Chapter 8
A battle can teach you a lot about someone's character. The connection forged between opponents is real, and is one of the most satisfying things about a match. With this in mind, sometimes a challenge should be taken as a compliment; a sign of interest. I want to understand you, it says, to know how you work, to know your limits and your lack of them.
As Bunnelby and Croagunk sat together, panting and aching, they were proof that this can be the case. Neither felt animosity towards the other, but rather their fight had made them fast friends. The two were intelligent, natural leaders, and agile in combat. They had been evenly matched, but would be fearsome partners.
Bunnelby had set off through the woods that morning with Chespin, Panchum, Braixen, and Dedenne, eager to explore their new surroundings. The woods had been eager to please; excitement and new friends seemed to be around every corner, and as the distractions became more diverse, the group had split off- Chespin had taken a liking to a little blue lizard, a funny fellow who liked to dance and shoot water from his mouth. The pair had run off in search of something bigger than themselves to annoy. Idiots.
Braixen had gone exploring with a sleek green and yellow kind of ferret- one who had a habit of bursting into flames. Panchum had fallen from a tree to land plum-smack on a little orange otter wearing some kind of yellow collar. It had taken exactly two seconds for the pair of them to lose all control and go at each other like maniacs. The melee had rolled off into the bushes, the punches and growling becoming fainter the farther they flew. Dedenne, predictably, had seen the dwindling number of familiar faces and dashed off to find Bonnie.
That was about when Bunnelby had realized that Croagunk had been following them since early that morning. The confrontation had led to their battle. The field before the duo was littered with holes, the trees and grass yellow and withered from poison.
Suddenly, Bunnelby's ears perked up, his nose twitching furiously. A familiar smell was wafting through the trees, faint but distinct. It was the smell of an old friend, but mixed with something like… charcoal?
Sylveon had stayed behind with Serena that morning, but the Digging pokemon could definitely pick out her scent. He kicked his new friend, making Croagunk's poison sacs swell in indignation. Giving the frog a pointed look, Bunnelby sprang into a run, flying through the long grass with sharp bounds. He could tell without looking that Croagunk was easily keeping pace above in the leafy canopy. The foliage cleared ahead, and Bunnelby slowed as his nose informed him that he had arrived.
She was walking slow, hesitant and curious, her ribbons twisting in the air as she approached the charcoal. Or, at least, the source of the smell. The young man wore simple, clean clothes. His dark hair, freed of its trademark headband, was long and loose around his face, which was frozen in wonder. A pad of paper sat across his lap, his fingers twined around a fragile, ebony shaft.
Tracey gave a quiet laugh. "You're a beautiful one, you are. Look at you, the way you move… never seen one of you before. And I mean really seen, not a photo or vid. Oh, no don't be scared, it's alright, I won't… ha, what're those for?"
The boy was referring to the tender strands wrapping loosely about his arm. Sylveon's stance grew less tense, and she let out a happy bark, making Tracey laugh.
Bunnelby relaxed. If Sylveon had read him, he couldn't half bad.
Making his presence known, Bunnelby was introduced to Tracey, who Croagunk had already met, it seemed. With the Poison Frog perched in the branches above, Tracey reclined in the shade, his clever fingers laying the image before him on paper: Bunnelby and Sylveon, curled up together in the sun, eyes closed, enjoying the quiet of a pristine day.
The wind made the leafy branches sing, and for almost an hour, the odd foursome was content.
And then Clemont burst out of nowhere, clinging to the back of a raging Tauros and screaming bloody murder.
That Clemont didn't inadvertently trample Bunnelby or Sylveon, or for that matter Tracey, was a miracle in and of itself. As it was, he was gone just as fast as he'd come, his steed blowing onward like a freight train and bellowing in ire.
Tracey blinked a few times, then laughed to himself. "Well, that explains you guys, doesn't it? I guess this means he's here."
(-o-)
One hour ago
To be fair, Clemont had never been very adept at riding pokemon. His Mamoswine on the journey in Snowbelle had largely ignored him and followed Ash and Serena's steed, and Clemont had proven hopeless at Rhyhorn riding. With this in mind, it had been rather optimistic of Ash to think Clemont would be alright on his own.
Ash, knowing this, had given Clemont the calmest of his Tauros. Rampage had been given his name as a joke: ever since he'd been captured in the Safari Zone, nothing had ever managed to rile him. The pokemon had been content with life in Pallet, making him ideal as a ride for children, or an alternate form of transportation when Delia's bike had a flat tire or bent spoke. Today, for the first time ever, he was living up to his moniker.
Serena watched the cloud of dust get smaller and smaller as Clemont rode off into the world, his lovely soprano growing fainter by the second. The performer shook her head. "Well, he's gone now."
Leading a pair of Tauros by the reins, Ash grinned ruefully. "I really don't know how he does it. Any pokemon, any time, Clemont gets on its back and just like that, it goes crazy. I feel bad."
Anyone could have guessed at Bonnie's reaction. "Oh, he'll be fine! He's probably got some kind of taming device in his backpack that will let hi-OMYGOODNESS IT'SSOCUTE!"
The 'it' was a young Tauros with bare stumps of horns poking out of it's wide-eyed face. It looked around as if it couldn't possibly take in everything at once. (In this way, it was scarily similar to Bonnie.)
Serena glowed to see the way Ash smiled at Bonnie. "This little one is about your age, Bonnie. Don't you think he's your size?"
Ash gave Bonnie a handful of treats (Brock's special recipe,) to feed her new friend. Soon Carter, a hand on the ranch, was taking Bonnie to find an extra-small saddle.
Meanwhile, Serena was being introduced to her own mount. It was the polar opposite of Bonnie's: in the prime of it's life, this beast was somber and still, with knowing eyes and dangerous looking horns. Its shoulder muscles were huge even for a Tauros, and it seemed to have a presence that commanded… respect? Reverence?
Serena startled a little when, upon reaching out to touch his head, the huge pokemon bent its front legs and lowered its head, almost as if bowing to her. Ash laughed. "He's so dramatic. Really, it seems to be a common theme with the pokemon I meet."
The awed girl rubbed the sleek fur at the crown of the pokemon's head. "Does he have a name?"
"Yup. That's King. The name's rather apt, as he's sort of alpha around here."
King had been rubbed down by one of the ranch hands that morning, and Ash handed Serena King's blanket and dropped his saddle across it. Serena was rather experienced at the handling of riding-pokemon, but the straps on King's saddle gave her trouble. It was an old-fashioned Kanto rig, and the clasps were strange to her. On King's other side, Ash called, "You doin' OK?"
"I just don't understand how this is supposed to-"
Her voice faded out quick. Ash appeared right behind her, his arms stretching around her, letting his hands rest on hers. "Here, it's just twisted. Like this, look,"
He guided her fingers and showed her how to tie the knot up to the halter, and how to check the saddle. At Ash's closeness, Serena's fingers began to fumble with the straps as she worked. A soft voice sounded right in her ear.
"Take it slow."
Her hands steadied. Her wild breath calmed, and she tightened the harness without thinking about it.
"There you go! Since you know how, you can ride whenever you want while you're here!"
Serena blushed as Ash took a step off to get her gloves. "I'm not sure I could quite remember how, if I did it myself..."
Handing over her riding gloves, Ash grinned. "I can walk you through it 'til you've got it down."
Serena nodded, trying to hold onto the calm that had filled her a moment before. "So why do I get to ride King?"
Ash suddenly couldn't meet her gaze. He began scratching the mass of fur just behind King's head. "Oh, well... I don't know if Kanto riding-pokemon are as well trained as the ones in Kalos. King is the best trained, so I thought, with you knowing so much about riding, you'd like him better."
Serena's head went to one side. "Then why not give him to Clemont?"
Ash's eyes flitted up to hers with a crafty smile. "Well, you're pretty confidant when you ride, but King doesn't react well to a trainer who's… uncertain."
A laugh like a Kalosian stream bubbled up out of Serena, and Ash looked away again. "Anyway, since it looks like the siblings have taken off, you want me to show you around the preserve?"
This sounded like a great idea, but there was one problem. "Aren't you going to ride, too?"
Aaand there was that look.
An idea was coming. A strategy that was certain to catch them unawares, a convention-breaking and flat out unsafe plan. He was going to dive off a building, challenge some Legendary, dance during a gym battle, do something new, or something full of adrenaline, or something possessed by that kind of bravery that bordered on insanity.
Ash pulled his fingerless gloves from his pocket and tugged one on. "Oh, I've still got to break my ride in."
(-o-)
Bonnie wasn't sure what she was going to name her new friend, but she knew it had to be good. This little guy deserved it.
The young Tauros was well behaved, obedient, (mostly,) and was just as curious and playful as Bonnie. He could put up with Bonnie's short attention span because his was just as short. He seemed to understand the importance of keeping Bonnie safe. When a huge owl with a horned plume came swooping silently out of the forest, Tauros sensed Bonnie's fear and kept his distance. He was also on edge when a little orange rodent came hurtling from the treeline, until Bonnie assured her mount that Dedenne was harmless.
Now the rodent sat on its master's shoulder, content to be half-asleep as the little bison plodded on through Oak's preserve.
Dedenne awoke at the same at the same moment that Tauros's ears perked up. It took Bonnie a moment longer to register the sound.
"Water!" She leaned down at patted the fur at her steed's neck. "Let's go Tauros! We can play and cool off!"
A wet snort and a change in direction were an agreeing reply.
The stream was swift and cool. Bonnie rolled up her leggings and chased Tauros back and forth through the current. The sun seemed not-as-fierce in the relieve of the water, and the fun was such that they must not have heard the crashing from close by.
And then things happened too quickly.
There was a desperate squeak from farther down the course of the stream, and Bonnie was screaming to Tauros, and swinging onto his low back as he plunged downstream after the prone form of Dedenne, whose little limbs couldn't keep it ahead of the flow. Bonnie's hand was around Dedenne's sodden form, but Tauros was up to it's belly in the water. As it turned around and began to work violently back to the shallows, Bonnie thought that this was what it was to be Ash.
There was no fear in that moment, because there was no time to be scared.
The spray got into her mouth as she called to her mount, "Tauros! Take Down!"
The little bull redoubled its efforts, lowering its head and giving a valiant, if slightly high-pitched, bellow. He was making his own wake in the torrent, but now the water was halfway up his sides, and his hooves were just managing to tear at the smooth stones of the bed. The trio was slowly but surely drawn to the precipice, and fell from the stream's current into gravity's.
Thankfully, the waterfall was all of twelve feet tall.
It was a hard splash, and a sputtering swim, and then Bonnie was treading water beside her Tauros, Dedenne prostrate on the broad shaggy back, and Bonnie was laughing in relief and her pokemon were, in their own way, joining in.
"Wow," the little blond gasped, spitting water with a grin, "just wait until Clemont hears about this." She angled her head to look up the plunging torrent down which they'd fallen. She was able to take in the beauty of the waterfall, the cascading froth, the sun on the water,
And the huge log, the length of a full-grown tree, plummeting down the very short waterfall towards her.
(-o-)
It's name was Taproot, and he was a stubborn, feisty, adolescent bull Tauros. Since he'd been old enough to ride, he'd crushed three ranch hands up against a post or pole and gored one in the leg. Ash was riding with a rope lead and a blanket. No saddle, no stirrups, and no control. The boy let loose another crazed whoop as the pokemon dove down and sprung up again, running the length of the round-pen over and over, first making the widest route possible, repeatedly banging Ash's knee on the fence, then turning tight rotations dead in the middle of the arena. The blood-gleam in Taproot's eye was becoming angry and desperate, while the light in Ash's eyes was growing brighter and brighter. This was a battle of wills, and Ash was winning.
It didn't quite seem that way to Serena, however. She had to periodically bury her face into King's mane as Ash leaned first to one side and then the other. It seemed that at any moment he'd be thrown from the bull's back and put at the mercy, (or lack of mercy,) of those sharp, chopping hooves. King stood patiently, watching Serena with borderline amusement. Taproot was clearly tiring, whereas Ash hadn't even begun to flag.
Break-riding was something Ash regretted in the forethought and afterthought. The boy admired the unconquerable spirit of the pokemon, its strength and determination. It seemed almost inhumane to dominate that willpower. However, in the moment, it was hard to not enjoy oneself. The adrenaline coursing through his veins, the thrill, the sheer danger and its lucrative joy. When locked in combat, when given an adversary, a rival, a challenge,
Ash felt alive.
And beyond the fear and the worry, Serena saw it. She saw the look in his eyes as the bull, in a last-ditch gambit, rolled over, crushing Ash with its full weight. As the beast came up again, Ash was springing forward. Not on the Tauros's back, this was no longer a break-ride, but a wrestling match. A hand was wrapped around each sharp horn, and the two animals were snorting in tandem, straining into each other. Ash's feet began to give, and then there was a sound from his throat like a Pyroar in battle. With a final burst of effort, he heaved an exhausted Taproot onto his side.
(-o-)
One moment, death, in the form of a huge log, was hurtling from the sky.
The next, it was raining splinters.
It had been too fast to follow with the eye; Bonnie's ears, on the other hand, had given her some warning. The buzz of a giant insect, or maybe a small helicopter; the brutal slash of a blade shredding through lumber. And as Bonnie pulled herself out of the plunge pool, she saw where the copter had touched down.
It stood more than 5 feet tall, perhaps a little taller than Ash. The papery wings gave a nervous buzz as they slowed down. The plated armor was not a calm green, like a tree or new leaf. This was an acid green, a poisonous color, a bright warning. As if the blades for forearms weren't warning enough.
The angular head regarded her with dark eyes. The girl shied away. It may have saved her life, but anything that could reduce a full tree to wood chips that fast was a friend to make carefully.
And then it was okay, because Bunnelby was there, and Sylveon was right behind, and that funny frog from yesterday, and Bonnie knew she could calm down. She rubbed Sylveon's head, wondering why neither she nor Bunnelby seemed nervous around the acid-helicopter.
And then she saw him.
He was a young man, which was odd, because Bonnie's first though when she'd seen him was, "He's a keeper." There was a strange grace to his movement, fluid and measured, like a dancer. He had dark hair that curtained his eyes, and he wore casual summer clothes. Bonnie liked that he had a backpack, but she really wasn't sure why she liked that.
He spoke first to the acid-helicopter, his voice reminding Bonnie of spilled paint. "Nice job, Scyther. Return."
The pokemon bowed his head respectfully before the red light whisked his form away. Tracey put his pokeball away, looking curiously at the soaked little tyke before him. She obviously knew these pokemon, but they weren't hers; he could tell that much. Though her age was nothing to bar her- she didn't seem quite 10, but she had two pokemon of her own. League restrictions said one had to be 10 to receive a pokemon license. Either she was a very small 10, or Ash had not changed his trademark policy of screw the rules- I'm Ash Ketchum.
The artist looked down at the little girl, who stared up at him. Sylveon twined her ribbons around Bonnie's arms, Bunnelby casually smelled the air, Croagunk dove into the plunge pool for a swim, and a gust of wind caught up into the emerald canopy above the strange menagerie, and blew high…
(-o-)
High to an outlook, where Serena sat astride her mount, surveying nearly all of Professor Oak's preserve. King never moved, for his eyes were also drinking in the beauty of the swaying viridescent ocean. Unlike Ash's eyes, which were caught up in a different beauty.
There was something assuasive about Serena riding King. Besides himself, there were few Ash trusted to keep his friends safe. But King was, after all, Ash's triumph, Ash's pride and joy. Out of all his Tauros, this was the beast that had brought him through the Orange League, and had served him well in the Silver League Conference. Now in the prime of his life, he was a regal powerhouse of quiet majesty. Ash couldn't possibly entrust Serena to any other- King was reliable and steadfast, a force to be reckoned with, even on this preserve full of powerful pokemon.
So long as she was here, she was safe. They would all be safe.
But for how long?
Ash steered Taproot slowly towards the tree line. His mind became caught up in the blood-frenzy of that awful moment; suspended in the air above Lumios Tower, agony coursing through every vein, his pokemon groaning in pain all around him, his bond with Greninja letting him feel every ounce of torture that Lysandre's machines poured into the Water-type. He remembered his thoughts becoming so disconnected that it had seemed there was a storm in his head, which had spiraled into a cyclone of rage. His bonds shattered, he was falling, he hit the rooftop and rolled to his feet.
He saw Lysandre before him and knew a fight was coming: he saw the fire in Alain's eyes and knew he had an ally, he felt Greninja land behind him and knew he had a chance, he thought of Serena and knew he had no choice.
This maniac was going down. No matter the cost.
"Ash! Hey, you crazy son-of-a-Salamence! Long time no see!"
Ash started from his waking nightmare, surprised to hear a voice he hadn't heard in years. He looked up to see Bonnie on her little Tauros, which was being led by one of Ash's oldest friends- someone else who had been put in danger just by being around him. Tracey Sketchit grinned broadly. "So! Can I meet this lady-friend I've heard so much about?"