Chapter 5

Alinak was flying on his flygon around a forest near Redwood Town when he felt something trying to talk to his mind. He let it enter cautiously and was surprised by his espeon's mental voice. He was informed that the travelling teenagers were camping right under him, so he decided to land and greet them.

Niki was the first one to approach him, smiling and shouting excitedly while showing him her first medal and her fletchinder, who was as excited to see him as he had been the first day. The trainer also showed proudly her newly caught electrike and scraggy. Lagio scoffed at her loudness, but confidently smiled at Alinak while showing him his first ribbon, as well as his new ducklett and mawile. He told him that the bulbasaur had evolved too.

"But now she has some pink marks around her legs, see?" he held the confused Belardia up so Alinak could see them better.

The espeon rolled his eyes at that. He had been doing that to everyone for the last week.

"Strange…" Alinak said, pensively "But I don't think it's bad. Things like this happen sometimes. My blaziken also has black feathers instead of yellow ones on her feet."

"That's what I've been telling him for days!" everyone suddenly heard a furious shout inside their minds. Zelem and Tara looked at the espeon apologetically while he angrily waved his tail, laying not far from the flygon.

"And what about you two?" the white haired boy asked Zelem and Tara.

"After seeing how dangerous gyms and contests can get, we've decided that travelling is just fine for us." She smiled, feeling a little ashamed while Zelem showed his catch: a sewaddle.

"Booooring!" Niki booed.

"And yet I'm sure that you've found less trainers than you expected, and that is the exact reason. It's dangerous." Alinak replied while staring at her. "It's a very sensible decision."

"But you defeated the gyms and won the championship!" Niki replied "Taekni told us."

"I did, barely. Besides, it's still dangerous and I could be dead because of an accident. There is a reason why I stopped at my first championship instead of continue battling gyms in other regions. This isn't for everyone and I had enough closed calls. Videogames are videogames, but this is real life. Just because you can grow some turnips in a pixel field doesn't mean you'll like living and working in a farm." He replied.

Then Neram softly hit one of his legs with his head and wave his double tail as a greeting. Alinak bended over and patted him softly on the head.

"Hello to you too. Have things been fine?" he asked the pokémon.

"Yes." Neram confirmed, letting everyone hear what he had to say "I missed travelling a lot, to be honest. And I sparred with their Pokémon from time to time. It was a good exercise."

"But you never fight to your fullest!" Niki complained.

"But your attacks were really pretty." Lagio intervened.

"Of course not! I would crush you! The only Pokémon here I could battle in a fair fight is Hakkai." The espeon replied, apparently annoyed. Alinak figured that was a common argument and, watching the overactive girl snorting, he wasn't that surprised about it.

The dragon Pokémon, on the other hand, got up immediately after hearing the espeon and tensed his body while showing a creepy smile full of dangerously sharp teeth, ready to fight him. The smaller Pokémon rolled his eyes.

"No, Hakkai, we're not fighting. I'm not in the mood."

The flygon groaned, disappointed, and then proceeded to curl up and continue to ignore the humans.

"Anyway…" Tara softly said, then "What are you doing around here?"

"The ranger officer of this forest sent me." Alinak answered "She told me that this part had been strangely warm recently and wanted me to investigate. It seems that it's going to be swellow's migrate season soon and she doesn't want any unexpected trouble, so she wanted all her experienced ranger working on the migration." Then he snorted "Like I'm inexperienced."

"You're under everyone's ranks. You know how it is." Neram tried to comfort him. Alinak just made a grimaced.

"And I still like to see my skills appreciated, thank you very much." He retorted.

The espeon sighted with a resigned smile. If Alinak was cranky, nothing would make him feel better until he wanted to feel better, so he didn't press on the matter. Instead, he reminded everyone that they supposedly were only doing a small pause for lunch and nobody had eaten yet.

Since they finished their meal late, the group decided to camp there that night and do some training for the rest of the day. Niki and Lagio battled with their electrike and mawile while the other's watched and Neram got sure no one got badly hurt. Alinak was surprised by how good they were giving orders and thinking fast, and even more by how pretty combinations Lagio's mawile managed to make in the middle of the battle. Using Fake Tears to make a Fairy Wind glitter was as smart as impressive.

Lagio had a lot of advantage, but in the end Niki won, almost miraculously. Her rival was fast to complain, but Neram declared that if they kept fighting their Pokémon would get badly hurt, and warned them to stop. He still complained, but didn't send another Pokémon.

After the battle, Neram approached Alinak and sit next to him, who was leaning on his flygon.

"So? What do you think?" he asked him, in a private conversation.

"She… won." He carefully said. By how the battle had been, she shouldn't have.

"I know. It's not the first time this happens." Neram confessed, while staring at the arguing teenagers while Zelem tried to make peace between them, and Tara watched, not sure about what to do next.

"How many times has this happened?"

"Only twice. But always when she needed it most. The gym battle was the second one." The espeon said.

Alinak covered his mouth with one of his hands unconsciously, thinking.

"Mysel will want to know this." He said after thinking several minutes. "Something else?"

"Nothing. Maybe it's still too soon."

"You're probably right." Alinak conceded. Then he turned his head to look at the flygon.

"Have you notice something?"

The flygon stopped pretending to sleep and opened one eye. He looked at the group of trainers, who were now trying to convince Zelem and Tara to participate in a contest simulation so Lagio could practice properly. The dragon Pokémon pointed to Tara with his tail.

"She smells of chaos." He thought, knowing the espeon and his trainer would hear it.

Both the human and the Pokémon looked at him, surprised.

"And destruction?" The espeon quickly asked.

"No. The potential of dreams and unpredictability. A whim. Chaos. But not necessarily destruction." That was his only answer before he closed his eyes again and proceeded to ignore them again.

"Right… I'm clueless." Alinak declared.

"Me too." Neram said, lowering his ears in disappointment.

But then his ears went up again in surprise when he felt Alinak grabbing him and putting him on his lap, while softly grasping his paws and playing with them.

"Don't worry about it. You said it yourself: it's too soon. Let them enjoy this journey and Niki's incredible victories." He laughed.

The espeon sighted.

"You're right. And you know that what you're doing is humiliating." he stared at his trainer, who let his paws got and gave him and apologetic smile.

"Sorry, sorry. I was just, you know, thinking."

"You do that too much. And you space out."

Alinak blushed slightly, embarrassed, and stared at him, still thinking.

"It's just… It's so strange how much Pokémon and animals look alike. Even though it's weird that a fox would turn into a cat."

"If the images of animals you have showed me are faithful to that world's reality, eevees don't look like a 'fox' that much."Tthe espeon replied "But I can see the resemblance."

"Right? Why would some things be so similar when these worlds have always been apart?" Alinak insisted, resisting the temptation of playing with his pokémon's paws again.

"I believe that Arceus got inspiration from your world. You said that it is several millions older, right?"

"Yeah" Alinak confirmed "While this one is only around fifty thousand… Yes, it's possible. But wouldn't the gods of that world be offended?" He wondered.

The espeon looked pensively.

"I've been thinking about that; the reason why you were born exactly in that world, and I think it's related to the fact that there are so many different religions." The Pokémon looked insecure when he said that, but the human nodded, confirming the information. "Well, I think that your world doesn't have any gods."

The white haired boy looked surprised.

"Is that possible? Life without gods?"

"Probably not, but they could have left the planet after putting life on it and give it will to survive on its own; and then let it evolve in whatever way it would find necessary after they left. At the very least, that would keep it from being destroyed by the gods. And it would mean that no god would be bothered by an intrusion from another world."

Alinak thought about his words.

"Yeah… It makes sense." He acknowledged.

Then they heard Lagio's complain about the temperature. Both of them then realized that it had gotten warmer than before, and Alinak remembered that he was supposed to investigate that, so he got up to, at least, pretend he was going to start searching. He hadn't thought much about his mission because he didn't think it would be urgent, but that area had gotten warmer way too fast and suddenly to be normal. And then he realized that the heat was coming out of the ground. There was a small tremor.

Sheridan suddenly got up and run towards Zelem and his sewaddle as fast as possible, the ones who were furthest from the rest, and grabbed them while getting far away in an incredibly jump aided by his wings. A few seconds later, a lava column burst out of the ground in the exact place where they had been. Everyone stepped back while the ground around the hole started melting. Some kind of hand, but seemingly made of lava, got out of the burning place; and a metallic head soon followed with two orange eyes that were staring at them, blankly.

Alinak just couldn't believe his eyes.

It was a heatran.