through the impromptu training that I’d thrown together for the two of them. With Delphi’s injuries still lingering, despite fresh bandages and another application of potion, I couldn’t quite stage mock battles between the two of them just yet. That didn’t mean, however, that I wasn’t going to push them as hard as I could.
Despite the sheer cold of the air around us, Delphi was beginning to pant from exertion. Her aura flipped back and forth between black and white, Dark and Normal, as she tried to practice flipping from one energy to the other as quickly as possible. It often stuttered, sometimes flashed in one direction before snapping back in the other, and occasionally shut down entirely as she accidentally cleared her aura completely, but I thought she was getting smoother at it. Certainly, she would've been capable of doing this at all this morning, so that was a good bit of progress if nothing else.
“Feint!”
Drake growled, sliding to a stop as his aura flared, Normal energy formed into the pattern of a tackle writhing a little before he got it under control. Black spread through the white mists like an infection, his entire form stuttering as he tried to form it into the right patterns. After a moment, however, it tore itself apart, only for the Dark energy to be captured by Drake’s aura and cycled back in with a huff of frustration. It transformed into the white of Normal, flowing down into and around his legs as he dashed forwards.
Directly using aura to convert one energy type to another was a strategy that I’d picked up a little bit about, watching Blake’s Pokemon fight and remembering battles that we’d seen back in Hearthome. Drake had caught on to the process quickly enough, given that he’d been practicing so much with two different kinds of Type energy for weeks now. It was far more efficient than purging the aura and trying to resaturate with the TE that you wanted, though it took him time and focus to do it without losing control entirely and ending up with an empty aura. But that was what practice was for: I’d seen Blake’s Pokemon do it at the drop of a hat without even pausing, and I was confident that we could reach that level of mastery as well.
Doing a back and forth dash of Tackle between every attempt at Feint Attack was something that we were experimenting with. I could coach my Pokemon through utilizing Type energy, given that I could visually correct their usage of it and at least generally explain how to properly channel the stuff, but I was still guessing in the dark as to how to help them figure these more advanced techniques out.
I checked my Pokewatch, noting the timer. With a couple of taps and swipes, I stopped and reset it, then clapped my hands.
“Alright, that’s enough, take a short break.”
Drake and Delphi both couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief. Drake let the TE flow out of his aura, plodding closer and flopping at my feet with a groan, while Delphi simply sat. The absol was doing her level best to try and keep up her typical appearance of regality, but I could see that she was breathing a good bit harder than she usually did. Without the ability to cleanly convert one type of energy to the other, or really convert it at all most of the time, her training this way was decently inefficient in terms of energy spent on the effort in general. Hopefully, however, watching Drake carry through the process again and again, as well as attempting to swap between Dark and Normal as quickly as possible, might lead to her figuring it out.
“I saw that you managed to flicker some of that Dark to Normal near the end, there.” I said to her, giving her a smile and a thumbs up. “Trust me, it might not seem like it, but you’re making good progress.”
She huffed, tilting her head up slightly in an attempt to indicate that she didn’t need my praise, but I caught the slight gleam in her eyes despite it. I also caught her glancing at Drake, and some of that gleam faltering slightly as she did. The shake of my head attracted her attention.
“Hey, no. I told this ball of fluff-” Drake huffed indignantly, but seemed to decide that he was too winded right now to make too much of an issue of it, laying back down over my feet. “Yes, you. I told him that he shouldn’t be comparing himself to Ajax, because the both of them were different, and he was ahead in areas that Ajax wasn’t. You’re the same. Drake’s good at what he does, and he’s experienced, but he doesn’t know Double Team, does he.”
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Her muzzle twitched as she looked away, towards the distance. Past Jive, who stood nearby with his back turned towards us, and towards the distant dots that was Blake and the three Fire types. As we watched, they flared with red energy, the mountainside erupting into steam as the snow was rapidly turned into water, which was then turned into so much vapour. She nodded, not so much reluctant now as simply accepting, getting used to the place that she had in the team.
I would have said that she was the odd one out among the group, but upon further thought, it was impossible not to come to the conclusion that she fit in better than I had initially thought she would. In truth, she couldn’t be the odd one out, because, in a very real sense, all three of them were. Drake being a previously trained Pokemon, the only one with battling experience under the command of a partner, Ajax with his experience working with his family, and Delphi with her much more wild form of experience not restricted by the safeguards provided by the League.
It amused me, when it occurred to me that they were basically a little band of three misfits, led by the biggest misfit of them all. After all, I was just as atypical as any of the three of them, the human that had been grabbed from another world and dumped into this one. It felt more appropriate than anything, like we had something deeper and more intrinsically in common than most, something that Drake had eventually become aware of, that Ajax had grasped in some sense. Something that, now, Delphi was starting to realise as well.
I gauged their progress across the mountainside, glancing upwards to trace the path of the sun. We were getting closer to noon, now, the mountain warming up as much as it did with so much ice and snow around us, and the fingers of winter still wrapped around the stone. The clear sunlight was occasionally making it harder to see Blake at range, the four of them hidden against the sheets of pure white snow reflecting too much light to see. Snow blindness was something of a thing, and I was somewhat glad that we’d be moving on from this place today, and hopefully down the mountain towards areas where there was a lot less snow.
Still, with some squinting and creative shielding of my eyes, I could just about make out the group of them in the distance. They were nearly done at this point, having punched through nearly the entirety of the avalanches. The remainder were smaller sections with shallower snowfalls, the remainder at the edges that hadn’t had the time or opportunity to build up too much. I had some theories that those smaller, shallower deposits were marking the very edge of whatever large-scale Ice attack had been deployed against the Rock types, putting them in a state of hibernation underneath layers and layers of snow.
“Hm…” I hummed to myself softly, rubbing my chin as I thought about it. At length, I nodded, deciding to have mercy on the poor, tired Pokemon that were practically slumped against me. “Looks like they’re getting closer to done. Starting to look like we’re going to finish, have a quick lunch, then get on the road. We’ve been here long enough, after all.”
The two of them looked up at me, the question of where I was going with this lingering in their faces. After a few moments of leaving them in suspense, I nodded to myself.
“That’s enough practice, then.”
Drake practically deflated with relief. This had already been an exhausting day of attempting a very straining technique again and again, and he was obviously happy to have it over with, despite the knowledge of how necessary it was. I sympathized, honestly, thinking about all the times that I had been relieved when I’d finished with a workout, despite the constant acknowledgement that I needed it and it was good for me. Delphi merely dipped her muzzle slightly, accepting my statement, but that didn’t entirely hide a very similar flash of relief in her. Jive, who had been observing the entire training regimen with a cross between amusement and approval, smirked, which got an immediate and quite impressive dark look from Delphi. The absol had managed to look down her nose, or her muzzle, at a Pokemon that was both taller than her and could mop the floor with her at any time.
Say what you will, but I couldn’t knock the fact that the act took a serious bit of bravery. Though, being entirely fair, the fact that Jive’s reaction to the look was to let out a rough cackle probably helped with the bravery a bit. The obstagoon had little difficulty taking a joke.
Far and away, I could see Blake’s group positioning themselves. It was the last snowpack in the series, I realised, and I pushed myself to my feet. Certainly, it was the least and the most shallow of them all, even when compared to the point where it had started, but there was something significant about it. Much like setting into place the last bits of reinforcement for the dam, a feeling like we were passing a final milestone beyond which we were done with the area in a significant and real way.
I thought for a moment, then slipped my Nav out of my pocket, flicking to the camera and raising it. Through the telephoto lens, you could just about make out Blake, pointing to a part of the snowdrift. Ajax had taken the center of the formation, Arcanine to Blake’s right and closer to us, while Devi was to his left and farther. High above, Pidgeotto circled the area, banking so as to give Kevan a better look at the happenings on the ground. As he closed in somewhat, I snapped a picture, recording that moment in time. I made a note to myself to send it along to the Jinnouchi server, as well as to Alice, who was no doubt missing the updates as to what was going on with my end of things. Ever since we’d entered the pass, I hadn’t heard from anyone in the outside world, and I had to wonder how people were doing.
Hopefully, things were calming down across the entirety of Sinnoh as the Pokemon settled and the ripple effects of whatever had occurred slowly faded out. While I didn’t imagine that this might be the last after effect that needed to be cleared, as I doubted that the train tunnels would be fully cleared and repaired until after I reached Sandgem, it felt like a significant milestone to have reached. I supposed that it generally felt good, being able to contribute to the good of the entire region like this, especially in a time of crisis.
My thoughts were derailed as a bone-deep rumble started in my chest, one that all of us recognized from the past two days of activity. I looked outwards, watching as the last of the snow cascaded down into the valley below, mixing into the trees as it sent a cloud of powdery snow flying. It glittered in the noon sunlight, ice crystals reflecting the light at random and sparkling as they did.
It felt like a victory.
----------------------------------------
While the tents and the campsite in general was entirely packed, that didn’t mean that Devi couldn’t access the materials that he needed to fix something for a quick, easy lunch. With his ability to provide more than enough heat to toast bread, it opened up quite a few more options in that direction: for example…
The bipedal rabbit took two pieces of bread, laying a few slices of cheese that seemed visually similar to provolone over the bread. When he had enough layered on top of the bread, he nodded to himself, then pressed another slice of bread down on top. He pressed the two layers of bread, and the cheese in between them, between his paws. Rapidly, the dual scents of melting cheese and toasting bread filled the little bowl in the mountainside that we’d made camp in.
“Wow, look at that expression.” Kevan muttered, gesturing.
I followed the gesture to where the sneasel was sitting, having picked out a perch atop Blake’s own backpack, probably because it smelled of him. She’d seemed somewhat dubious of what we’d been doing, especially when Devi started removing ingredients from various bags that didn’t seem to match the fare that I figured was typical for a wild Pokemon.
Now, however, the sneasel had an expression that I could easily call ‘boggled’. Her eyes were wide, her muzzle having fallen open somewhat. As I watched, she closed them, inhaling deeply, and I definitely didn’t miss the slight shiver that went through her.
“Yeah, I would figure that a wild Pokemon, and an Ice and Dark Type at that, might not have had that many opportunities to encounter cooked food of any kind.” I mused.
“It’s not just that.” Kevan replied, watching closely with a tinge of awe. “She looks like she’s having a damn near religious experience.”
This quickly drew the attention of our collective Pokemon, who were doing their level best to watch her without watching her directly. Even Delphi had some level of exposure to cooked meals, partially from what I suspected was a long period of time hanging around human dwellings and partially hanging around us for so long. For Sneasel, however, this was an entirely novel experience, something that she’d never had the opportunity to encounter before. It was legitimately fascinating to see her react to it.
Devi handed her the first complete sandwich, melted cheese on sourdough, looking and smelling like a wonderful thing. I suspected that, were it not for the practical magic that Devon and Sylph played with when making the high-grade trainer’s pack that Blake carried, this stuff would've gone bad a while ago. As it was, however, it was in nearly as perfect condition as it had been when Blake had bought it.
Sneasel accepted the sandwich like she’d been handed a holy artifact, gently cradling it between her claws. She leaned in, eyes sliding shut as she inhaled its scent, then leaned back and shuddered. The bread and cheese came up to her mouth, and she took a single bite. Instantly, all the tension went out of her shoulders as she slowly chewed.
“Oh man.” Blake whispered, in the tone of someone suddenly coming to a realisation. “And that’s just a toasted cheese sandwich. A restaurant is going to destroy her.”
I had to bite my hand in order to stop myself from cackling aloud. From the pained expression that screwed up Kevan’s face, he was in much the same position.
The sandwiches were devoured nearly as fast as Devi could make them, which made sense for the hungry group that we had here: a long half-day of working to collapse the various parts of the avalanche left them with empty stomachs and good appetites. Though, being entirely fair, Jive had no excuse for it, given how he’d sat around just watching Blake work all day. At least Drake and Delphi had spent that time training.
With all the parts of actually packing already completed, it wasn’t that hard to get everyone saddled up and ready to go. It was amazing how fast you could get a harness on a four legged creature when they were fully cooperating with you, and were perfectly capable of predicting what you needed them to do moment to moment. Getting Ajax into his harness and ensuring that all the bags attached to it were properly secured went almost as quickly as slinging my own hiking bag over my back and clipping on all the different straps that distributed its weight and held it to me.
After our customary check over the now-empty campsite for anything that we might have left behind, and Ajax quickly devouring some of the charcoal left over from the campfire before burying what was left of the fuel, we set out over the ridge. With the pass itself now… impassable, what with the meter or two of snow that the Route was now buried under, we now had to resort to following a backup trail.
We’d used it, coming to and from where we’d been working on the next section of avalanche, it was somewhat different, walking down it for quite possibly the last time. Significant enough of a feeling that I snapped a couple pictures of the view from this height. Maybe, one day, I’d swing back through this place in the spring or summer, and compare the view from this spot. See what the differences are.
Unlike the Route, at least, the path up here was almost totally clear. There were the occasional issues, boulders and the like that had ended up in the middle of it for one reason or another, but our lack of a vehicle was helping us in this case. Feet really are the ultimate in all-terrain transportation.
Off to the right, I could see the running of the 211, ascending farther up Coronet and past the highest peak. It was almost certain that there was something up there of some description, but what it was? No idea. Since I came from a different world, it wasn’t impossible that, if I climbed it, I’d end up staring down another legendary. Maybe the big goat themselves, even, though I had my doubts. Regardless, though, it was irrelevant: we weren’t heading that way, which led north, splitting off towards Eterna City and Celestic Town, or going all the way to the north tip of the mountains that ran up the center of Sinnoh: Greenstation Town, according to my nav.
After a month spent on the 208, it felt weird to be leaving it behind completely. Even leaving the two campsites that we’d spent the most time at didn’t really feel like this. But, here we were: the route that ran down the bottom of the pass to our right wasn’t the 208 anymore, but the 207, connecting this pass and the beginning of the 211 to Oreburgh on the western side of Coronet.
It took us the rest of the day to reach the other end of the pass, where the ridge that our rough path was following descended towards the floor of the pass itself. But that wasn’t the thing I was focusing on. In front of us, and for the first time in a month, was a view that was totally and completely different than anything we’d seen before.
Here, where the 207 left the pass and started its descent down the side of the mountain, it followed the base of a sort of cleft in the side of the mountain. Rises restricted our view from either side, their altitude higher than our current position, the tops capped in the white of snow. Between them, the gray line of the Route curved along the floor of the cleft. Farther down, I could see where it met with a stream, which flowed alongside it for farther than I could see. Far, far in the distance, I could see where the mountains dipped farther downwards, then came back up. The colour of the ground was different there, but I couldn’t get a clear enough picture to tell anything about it from here.
When we finally did camp, we camped beyond the end of the pass, where the land began to come back down from its higher peaks. With mountains walling us in on three out of four sides, and more mountainous environment rising in between us and the sea, sunset came somewhat earlier than usual. We forwent our usual training, climbing into our tents for an early night, and an early morning to follow. I could sense that we were all eager to get off of Coronet, and see other people for the first time in more than a month, at this point.
Standing out there in the dark, my Pokemon checked into bed, I stared up at the stars. Much like they’d been at the top of the mountain, there were far more of them than I was used to ever seeing, faint stars and even a cosmic belt, usually invisible by its sheer faintness. Surrounded by mountains, with the closest source of light pollution being Oreburgh and it being shielded from our position by more terrain, this was quite possibly one of the best single locations for stargazing in Sinnoh. A glance at my Nav told me that there might be better spots to the south, where there was more open sky and no cities to drown out the fainter stellar lights. Maybe I’d visit Sage Town some time, go north of it to see if there were any better stargazing positions to be had.
When I stepped inside the tent, Ajax had already curled around himself, watching the door sleepily. He nodded to me, content, then curled up to sleep. Drake and Delphi were discussing something in low voices, affording me only a glance before they turned back to their conversation. I gave them a quiet goodnight, settling down in my sleeping bag. It wasn’t long before the tent was filled with nothing but soft breathing, and, soon after that, I was asleep as well.
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The trip down the mountain from the terminus of the pass was quite a bit smoother than the climb up to it had been. The Route didn’t climb and drop constantly, the terrain was more forgiving, and the Route itself seemed better maintained. I wondered if that was an effect of this point being easier to reach, and thus maintenance crews having a better time keeping the Route itself flat and free of debris and blockages.
With not much more than rocks and the occasional hardy scrubs, there wasn’t much on this side of the mountain to challenge us. There were few Pokemon, and of those few, even less approached us for a challenge. With Blake and Jive entirely dedicating themselves to training their newest team member, it fell to us to meet these challenges, and provide these Pokemon something to work against.
I clicked my tongue as Delphi’s Night Slash sparked off the stony armour of the graveler, though it made a noise of pain and hurriedly backed up. Even the shell of rocky armour wasn’t impervious to Delphi’s strikes, the Absol’s Dark energy flickering and being replaced with orange for a moment, before she dove for another weak point.
We’d figured out that detect didn’t just give the user some amount of precognitive capability, it could give you a basic idea of weaknesses and things to exploit. It was unreliable, but it didn’t often lead Delphi completely wrong, and that was the least I could ask of it. I mostly left it to her to decide when to use it: I didn’t micromanage my partners that much.
Despite dealing an amount of damage that I would deem as not especially impressive, the Night Slash definitively put the graveler on the back foot, wary of further attacks that demonstrated the ability to pierce their defenses. But they were a Rock type, and thus, better built for defense, not speed. As much as they tried to make distance, Delphi could close that distance, darting between the rocks and catching up.
With a grunt of frustration, signaling that they’d realized that they couldn’t just outdistance Delphi and pelt her from range, they suddenly dug their feet in. In a show of strength, they reversed their course completely, throwing themselves in Delphi’s direction with a burst of speed that was surprising and a little impressive given their weight.
“Feint!” I yelled.
Delphi hesitated for a brief moment, and I winced. A habit the both of us were still working on, the hesitation to follow an order, when time was often of the essence. In this case, she was halfway up the metaphorical Detect tree before she processed that she should probably listen to my order. Back down from the orange of Fighting and into the white of Normal cost her precious seconds, enough to make a difference in a serious fight.
Here, though, we were fighting a wild Pokemon of decent strength, maybe comparable to a… one rank? I was getting somewhat better at estimating strength, but I didn’t have Kevan’s ability to assess a wild Pokemon at a glance, or Blake’s ability to gauge the measure of someone just by observing a couple of attacks. I figured that Blake was just a lot better at gauging the amount of TE that a Pokemon put out while utilizing a technique, though he merely gave me a look I couldn’t identify when I asked. Common knowledge, I supposed.
Regardless, Delphi got herself together. Normal energy flared in her aura, patterning itself into a copy of her, the two of them briefly dancing around each other. At the speed that they were going, for a brief moment, it was impossible to tell which was which. And I saw the moment that the graveler’s eyes tracked the wrong absol.
Those same eyes widened as far as they could go when their stony fist went directly through the illusion like it wasn’t there, because it really wasn’t. Even worse by the fact that Delphi had slammed her head directly into the crack between two rocky plates that she’d used before to get a small wound through using Night Slash.
The graveler crumpled at that, the overwhelming Dark energy practically throwing them. I’d discovered that I’d been somewhat right: Knock Off was an overwhelming Dark blow that worked off the intent of the target. If they were holding something that they wanted to keep with them, it would actually, somehow, read that intent, and remove the item. For this graveler, I saw a square piece of stone go flying… something precious to the Pokemon, maybe? They didn’t look like they were getting up to fight again.
“Alright, Delphi, nice job, come on back!”
She, of course, couldn’t help but pose over her defeated opponent, regal and graceful, a picture of beauty with silver fur and shining, dark horn. I merely rolled my eyes, having seen this particular pose every single time we’d claimed a victory so far. Still, that didn’t keep me from snapping a quick picture to potentially share later. I wasn’t sure whether Delphi would be mortified to learn that I was taking those, or demand to delete any that she deemed unacceptable.
The posing done and her victory over her opponent properly announced, she turned and walked towards me, settling by my said. The graveler pushed themselves to their feet, stretching their limbs and shaking themselves out. That done, they gave us something that was almost a bow, then stalked off into the rocky wilds around us.
I couldn’t help but punch the air a little. Double Team was meant as a defensive move, but I’d had the thought that there wasn’t any reason that it couldn’t be used offensively as part of a feint or distraction. I wasn’t sure if it would work against higher ranked opponents, but this was the first time we’d utilized it against an actual opponent and not just in a sparring match, and it’d worked fantastically.
“Nice work out there, not even a scratch!”
I couldn’t keep the excitement and pride out of my voice, and Delphi, likewise, couldn’t help but glow at the praise. Drake nodded to her respectfully: he was practicing cycling his aura between Normal and Dark, getting constantly better at the process. We were closer every day to him pulling off either Feint Attack or Quick Attack with real consistency, and it was basically an even bet in either direction for what he figured out first.
He’d taken it upon himself to teach Delphi Tackle as well, the basis for movement tech that she’d need to move up to using Quick Attack. It was going decently well: her knowledge of Double Team gave her a more advanced understanding of utilizing Normal energy in moves. She’d already mostly figured out Tackle, and now, the two of them were working together on Quick Attack.
I was certain that they’d make me proud.
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Coming down from the heights of the mountain, the grip of the cold that had lingered around us for days was finally loosening slowly. While we were still in winter, we were towards the fading edge of it, where it was giving to bloom and most of the snow had melted. I suspected that the cold was shared between the altitude and the abnormal amount of ice and snow the battle had put into the pass itself. Now, however, it was getting warm enough that I was forgoing my heavier jacket for simply my hoodie.
Based on what Kevan said about it, Sinnoh was never a very warm country: mild summers, contrasted against deep winters that pretty much brought everything to a halt with the frost. I wasn’t sure how similar, or dissimilar, that was to the environment of Hokkaido back home, but I assumed that there was enough resemblance, given everything. One of those rather trippy things, wondering whether Sinnoh was created as something based on Hokkaido by Japanese game devs, or whether it had always existed and they’d somehow… gotten everything right? Were given a vision by Arceus? I wasn’t sure how that would play out, but I supposed that it spoke well to the idea that things other than me could cross the line between my world and this one.
It wasn’t a surprise when, finally, during one of his laps, Drake moved with a speed that he’d never moved with before, clearing distance like it was nothing.
We’d stopped to celebrate, when that happened. I’d broken out some of the honey, and Sneasel, whom Blake had yet to think of a proper name for, contributed their Ice abilities. Freezing the honey created small candy-like things that could be put in the mouth and sucked on, sweet and delicious, and we happily spent half a day celebrating the fact that Drake had finally figured out the first advanced technique. The poochyena himself spent a lot of the time zipping around the area, clearly ecstatic at his own achievement, and rapidly tiring himself out.
A warmth curled in my chest, as he curled up in my lap, the little ball of black and gray fur that was my partner. My starter. The sheer, undiluted pride that I felt for him in that moment practically shone out of me, the fact that he was achieving things that were so advanced, that he was pushing forwards. That we’d achieved a significant milestone in our collection of strength.
“One more step. A huge one.” I whispered to him, smile pasted all over my face. He shifted in my lap, turning his head slightly and revealing a smile of his own, exhausted though it was. “I’m proud of you. And I’m so proud to call you my partner.”
Gently, he licked my hand, and I responded by running it over his back.
Now that Drake had figured out the Quick Attack, he left aside his practicing of Feint Attack for the moment. It was somewhat frustrating for him, I could tell: he was close enough to figuring it out that he could make his image waver and flicker, like a badly tuned television, and could even vanish completely for occasional short increments. But he was prioritizing something else, for the moment: namely, making sure that Ajax and Delphi understood the Quick Attack technique and could perform it as well as he could.
One of the side effects of this was that Drake was rapidly figuring out the technique, demonstrating it and practicing it and using it in mock battles against my other two partners. Drake would trade off with Kevan’s Arcanine, battling against Delphi and Ajax, swapping back and forth. Arcanine knew the technique as well, though, from what I was gathering, he couldn’t quite relate to the idea of a Dark type trying to utilize Normal energy in that way like Drake could.
Funnily enough, however, this made him a much better teacher for Ajax than for Delphi. While he struggled with the translation of his experience from Fire to Normal in ways that Delphi could understand, he shared quite a bit more common ground with Ajax, for obvious reasons. It was a surprise to all of us, though not so much in retrospect, when Ajax was the second to figure out the technique.
This piqued Delphi’s pride. She’d already had a large head start that was the more advanced Double Team, she had the understanding and was working on the skill. She’d been held back somewhat by struggling to undo some of her bad habits, which had delayed her enough that Ajax had beaten her to the punch, and that? That wouldn’t stand.
A whole day of travel, she raced ahead of us, back to the group, then raced backwards, before catching up again. Over and over, her aura flaring with the white of Normal. When we took a break where the 207 met with the winding river, the rest of the Pokemon splashing in the shallow stream, she was practicing. Over and over, back and forth.
“Is this… normal?” I asked, watching her go, racing up and down the rocky shore of the stream.
“She’ll get it out of her system.” Blake said, running a brush through Sneasel’s fur.
The Dark/Ice type was obviously enjoying the attention immensely, leaning into the brush every time it came in contact with her. She’d shown an immediate and impressive capability with Ice, already knowing Ice Beam. From what Blake had put together from speaking with her, she was actually the sneasel that had frozen that first Rock type’s hand during the battle.
“I hope so.” I muttered back.
As happy as I was for her to show this much dedication to her training, it was exhausting and couldn’t be good for her in the long term. Still, she was her own Pokemon, so if she wanted to zip back and forth until she crashed into a bed, then who was I to stop her?
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Emeragrove hadn’t been hard: in order to pick up the trail, the only thing that he’d had to do was ask around the Pokemon center. Apparently, the trainer had not made any effort to keep his intended destination secret. Apparently, he’d been headed for Hearthome, and then, from there, across Coronet, through Oreburgh to Sandgem.
Stupid, he thought, but it made it a lot easier to track him.
He’d moved on from Emeragrove as quickly as possible; it wouldn’t do for his trail to be picked up there. He had to move, as fast as possible, keep on the trail that he’d unearthed and hope that none were following what trail he left in his own wake.
He was running low on supplies, stopping in at Hearthome only so far as to refill what he had. Food, some supplies, some equipment, purchased under aliases and a disguise. His excuse was that he was going to travel south, to the Safari Zone, and try to spend a few days with a tour guide, seeing the Pokemon there. It wasn’t hard to get them to buy the clueless tourist act, to buy equipment important for climbing Coronet under the pretense of not knowing what he was doing.
The tourist disguise ended up in pieces, strewn across the outskirts of Hearthome, as he shifted into a disguise that resembled something closer to a hiker. Hikers were a known group, almost a club, and pretending to be one was a convenient cover for mountain climbing. From what he’d heard, the pass at the top of the mountain was mostly blocked, but was passable by someone determined and experienced enough. A hiker would be both, of course, especially with the news of how many Rock types had been sighted up the slopes of Coronet in the recent days.
Something in his stomach clenched when, listening to Ranger bands, he realized that the trainer he was tracking had something to do with… something big, that had happened up the mountain. Multiple things, even. Their description, the fact that they were traveling with a poochyena, was all over the radio for anyone to hear.
He’d have to hurry.