Astro.
The Next Morning.
I woke up before 5 am the next morning, sleeping with Dee in her bed(because, honestly, one trip in a pokeball was enough for one day). There was...something...in the room, and its nauseatingly sour aura dragged me out of my sleep.
Scanning the room, I found Dan Anderson, sitting up wide awake in his bed across the room. He was holding something in his hands, and it was bothering him tremendously. Enough to affect me.
Dan set the object in his hands on the bedside table, sighing. I focused in a little more, to try and see if I could read his thoughts.
Nattie...guess he's really depressed now... I thought Nattie was a girl? Wonder if...training today... His thoughts were pretty fuzzy, but I was still getting some scraps. Gym battle...too embarrassed...
"Dude, you're thinking incredibly loudly," I finally complained. My answer came as a soft gasp across the room. "I'm desperately tryna sleep, here."
"...Astro?" If the room hadn't been silent, I never would have even heard Dan's frightened whisper. "...Sorry. I woke up too early." He had such a tiny little voice.
"Yeah, I sorta noticed." I sat up, my back sore from being perched on the edge of the bed next to Queen Blankethog, and quietly groaned. "Augh...what time is it?"
"...4:35." I looked across the room, and saw his tan face was lit up by his Pokegear screen. "Once again, sorry for waking you..."
"What even woke you up?" If I could get Dan to calm down a little, then the uncomfortable knot in my stomach could fade away and I could sleep.
The boy hesitated before answering, like he was plotting out his answer. "Texts from my brother." He thought another minute, and added, "Nattie...ran off with Aaron. Drew's not happy. He kinda likes Nattie and hates Aaron."
"Dee's going to be furious when she finds out." I don't understand why Dee always concerns herself with Aaron if she hates him, but I guess that's just how she shows affection. "I sure don't wanna clean up the mess she'll make of him."
"Drew...also doesn't feel like taking Pixel and Squirty out to train today," Dan continued, still whispering. "I was thinking of going out, to the woods...I wonder if Eterna Forest is anything like Viridian Forest."
"Well, I can tell you, they're both probably green." I was wide awake, at that point, with no hope to go back to sleep. "You want me to go with you? Or were you just gonna go back to sleep?"
"..." Dan liked the idea of training with me. He really did. "Have you...ever battled in a gym battle before? Michelle.. and Dee...they both think you're impressive. A-And I do...admire your confidence, even if you always seem to get smacked around. I bet Ducky wishes he were like you..."
They weren't the only ones who admired me, it seemed. "Well, I got knocked around too much by Aaron's Leafeon when I was young, if that's what you mean," I answered. It was embarrassing, but I wouldn't lie. "But I'm not young anymore. You're nervous about embarrassing yourself because you aren't confident as a trainer?"
"..." Bingo. "...Ducky...likes battling. And Charcoal, too. I don't like my friends getting hurt, but they were watching Car yesterday, and..." I'd never met someone who had more trouble completing a full sentence.
Something else was bothering Dan, but I'm not a therapist and I'm smart enough to infer he didn't like the whole "talking" thing so very much, so I didn't push the conversation on.
Yawning, I climbed out of bed, and stood in the narrow aisle between Dee's bed and Carlisle's, stretching out the kinks in my back.
"Well, I've got some energy to burn, so get dressed and we'll go out," I told him, sounding reluctant. Sitting on the other side of Carlisle's bed, Dan straightened his back out, obviously excited. "Whaddya say?"
"Ah...sure!" Dan darted out of bed, heading to his bag to grab some clothes. Dee stirred in her sleep at the sudden sound, and I panicked at the idea of waking her up.
"Quiet, dammit," I hissed at him as he started to change, my voice hardly above a whisper. "If you wake Dee up, you won't live to see your first badge, you got it?"
Dan got dressed in the dark, giddy and excited, and once he pulled his shoes on and grabbed his bag, we headed downstairs and headed west of the city in the dark, for the forest.
Kent.
On Route 206.
We cruised down Cycling Road that night, the five of us, and set up camp at the base of Mt. Coronet around 2:30 in the morning.
The others went right to sleep in their sleeping bags, but I had spent all day resting and had energy to spare, using my laptop's battery to look over all the info I had gathered and saved about Sinnoh and its missing persons reports.
By the time the sun was rising around 6 am, however, I had been on a call on my Xtransceiver for almost a half hour, in a heated argument with my boss, and my laptop had been dead for 45 minutes.
"I can't believe this conversation is happening," I growled under my breath. I stood a yard or two away from our little campsite, to try not to wake everyone up with my business call. "I asked for time off ahead of time. I wrote over three months worth of editorials in advance and submitted them to you to publish. I even left you with Ryan's contact info! Why the hell are you asking me to just cough up a tourism article now?"
"Kenta, please." There was a desperation in Alexa's voice that I was all too familiar with. "I know. You did everything you were supposed to. But you're already traveling abroad and almost all of our staff has the flu. You never had any issue with writing about Unova in the past-"
"-Yes, I did, you just paid me well enough to do it."
"-and I'll be sure to pay you double if you could only send in something by tonight, Kenta." It was at least 7 at night in Kalos. Alexa would have to work almost all night to be able to publish the Lumiose Press the next day.
I almost pitied her. Really; Alexa's been good to me the past seven years, and had been while I had been in between jobs, and I wanted to help, but...
"Alexa, listen, I am in the middle of the wilderness." It wasn't something I felt I needed to remind her of. "I won't be able to access wifi for another few days, if Aaron's correct. I have no way of emailing you anything. Please, Alexa, ma'am, I know you're frustrated..." I only pull out 'ma'am' when I'm ready to tear my hair out to the roots, and Alexa knows that. "You know I would. But I can't. So I won't. Call. Ryan."
"What time is it in Nuvema Town? Would you know?"
I pulled my Xtransceiver away from my ear, to tap the screen and check the time. Both Alexa and I had video chat turned off on our devices, so the screen was blank except for the clock. It was 6:20 am in Sinnoh, with Unova typically being around 6 hours ahead...
"It's somewhere between noon and one," I estimated. "Ryan still sometimes writes for smaller newspapers and magazines in the rural towns. I'm sure if you tell him I said to, he won't say no. And he can even attach some photography in the email for a little shameless self-promotion."
"I'm so sorry for calling you so early in the morning," Alexa apologized. "You know that-"
"-you never would have asked for my help if you didn't need it. I know." I stifled a yawn, covering the mic with my hand. "Look...if you think everything'll be cool, then I think I need to go ahead and hang up. Try to catch a few minutes' rest before we leave."
"Of course, of course. You won't be available for another few days, you said?"
"I'll be inside a mountain. Please call Ryan and relay him the message, and I'll contact you as soon as I set foot in Hearthome." Ryan had worked in my stead before, sometimes even without Alexa's notice. I wouldn't trust just anybody to edit for the Lumiose Press, or to write my monthly editorials, and I had complete faith he could finish anything she could email him. "Have a good night, boss."
"Sleep well, Kenta. I'll try to let you know how things work out." The poor woman even sounded exhausted; a flu outbreak is never easy to deal with, but especially around deadline time, when all the interns and slackers have nothing to hand in for Alexa(and usually me) to sift through, it could be devastating.
It was 6:45 when Alexa hung up on the call, and I pocketed my Xtransceiver with a heavy sigh, closing my eyes.
Col doesn't like to wake up before 8. Aaron and Nattie probably won't wake up before then, either...maybe, if I climb in my bag now, I could catch an hour's worth of sleep...
"Um...Kenta...?" Natalie's soft voice broke through my thoughts. I opened my eyes and saw her sitting up, looking dead at me, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Pluto...he..."
I glanced to her right, at Pluto, and saw he was tossing and turning and mumbling in his sleep. Col hadn't gotten to tell me yet about Pluto and Pikachu waking him up, and I had been so wrapped up in my argument that I hadn't even noticed him or her.
"What the hell...?"
I tiptoed closer, kneeling next to Pluto's sleeping bag, an old green thing Aaron had grabbed from his house. Pluto was breathing very shallowly, almost hyperventilating, almost whimpering, as if he were scared of something. I rested my hand on his shoulder, gently, and he jerked like I had tried to brand him with steel.
"Pluto," I whispered, almost soundless, taking his shoulder and gently shaking. "Pluto. Wake up. Wake-"
Pluto jolted up in his sleeping bag, sitting up so sharply that he headbutted me right in the mouth and knocked me back on my ass. I landed half on my side, with the bruised ribs, and bit back a string of swears as pain shot up to my arm. He shouted something when he woke up, but I was too distracted by the pain to catch it.
"Ah...!" I cupped my jaw with my hand, spitting out coppery blood from a bitten tongue onto the ground beside me. I must've bit my tongue when he headbutted me. Like a wounded animal, I hissed, "God damn, Pluto!" and spit out another bit of blood.
"Kent!" Pluto was alert almost immediately, eyes wide in horror as he registered what happened and saw me spit blood. "I-I-I'm sorry!" His breathing was still very irregular, still in a obvious state of panic.
"M-Mister Landry!" Nattie's voice was a shrill whisper, breaking through after the sharp stabs of pain passed.
I wiped the leftover blood from the corner of my mouth, laughing hollowly. "It's nothing," I assured him, reminding myself I'd probably scared the hell out of him by waking him up. "But, you...were having a hard time sleeping." I glanced over at Nattie. "Did he wake you, kiddo?"
She shook her head. "N-No, not really...I heard you yelling on the phone...but I thought someone should do something, when I saw him." The look in her wide, olive eyes made it seem like she regretted her decision. "Grampa's told me that you should let someone finish a nightmare, but-"
"No," Pluto gasped, shaking his head. He was still short of breath. "No, I-th-thank you. I hate my nightmares..." He kept shaking his head, pale as a ghost.
"Nattie, you can go back to sleep, if you want to." She crawled back into her sleeping bah, leaving me to deal with him. Something felt...off, about his statement. "Pluto, do you...have bad dreams often, maybe?" I asked, softly, speaking around my bitten tongue. Man, that hurt...
His silence was a perfectly clear answer. Taking in a shaky breath, Pluto murmured, "Y-Yeah...Col woke me out of a nasty nightmare last night. It was...rocks, I think, rocks that fell on top of me and killed me."
"This nightmare?" With how few memories Pluto had, the fact that he seemed to dream about his own death frequently was..concerning. "It was a rockslide?"
"No, sir. Not this time. It..." He screwed his eyes shut, trying hard to remember. "This time, I was hot...and suffocating. I couldn't breathe, and I was all alone..."
There's an obvious pattern to these nightmares. I would need to speak with Col immediately, seeing as how he obviously knew more than me. "Pluto...try and get some more rest, okay? It's gonna be a big few days. Try not to think about, well...dying."
Pluto chuckled, easing himself back down to lie down. "I'll, um, try." As he was laying down, he murmured, "Have you slept tonight...? You need it more than me."
"Don't worry about me. I work best without sleep." I was pretty tired and I'm sure the bags under my eyes were heavier than my laptop bag, but that was my own problem. "Goodnight. Don't let the Dream Eaters bite."
I may have said "don't let the Dream Eaters bite", but the bags under his own eyes told me he needed them to just have their way with him.
It was almost 7 am. I settled down in the space between Nattie and Pluto as they each slept, furiously texting Ryan as I watched over the two kids.
Like expected, Col lumbered awake at 8, followed by Aaron. I made sure Pluto was last to wake and pack up, with plenty of fussing from Old King Col.
Dee.
9 AM.
I woke up alone in my bed that morning, with Michelle knocking at my door and Carlisle still asleep. Michelle's banging and carrying on was what woke me up.
"Dee-Deeeee! It's Michellllllle! Open up, let us in!"
Cozy in the bed adjacent to mine, Carlisle's droopy gray eyes peeked open, obviously still half asleep.
"Carlisle," I groaned, making eye contact.
"What?" He groaned back, obviously just as annoyed as I was about our wake-up call in the background.
"Open the door for her. Now."
Carlisle lumbered out of bed on my order, padding barefoot towards the door and letting Michelle in. I sat up in bed, and didn't miss that Maggie girl walking in right behind her.
"Dee-Dee!" Michelle chirruped. "So glad to see you're up!"
I offered a weak smile, muttering, "Always here for you." My hair was a tangled mess and my breath smelled like hell, but I was still up for her. "What's up?"
"Maggie's got a couple'a questions for you!" Michelle sat at the edge of Carlisle's bed, oblivious to the fact that we both literally just woke up, and he stalked to Dan's bed by the far wall and crawled in without a second thought.
Hovering down at the foot of my bed, Maggie nodded. "Yeah. I was wondering about Sinnoh's contest season, and Mitchie here said you know it better than anyone." She stared me down as she spoke, disbelieving, with dark green eyes that could cut steel. "What does the season schedule look like?"
Contests were something I could talk about even half awake. "Did you...*yawn* did you pick up a program at the Jubilife contest?"
"No, in Hoenn it was always posted online or kept stocked in Pokemon Centers." She couldn't hide her embarrassment, flushed with eyebrows furrowed. It was almost cute."I didn't know that was the only opportunity to get one."
"It isn't, they're available at every contest venue." A program basically gives a coordinator the full schedule of regional contests at the start of the season in July or August, letting coordinators plan where to travel to compete. "I've got one in my bag, I think...Mitchie, get it?"
Michelle got up and went to the small table in the corner of the room, where my purse was sitting. She unzipped it and pulled it right out, handing it to Maggie. "Here! This should be it!"
Maggie all but snatched it, pouring over the schedule immediately. "The next contest...it says that's in Hearthome City, on September 10th. There's a star next to it. What does that star mean?"
I yawned again, and stretched. It was an easy answer. "Around this time of year, a tag-team tournament is traditionally held in the same building. The events usually clash with one another and so both have the possibility of changing date to accomodate the other."
"The next contests after Hearthome City would be in Canalave City, Snowpoint City, Solaceon Town, Floaroma Town, and Sunyshore City. Which of them is the closest? Michelle, can you grab me a pen to mark this with?"
Maggie spent a while grilling me like this, having me help her plan out her warpath through Sinnoh. A warpath she was supposedly taking Michelle along on.
"At least I can bide my time practicing in Sinnoh while I'm here," Maggie huffed when she was done, looking at her marked up schedule. She showed it to Michelle, who nodded in awe. "I'm already popular back home, but the higher rounds always need higher-level combinations and I end up making my pokemno look like clowns."
"Awe, don't beat yourself up, Maggie!" Michelle pouted. Turning to me, she bragged, "Maggie showed me some of her contests last night, recorded on the internet. She's been to three whole Grand Festivals! That's one for almost every year she's travelled!"
Maggie shook her head, grunting. "Just barely missed it when I was ten, thanks to that no-good..." She cut herself off, folding the program back up and pocketing it. "Dee, you don't mind if I keep this, do you?"
"Well, you've already scribbled all over it and put it up. You might as well keep it." Already been to three Grand Festivals...in my five-year career, I had only ever seen two, myself. And Maggie seemed determined to keep competing. "You've qualified for three Grand Festivals? Just how old are you?"
"Already fifteen, as of July." Maggie tied her rusty hair back in a ponytail, grimacing at the thought of her career. "My Treecko and Lombre have stuck by me for so long, and I really thought last year, I'd hit my lucky year at fourteen. But, one of my brother's dumb friends had the nerve to beat me out in the semi-finals...Lombre and I had just debuted our surfing appeal that year, too!"
You could certainly admire her fervor. I remember, before Ms. Annie's death and Tess' disappearance, traveling with Amber and planning our contest routes had been the most fun of it all...
"I wish we would have stayed in Floaroma," Maggie grimaced. "If we go back for that contest, we miss Hearthome...and likely wouldn't make it for the others. I've got a friend in Floaroma, he'd want to see me perform again..."
"Ooh, a friend?" Michelle lit up, bouncing on the bed at Maggie's words. "Who is it? Your boyfriend?"
"Sh-shut up!" Maggie was blushing; it must have been. "You're only, what, ten? What do you know about boyfriends?"
Now, this was interesting, considering Michelle's little boyfriend Lucas back home. Michelle pouted, crossing her arms.
"I know tons about boyfriends!" Michelle huffed, pouting. She hates being treated like a little kid. "Amber says they're good for holding hands and kissing and buying stuff, and Dee says they're only good f-!"
"That's enough, Mitchie!" I threw the covers off me, finally, interrupting her before she could embarrass me. "You and Maggie go do whatever you need to around the city today. I'll meet you for lunch, where we went yesterday."
"Oh...okay!" Michelle had already forgotten what she was gonna say. "What time? Noon?"
"Noon's great."
"Okay!" Michelle looked to Maggie. "You wanna eat lunch with us, Maggie? Dee found this really great soup place yesterday, I bet you'd like it!"
Shaking her head, Maggie laughed. "Ah, sorry...not today. I was gonna go somewhere else today." She turned to the far side of the room, where Carlisle was laying down. "Car! Your sister wants you to come see your grandpa!"
"Oh, piss off!" Carlisle groaned. "You loud ass girls...can't I just sleep?"
I hurtled my pillow at him, and he grunted when it hit him. "Watch the mouth! Michelle's here!"
It took a little bit of convincing, but we did finally eventually get Carlisle up and dressed. The three of them headed out and I slowly started getting dressed, planning to go out and maybe try to find where Dan and Astro had wandered off to...
Then, there was a sharp knock on the door, and Flint calling out, "Deeeee! We just ran into the kids, let me and Volk in!"