I wasn't ready for the stares.
I felt like every eye in the county was on me as I made my way through town. A child in a beret leaned down to whisper to a smaller girl with an umbrella. She giggled when I avoided eye contact, and the other child looked away. An older boy, young enough to be my son, looked to my shoulder appraisingly before laughing. Every adult I passed shook her head, looking away.
"Froak?" the frog on my shoulder asked me, clinging to my hair. He sensed their disapproval. I felt a tiny claw snag at my socks, and knew the salamander at my feet felt it, too.
"Michigan, Noble, it's ok," I soothed, reaching into my hair to stroke the more timid of the pair. "They're just not used to seeing a new trainer this old."
Michigan wrapped his wet little fingers around one of mine, and something inside me twisted. I knew it would be like that, but I had failed to prepare myself for the scale of my feelings.
I had to get out of town. I had to get to the graveyard, the fields, or the forests. The Pokémon there were wild, weaker than a trainers'. There were probably still monsters in the county who wore the scars of my boots from the childhood I spent frolicking in these hills, convinced I could make it through the world alone. Surely, if even that waifish child of sixteen years ago could keep her head high in the tall grass of Kalos, a Pokémon could hold his own in the wilds.
I had to escape, before another trainer could stop me. I wasn't the only adult trainer in town.
Years of field research and wrangling human children who were never my own made it easy to spot people approaching me. I have experience in averting my eyes before they make contact. Besides, I knew those people. I knew their reaction times and their hearing abilities. What's more, I usually seemed in a daze, even when I wasn't; my lack of reaction was typical of me.
I saw Antoine coming toward me, smirk on pink lips, out of the corner of my eye. I turned down an alley. Noble must have sensed my hesitation; he pulled at my socks, as if to ask why. I couldn't explain to him just then, but I glanced down anyway, hoping he would understand.
The alley dumped out at the edge of the forest, near my old house. The smell of baked goods wafted out. I thought of all the pot-au-feu I ate in that house, and I could almost taste all the croissants and chocolatine I squirreled away in my room rather than be interrogated about why I wasn't studying in Kanto. I looked up at the door, a door I'd opened many times, next to a window I'd climbed in once when I'd lost my keys. I wouldn't fit through that window now.
"I'd give anything to go back in time to when I lived here," I told my companions as Michigan hopped off my shoulder.
"Char?" Noble asked. I could see him glancing upward out of the corner of my eye, up at the darkening gray skies. I didn't want to think about what they meant for us.
"I wanted go to school to be a Pokémon Professor, but I decided not to. I tried to teach at a Trainer's School instead."
Michigan asked, "Froakie?" I knew he meant "Why?"
"The most renowned Pokémon professors usually had a journey of their own, a dedication to field research, or a relative with the same," I answered them, adjusting my cap. I felt so unused to covering my head that it seemed strange not to have to brush the hair out of my eyes. "I knew I could never cut it as a trainer."
My little frog cried in shock, but I continued, "I wasn't meant to have you, but now I'll do my best to deserve you."
"How long do you think you can keep your head down, Tyra?" asked a voice I hardly recognized.
I turned and found him there, looking down at me with blue eyes that were icier than I remembered. Antoine. He'd gotten so tall since we'd parted ways, but I still knew him. The bulb at the end of his nose and his soft lips gave him away.
"Tony," I gasped, my heart catching in my throat. Michigan pressed himself against my leg. "I didn't know you were in town. I thought you were still in Unova."
He grinned, keeping his distance. I expected a hug, but I didn't dare ask for it. "I just got back. You've finally decided to grow up, huh?"
"What do you mean, grow up?"
"You're going on a journey."
"I have a teaching certificate and a degree," I chided him. "Children go on Pokémon journeys."
"Adults come home from them." He grinned at me with yellow teeth.
"I'd love to chat, but I really need to break Noble in," I grumbled.
"Maybe I can help with that," he offered, reaching to his belt. I thought he would produce a Pokéball, but instead he showed me a scabbard, brown and worn, intricate. I admired its beauty for a second before I realized who it was.
"That's the Honedge from the graveyard. He's a ghost type," I announced, not sure if I was explaining it to my Pokémon or showing my understanding to Tony. "He's immune to normal attacks, which are all my Pokémon have."
"Defeating your opponent isn't the only way to win a battle," he chuckled, his voice silkier than I remembered. "Besides, you made eye contact with me. You can't say no."
He had defeated me before the battle began. "There's no point. I can't defeat you. I can forfeit and give you the winner's fee, can't I?"
"I suppose you could, but then I could just challenge you again and again, until you had no money. Plus, I could tell the whole town about your first day as a trainer."
I scowled at him, fighting back tears, wishing I could trade my defenseless team for Celebi or Dialga.
"We'll battle near the graveyard," he decided, "for old time's sake."
I stomped off in that direction, chewing on my lip. Michigan croaked with concern at my left foot; Noble walked silently besides my right.
The sky was charcoal by the time we reached the graveyard, and I wondered why I hadn't gone that way in the first place. Antoine and I were the only ones who'd ever spent any time there, writing up our field research in the groundkeeper's shed where the other kids wouldn't dare try to steal it. Older and wiser, I wasn't sure now if I wanted to disrespect the dead by battling there. Still, if would save us from humiliation, I had no choice.
The graveyard hadn't changed except for one white gravestone in a corner, new since I'd returned from Unova. I couldn't see the name from that angle, but I had no time to look for it. He pulled the sword from its sheath, and it glared up at me with eyes as blue as Tony's in its hilt.
"Honedge, go!"
"Noble, I'm sorry," I apologized, looking down at my Charmander. He smiled up at me, the wariness leaving his face, and stepped toward my old steel friend. In a few weeks, he might have stood a chance…
"Honedge, slash him!"
"Tail whip?" I gulped, hopeless.
Noble cried out as the sword leapt from Antoine's hands and slashed across him, but then he started wagging his fiery tail, and it seemed to unsettle the old monster.
"Keep it up, Noble!" I cheered, hoping he felt more useful than I did.
Unbidden, the Honedge took another swipe at Noble, and my Charmander cried, falling, before slowly climbing to his feet. I could see the fire on his tail dimming and the shuddering of his tiny shoulders as he pulled himself up.
The Honedge reared up to slice him again.
It seemed like it all happened in a dream. I don't remember deciding to do what I did, but it had never been a decision before. That twisting feeling reared up in me again. All the nursery students who'd run out into the tall grass alone raced before my eyes. I did what I had always done: I ran.
I sprang over Noble's tiny head, as nimble as the Froakie who tried desperately to follow me. I crossed my arms in an X in front of me, lowering my head behind them, flinching as I dropped onto my knees. The pain came before I expected it, sharp and burning cold. I remember hearing someone screaming, unsurprised it was me. What shocked me, though, was how sword slid himself into his sheath, leaving me there.
"Take your money, Tony," I sobbed. I reached into my shirt and pulled out my wallet, hoping the warmth I felt on my chest was my tears. "Just don't hurt my Pokémon!" I reached in, grabbed my money, and threw it at him.
The Honedge caught it in his blue sword knot, glaring at me.
"That could have been your face," Tony scolded, and I noticed he didn't use the word pretty. He would have, years ago. "You need someone to protect those Pokémon for you, so you're still around to feed them. Take Honedge with you. Give him a colorful name, and keep the money; I only wanted to see if you still had the same fire you did when you were a kid."
The world seemed silent as he walked away. My arm burned, and I found I couldn't speak. Honedge handed my money to Michigan, who still stood by watching. I could feel Noble's claw stroking at my leg on the ground even as Honedge picked up my shredded wristwarmers in his sword knot. The ghost took the scraps and pressed them against the wound on my arm. Even as Tony disappeared, the sword never looked back.
"Orion," I whispered. "His middle name is Ryan."
The sword lowered itself slightly, a nod.
My wound was surprisingly shallow, and the cold fabric of Orion's sword knot helped with the pain. I didn't move until I felt a raindrop through my socks. Then I stood, pulling Noble and Michigan back into their Pokéballs.
"Orion, follow me. We'll get out of the rain in the groundskeeper's shed."
He flew up into my hand, and it closed around him instinctively. It felt natural, even through the pain, but I had no time to dwell on such a small comfort.
I ran across the graveyard until my legs and lungs burned as fiercely as my arm. When I collided with the shed, I turned, panting. I wanted to see how long I had to break through the door.
The rain had started, and thunder boomed off in the distance from a lightning flash I'd missed. If lightning came again in the next moment, I wouldn't know it. I was too stunned by the contrast of that white gravestone in a sea of gray ones. I could see the engraving from that angle, and I sobbed again when I read the words.
Antoine Ryan Lecuyer
1989-2013
Orion wrapped his sword knot around my arm, squeezing just a little, careful to avoid my wound. He looked up at me with those strange, cold eyes, and I could swear he was smiling.