The First-Hand Account of a Pipsqueak Explorer

Normal is a strange and often clumsily used word. Some of us think it is normal not to drool, not to stare, and not to crack open age-old urns containing the ghost of a pokémon. Being normal is the effort, being weird is easy. Normalcy poses itself—as the mathematicians in the best towers of Zruaset might describe it—perpendicular to the line of weirdness. It is an upward climb we undertake in order to coexist without tugging our fur out over one another.

At times, you can't quite guess which line is which, or so to say, the day I discovered my brother had acted strangely and cracked open an age-old urn containing the ghost of a pokémon, I chose a normal reaction: running for my life. Yet it is this normal decision that threw me head-first into Strappo, who murdered normalcy in all its meaning and spat fire on the remains.

Strappo stood at six feet tall where I was shorter than most of the flowers I grow in my garden. He had a plain look on his face while my village friends told me my expression was too intense, a backpack made of deer-leather on his great back whereas-don't laugh-I would yell for my father whenever I spotted a deer.

I bounced off his leg, my head spinning from the collision. It was a quiet bump to Strappo, who in all odds probably thought he kicked an exposed root. it might as well have been a gong to me. I didn't know his name yet, or why he came out after me. I had seen him before. This typhlosion shared a meal with my father, Bercreaux, who shoved me into my room with a bowl of soup and shut the door on their conversation. I respected their privacy then, and I was relieved (oddly) that Strappo hadn't respected mine now.

"Help!" I cried to the adult.

He looked down. "Oh, I thought you were a root."

I ignored the comment, or rather, failed to hear it. "My b-brother." I gasped for air. "He headbutted an urn, a-and it broke, and a hundred different pieces came raining up. They shot at us!"

"How'd you know they were all different?" Srappo asked.

He was more focused on watching for danger than studying my face, so he didn't see my eyes go blank. "Um, I just know. It was like a window shattering." More like exploding. "That doesn't matter, though, we have to save my brother!"

"Listen closely," he said. "I think he is on the way."

I felt rather than listened. My four puny paws felt the slapping of bigger ones against the earth. They were familiar. When I felt them in the safety of my home, it was a message to move whatever book I had out of the way. Because Barf had always liked to get a running start before—

Barf exploded out from behind a bush, several twigs and leaves tangled in the ruffled fur on his head. He was always an odd growlithe. Not what one would call typical: imagine all the weird things a dog can do, and he tended to do them with a grin. At the moment, he decided to lead shards of pottery our way. One caught scent of me and rocketed into the ground next to my hindquarters. Always a troublemaker, my brother Barf. I hadn't seen him in years. Four to be exact.

"Wow," Barf barked, panting. "It's so great to see you Shy! How's old-fella Bercreaux—" a shard stabbed the tree next to him. It seemed to shiver in its spot inches from the growlithe's nose. "Guh. I shouldn't have broken that urn."

"Right?!" I asked near-hysterically.

"Your brother hasn't been possessed," Strappo said.

"Hooray!" I yipped. I always grew a bit caustic when imperiled. "Did you hear th-th-that! Not possessed, Barf!" Another shard bounced off the first piece near my backside. I let out a rather ghastly shriek.

"This must be an evil-without ghost who is too weak, or your brother's willpower won over it. Whatever the case, it decided to perforate everyone instead." A new piece appeared. It glowed purple in the shadowed forest. And then, flashed red before shooting at the typhlosion.

Watch out, I tried to shout, not a syllable escaping before the typhlosion swung out his arm. He had snatched it right out of the air.

"This won't be too tough to fix," Strappo mentioned as he walked away, bundling up the pieces. "Stay here. And..." he gave me a good look-over. "Er, keep low, I guess."

Barf cocked his head to one side. "Whozzat? Buddy..." he nudged me with his wet nose. "No need to be afraid. I'm back."

I took in a deep breath. "N-N-No idea... Bercreaux met him yesterday. He slept overnight in the study. All I know is that they have private talks and he likes surprise soup." Our adoptive parent devoted much of his life to agriculture, but entei, who invented the cooked meal while on his Unending Hunt, should have banned Bercreaux from mixing vegetables together in a broth.

"No wonder he walked towards the ghost. If he enjoys surprise soup he probably wants to hurt himself."

I smiled sheepishly, earning my namesake. Shy. "He's gotten better at cooking," I lied.

Barf also smiled. A note of doggish guilt was lit in his eyes and in the way he hunched down. "I must have been gone forever. Because that's how long it would take him to prepare a decent meal. How are you, buddy?" Buddy is a normal nickname, except what Barf means is closer to Bud-dy. Flowers grow on my back when I become grateful. It proved to be an indelible phenomenon for the dog.

"A little worried about where I am in the world. Thanks to you." I added the last piece in passing, as my way of getting even.

That note of doggish guilt became full-blown. "Gah! I didn't know you followed me. Your paws make no noise and everything around here smells like you. Plant, y'know? I shouldn't have broken the urn at all. But Bercreaux always talked about how it was a menace, and I got done with my hero training..."

I ought to have repeated the oft-used line of our father-in-spirit: what does but mean? That everything before it doesn't matter.

But, I was too excited to stay angry. "Y-You passed? You're a hero?"

"Well, I call it 'hero training.' I really graduated from an rescue-focused guild in Zruaset. They're called Critters' Beginnings. I'm a Critter now. I also learned how to use an abacus, a guitar, and a whole bunch of other things!"

"Congratulations! That's amazing, all of it." Barf was a one-track critter. His goal? To become a hero. Bercreaux gave him money for passage to Zruaset a few years ago, to follow his dreams. One day later than a few years ago, he chased after them like a thrown stick. Being heroic wasn't quite the same as exploring or rescuing as a job. I might be the only one who understood, the only one he ever told, that his idea of a hero was somebody who solved...

"This is a real problem," Barf whined. "I wonder if that typhlosion is okay." I was at the right height to see his paws writhe. "Maybe each shard stabbed into the vents on his back, plugging up his fire until he exploded."

I added in my own luck to stop our reunion from spoiling. "I'm going to evolve soon. I'm at that age, apparently."

"So cool! Into what?"

"Don't you remember?" I kept my eyes on the ground, not a hard feat for someone my height. "No one knows what I am."

"You're a shaymin," Strappo said, sauntering through the brush.

"Guh?"

"Yeah." He snorted. "Good for you. Rare species. Mythic orders around you are spread all over the continents."

For the most part, you want to ignore strangers who call you names. But this name had a certain weight to it. Shay-min. You probably have known what you are your entire life, if you do not mind me accusing you of having a stable, sensible life. So, this name, from this pokémon, well... I guess you should know I never get agitated. I just get more and more shy.

"Sorry," I muttered, "I don't think..." our situation flooded back to me. "Eep. G-G-Ghost?"

"What he means to say," Barf said in my stead, "is the ghost gone?"

Strappo frowned in that special adult fashion. "Yes. I sealed it back in its urn." He showed us the marble vessel. Verdant light splashed across its shattered surface. "When your brother mentioned different pieces, I knew I had to rebuild the broken vessel. Unlike you, growlithe. The one who broke it in the first place. Mind explaining your process? You must be discrete about your fantastic work ethic."

Barf hung his head in great shame. "Well, it's too amazing for you to understand."

"Hmph. Seems your ethic is more surreptitious than discrete."

Barf laid down in a heap. "I get it. Because I should be ashamed of it." Understanding Strappo's meaning, at least, earned Barf an approving nod.

"You were gone a moment. You fixed it so fast," I told the typhlosion.

Strappo patted the urn. "It's like any other puzzle. Start with the corners and use glue when you get it wrong."

I couldn't hold my tongue. "But that's an oval," I told him. "There are no corners."

Strappo smiled. "According to the best mathematicians in Lamoise," he said, "an urn is a complex, three-dimensional object which is neither an oval or even a cylinder, although it is close to those shapes. You wanted to call it round."

Or rounded, like the thoughts circling in my head like a sharpedo-gam. Over time, I tend to bank a sort of adventurous passion inside my heart. It swells, until I'm forced to spend it all in a silly sneeze—following Barf into the woods on a whim, for instance. Now my fervor had emptied, and I wanted nothing more than to slump into my bed and ask, did this all really happen?

Having, in all likelihood, saved hundreds of pokémon from peril, Strappo recognized my exhaustion. He scooped me up into his arms without asking (one of the worst things to do to a short pokémon) and kept me inches from the urn (one of the worst things to do to me personally).

"We're going to your caretaker, shaymin," Strappo said. "Unless your brother wants to travel to the sand continent, into the Shadowed Pyramid, and headbutt the Sandstone Sarcophagi Triad, who will then wrathfully summon sandstorms large enough to destroy Sahra Town many times over."

"Wh-aa-at?" Barf yowled. "Is that a real place? Did something like that really happen?"

Some memory made the typhlosion gnash his teeth. "I didn't master glue yesterday. Come on."

I might have understood this as the moment Strappo took interest in me. He carried me like a precious bouquet of flowers, and his demeanor lightened as we walked out of the forest. Barf walked by my side, respecting the quiet even while wanting to bark at it. There was joy in his eyes and he frolicked enough in the pasture between here and Sunstarch village for both of us. Beside the giant typhlosion carrying me, it was like four years ago.

Meanwhile, that aforementioned, single word ensured this would be more than a pleasant moment:

It made it into the moment I, a shaymin shorter than a decent blade of grass, fell into the life of an explorer.

I plan to update as soon as possible for each part. Please leave me with your thoughts and suggestions.