I’d been eager to leave, to get on a journey. I’d always been fascinated by foreign countries and their cultures, how a place could feel distinctly different from the place that you’d come from. And that was the difference of only a few hundred or thousand kilometers: this was an entire new world, with a history and culture completely its own. Not to mention, of course, that regardless of the fact that it was now bright and much less gloomy, I hadn’t had very good experiences in Vinewood. Of course, I’d been so totally focused on leaving that I’d ignored something that I most likely shouldn’t have.
I hadn’t eaten.
“Smell anything?” Drake shook his head, ranging near the edges of the path and sniffing the air.
Drake, of course, hadn’t eaten either. I’d asked him to see if he could sniff out berry bushes close to the road, food that we only had to dip our toes into the woods to get. I wasn’t precisely eager to go any deeper than that, where sources of food were most likely shared between much more powerful Poke. I glanced at Drake, who was scouting scent trails near the one side. If I could avoid him getting hurt again, even if it meant some discomfort for myself until we got to Emeragrove, I would. I could wait a few hours to eat if it meant that he didn’t get hurt, having to protect me from an aggressive Poke whose territory we violated.
I was shaken from my thoughts as he suddenly perked up, then raced to my feet, his tail wagging. I crouched, bringing my head closer to the level of his own.
“What is it? Did you pick something up?”
Drake nodded once, turning away and running for the edge of the woods and pausing. A clear indication that he wanted me to follow him, if there was any. I breathed, then pushed myself to my feet and adjusted the bag on my back, walking after the little ‘yena. When I was close enough, he turned and trotted into the woods themselves. I paused at the edge of the treeline, sending a glance back at the safety of the road, then squaring my shoulders and stepping into the foliage.
It wasn’t long before even I, with my much worse human-grade olfactory sensors, could detect the odor that had led Drake off the path. It was faintly sweet, a little bit of sugar on the breeze, and I had to wonder what was making it. A little bit of concern flickered as I remembered the move Sweet Scent, but… Drake seemed certain. I’d just have to trust that he knew what he was doing.
The woods were… surprisingly beautiful. Little shafts of sunlight came down between the dense canopy of leaves, a mix of gold and faint green, reflecting off of the darker green of the thick foliage of the forest floor. The air smelled of rich, wet soil and plant life, mixed with the faint sweetness that I’d detected. In the distance, between the trunks of trees shot through with green veins of moss, I’d occasionally catch a glimpse of motion or of colour. If I listened carefully, I could hear the soft chittering of Pokemon in the trees and the undergrowth, shot through with the occasional call of a bird. I stepped over roots dug deep into the earth, so richly brown it was nearly black, leaving footprints in the loam. It was honestly beautiful, totally natural in a way that reminded me of some wildlife preserves I’d seen. Here, off the road, there wasn’t a single hint of the presence of humanity.
I paused for a moment in thought. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even seen any evidence of humans at all: no trash by the sides of the road, no bits of plastic, not even a bent can. Was it that the residents of the Pokemon world were more careful with their litter? Maybe the Pokemon themselves tended to clean up anything left behind. Perhaps a combination of both? I could imagine Trubbbish passively vacuuming up anything left by the sides of major thoroughfares, and your average Pokemon was smart enough to gather up trash. It could very well be self-regulating in a way that a world populated by normal animals wasn’t. Hah, wasn’t that a thought. I felt at peace here, in a way that I hadn’t felt in… a long time.
A rustle brought me, blinking, back to reality. Drake had his paws up on a half-rotted fallen log in front of me, giving me an inquisitive look. I shook away the thoughts of wild trash collectors and smiled sheepishly.
“Sorry, buddy, just got… distracted.” I glanced around, feeling wistful. “It’s really beautiful here.”
Drake’s ears twitched, and his expression swapped to something more contemplative. He looked around as if for the first time, and something wistful came over his face. It occurred to me that, in Hoenn, Poochyena shows up on the first few routes, barely beyond Littleroot- in forests very much like this one. I didn’t know where Poochyena were native to in Sinnoh, but I didn’t think it was too much of a stretch to imagine that it wasn’t too far from their Hoenn counterparts.
“Does it look like home?”
Drake’s head snapped to me in surprise. After a moment, he looked around again, then nodded slowly, eyes staring far off into the distance. I crunched through a layer of dead leaves, brushing a few off of the log and sitting down on it, folding my hands together. I knew the right thing to say, but I chewed on it for a moment. Effort and sacrifice, and I didn’t know how it would play out for me, but it was… it was the right thing to do.
“I could… take you back, you know.” Drake snapped to me again, caught totally off guard, and I avoided his gaze. “Back home. Wherever you came from. You didn’t deserve…” I waved my hand in the air, hoping the point came through on its own.
I could do it. I wasn’t sure where or how I was going to find another Pokemon, because I knew that I wasn’t going to leave things lying now that the ball was rolling, but I could. If he wanted me to, I would. It was right, it was correct, it’d hurt- I twitched as I felt a paw against my side, looking back at the ‘yena. Drake sat back, making eye contact with me, then shook his head slowly.
“Y- really? You want to…?”
He nodded. I blinked several times in quick succession, then sniffled and wiped at my eyes with my hand. It didn’t do anything to hide how I was smiling.
“Must’ve… got something in my eye, heh…” I went quiet for a long moment, sniffing again. “Thank you. Really.”
He stepped closer and nuzzled my shoulder, and I put my hand on his head, ruffling his fur. We sat there in silence for a long moment, then he pulled away from my hand, jumping down from the log and looking back at me. I nodded, pushing myself to my feet and gripping the straps of my bag. Drake waited just long enough to make sure that I was following him again, then started towards the direction of the sweet smell.
Finally, we broke through the last line of ferns and foliage, coming out the other side into a small clearing of a sort. Grass coated the dirt, thick and wild, and scattered around the periphery of the area were bushes. Among their leaves were blue orbs, individually palm-sized, tons of them hanging from branches inside the bush itself. I stared in awe, then swept my eyes over the entire collection- bush after bush, branches laden with heavy berries. Oran, I’d guess, with a mix of… pink? Pecha, I was pretty sure that was Pecha. As I was slowly turning in place, a starly darted down from the trees, grabbing an oran that was almost as big as it was and darting back into the safety of the trees.
“Wow. That’s… wow.” This crop of berry bushes probably fed the entire area of the forest, supplying food and, potentially, healing to every Pokemon in the area. I twitched as I felt something bump against my leg, and I looked down to see Drake pressing himself against me, looking distinctly anxious. “What-?”
I jerked my gaze up as I heard something flapping. As I looked up, a much larger bird landed in the midst of the clearing, the grass around it going flat from the wave of wind that came from its wings. I edged backwards, gaze dancing to Drake, who was staring at the large bird anxiously.
Quickly, I considered our position, something that could be the difference between having to come to blows with something that might be strong enough to… the berry bushes. The orans and pechas that grew around the clearing were nearly untouched, and I’d only seen the one Pokemon take one since we’d arrived. The forest itself was slightly quieter here than it had been earlier. If the staravia was stronger than most of the Pokemon in the area, could it be that it had claimed the clearing as its territory? If so, then why let the starly take a berry without even showing itself, but immediately appear when we came in?
The bird flexed its wings, glaring daggers at Drake when it wasn’t regarding me with a wary expression in its eyes. Ah, wait… this staravia might be strong enough to hold down this entire clearing, essentially on its own. The starly that had taken a berry might be its kid or relative, or just a part of the same flock, and thus allowed to pick from the bushes. We, however, were unknown intruders, and one of us was a trainer. Strength in the wild might keep away competitors and be leveraged to protect supplies of food, but it would also attract attention. The capturing kind. Trying to move slowly and smoothly, I held my hands out, which immediately brought the bird’s attention back to me.
“This is your clearing, right?” The staravia stared at me for a long moment, then bobbed its head. “Okay. We… didn’t come here looking for a capture or a battle, if that’s what you’re worried about. We were just hungry and followed the scent of the berries, and that’s all.”
The bird stared at me, piercing bird of prey eyes practically pinning me in place. I almost felt relief when it looked away, towards Drake. A few very anxious moments passed, and then I tensed as the bird raised its wings- and flapped, vanishing into the woods with such speed that it practically disappeared between blinks. I waited a few moments, just to see if it would return. When it didn’t show any sign of doing so, I let out a long breath of relief.
“That… was close.” I put my hands on my knees, bending over and looking at Drake, who was still staring at the part of the forest that the staravia had disappeared into. “I think we should gather some berries and get out of here as soon as possible. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to pick a fight with a wild Pokemon strong enough to protect a supply of food like this.”
Drake nodded, anxiously, and trotted over to one of the bushes. He sniffed for a moment, then selected one of the Pecha berries, gripping it with his teeth and pulling it off the branch. He took a bite, then made a face of disgust, before starting to crunch his way through the berry as rapidly as possible. For my part, I took a few of both types, putting them into a pocket lined with a kind of thermal insulation that I guessed was designed for precisely this purpose. The moment I was loaded up, Drake having eaten his way through three berries in the meantime, we both left the clearing as quickly as we could.
The entire time we were walking away, I felt the eyes of the staravia on my back until we reached the relative safety of the road. Strangely, as nervous as I’d been when the bird had been staring us down directly, I felt a lot better with it watching over us. I’d been honest about our intentions, and I could have faith that the staravia had seen that, and was now simply seeing us out of its territory. The idea that I could just trust something that resembled an animal to understand motivations and trustworthiness was an odd thought, but one I didn’t hesitate to accept.
Even despite that, though, I didn’t want to overstay my welcome in the bird of prey’s territory. I’d loaded a bunch of the berries into my pack entirely because I hadn’t wanted to stick around long enough to eat them. Now, however, under the umbrella of the road’s safety, I felt secure enough to put my pack down and open up the insulated and cushioned pocket that I’d put them in.
Immediately, I was taken off guard by the sweet scent that radiated from the pocket, even with fewer berries and less time for the scent to permeate. Leaning closer and taking in the smell, I realized that there were richer scents under the sweetness, things that had been covered up by the scents of the forest and so many berries being crowded closely together. I reached into the pocket, taking a pecha in one hand and an oran in the other, smelling them separately.
The sweetness that I was smelling came primarily from the pecha, which practically radiated the scent of sugary sweetness. Smelling the oran, I realized that, while it definitely had some of the same sweet scent, it also had deeper, richer undertones. A touch of sour, a bit of dry, a little bitter… just a bit of every flavour type I could think of, layered over each other in a complex medley of scents. I hesitated, then took a bite of the pecha.
The flesh wasn’t too dissimilar to most fruit. Decently firm, crisp texture. What really took me off-guard, however, was the sweet taste that flooded my mouth. I’d figured that the taste would be sweet from the scent, that had been obvious enough, but I wasn’t expecting exactly how sweet it was. It really rivaled a lot of sugary desserts I’d had- and how! These things grew naturally on bushes!?
I rapidly crunched my way through the rest of the pecha with wild abandon, savouring the sweetness and firmness, while Drake watched on with some measure of disgust. I felt self-conscious for a moment, wondering if he was offended by me practically inhaling the berry, then remembered that he’d reacted negatively to the pecha he’d tried to eat. Ah, must be a taste thing, then.
“Just because you don’t like sweet things doesn’t mean that I have to.” He chuffed, but happily accepted an offer of an oran. It appeared that the mixed-flavour berry really couldn’t fail to please.
I ate my way through a few of the pechas and even tried an oran, while Drake munched an oran or two from my storage pocket, seeming much happier with them. It didn’t take long for them to fill me up- we didn’t take much of a supply, but only three pecha and an oran was more than enough for me. I stretched, digging a little hole off to the side of the road and burying the remnants of the berries in them, before covering them up.
“Make a note. We have to buy an e-tool whenever we see a military surplus.” Drake gave me a curious look. “An e-tool is a- well, it stands for entrenching tool. It’s basically a portable fold-up shovel that’s used by soldiers to dig trenches in the field, and it’s really handy for camping.” His look was only growing more curious, and I scratched my head. “Though… I wonder what the status of militaries is like in…?”
I closed my mouth, frowning. That did remind me that I had to- well, partnership went two ways, right? I knew a little of Drake’s story, what had happened to him, and he chose to stick with me. The least that I could do was reciprocate, right? I throw my bag over my shoulders, refastening the clasps over my chest and around my waist. Drake stretched, staying at my side as I started walking.
“So…” He looked up at me, listening carefully. “I don’t think that I precisely lied, as such, but… when the Rangers guessed that I’d had my memory addled, I just went along with it.” Drake stopped walking for a moment, falling behind a little, then picked up the pace to catch up. “It’s just- I didn’t come from a world with Pokemon, you know? All I know is, this shadow-” I stopped, swallowing heavily.
The damn thing had hunted me down, even when I’d tried to run from it, chased me until it’d finally grabbed me. The transition had been an extended moment of fear and cold, and then I’d been dumped in the middle of a dark forest right in the middle of a ghost attack. I shivered, hugging myself as I thought about it, when I’d been too much in shock to deal with it in the moment-
My thoughts stopped in their spiral as I felt something brush against my leg. I looked down to see Drake pressing himself against my leg, looking up at me with concern all over his eyes and expression. I smiled gratefully, reaching down and stroking his head.
“Thanks.” I rubbed the inside of one of his ears. “However I got here, wherever I came from, I’m just glad I was lucky enough to end up with a partner that cares as much as you do.” He nuzzled my hand in reply, and I laughed, pushing myself to my feet. “Alright, come on- if we want to make Emeragrove by dark, let alone Hearthome, we need to get the lead out…”
----------------------------------------
Emeragrove town was definitely bigger than Vinewood. From our position atop a grassy hill at the edge of the forest, we could see the entire settlement, a cluster of buildings around several actually paved roads. Notably, an actual paved road led south out of the town, off in the direction of Hearthome. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to hoof it all the way to the city: a bus or bumming a convenient ride could save me the effort. Drake, for his part, cast a considering eye over the buildings, then looked to me.
“Well… we’re certainly not reaching Hearthome today, not on our own. We’re just not fast enough, and I’m sure that you’re not against being saved all that walking, right?”
Drake shrugged, and started down the hill. I took a moment to cast my gaze over the town again, then slid my Pokenav out of my pocket and took a picture. The town in the distance, and at the bottom of the picture, the black and gray of Drake, who was looking back and giving me an impatient look.
“Oh, fine, fine, I’m coming!” I put the Pokenav away, then started after him. “I’ve never been able to travel like this, before. I just wanted something for the memories, yeah?” Drake shrugged, but the impatient look was gone.
Stepping off of the dirt and onto the… whatever substance the roadway was made of, was an odd experience. Drake sniffed it dubiously, then stepped onto it, before shrugging and deciding to dismiss it entirely. I tapped it with my shoe, humming softly; it wasn’t like any paving material that I’d seen before. Given that asphalt was a derivative of oil products, did that mean that the Pokemon world had an answer for that, too? Questions for another time.
Being in and among the buildings gave much the same feeling that I’d gotten a flash of, looking down at it from an elevated position. I’d been to a few places that I’d coined as ‘one horse towns’, and while this was perhaps bigger than some I’d visited, it was still a place that I’d guess had a one room school. A few clean benches, a single small civic center, and a few scattered houses around a core of a couple of stores and a singular restaurant, with a Center to one side of it. The latter was bigger than the one had been back in Vinewood, but that wasn’t saying much. Vinewood’s had been about the size of a rural veterinary office, which it had basically been.
Taking out my Pokenav for a moment, I brought up the map function and plotted out where Vinewood was. I guessed that the only reason that it had a Center at all was because it served as a decent stopoff for trainers coming up or down route 209. Though, thinking about it, it might very well be that it also served as a staging point, serving much of 209 and the woods surrounding it. Much more convenient for trainers and Rangers than having to go all the way north to Solaceon, or following the road east all the way to Emeragrove. As I was thinking about it, Drake ran back and nudged my leg, looking impatient again. I laughed, putting away the Pokenav again and following him into the town proper.
It was about noon, the sun almost directly above our heads, and this meant that the streets of the town were mostly empty. The relatively small population was either working or at school, I imagined, and that meant that there were very few to actually see me. Those that did, however, seemed to watch me with a sort of… I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Their gazes would land on me, go over my hoodie, land on the belt on my waist, then finally give Drake a slightly nervous glance. One person crossed the street after they saw me, but I wasn’t sure that they’d done it to avoid me.
I didn’t take that much issue with it, honestly. I figured it was fair enough: they didn’t know me, and I had a poochyena. Far as they knew, I was a team member, though I lacked the proper iconography to mark myself out as one. It’s not like I was going to be here long enough for it to be a problem, anyway. Once I found a bus schedule or somebody willing to give me a lift, I was gone and out of their hair.
The Center doors chimed gently as they automatically slid open and I walked through, Drake sticking close to my legs and sweeping the inside of the Center with his gaze. As opposed to the Vinewood Center, which had an interior composed of just a few couches and booths, this one was a bit more comprehensive. Cushions lined the floor along one wall, booths along another, a few tables with chairs around them scattered here and there. An escalator on each side of the room, one leading upwards to a second story, and the other leading down to a basement level of some kind, with an elevator to the side. In the middle of the room sat a counter, behind which sat a man reading a book. I note that he’s dressed much as Alice was, with a similar medical coat.
As I step through, he glances up, smoothly sliding a bookmark between the pages of his book and setting it aside as he stands. He smiles, then actually gets a good look at me- the same pattern of the people outside, hoodie, Pokeballs, Drake. As his eyes linger on the poochyena at my side, his smile thins a little, and his hands move uncomfortably.
“Hello and welcome to the Emeragrove Pokemon Center.” Despite the expression shift obvious enough that even I caught it, his voice is even and professional. “How can I help you today?”
Drake sniffs the air at my side, sweeping his gaze over the interior of the Center, then yawns widely and moves to one side. I give his head a pat as he moves away, met with a small huff, then turn my attention back to the guy.
“Uh, hi? I’m looking for some kind of transportation to Hearthome?”
He seems to relax a touch at that, though I might be imagining things. “Hearthome, then? Did you come down from Solaceon, or…?” I shook my head.
“Walked here from Vinewood. They had a whole… ghost incident, I got caught up in it…” I shrug, and he winces.
“That’s… I’m sorry to hear that.” There’s something that passes over his expression, but I don’t catch it. “Do you need assistance?”
“No, we- Drake and I-” I indicate the poochyena in question, who now has his paws on the back of the sofa, watching the road outside through half-lidded eyes, “were seen to by their Center. Alice gave us clean bills of health. We got lucky- the whole town did, honestly. There was a whole cadre of Rangers camped nearby, and we managed to alert them.”
This time, I couldn’t mistake the emotion: relief. “That’s excellent to hear. Usually ghosts aren’t so much of a problem, just a distraction for the local trainers or Rangers, but with everything that’s happening…”
I nodded. “So, yeah, I’m looking for a ride to Hearthome, maybe a bus or train…?”
“Ahhh, yes, sorry. One second.”
He crouches behind the desk, rummaging around for a moment. I look back, exchanging a glance with Drake. Despite the yawn, and despite his sleepy appearance, he’s alert and watchful, meeting my gaze before looking back towards the outside. I follow his gaze, and see a woman in a uniform across the street, who’s examining the front of the Center. I feel a tingle of curiosity as she turns slowly, looking down each of the streets, then back at the Center. I wonder-?
“Here we are!”
I’m jolted from my thoughts as the man behind the counter lays a large map down on the flat surface. At a glance, the map’s detailed, marking out every town and even elevation steps, as well as roadways, with a number of notes written on the plastic surface in dry erase marker. Some of them are notes about trainers, Rangers, while most appear to be calculations of delivery times and routes. The man taps a cluster of black and brown lines, and I read the words to one side- Emeragrove.
“This is us, obviously. This area’s pretty rural, with just a few small towns scattered here and there between Hearthome and Solaceon, and Solaceon’s not even all that big.” His finger circled the area, tapping on the brown lines linking the dots together. “Most of the routes in this area are dirt, frequented mostly by people walking or riding Pokemon, with the rare shipment of goods. The only real way to get anywhere is a train line that follows the two-ten from Veilstone to Celestic, it’s got a couple stops in towns along the two-ten and one in Solaceon, but that would be in the opposite direction of where you’re heading.” He traces black lines around the edge of the entire… island? Continent? “You’d have to ride the train all the way back to Hearthome through Crown City and Majolica, come around the long way.” He looked up, eyebrows raised. “Where’d you say you were heading after Hearthome?”
“Oh, uh-” I fumble for a moment for my case, then pop it open and show the card inside. “I’m a- League affiliate? Probationary, that is. I want to cross…” I gesture a little helplessly, then trace the route from Hearthome to Oreburgh. “Coronet, right. Eventually I’ll be heading to Sandgem.”
“Sandgem, huh…?” He frowned at my ID, then traced the route that I’d proposed, before raising an eyebrow at me. “Why go through Coronet, then? Take longer to go by foot than circling around the coast by train.”
“A Ranger told me to do it. I’d assume he’d know more than me.”
The man mumbled to himself for the moment, tracing a couple of notes made on the plastic. “Recent troubles… the twenty-seven is closed for maintenance right now, might be that, with everything going on, the twenty-one is impassable.” He shrugged. “I’d trust the word of a Ranger before anybody else. They know things nobody does.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Right. So… Hearthome?”
“Right, right. Well, if you want to get there quick, you’ve got two options. Either you bum a ride from somebody in town, or you wait until tonight. There’s a bus that runs from Hearthome along Emeragrove’s branch of the two-oh-nine, morning and night, every twelve hours. Now, if you-”
The front doors dinged, and he glanced up. I half turned, looking behind me, to where the woman in uniform that’d been standing outside stepped into the interior of the Center. She glanced to the side, where Drake was watching her closely, then turned her attention to me, sizing me up with a glance.
“This guy giving you trouble, Rick?”
I blinked, then glanced back as the guy behind the counter answered back.
“Only for directions, officer.”
Officer? Ah, police. I turned back and gave her a closer look, and noted a silver Pokeball badge on the left side of her uniform, emblazoned with kanji. At her waist was a belt with two Pokeballs, both red and white. Looking closer, I could see how scratches had been painted over with a careful hand. Her hair was blue, interestingly, but she didn’t look like a Jenny. Maybe dyed?
“Ah. Well, that’s a relief, then.” She turned her attention to me. “That poochyena yours?”
I nodded. “Yes…” sir? Ma’am? “Officer.” That was safe.
“See that it doesn’t cause any trouble.” She walked up to the counter, leaning on it casually, and I realised that she’d been a lot more tense when she walked in, her hands on the Pokeballs at her sides. I could only really see it now that she was relaxed, though. “So, where’re you headed?”
“Uh, Hearthome, to cross Coronet to Oreburgh.”
She nodded. “Probably a good idea. Radio says landslides took out twenty one and the tracks close to it. Make good enough time over or through Coronet, and you might beat the repair crews.”
“Over, or… through?”
She frowned at me. “Huh. You aren’t from this region, are you?” She shook her head, cutting off my response. “Doesn’t matter. Bunch of routes around Coronet have above and below ground paths. Below ground’s faster, straighter journey and no weather to deal with, but it being through a natural cave that’s only been shored up and cleared out some means constant Pokemon encounters. Occasionally, the cave route might’ve been blocked off or rerouted entirely by wild Pokemon activity- so, nine times out of ten, underground’s faster, but there is that tenth time.”
“Uh… huh.” I trace the two 207-208 routes, one the dotted line of an underground passage. The aboveground one seems to wind its way through a pass, and from the key, it’s absolutely the longer of the two. However… “Drake, what do you think?”
I glance over my shoulder, Drake perking up as I address him. He gets up from where he was sitting, paws draped over the back of the couch, and shakes himself. A hop down onto the floor, and he crosses the room, before showing impressive athleticism by leaping, bouncing off of a couch, and landing on top of the counter. Rick draws back from the counter as Drake pads over, giving the map a critical look. The ‘yena takes a few minutes to really take in the map, before finally looking at me and shrugging. I sigh: guess I’m going to have to make this decision myself.
“I think I’ll wait until I get to Hearthome. They might know better about route conditions and local Pokemon activity.” The officer shrugs, folding her arms as she leans against the counter.
“Probably a good idea, yeah. Been hearing about a huge wave of weird Pokemon activity all across Sinnoh- closure of twenty-one’s the least of it. Everybody’s having trouble, and the League’s got its hands full just keeping a lid on the worst of it. If the underground pass is blocked, might take weeks for a Ranger patrol to clear it, unless a trainer with the right Pokemon just happens to pass through.” She stuck out her hand. “Officer Jen.”
“Cam.” My eyebrows went up at the name, however, and she noticed, chuckling.
“Nah, not Jen as in Jenny, Jen as in Jennifer. How that family ended up with near a complete monopoly on the officer system in Johto, I’ll never know, just like I’ll never hear the end of having a name vaguely like theirs.” I sent a glance at her hair, which she caught. “Hair dye. Was tradition for officers before the Jennies.” She seemed a little defensive about that one, given the speed of the response, and I decided not to press the issue.
“Well… thank you, seriously. I guess all I have to do is wait for the bus, if you don’t mind me hanging here for a while.” The two of them shared a look, then returned their gazes to me with an expression I couldn’t really parse. “What?”
“... Say I’m willing to give you a ride now. I’ve got a League issued vehicle, could make the trip to Hearthome faster than the bus could, and a lot sooner.”
“Really? You could? That would be fantastic! I’d-” Fur brushed against my shoulder, and I turned my head in surprise to find Drake giving the both of them a suspicious look. I frowned, tamping down my initial excitement. “... What’s the catch?”
“When you walked into town, m’sure you noticed the looks from the locals.”
I frowned. I hadn’t interpreted those looks as anything, but now that I was thinking about it, I couldn’t help remembering the pattern. And, of course, that one guy that I definitely knew now had crossed the street because he hadn’t wanted to pass near me. Rude.
“Yeah?”
“Emeragrove’s had a… problem, for a couple weeks. White Pokemon that shows up, and wherever it goes, things happen. Wells dry up, buildings collapse, that sort of thing. Best guess we have is that it’s a Dark type, from how the local Pokemon avoid it. We’d been hoping that the League would handle it, but with everything…”
“They’re tied up.”
She nodded. “Figure- well, trainers with Dark types are rare, and you, an affiliate with a poochyena, just happen to come through? Stroke of fortune, far as we’re concerned. So, here’s the deal. I can’t leave the town, not with this thing stalking around and causing problems, but if you were to drive it off…” she tilted her head to one side, then the other. “Well, no more problem means that my afternoon’s suddenly a lot more open.”
I frowned. White? Well, if they were right about it being a Dark type, which they’d assumed on pretty flimsy evidence… that matched the description of a few Pokemon. And, well, that’s assuming that they were even right about the typing. Honestly, it sounded like something that would be posted on a job board, but if there weren’t any trainers passing through and the Rangers were locked up… it wouldn’t hurt to just have a look, right? Besides, if they actually were right about the typing, then it was a white Dark type that was associated with disasters. An Absol, one of the most well-meaning Pokemon there were. If that was the case, then I’d just follow it to whatever problem it saw, then deal with it and leave way earlier. No risk.
“I think I can give it a look, at least.”
Jen’s face split into a wide smile, and she clapped me on the shoulder. “Now that’s what I like to hear! C’mon, I’ll show you where it was seen last.” She turned towards the doors and walked right on out of the Center.
“Thanks.” I said to Rick, who nodded.
“Be careful. You seem like the alright kind, and I’d hate to see you get hurt chasing whatever this is.”
“I’ll- we’ll be careful.” I said, ruffling Drake’s ears.
I stepped out of the Center and into the noonday sun, Drake on my heels as I squinted, my eyes getting used to the direct sunlight instead of the softer LED light of the Center. I shaded myself with my hand, just in time for a truck to pull up on the road in front of me. OFFICER was emblazoned in large blue letters on the side, the familiar red and blue bar light on top. The cab was wrapped in a black roll cage, the paint scuffed, and as I took in the rest of the vehicle, I realized that the same wear was omnipresent across the thing. The pain was worn and chipped, there were more than a few dents that had been pounded out, and there was superficial damage across the entire top of the bed.
“Hop in the back!” Jen said from the driver’s seat, the passenger’s side window down and revealing a seat buried under a mound of eclectic items. “Sorry about the mess taking up the seat, but I don’t usually drive anybody anywhere.”
I shared a look with Drake, then went to the back, dropping the tailgate. I held out my hand, an offer to help Drake climb up into the bed, but he turned his nose up at it and made it easily in a single jump, claws skittering against the sheet steel. I shrugged, then clambered up after him, closing and latching the tailgate behind me. I scooted up to the front of the bed, where there was a sliding window that gave access to the cab, and slid the window across.
“So, how far is this place, anyway?”
The truck shook as Jen put it into gear, then pulled away from the Center and into the street. Drake put his paws up on the wheel well, sticking his face over the lip of the bed and into the wind, obviously enjoying the sensation of wind across his face. I smiled at that, sneaking a picture with my Pokenav while he was distracted.
“Not far! Near the edge of town. Thing’s been showing up practically every day, recently- fields are getting ripped up and everything, think it’s getting more agitated and taking it out on the farm!”
I frowned. If their info was right, and I was right about my guess, then this didn’t sound like the actions of an absol. If they were appearing more often and getting more agitated, along with these events happening more often, it might be that whatever it was trying to warn the people about was ramping up. If that was right… I grimaced. This might be a lot more complicated than I thought. And if we were walking into a situation like that…
I dug around in my leg pockets, pulling out the ‘dex and opening it up. It came out of sleep mode instantly, displaying a UI with multiple different options. I sorted through them until I came to one labeled ‘registered Pokemon’, selecting it with a tap on the lower screen. A resistive touch screen, much like the DS, which was rather odd considering the advanced technology it was packed with.
The display was mostly empty, save for a single slot, a little red and white Pokeball icon and the word ‘poochyena’. Wondering if it was possible to change the registry to reflect a name, I tapped on the icon, bringing it up. I vaguely remembered the status screen from more recent Pokemon games I’d played, but not from Diamond and Pearl specifically. Still, I was pretty sure that it hadn’t looked like this.
Instead of hard number stats and HP, the screen was filled with some biological information that appeared to be updating itself in real time. Heart rate, blood pressure, even brainwave activity showed up as little graphs. How the dex was gathering this information without any kind of physical sensor attached to Drake, I had no idea. Maybe it was a link to the Pokeball? Looking closer, I saw a little icon of a Pokeball in the top right corner, with a pulsing signal icon. That would most likely be it, then.
There wasn’t an option for ‘check moves’, but what was there was an option that said ‘known techniques’. Essentially the same thing with slightly different wording. I tapped on it, bringing up another screen with a small list. On the right side of the screen was the typing of the technique, with the actual name of the move- or technique- itself on the left. Briefly, I wondered how the dex even knew what techniques a Pokemon knew, then dismissed the thought. If it could continuously gather such accurate biometric data in real time, then… well, maybe it recognized the flow of TE? Moves might need certain patterns of TE, patterns the dex could read and match with a library of similar energy patterns. That seemed straightforward enough for my part.
The listed techniques were alphabetized, with an option to sort them by typing instead in a little bar at the top of the screen. Tackle and bite I’d already known about, having directed Drake to use them on multiple occasions on various ghosts we’d encountered. I’d even recognized the moment that Drake had used sucker punch on that Gengar. There was, however, a move that I hadn’t seen him use, and one that I was rather surprised to see here.
“You can use snarl!?”
I directed the question to Drake, shouting a bit over the wind rushing over us, outside the cab as we were. Drake pulled his head back from the slipstream around the truck and looked back at me, a complex series of emotions flashing over his face before he finally nodded.
“That’s great!”
The poochyena blinked at me, then his tail started wagging. I grinned and motioned him over, and he pushed himself off the wheel well and landed all fours on the bed, padding over to my side. The moment he was in range, I buried my hands in his fur, stroking him all over. He accepted the attention happily, his tongue lolling out and his eyes drifting closed as he nuzzled and pressed against my hands. I, of course, obliged him with as much attention as he could take. Eventually, the wind started dying down as the truck slowed. I gave Drake’s ear one last stroking, then turned my head outwards, arm resting against the walls that made up the sides of the bed.
Jen pulled us off of the main paved road we’d been on, past a very worn mailbox and onto a dirt driveway that wound up to a series of buildings in the distance. I could make out something that looked like a large house with a wrap-around porch, with what appeared to be sliding doors instead of the usual hinge-based ones I was used to. Farther out was a larger building with much larger sliding doors, what I guessed was a barn of some kind.
I expected us to go towards the houses, but before we reached them, Jen veered us out onto a side road that circled to one side of the buildings and led between fields of a plant that I didn’t recognize. Eventually, we bounced to the halt in front of a stone cylinder jutting out of the ground, steel pipes leading out of it and off towards several tanks in the distance. It clicked that what I was looking at was a well, most likely the one that she’d mentioned- the one that’d gone dry.
I popped the tailgate open, Drake hopping down to the dirt and putting his nose to the ground. I followed him a moment after, making impressions in the dirt between the truck’s tire tracks. I stood and clapped some dust off my hands, stepping around the side of the vehicle and taking a good look around as Jen got out, slamming the door behind her.
The well was at the crossroads between two different lanes between the fields. It was surrounded by enough space on all sides for vehicles to get by, and there was a sort of metal protector over the pipes coming from the well. As I looked down each of the roads, I got an uncomfortable flashback to Signs, the deep crops hiding anything that might be lurking in them. Considering that this was the world of Pokemon, there really could be anything hiding out there.
“Thing was reportedly seen down that way.” I turned to see Jen pointing down the roadway in front of us, towards where the crops ended and the forest began. “Day after they saw it, the water stopped flowing- well went dry. I’ve no idea how it was supposed to do that, but this isn’t the first time things have gone wrong around it.”
I stared out at the spot, thinking for a long moment, then leaned down. Drake, having made a full circle around the truck, made his way to where I was crouching and sat, ears perked curiously.
“What do you think? Smell anything?” I asked him in a low tone. The yena sniffed the air curiously, then shook his head. “Mm. Maybe we’ll have better luck closer to where it was seen.”
I stood, Drake at my heels as we walked past the well, which was coated in a thin layer of green moss clinging on the stonework. I stepped over the pipes, noting how they were completely silent and most likely empty, and rapping one with the tip of my shoe produced a hollow noise that echoed up and down the entire length. Drake, on the other hand, forged ahead regardless of me.
Halfway to the end of the field, he slowed to a stop, sniffing the air. As I watched, his ears perked and swiveled, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he concentrated. After a moment, he pressed his nose to the ground, taking several whiffs of whatever he’d detected, before his head whipped back to me.
“I think he’s found something.”
“No shit? Maybe this won’t be a bust after all.” Jen fingered the Pokeballs on her belt, seeming remarkably upbeat. Suppose the possibility of getting rid of this thing outweighed the annoyance that she had to be feeling about having to do this in the first place.
We came level with Drake, only for the yena to immediately turn away from us, nose back to the ground as he followed an invisible trail laid across the dirt. I followed warily in his wake, eyeing the plants to either side of us anxiously, just ready for a wild Pokemon to jump us out of nowhere. Jen, I noted, didn’t look particularly nervous at all, and only had eyes for Drake.
It didn’t take us long to leave the fields behind, stepping out into the more untamed forest that bordered the cultivated sections of soil. Paradoxically, I felt somewhat relieved leaving the area of human habitation and management behind, and I wondered if that was the result of too many corn-based horror movies. Probably a question for another time. Still, I did feel better once we were out and among the trees, where the natural sounds of wild Pokemon filtered in, soft and understated. Far off in the distance, I thought I could hear a creek burbling in the background.
The natural scape, however, quickly gave rise to something else. The first indicator of something wrong was when we encountered the first tree, torn up entirely by the roots and laying on its side, as if it’d been ejected from the dirt wholesale and then left to lie on the forest floor. After that first sign, I started noticing the signs of damage more regularly: broken ground, strange shifts, trees toppled. Drake was still focused on his task of tracking whatever his nose had picked up, but Jen scanned our surroundings slowly and deliberately, hand wrapped openly around one of her Pokeballs as she searched the treeline with her gaze.
I was so focused on my surroundings, in fact, that I nearly tripped over Drake when he came to a halt. I managed to brake in time, Jen and I both looking at the little yena, who was sitting stock still and staring straight forwards. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong, what he’d seen, smelled, or heard, and then I looked up. And I froze.
There, standing out against the green and brown of the forest scape, tall and proud on top of a fallen tree, was an absol. It was unmistakable, their black horn, the white fur, and the black muzzle, set with deep crimson eyes that seemed to pierce straight through me. Imperiously, it swept its gaze over me, then lingered on Drake for a moment before fixing on Jen, eyes narrowing slightly. Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught Jen’s hand moving towards the Pokeballs at her waist, and my own hand reached out and caught it. She twitched in surprise, staring at me, and I shook my head slightly.
“Let me handle this.” I murmured. Then, in a louder voice, “Hello! We’re deeply sorry to have violated your territory, if this is your territory, but I heard that you were attempting to warn the locals about something. Would you be willing to show us to it, whatever it is?”
The absol’s gaze found its way back to me, and I shifted nervously, swallowing. After a moment, it huffed, then turned and hopped down from the log, stalking off into the forest.
“Okay, it’s walking away. What now?” Jen muttered to me.
“We follow it.”
She scoffed. “Yes, of course, follow the strange Dark type into the forest. This definitely isn’t what happens in a children’s story about how they get eaten by a wild Pokemon or something.”
I ignored that and moved to follow the white quadruped. Drake stayed at my heels, staring out into the forest, not so much worried as he was just keeping an eye out. Jen hesitated for a moment in our wake, then muttered an invective and followed behind, choosing to leave her Pokemon in their balls for the moment.
The absol led us deeper into the trees, winding between them on a relatively clear trail that appeared to have been made by wild Pokemon traveling through the woods. As we walked, the destruction grew more apparent and more common. Trees went from ripped up to shattered into splinters, stones broken and tossed about. The soil was more disturbed than not, and the underbrush that we’d been using the natural trails to avoid thinned out into practically nothing in the torn up ground. Time passed, until I noticed that the light around us was beginning to brighten some. And then, the trees and thick foliage thinned enough to give us a good look at our goal.
There were a number of circular, rocky holes in what looked to be a section of ground that had buckled upwards. They were varying sizes, but each and every one of them was nearly perfectly circular, and I realized with a small start that the holes themselves were shored up. The rocks that lined the edges of the holes were arranged in such a way that they supported both themselves and the soil around them, preventing what would otherwise be a totally unstable bit of ground from collapsing in on itself and sealing the holes.
“She-it.” Jen muttered next to me. “This is an onyx nest.”
“Onyx nest?”
She nodded. “Big rock worms, if you’ve never seen them. They burrow into the ground, create tunnels like this, things shored up with rock supports. Which is fine if they’re out in the middle of nowhere, digging around for minerals and plant matter that they like to eat or dipping deeper for water-” She stopped, then closed her eyes.
“The well,” I muttered. “If there are onyx digging around underneath our feet, they could’ve killed the groundwater source that was feeding it, either accidentally or on purpose.”
Jen shook her head. “A Pokemon would either have to be exceedingly confident or very, very stupid to mess with human construction. Most know better, on account of Rangers and trainers cracking down on those that think themselves strong enough to challenge humanity on any meaningful level. So, they’d keep their nests far away from human towns and cities, deep in mountain ranges or badlands where there’s plenty of rock to go around.”
“So, why are they here?”
“I don’t-” Her eyes narrowed, then widened. “Shit. With all that’s going on, it isn’t so far-fetched to assume that these onyx were driven out of their original nest, for one reason or another. And where there’s an onyx nest, it attracts others.”
I tightened my hands around the straps of my backpack, staring at the nest in a new light. “And without Ranger patrols to detect them setting up out here, and no manpower to push them away from Emeragrove, the problem would’ve kept escalating. It wouldn’t just be a well going dry, or a building collapsing, it’d be foundations in the middle of town giving out.”
“This is a lot more complicated than we first thought.” Jen muttered. “We need to retreat, figure out-”
There was a grating of stone against stone. The absol moved away from the holes, baring their teeth. Drake’s fur stood on end, and he gave me a glance out of the corner of his eye, moving his little body between myself and the nearest hole.
“I think it might be too late for that.” I muttered. And then the first onyx came barreling out of a hole like a freight train.
It slammed into the ground, then proceeded to coil like a snake, rearing its head up far above us. It stared down at us, something like anger in its gaze, and then it roared loud enough to shake the trees. I clapped my hands over my ears, grimacing, and I saw Jen doing the same out of the corner of my eye. In response to the roar, two more onyx slithered out of the ground to join their brethren. I noted that they were smaller, and that the first one that had left the hole was covered in scratches and scars along its stony body, probably from battles long past. Three onyx, one older and two younger, against myself, Drake, Jen, Jen’s two Pokemon, and maybe an absol, though I wasn’t sure that I could count on-
That thought was immediately derailed and proven wrong, as the absol came bounding across the dirt, tackling one of the younger onyx hard with Dark TE surging around their claws. The rock monster roared indignantly, then in pain, as the Dark TE cut through its rocky exterior. Rock was sturdy, but it didn’t hold up to Dark energy.
“Jennifer! We need those Pokemon! Drake, get in there, try to get between two of them and use snarl!”
Drake bared his teeth, dashing forwards, paws rapidly colliding with the ground as he ate the distance between himself at the huge snake of rock. The elder of the three had already been distracted by the absol, who was still trying to get as many hits in against the one they’d attacked as they could. The other young onyx, however, wasn’t so distracted.
“TACKLE RIGHT!” I yelled, the Normal TE barely forcing Drake out of the way in time to not be hit by a series of stones wrapped in Rock TE.
The sounds of releasing Pokemon came from my side, and I spared a glance over to see Jen opening both of her Pokeballs and releasing the Pokemon inside. One was a staraptor, the proud bird standing tall and shuffling its feathers. The other was a Buizel, the otter hopping back and forth between its paws in excitement, eyeing the Rock types across the battlefield.
“Aria, tailwind and harry! Wendel, get in close and blast!” She yelled over the sounds of combat. “Focus on the oldest one!”
Her Pokemon rushed to obey, and I watched in awe as the staraptor, Aria, darted in close, drawing out slow but powerful attacks and dodging each one. This allowed Wendel to get in close and start hitting the onyx with water moves, the fluid rapidly wearing away at the rock armour, getting into the cracks and forcing it apart. I stared for a moment longer, then shook myself, switching to the rest of the battle.
Absol and Drake were holding their respective lines. Absol’s target had managed a few glancing hits, determined easily by the brown splotches in the absol’s white fur, but they had been covered with scratches in retaliation for every blow. Blood leaked from between the rock plates over one eye, forcing that eye closed as the stream dripped down the onyx’s face, making it harder for it to land hits or aim any attacks.
Drake was dancing between the third onyx’s slow blows, darting and ducking around the stone snake as it threw itself at him again and again. Between attacks, when the onyx was trying to recover, Drake would let out a loud noise, one that caused the hairs to rise on the nape of my neck. A pulse of Dark energy would go out every single time, smashing into the onyx and, sometimes, the oldest of the three, causing them both to wince every time it happened.
With Drake and Absol playing interference for Jen’s two Pokemon, and the both of them focusing down the oldest onyx, it was only a matter of time. It depended primarily on whether any of them could get any hits in. The attacks that the onyx were using were slow, relative to the flighty little Pokemon of ours dancing between their coils, but if one landed, that’d be real bad news for whatever it hit. Either they needed to knock out the big boy, or Drake needed to knock out his combatant. Right now, we were mostly evenly matched, but even one going down would result in three Pokemon focusing on one of the two left, and then rapidly all of them combining their efforts on the last one standing. The issue was, of course, getting to that point.
It was then that something fell, hitting the rocky ground and shattering. My eyes rapidly traced the origin- the onyx that Drake had been clashing with. Repeated waves of snarl’s Dark type energy had cracked the rock armour, then finally loosened a piece to come away, revealing the rippling muscle underneath. A weak spot, and one we could leverage to turn the tide in our favour, before something else went wrong.
“DRAKE!” The poochyena darted around a blow from the onyx’s tail, ears perked in my direction, eyes still focused with laser-like intensity on his opponent. “THIRD DOWN! DRAW IT OUT, THEN PUNCH, GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT!”
I saw his eyes track right to the spot. His teeth bared for just a moment, and his legs bunched under him like springs. He waited just a moment, panting louder than necessary or needed. The onyx fell for it; roaring its victory, it struck out at Drake- only to hit empty dirt. Drake, for his part, ran underneath the rock snake, his head wreathed in Dark TE. Without a single shred of hesitation, he slammed into the gap in the armour full-tilt.
The onyx screamed, so loud that Jen and I both winced, then turned tail and slithered as quickly as it could into the woods, ignoring the holes of the nest. Drake sent one glance towards me, and I immediately pointed at the onyx that the absol was fighting.
Between the two of them, the second young onyx was quickly put to flight, leaving the last- the eldest. Jen called hers off with a gesture, and the onyx responded by recoiling itself, looking around to rally its fellows. And, of course, finding itself alone in the clearing. Its furious eyes touched each of the Pokemon that surrounded it in turn, then focused on the two of us. It snorted through its nose, and I hung for a tense moment, ready to fight it into the ground if we had to. The absol wasn’t in such a good way, but Jen’s Pokemon had been covering each other, making up for the experience of the onyx they were fighting, and Drake was still good to go.
Eventually, however, the eldest onyx seemed to think better. It closed its eyes, then bowed its head in defeat. It turned, slithering off into the woods after the two others, Drake moving out of its way and letting it by. I watched warily until it was gone, then let out a long breath of relief. Jen let out a loud “HAH” and ran to her team, while Drake sauntered up to my feet, head held high despite his many small wounds.
“Damn fine job. I’m proud of you.” He stood even taller, somehow, and I leaned down to pet his head.
By the time I looked around the clearing, the absol was gone.