Chapter 9: Darwinism

"Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of men."
- C. Darwin, The Descent of Man

There was a body on the road.

He'd put up quite a fight, if the blood was anything to go by.

His backpack lay not far from him, scratched and chewed by small animals trying to get at the food inside.

There was a body on the road.

Something had torn open his chest and eaten his heart.

She stared at the remains of a trainer, identity and destination unknown, in a sort of numb mixture of horror and ire.

Flies buzzed around. She was trying very hard not to look at his shattered, mauled chest—meat-red peppered with shards of glaring-white bone.

It was funny. Seeing an eel pokémon get its head bitten off made her physically ill, while this… carcass merely evoked a vague sort of anger.

Dimly, she heard the sounds of Russell being violently sick a little ways away.

Matt was cutting open the corpse's pockets, looking for identification. He pulled out a stained trainer's card and a light green pokédex.

"Anyone we know?" she heard herself say. She sounded a bit insane, now that she thought about it.

"Trevor D. Richardson, of Steppe Town," answered Matt, calmly. He crouched again and removed a pokéball and a super ball from a pocket further down the boy's leg.

"You stupid, stupid bastard," he muttered.

"What?"

"Not only was he traveling alone, but he had his pokémon—which could have defended him—in a hard-to-reach pocket. These belts aren't for decoration! When people tell you to travel in groups—there's a reason! Idiot... did you think at all?"

Matt stared off into the distance; sighed, shook his head.

"What… do you think… got him?"

"A wolf or a big cat would've broken his neck first. Reptiles just overpower and tear things out. Usually." Matt walked around, looking at the droplets of dried blood on the sandy ground and splattered on the grass. "No… it was something that flies. There's no trail that I can see. But… why just the heart?" he added, quietly.

"What do we do?" she asked, breaking the ensuing silence.

"Take his card, pokédex and pokémon, and report him dead in Verdure Town." One of the grimass they'd been riding wandered over—Russell's, she had his bag strapped to her rump—and was idly sniffing the body. Matt reached over and pulled her away from it by the halter.

"Don't," he said, simply.

"Humans are so stupid, you know," the pokémon replied in her high, hissing voice. "Why do you get so emotional over meat?"

"He was a trainer, like us," said Matt evenly.

"Just protein now," said the grimass, baring her fangs. "Why do you waste it?"

"We respect the dead."

"Respect the living. My brothers and I are hungry. If we do not eat, they will. Look around."

They did. A couple of murkrow were fluttering around on the road. Here and there the twitch of a tail or ear indicated that a soiote or dirfox was interested in continuing their carrion meal.

"He has not been dead for long, but the heat quickens decay. Better to eat soon," said the grimass.

"What killed him?" asked Matt, suddenly.

"Foals don't need to know," she said, firmly.

The silence was filled with the idle buzzing of the flies and a short caw from one of the murkrow.

Matt relaxed his hand, releasing his hold on the pokémon's halter.

"Make it quick."

By unspoken agreement, Matt and Moriko turned their backs on the corpse and started walking over to Russell, as the three grimass moved in on it.

"I could have gotten Rufus to cremate him, you know," she said, quietly.

"Too dangerous with all this dry grass around," Matt said, but without the contemptuous bite he usually would have had.

"…Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just… felt kind of stupid because that grimass was right. And…"

"And what?"

"That could've been me… if I hadn't let Maia talk me into going with you two. I wanted to go by myself… that's the way—that's how I do everything, usually. Alone."

"I'm mostly regretting the fact that we forgot to go slightly northwest and hit the road again." It wasn't entirely their fault. The highway curved north, around a large patch of forest. Russell had ran toward the stunted trees and low bushes on this side of the road, in an attempt to find a mildly private place to be sick in. He didn't get very far.

"Heh…yeah. Oh, there's Russell—"

"Hey, I think he's pulling out a pokéball…"

Sylvia appeared in a flash of red light as they ran up to her trainer. Across from the grass-type wolf was a rather smaller fox with a silvery pelt and a pale rust-colored underbelly, snout and paws.

As Russell told Sylvia to use a vine whip, Moriko pulled out her pokédex. She recognized the pokémon for once, but wanted to know more.

"Dirfox, the swift fox pokémon. It is very shy and preys mostly on small rodents and birds. It prefers using illusory techniques to actual fighting, allowing it time to escape from battle. It evolves to soiote at level eighteen and is a ground and psychic type."

The fox pokémon yelped in pain as Sylvia's vines slapped at him, before creating multiple copies of itself with a double team technique.

"Use razor leaf and grab the real one with your vines," said Russell.

The cayvine launched a flurry of sharp-edged leaves into the pack of illusory dirfox. One—the real one—screeched with pain as he received a cut across the snout and attempted to flee, but Sylvia was quicker. She stretched out a pair of vines and wrapped them around the fox's belly, lifting him and drawing him back to her. He writhed and whined unintelligibly, silenced only when Sylvia slammed him onto the ground. Even then, he tried to crawl away, before being converted to energy and sucked into the metallic embrace of a thrown pokéball. It wiggled once or twice before lying still.

"Great work, Sylvia," said Russell, scratching the wolf behind the ears.

"Thanks! He really fought hard against being captured, didn't he?" she replied, wagging her tail happily.

"Yeah, he really did…" said Russell, bending to pick up the pokéball. "Oh, hey," he said, noticing the other two trainers.

"Hi. Feeling better?" said Matt.

"Yeah," he replied, reddening a bit.

"Nice capture, by the way," said Moriko.

Russell smiled slightly. "Well, I saw that there were a few of them… scavenging… and Moriko fought its evolved form back at the ground gym. It looked like a decent pokémon." He shrugged. "Plus… I needed something to take my mind off… to take my mind off…" he swallowed, adam's apple bobbing, probably trying to control his rising gorge.

"Yeah, speaking of that," said Matt quickly, "why don't you two keep walking up the road—this side of the road—while I round up the grimass?"

"Sure," said Moriko, nodding.

"Sounds good," said Russell, sounding relieved. "Oh, right… Sylvia, return," he said, holding up the cayvine's pokéball, who was converted to energy and disappeared. Russell minimized her pokéball and clipped it onto his belt, next to the new dirfox.

"How's the egg?" asked Moriko as Matt jogged back toward the road. It'd only been about a day since he got it, so it was unlikely there'd be any changes, but she couldn't think of anything else to ask.

"I kind of fancy something's moving inside a bit, when I hold it, but other than that it's pretty boring. I stashed it in my pack shortly before my stomach really felt like it wanted to start this whole digestive thing over again…"

"Are you worried it might break?"

"Eh… the shell feels pretty thick, but Onyx—er, the grimass I was riding said she'd move gently and try not to fight anyone if I needed to leave her with it."

Moriko nodded, but realized she hadn't even asked her grimass's name and felt her stomach knot slightly. That's something Dave would do… not ask because it's just a pokémon… I'm not like that, am I? She shook her head slightly. No… you were preoccupied. And we were only going to have them for a couple of days anyway. Yeah, that sounds reasonable…

They were walking slowly through the grasses, skirting around the thorny, twisted bushes scattered here and there. Not far from them the stand of pines began.

"I was really surprised that you actually threw up… I mean, seeing Maia eat that silteel didn't really bother you," said Moriko quietly.

"It… the trainer… it was just too horrible," he managed to say.

"Maybe you can help explain why I didn't lose it."

"Mmm… maybe you went so far through shock and horror and general grossed-out-ness that you came out the other side, and ended up not actually experiencing any of them."

She looked at the ground with its glacier-deposited, lichen-encrusted rocks protruding here and there. "Do you think I'm heartless?"

"…No. Who said that?"

"No one. I just thought it."

x.x.x.x.x

The mountains of the north were legendary for their high peaks, dangerous pokémon, unpredictable weather and inexorable natures. Luckily, the three trainers would not have to face them for some time…

These are the mountains of the west. Thick, dark pine forests adorn the slopes of craggy peaks like the blankets of sleeping giants. Gray clouds wander from summit to summit, raining gently; the thunder here wanders idly, bouncing from peak to peak. In the valleys the watermeadows teem with life, taking advantage of the seasonal influx of water.

They reached the very edge of the mountain forests a short time ago, loosing their dark steeds to return to their farm. She'd wondered aloud how the three grimass could be trusted to go back on their own. Wouldn't they be tempted by the freedom of the wild?

"We can't trust them," Matt had said, "but Strathern did, or he wouldn't have let us borrow them."

The rain came down in a humid drizzle most of the time, dripping off leaves and collecting in hollows. The three trainers followed crisscrossing game trails that, here and there, seemed worn enough to be an actual path. Their GPS modules indicated that Verdure Town was not far, but much time was wasted in finding places to ford the frigid, mineral-stained rivers and having to backtrack in order to keep their path on more-or-less level ground.

Five days of this had left the three tired, hungry and rather sick of forests; their GPS modules indicated that they had at least a day longer to walk before they reached the mountain Verdure Town was situated on. There hadn't even been that many wild pokémon—maybe they were avoiding the trainers—to fight and keep their minds off their trek.

It was Matt and Russell's turn to walk down the river in opposite directions in an attempt to find the shallowest point within a couple of kilometers. Moriko had strung up a tarp (it wasn't raining now, but with all the mist around it would start up randomly) and was dozing a few meters from the stony riverbank, using the three packs as a makeshift bed. Tarahn was beside her to provide a little extra warmth in the damp: the raigar was sleeping rather better than she, as the stony ground didn't affect him as much.

She didn't envy the two boys; she'd had to scout the last two river crossings, and it was bloody boring… for her, anyway: Rufus trotted around, trying all the new plants, nothing making him sick, while Tarahn jumped in and out of the water, terrorizing fish and scaring birds.

She was just about asleep when she felt the raigar sit up like he'd been startled.

"Moriko?"

"Mmm?"

"I heard something."

"Like w—" She could hear it too, just on the edge of perceivable noise. It was a very slight crescendo, the volume increasing with time…

"Plants being trampled… quick breathing…" said Tarahn, his hearing much more acute.

"Come on, then," she said, crawling out of the makeshift tent, the cougar pokémon following.

They walked out along the bank, Tarahn striding purposefully but silently, Moriko following, her boots sliding and clattering on the dry, rounded stones.

A green cervine pokémon burst out of the trees, wheezing in terror. Tarahn reacted immediately, cutting off his escape via the river. He swerved and tried to dart back the way he came, but another raigar appeared from the forest and leapt in front of him, growling. He made a short bellow of surprise and backed off, standing in the center of a triangle formed by Moriko and the two raigar. He watched the two raigar carefully as he snorted and wheezed, trying to get his breath back while watching for an escape and glancing at the trainer behind him.

The wild raigar was smaller and more lightly built than Tarahn, with longer claws and a darker pelt; Moriko noticed that she seemed to have more purple than Tarahn did—she had a few stripes of the color on the bridge of her nose, the sides of her face and possibly the base of her tail. She snarled angrily at the trainer and her pokémon.

"The mooskeg is mine, young one," she said coldly.

"The human is a trainer. If she wants the grass-type, she will have it," Tarahn replied, his tone just as icy. It was strange, hearing him speak like that; the raigar was normally so jocular and easy-going.

Moriko took advantage of the standoff by drawing out her pokédex.

"Mooskeg," it read, "the moose pokémon. This grass and water type is found in both forested and swampy areas. While it is proficient at repelling predators while healthy, mooskeg that have just evolved and left their mothers often fall prey to hunters such as raigar and wintris. Evolves from hippocalf at level twenty."

The mooskeg looked quite like an older moose calf, with little stumps where his antlers were developing and a dark mottled green coat, shading to a lighter green on his snout and lower legs. His short mane resembled a line of water-weeds grafted onto his neck and shoulders.

The female raigar's patience ran out suddenly, and she took a swipe at Tarahn, slicing his snout. The mooskeg took the opportunity to run for it as Tarahn dove at the female, snarling with rage.

Moriko swore and grabbed Rufus's pokéball off her belt, but he wouldn't be able to interfere in the fight without hurting himself or Tarahn. The two raigar were a hissing, spitting ball of yellow and purple; trying to physically separate them would be like sticking your arm into a food processor.

"Cut it out, you idiots!" she screamed, in frustration and fear for her pokémon.

Amazingly, the two cougar-like pokémon chose that moment to break apart and circle each other, ears flattened and teeth bared, bleeding from various superficial wounds. Their teeth and claws were wet with purplish venom that was totally useless against the other.

"You stupid male and your stupid human! I needed that kill! I—I have kittens!" the female said, shaking her head and swearing.

"Wait… what?" said Moriko. "Tarahn, back off…"

"Fucking humans! Only thinking of themselves," said the raigar bitterly, relaxing somewhat but keeping a wary eye on Tarahn.

"Listen, I'm sorry—"

"Save your breath, human, words fix nothing. Now, if you're done failing to control your tom, I have hunting to do," she announced, turning towards the forest.

"Wait, dammit, look, what if he helped you hunt? To make up for it?"

She whirled back around to face Moriko; her gaze was as cold as amethyst. "It was your mistake, and you want your cohort to fix it for you? Humans are so weak!" she spat, with a mixture of amazement and scorn.

"I stopped the mooskeg from crossing the river," snapped Tarahn, licking blood off his snout. "No command from her."

The female panted with rage before screeching exasperatedly, "do you think I'm stupid? Males kill kittens!"

A prolonged silence ensued.

"Kill… kittens? I would, I would never…" Tarahn managed to stammer, before trailing off in shock.

The female stared at him for a moment. "You caught him when he was young, didn't you?" she asked Moriko dully.

"Well… sort of—"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Tarahn snapped angrily.

"When you live with humans you become like them," the raigar said. She seemed to consider something before continuing, "I accept your penance. He will help me to find prey and make a kill, and once that has been accomplished he will leave and return to you. If he tries to follow me back to my den, I will kill him."

Moriko nodded. She didn't doubt that the female would be true to her word; she was smaller in stature than Tarahn, but older and of a higher level.

"That sounds acceptable to me. Tarahn?"

"Fine," he said, dully.

"Okay. Just a second," she said to the female raigar. She turned and walked back to the bags—not without a few surreptitious glances behind her—and extracted a super potion bottle.

She returned to the two pokémon, who were still eyeing each other suspiciously. Tarahn had more long rakes and scratches going through his fur, most of which were bleeding freely. He'd done rather less damage to his one-time opponent. She carefully applied the medicine to his wounds, and he made no noise aside from a harshly indrawn breath. The potion, she knew, rather stung, but the raigar's wounds closed up almost immediately.

"Will you be able to find us again?" she asked him quietly.

"I could find your scent a mile off," he muttered, "but I'll meet you in the next town if I have to."

"Okay. Good luck," she said, rising, and stroked his ear quickly.

She watched them lope away and disappear into the forest.

About an hour later, Russell and Matt returned to find Moriko dozing fretfully. She woke up as they approached the makeshift tent.

"Oh… hey. Any luck?"

"There's a nice shallow bit but it's a ways upstream," said Matt.

"As usual," she said with a groan, stretching.

"Yeah, it just gets worse downstream," said Russell. "Sylvia found a xyleon's den and nearly lost an eye. She had eevee pups."

Moriko nodded. Xyleon were the grass-type evolution of eevee, which required a leaf stone and a rare hold item called the jade claw to happen artificially. An eevee that reached maturity in a forested environment would evolve naturally, so they weren't especially rare in areas like this. Their ability to evolve to suit any environment had once made them quite common, but they had more or less been caught to extinction in the more populated regions. They were only available from breeders in places like Kanto and Johto. In Gaiien they were still common, but you needed a special license to catch one: an effort by the government to ensure they wouldn't become extinct, as in other regions.

"Where's your raigar?" asked Matt.

She recounted the story to them, finishing with, "…and the worst part was probably how I didn't even get to catch the mooskeg."

"That's a shame," Matt commented, "but at least you weren't mauled or anything."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Okay, well, we'd better get going, then. It's a bit of a walk to the ford," Matt announced, and they started to decamp.

x.x.x.x.x

Tarahn turned up again when they'd stopped for the night, looking wet, exhausted and with a nasty bite wound on his shoulder. After a half-bottle of super potion failed to close the gash, Matt took charge and made him lie by the fire, his head in his trainer's lap.
"So… what happened?" she asked the raigar as she scratched under his jaw and stroked his ears. Matt was fiddling with the first-aid kit, trying to assemble supplies to stitch up the raigar's wound.

"Well…we slunk along the trails and checked ponds and things, looking for things to kill and she bitched at me a lot 'cause I made too much noise," he said, tiredly. "But we found this stantler herd and managed to slash up an old buck. Leleina broke his neck when the poison made him weak enough. I went too close too soon and he slashed me with his antler. She let me eat a bit before she told me to get lost." The moisture in his pelt was steaming off. "I had to cross a few streams, that's why I'm wet. She wasn't too bad, once you got to know her. Jus' wanted to protect her kittens…" He lapsed into silence, before asking, "Moriko? Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

"That males"—he yawned—"that males kill kittens?"

"Yeah, I think I did," she whispered eventually, but he was already asleep, and didn't hear.

x.x.x.x.x

(04/09/05) Edited very slightly. (22/01/06) Edited a little more.

Sorry about the wait between chapters, everyone, but senior year's a bitch. You know how it is.

But anyway…please review! It's like a ray of light in my otherwise dreary world… -sniffle-

;D