Episode 13: Onwards and Upwards
"So," Nikki said as I climbed my way through the window with his help.
"So," I responded as I made it across and started helping Milk do the same.
"Why'd you leave?" He asked as I shut my eyes. I didn't want to say it, but he deserved to know.
"I thought you were going to get rid of me," I forced out as I looked away from him. "I was so sure that all it would take was one loss, one failure, and you'd realize that I was the useless little Ralts that I was and get rid of me,"
"Brook," Nikki said with a sigh as he cupped his face into his hands. "Why would I get rid of you? Khesen and Vimilky lost too, and I'm not getting rid of them," Nikki explained.
"So you're not getting rid of me for not being strong enough?" I asked, a strange feeling starting to fill my heart.
"Brook, I would never kick anyone off the team for losing a battle. Do you know how many pokémon in the Hoenn League have a one-hundred percent victory rate? None, not a single one," He explained. "Just because your record has one L on it doesn't mean you're not the same amazing battler that won the team two badges,"
"Oh," I said as I clenched my fist around my chest, a smile working its way onto my face. "So I really was worried for nothing then?"
"As far as getting kicked off the team, no," Nikki chuckled a bit. "Plus, I'm pretty sure that a trainer abandoning a pokémon for being too weak is something that happens in daytime TV dramas anyway. And there's something else you forgot about too,"
"What did I forget?"
"Brook, do you remember that time after I found you but before we set off for our journey? How you met my family and spent time with them?"
"Yeah, I remember them," I didn't even bother fighting the smile that came to me as I thought back to them. "Your family was nice, really nice,"
"How do you think they would react if they learned that I ditched you somewhere?"
"I'm not really sure," I admitted.
"I'm pretty sure that they'd track me down and murder me," I was taken aback.
"Really, they would do that for me? But why?"
"Because my family likes you Brook," He explained as he put his hand on the top of my head and rubbed my hair. "They adore you. They ask about you when I contact them all the time,"
"They do that?" I had to admit, I didn't pay too much attention to Brook's calls. They always felt weirdly personal to listen in on.
"Yeah they do," Nikki suddenly started looking a bit tired. "But changing the subject, Brook…"
"Yeah?"
"You're not going to be battling anytime soon,"
"Wait but why?"
"Because the last fight you fought, you let yourself get beat up to the point of risking permeant injury," Milk choose this moment to remind both of us that she was still in the room. "I agree with him, you need to cool your head a bit before you go back out there,"
"I'm just going to assume that Vimilky just gave you the spiel that I was planning to give you?" Nikki said as he looked to brook who nodded back at him. "Plus, not only do you have to calm down a bit, but there is another reason for you to take a break from battling,"
"Brook, you just evolved," Milk started. "The break is from battling, not from training. Think of it as a chance to learn how to properly use your new body and power before battling again,"
I looked at Milk, then at Nikki, and then back. I wasn't about to win this conversation, not with both of them teaming up here. I let out a sigh and hanged my head in defeat.
We found ourselves on one of the training fields of the Lavaridge pokécenter the next morning.
"Okay, let's get this done quick so I can go back to owning the battlefield," Everyone present rolled their eyes as Brook both spoke aloud and said telepathically. She knew very well that the 'no battles' thing was not going away just because she evolved, so I think she was trying to get a rise out of us.
Fortunately for me, I had Vimilky on hand for 'Brook head deflating' duty. It was a job that we had both agreed was difficult but of vital importance. She wasn't there to do any real training though, not really wanting to go through those flames again.
Khesen was there too, ready to train himself and make up for that lost he had suffered. From what we could get out of the silent and broody grass type, he felt like he could have recovered from that whiffed punch. Seeing as how that whiff was what led to him losing, it was ample motivation to work on his balance.
While I worked on Brook's moves, Khesen would be doing some footwork and shadowboxing. How he suddenly knew how to do either of those things, I had no clue.
Pokémon, such mysterious creatures.
"Okay so let's start with the basics. Brook, use confusion," I said as I pointed at a paper target at the far end of the training field.
Brook spun in place, taking advantage of her longer legs, and lit her horns.
"Oh wow," She said sounding surprised. "The psychic power, it's coming to me so much quicker, and I feel like I can store so much more of it at once."
"Yeah, that's how evolutions kind of work Brook," I pointed out to her. "That's why we're testing stuff out like this,"
Brook nodded and fired off a confusion at the target. The power that came out wasn't anything special for Brook, but there was a caveat. That kind of power was what came out when Brook went all out and did that volleyball sphere attack with both hands.
"Wow," I said and then let out a whistle. "Now what can you do going all out?"
Brook smiled as she closed her eyes and held her arms out so that she was standing in a t-pose. She glowed, the power visibly flowing into her arms until they formed into spheres in equal size.
Her eyes opened, filled to the brim with the green flames of psychic power. She smacked her arms together in a clap, releasing a wave of psychic energy.
There had been a target when we had started this, one with a small tree behind it. Neither of them were there anymore. The blast kept going even past that, making a dent into the mountain face behind it.
"Wow, does that even count as a confusion at this point?"
"I think it does, not like I feel like calling it anything else," Brook shrugged, leaving me amazed by how little she seemed to care about her own attacks.
We tried out her other two attacks after that. Disarming voice was still about the same, something Brook blamed on not really having the chance really flex her abilities as a fairy. Magical leaf, on the other hand, got one heck of a power boost.
What had once been a torrent of small explosion had become a torrent of somewhat larger explosion. While that might not sound impressive, it was when you take into account that the number of leaves had doubled.
"Well, looks like your standard moves are working just fine. Let's try out some of the stuff we came up with ourselves," I said as we walked towards a training dummy.
"Let's try out the new trick first," Brook said as she punched her fist into her open palm. Her arms slaked as she suddenly got a pensive sort of look. "Still have to come up with a name for it first though,"
"Confusion punch?"
"Psychic strike?"
"Mind smack?"
"Mental blow?"
"Oh that's a good one," I admitted. "Let's go with that one for now,"
"Alright then, mental blow it is," She said as she pooled her psychic power into her arm. She jumped forward and threw the punch. There was a small explosion of green energy as the dummy flew backward.
"Nice," I complimented as I walked over and picked the dummy up.
Brook focused herself as I reset the training dummy. She ran up, the power pooled in her leg this time. She jumped at the last second, throwing her legs out into a dropkick.
She hit the dirt and the dummy hit the mountainside.
"Looks like you have a good handle on both of those. Let's try boosts next,"
"Like we have to practice those. They're my staple move, I'd be in pretty deep waters if I couldn't use boost,"
"And that's why we should make sure it still works just right,"
Brook must have seen the point I was trying to make because she looked over and pointed at the spot next to the training dummy.
"There. I'll land there," With her intent and target clear, she leaned forward with her arms aimed behind her. She shot out a pair of confusions behind her and went flying.
Right into the mountainside.
"Brook!" I screamed in alarm as I raced towards the crash site. Vimilky ran right behind me, and Khesen took advantage of his speed to rush there in front of me.
By the time I got there, Khesen was already helping her to her feet. She actually didn't look as bad as I would have expected. Sure she had a few cuts and bruises, but for the most part, she looked okay. How she did it, I had no clue. Maybe she was just getting tougher.
"What happened?"
"I think I put a little too much power into that jump," She explained in dual audio for the sake of everyone else there. "I went way further than I thought I would go,"
"Guess that makes sense. Your powers went up so what used to throw you a short distance turns you into a living missile now,"
"How does something that sounds that cool, hurt this much," Brook said as she winced in pain. "I'll be okay,"
"Maybe you should try that out later when you're in your pokéball," I suggested. "Want to try to burst or do you want to stop now?"
Brook hummed, sounding like she was mulling it over in her head.
Did I want to try to use burst? I honestly had no clue. With how much my psychic power grew with my evolution, who knew how much of that other power I could access.
The mountain to the side of the pokécenter had three dents in it now, I would rather not make a fourth.
"Maybe we should try it out outside of the town," I finally decided. Last thing I wanted was to damage the town even more.
"You want to make the trip in the pokéball?"
"Please,"
Nikki smiled as he took out my pokéball. He recalled me into it and I immediately felt a warm soothing sensation that I had already grown to love.
That weirdo who upgraded Nikki's pokédex may have creeped me out, but this healing ball was the best thing ever. I could already feel the worst of my cuts and bruises clearing up.
I probably would have had more if it hadn't been for my quick thinking. At the last moment before I had hit the rocks, I used a weaker confusion to cushion the blow. At the moment, it felt like the best idea of my life.
By the time Nikki reached a small clearing outside of town, the worst of the damage had already cleared up.
"Brook," He said, probably in case I was asleep or something. "We're here," He casually tossed the pokéball into the air and I came out.
I stretched my limbs out, trying to get the tired out of them. As I did, Nikki also tossed out two other pokéballs. Khesen and Milk appeared next to me. Khesen nodded at me before walking away to do some of his own training. Milk, on the other hand, stayed next to me.
"Alright," I muttered to myself to try and psych myself up. "Let's do this,"
"You ready to do this Brook?"
"Oh you have no idea how ready I am," I said while giving him a grin. "Especially now that I don't think I'm about to wreck part of Lavaridge," I thought back to the sight of the town from the cliff from yesterday. "Kind of starting to like this town,"
"Okay, enough showboating," Milk rolled her eyes, "Show us what you got,"
I closed my eyes and dug deep into myself like I usually did when I used Burst. I found the power in me without too much trouble. Probably because the amount available to me seemed much higher.
The spring had gotten bigger, time to find out if I had grown in my ability to wield it too.
I coaxed the power out tried to hold it. I reached the amount I needed to unleash the kind of burst I used as a Ralts. Not only did it stay stable, but I felt like I could keep pouring more in with no trouble. Not only that, but I felt like I could, for lack of a better word, detonate the amount I already had and use it as a Burst if need be.
Good to know that I hadn't lost that trick in the process of mastering the use of this power.
I kept pouring more power, carefully keeping an eye on how much I already had and how stable it looked. I would have also kept an eye on how much of the well I still had to use, but after a while, it became clear that I wasn't about to run out any time soon.
I told everyone as much and then asked them to stay silent while I focused. I was grateful for the lack of a response.
I poured a bit more in and I felt the first hints of destabilization from the power I had poured already. While I could have ended it right there and there, I felt like I was close. Close to that magic amount I needed to use it properly, the way it was meant to be used.
I poured the power, slower more carefully, slowing even more at even the slightest hints of destabilization. I was at the borderline. I steadied my breath and poured the final bit in.
The power exploded outwards, and for a moment I was afraid that I had messed up. But once the power reached the border between the outside and inside of my body, it stopped expanding. Instead, it poured outwards covering me in a green glowing aura.
"Woah," I thought I had gained some sort echo voice for a moment, when I realized that it was just that Nikki, Milk and I all just decided to say the same thing at once. Both Milk and I laughed, as did Nikki once we explained what happened.
"So what does it… you know, do?" Nikki asked as he walked in a circle around me, inspecting the green aura.
"I have no idea," I admitted with a shrug off my shoulders. Milk, who was also walking around me, let out an amused chuckle.
"Well at the very least, we can use her as a flashlight now,"
"Hush you," I said as I gave her a flat look.
"Just imagine it, the amazing glowing Kirlia. Oh, people would come from miles around," She continued, not letting the joke drop.
"Seriously Milk, hush," I said as I jokingly swatted the air in her general direction. I had meant it as a joke.
The blast of psychic power that slammed into Milk and sent her flying was no joke.
"Milk!" I ran after her, wincing as she flew through a tree. "Are you okay?" I said as I reached my arm out to help her out.
"Why did you do this?" She grunted as she picked herself up from the floor. She looked pretty good like the attack had mostly just taken the wind out of her.
"Maybe I should practice at a bit of a distance," I suggested.
"Maybe you should," Milk agreed as she walked and stood behind Nikki. "Or at least, do it in a place that puts Nikki between us,"
"Brook, is Vimilky using me as a human shield so that she doesn't accidentally get blasted again?" Nikki asked, looking a little annoyed. Instead of waiting for me to respond to Nikki, Milk just smiled and nodded.
I let it go, I needed to work on how this power worked.
I couldn't mold it as a blast, like a confusion. It refused to be fired, so it had to be something else. I tired detonating it like a burst, but annoyingly enough, it had somehow become too stable to be used that way.
Well if I couldn't fire it, or explode myself with it, there was always my newest trick. I looked over the small forest we were in and picked a medium sized tree that would work well for what I had in mind.
"Nikki, Milk, stand back, I'm going to try something on that tree,"
They both walked backward, Nikki even getting Khesen's attention so that he wouldn't accidentally get caught up in my attack.
The trigger for the attack I used on Milk had been me attacking with my body. Maybe this power was meant to be channeled directly by my body.
I ran at the tree and jumped into the air, my new long legs giving me way more height then I would have ever dreamed of before. I angled myself and pulled one of my legs back so that I would hit the tree with the heel of my other leg.
As I flew towards the tree, I smiled. I could feel the power beginning to redirect itself from an even coating across my body to a concentrated bulge at the bottom of my heel. I smashed into the tree at full force, and then there was no tree.
Okay so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Instead of hitting the tree and bouncing off, I hit the tree and smashed through it instead.
"Oh wow," I breathed out as the tree fell. I broke out into a wild grin and ran up to the falling tree. I focused the power into my arm and punched it full force. It flew off, smashing into another tree.
"Looks like you figured out how it works," Nikki as both he and Milk walked up to me. Nikki narrowed his eyes as he got closer. "Hey is it just me, or is that aura fading?"
I glanced down at my arm. The green aura surrounding my body was indeed fading. When I checked it, it looked like the power that I had poured was near empty. Those blows must have been really expensive in terms of this power. I pouted as the rest of the power faded, the aura vanishing altogether.
"Yeah, I'm almost empty. Looks like I only get two hits in before the power runs out," I said both aloud and telepathically.
"Yeah but look at those two hits," Milk said as she pointed at the shattered tree. "With hits like that, are you really going to need a third hit?"
"I have to agree with her," Nikki said after I translated what Milk said. "Plus this uses that other power and not your normal psychic power right? That means that you have a lot of freedom to use that power as you want. Also, we really need to find a better name than 'other power'. It's already a little cumbersome and confusing, and it's only going to get worse from here,"
"I'm sure we'll think of something, Just gotta make sure that it sounds cool,"
"That being said, there's something else that's been bothering me a little," Nikki said as took out his pokédex.
"What is it?"
"Well it's that…" he started as he went through the pokédex, looking for something, "Why does your hair look so stringy?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well it's just that most Kirlia have really straight hair," He said as he found what he was looking for and showed it to me. It was a picture of a Kirlia, but he looked a bit different from me. His hair was long, and not the tangled mess that I thought that Kirlia and Gardevoir hair was supposed to look like.
"Don't all Kirlia and Gardevoir have hair like mine though?" I said as I grabbed a lock of my hair to get a better look at it. It felt coarse and collected in clumps. Honestly, it looked like a mess of green wires.
"No, you're the only Kirlia I've ever heard of to have hair like yours,"
"Well that's weird, everyone from the Ralts line I've met has had hair like this. Well except for Wally's Gallade," But didn't that mean…
I froze up as I suddenly realized something. The only other members of the Ralts line I knew were my family.
"Hey Nikki, can I ask you to buy something for me when we get back into town,"
"Depends on what it is," He answered. "What do you need and why,"
Our first stop after getting back to town was an accessory store. I looked down the aisles and found what I was looking for easily enough.
"I would like to buy these," I told the cashier ad I placed three white ribbons on the counter. Brook had only asked for a single ribbon, but I figured having extra just in case wasn't that bad an idea.
I passed the ribbon to Brook once we got outside.
"So how are you going to do this?"
"Just watch and see," She said as she started levitating the ribbon. With both of her hands free, she pulled back her hair into a back length ponytail. The ribbon floated back, and the tied itself around the base of the tail into a small bow. "What do you think?"
Her hair was still a bit stringy, but with it tied back like that, the worst of her wild hair was tamed. The exception was a single lock of hair near her brow that she had missed when she had pulled it all back.
The lock hung over Brook's face, making a 'C' shape over her forehead.
"I think it works," I told her as she looked around for some sort of reflective surface to look at herself in.
She did eventually spot one, a small fountain at the center of the small plaza we had found on our way back to the pokécenter.
"Ugh, looks like I messed up with the hair. Going to have to try again," She said as she moved to push it to the side.
"Actually I think it looks cool, maybe you can leave it like that,"
Brook gently touched the lock out of place and hummed.
"I guess it does look kind of cool. I'm sure I can learn to ignore it," She said with a shrug as we moved on back towards the pokécenter.
Normally this would have been the point where Brook went back into her pokéball to avoid the crowds. She didn't this time, preferring instead to walk next to me. It felt a little sad, to be honest.
I had gotten so used to having Brook on my shoulder that her absence was not easily ignored.
We made it to the pokécenter a little while later. Waiting for us in the lobby was a practically glowing Laura.
"Well don't you look… healthy,"
"Lavaridge has over a hundred different types of hot spring baths. In the last few days, I've tried almost half of them." She said, glowing with pride and healthy skin. "I've never felt so healthy,"
"You know I was wondering what you had been up to since we got here. In hindsight, that makes total sense,"
"She's such a freaking tourist," Brook chuckled as she laughed from behind my legs.
Laura must have just noticed Brook, as she swung around me to get a better look at the psychic type.
"Oh, hey Brook," She smiled. "Nice ribbon, did Nikki tie it up for you?"
"No that was all her," I explained as Brook puffed up her chest in pride. "She actually tied it with her psychic powers."
"Good for you Brook," Laura said, to which Brook swished her hair. "So are we heading out soon? You said yesterday that you wanted to leave Lavaridge early. Not that I can blame you after that battle you had with Flannery,"
I rolled my eyes.
"We're not leaving early, we have to leave today if we want to make it to Fallarbor in time to meet up with Brendan," I explained in more detail than I had given her earlier today. "My original plan was to go through the desert on route 111 and come out the other side to head to Fortree. But it looks like we'll have to come back here, get my badge, and then head into the desert,"
"And I'll have my chance to redeem myself," Brook pointed out, assuming that she'd be off battle probation by then. I mean, she probably would be, but that was beside the point.
"So, for now, we're going to have to take," I groaned in preparation for what I was about to say next. "The jagged path. I do not want to take the jagged path. It was terrible the last time I did it and I would rather not have to deal with it again,"
"Geez, what happened to make you hate the place so much?"
"Yeah, did the path beat you up and take your lunch or something?"
"My parents took me there when I was younger. I fell off a cliff,"
Both Brook and Laura looked at each other, not sure what to say.
"So yeah, I have a reason to dislike this freaking path," I got the last word in as we walked into the pokécenter to pick up or stuff. The sooner we left, the sooner we would get out of jagged path.
About an hour later, we were walking around the side of the mountain on the path out of town. And it wasn't long until we came across…
"There it is," I said as the three of us came to stop. In front of us was a sign that read 'jagged path' starts here. I groaned as I looked up, and up, and up.
"Oh wow, it actually goes all the way up to the Volcano,"
"I was not expecting to see this much verticality. Are we walking or climbing?"
"On jagged path, the two of those are one and the same," I answered as I took in my old nemesis.
Even from a distance, the path's name looked well earned.
Jagged Path was a rough and rocky depressed area in the volcano, making it look somewhat like a valley from the inside. This lower valley had a gentler slope than the rest of the mountain, making it the perfect place for a path up to the summit.
But 'more gentle' did not mean 'easy to travel through'. Instead, it meant terrain that would leave us tired in place of exhausted, heavy tree cover instead of sparse tree cover and cliffs that would break bones instead of killing you.
All in all, it promised to not be a fun time.
"Well, let's start climbing," I told them as I started walking. I put my foot up the first ledge and resigned myself to the start of a long climb.
It took about an hour for us to fall into a rhythm of walking, climbing and, in Brook's case, small boosts. I had been uneasy about letting her travel like that considering what had happened during training. However, after a few simple jumps early down in the lower parts of the path, Brook got back her ability to boost.
Both her power and size had grown, but in nowhere near the same amount. She had had to come up with a whole new set of formulas for power into distance based in her new weight. These short hops were pretty good for that.
But, there was still something a little off about it. Her jumps weren't as accurate as they had been when she was a Ralts. It wasn't enough for me to think she'd have any real issue in battle, but it was bad enough for me to worry anyway.
I was starting to worry that Brook would never have the same level of maneuverability that she had as a Ralts.
A little while later, we started hearing the sound of someone up ahead. I glanced over to both Laura and Brook, who both shrugged.
We started climbing at a bit of a quicker pace to find out what was going on.
"You're doing good Gale, keep it up," The sound turned out to be a trainer with a strange looking pokémon that I had never seen before. The strange pokémon was hopping around all over the place, moving from tree to stone to ledge and back again with ease.
Both pokémon and trainer stopped as the pair noticed us.
"Oh hello there, nice to meet you," The trainer said with a friendly smile.
My first thought was that she was fast. My second was that she was tiny. The third was that she was suddenly way too close to my face.
"Hi there. My name's Gale. What kind of pokémon are you? I'm new to the region so I'm meeting tons of new pokémon. Did you know that this place was birds with metal bodies? Like, how does that work? Wouldn't their wings be too heavy to fly then?"
I leaned back as the small furry pokémon that I know knew as Gale unleashed a torrent of words at me. The worst part was, I probably would have found this hilarious if it had happened to anyone else but me.
I was pretty sure that made me somewhat of a bad person, but I think I was okay with that.
"Easy, Gale," I heard the trainer say as she… he… they? Now that I got a good look, I really wasn't too sure. 'They' it was then. The point was, they pulled Gale away and held her in their arms. "Sorry about that, she tends to get a little excited around new people and pokémon. I'm not even sure what exactly she's saying, so I'm sorry if she said anything that offended,"
"Brook?"
"Barrage of question that completely overwhelmed by. Also something about a metal bird, I wasn't really that sure," I said as I once again played translator. At this point, I was doing it so often that was I really 'playing translator' at this point?
"So apparently it was an overwhelming barrage of questions that had something to do a metal bird,"
"Did you just talk to your pokémon?" The new trainer asked.
"Nikki here can talk to his Kirlia Brook because psychic types," Laura explained.
"Oh wow, that is so cool,"
"Thanks. Like she said, my name's Nikki, and this is Laura and Brook," Nikki Said as he gestured towards Laura and then me. "What's yours?"
"My name's Chris, and this here is Gale,"
Gale was a small furry brown pokémon with long ears and covered by a yellowish cotton material on part of her body. I had to say I had never seen anyone quite like her before.
"Hey Nikki, ask him what kind of pokémon that Gale is," I asked to settle my curiosity.
"I don't see why not," Nikki said, causing everyone else there to look a little confused. "Hey Chris, Brook wants to know what kind of pokémon Gale is,"
"Oh, she's a Buneary, all the way from Sinnoh, just like me,"
Sinnoh? I vaguely recalled something about Sinnoh, but I had no idea what it was. Well, now I knew it was a place. Maybe I would go there someday. I'd ask Nikki about it later.
"Sinnoh? That's pretty far from here, what brings you all the way down south here?"
"I felt like seeing a little of the world and I thought, why not Hoenn? So far, it seems like a good call."
I felt a sense of uneasiness come from Nikki via our connection. I wondered what that was about.
"Sounds fun, are you heading up or down the path?" Nikki asked as Laura poker her head forward.
"We're heading up to go over the mountain to Fallarbor Town,"
"Oh that's the same route that I'm taking," Chris said with a smile. "Well, it was at least. Got a little sidetracked by this place. I know I said that I wanted to see the world, but this place is making me a little homesick,"
"In what regard?" Nikki's eyebrows narrowed.
"A lot of Sinnoh, especially the part where I'm from, looks a lot like this route. I mean, it's a little rougher than normal, but not by too much,"
Nikki nodded before he looked down at me.
"Brook, do me a favor,"
"Sure," I said, already having a clue on what he would ask.
"Remind me to never go to Sinnoh, like ever,"
"Oh come on, we're not that bad," Chris said with a laugh. "I mean, not everyone in Sinnoh is some crazy extreme mountain climber,"
"Just most of you," Laura laughed.
"Not even," Chris protested "But I will give you a sizable chunk of Sinnoh,"
I looked over at Gale who looked as lost as I did.
"Do you have any clue what these humans of ours are talking about?"
"Well Sinnoh has a lot of mountains, so I guess it's about that. No idea what's so funny though,"
We watched as the humans kept laughing and making small talk. I pursed my lips as I internally debated asking Nikki was the heck was going on.
"So what were you doing with your jumping around anyway?" I asked Gale, deciding to ignore the humans for now.
"I was working my legs and my jumps. Buneary like me evolve faster when they work their legs harder," She explained as she jumped from side to side. She glanced downwards at me. "You must be a great jumper with long legs like that,"
"Not really," I told her as I thought about how to explain. "Before I evolved, I had really short and stubby legs…" I told her about boosting and how I had moved around as a Ralts. I also told her how I had been having a little bit of trouble since evolving because my power to weight ratio had gotten all messed up.
"That sounds like trouble. Well, if you're having trouble with that boosting thing, why not try jumping normally?"
"That's, not the worst idea actually," I admitted as I moved from leg to leg. "Mind giving me a few pointers? You look like you know a bit more about jumping than me,"
"No problem," Gale said with a wide smile. "Okay, so the first thing you're going want to do is…"
What followed was a crash course on leaping. It started with Gale teaching me proper form for jumping, then how to land properly. I would have thought that I already knew how to do that, but it seemed that jumping without boosting was different enough that I had to relearn it.
By the time the humans finally noticed that we were doing something, I was already deep into making myself look like a fool.
"Brook what are you doing?" Nikki asked as I jumped from the top of a rock to a nearby tree. Or tried to jump at least. What actually happened was that I barely got off the ground before falling straight on my face.
"Gale's trying to teach me to jump good. Unlike the jumps, progress is noticeably not good," I explained with my face still in the dirt.
"And you're doing it without boosting?" Nikki said, sounding how I probably would have if I had been in his place.
"I apparently have the right kind of legs for this kind of thing," I explained both aloud and telepathically as I pushed myself up. I glanced over at Gale who was looking away from me. "Or at least I'm supposed too,"
"Well, I figured you would," Gale explained. "The most important part of jumping is long legs. At least that's what I learned from my old man,"
"Are you sure that's everything you needed to jump?" I said even as I tried not to think about how nice it must be to be able to trust their parents like that.
"Well, maybe there's something we're missing here…" Gale shrugged as I gave Nikki and by extension Chris and Laura the gist of our conversation.
"Gale," Chris said sounding exasperated, getting the bunny Pokémon's attention. "Buneary and Lopunny have dense leg muscles in addition to long legs. Kirlia have longs legs yeah, but they don't have the muscle density that you do. They don't have the power to do the kind of jumps you can,"
Power huh?
I opened myself to the sea of power and tried channeling the power into my legs. Not the tips like I had done for the kicks earlier, but into the whole leg. I caught sight if a flat rock up ahead on the path. Green light erupted from my legs, making everyone jump back a little.
I jumped, and this time I got the sort of air that I had been expecting.
I landed with a bit of a stumble but managed to balance myself easily enough. I turned around to Gale and Nikki and told them. "Well if I don't have the muscle power, why not use psychic power?"
"Well, that's one way to solve the issue," Nikki said with a shrug. "You're legs are still glowing though,"
Of course they were still glowing. I still had psychic power coursing through them. The drain from jumping was actually pretty low. I could probably keep this going for a while.
I told Gale as such, and soon both of our groups were heading upwards, Gale and I jumping up the path the whole time. We made good time that day, and I was exhausted by the time we stopped for the night.
According to Nikki, we were about halfway up the path at this point. I couldn't really see for myself or not with how dark it was, so I took his word for it.
Instead I was way more preoccupied with the way it felt like someone had filled my legs with acid.
"You did pretty well," I winced in pain as Gale smacked my back affectionately. I didn't say anything back, just nodding and walking towards the tent that Nikki was setting up.
I was pretty sure we were halfway up the path. I think. Maybe.
I titled my head at the pokénav, trying to make heads or tails of the disturbingly helpfully unhelpful map. Sure the little icon that represented my current location was halfway between the start of Jagged path and the summit, but there was a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen.
'This route has a high amount of vertical travel. As such the marker should not be used gauge distance traveled.'
"You okay?" Chris asked as they walked up to me.
"Kind of, I'd be nice to know how far we are from the top is all,"
The Sinnoh native looked up towards the top. Wasn't too sure why, I could barely make out the top of the mountain with how dark it was.
"I'd say we're about halfway up to the summit,"
I gave Chris a look that the Sinnoh native easily ignored. I guess if they were as used to navigating mountains as they claimed they were, then this would be old hat for them.
I left Chris to do what they wanted to do and instead decided to focus on setting up my own tent.
With that done quickly enough I sat down inside, and growled at the path I knew was outside. I probably shouldn't have been this petty about it but… actually, you know what, I had every right to be this petty. A broken leg at six years old is a big deal.
I let out a sigh as Brook stumbled into the tent. She wobbled as she swung her legs forward.
"You okay?" I said with a smug grin. I knew she was nowhere near okay but I think she knew that.
"My legs feel like they're on fire," She complained as she collapsed next to me on my bedroll. "Instead of using my power to jump directly, it turns out that I instead filled my muscles with it. So I pretty much just jumped my way through this freaking path,"
"Well that sounds like fun," I said as I took out her pokéball. "Feel like passing out in your ball?"
She looked at the pokéball like she was seriously considering it. It took her a moment, but she shook her head no.
"No already missed your training yesterday. The last thing we need is to put it off anymore than we already have," She told me even as she stayed collapsed on the ground.
"So aren't you going to, you know, sit up?"
She made some chirping sounds before suddenly coughing. "Laughing hurts. Why does laughing hurt?" She groaned into the bedroll. "I sit with my legs crossed to help me focus. Trying to force my legs to do that would probably make focusing way harder."
"So you're going to train me,"
"While passed out with my face in the bed, yes," Despite what she just said, she did at least shuffle her head to look directly at me. "You ready?"
I nodded and went to work training my slowly growing psychic power.
The connection between us was much stronger than it had been when we first started. I still couldn't open up a connection to Brook without her help, but I could speak to her telepathically.
"So jokes aside, how are your legs?" I asked, choosing to take advantage of my training to get a little conversation in.
"They hurt, but I think I'll be okay for tomorrow," She admitted. "What about you, why do you hate this place so much anyway?"
"Like I said before, I fell off a cliff,"
"In that case, you'd be dead, and I guess I would be too now that I think about it. So since neither of us are dead, as far as I know at least, then there must be some other reason,"
As disturbing as it sounded, she wasn't wrong. I had saved her life when I found her in those woods. If I hadn't been around she would have starved to death or worse.
"Okay, so I really did fall off a cliff. It was just… a small cliff,"
"How small?"
"If I stood at the bottom now I could probably reach the top if I stretched my arms as far as I could,"
"That's not a cliff!" Brook with enough force to actually destabilize the connection for a second. "That's a ledge at worst,"
"Well call it what you want, the important part for me is that I broke my arm and missed out my chance to play baseball. I was really looking forward to playing that summer when I got back from the trip too."
The connection between us went quite after that. I worried for a second that something had happened with the connection and that was why Brook was silent.
"Okay so is this the part where I pretend to know what baseball is or what?"
"You don't know what, never mind you not knowing baseball makes perfect sense,"
What followed was a telepathic conversation in which I attempted to teach a Pokémon what baseball was. All things considered, it wasn't as hard as I would have expected it to be. She had the concept pretty much down by the time we finished. It also allowed me to practice showing her things from my memories.
She managed to get a promise to show her a game when we got the chance when I felt a sudden tug from the outside.
"You feel that?" I asked as the tug suddenly got stronger.
"Feel what?" Brook responded before her eyebrow rose. "Oh, feels like someone trying to get our attention. Now that I think about it, didn't we tell Laura to try to shake us out of this if we stayed in too long?"
"Yeah, we did now that I think about it. The whole baseball thing must have taken too long,"
We both got out of the shared space and I opened my eyes to Laura's concerned face.
"Hey, you okay? You guys are usually done by now." She asked as I saw Vimilky shake a still exhausted Brook.
"Yeah, we got a bit sidetracked talking about baseball. I should look up and see if there are any games that we can go to."
"Why do I have a feeling like I've just started walking down a dark path?" Brook double spoke as she motioned towards me. Her pokéball clipped off me and floated towards her. "Well, I'm going to go to sleep before I pass out here. Peace,"
The button on her ball clicked as Brook vanished in red light.
"No matter how many times I see that, I still can't wrap my mind around it," She said dryly as brook's pokéball hit the ground.
"What can I say, Brook a unique soul," My mind flashed back to her… family situation as I grimaced. "For better or for worse,"
Seeing that no one else was doing it, Vimilky grabbed the pokéball and walked over to me.
"Thanks Vimilky," I told her as she passed me Brook's pokéball.
With all that settles, I got ready to sleep myself. The faster I went to sleep, the faster I would wake up, the faster I would get past this stupid path.
"Hey Brook, you ready for another day of jump training jump buddy?"
I looked upon the overly cheery Buneary with the most wicked of glares that I could muster.
"Hey Nikki" I said, trying to not speak aloud at the same time. "Does my no battle thing cover blasting annoyingly cheerful slave drivers off cliffs?"
"Slave-driver? Me?" Gale said in faux outrage. She didn't even try to keep up the act. Sticking her tongue out at me and winking afterwards. I guess I must have said that part aloud anyway.
Oh well.
"No blasting people off cliffs," Nikki answered absentmindedly as he made breakfast.
"With the way she was jumping yesterday, I'm sure she'd be fine,"
"No means no Brook, we don't have time to wait for her to catch up to us,"
"You know… I probably wouldn't take too long to catch up to you guys," She suddenly stopped to gasp for breath. "I could make it a speed challenge," She said, sounding way too excited.
"Okay so I can't blast her off the cliff, how about punting her with one of those boosted kicks,"
"I would rather you didn't" He said as he set aside the food for the four of us. "With how strong those kicks of yours were, we'd probably spend half the day waiting for her to catch up. We are not staying on jagged path for that long,"
Khesen and Milk grabbed their food and then backed away. Nikki picked up his breakfast and froze as the food was halfway between his plate and his mouth.
"Also you'd probably kill her at this height or something,"
"I guess you have a point with that one,"
"Oh please, like you could kill me," Gale said smugly as she patted my head.
"Oh now you're just pushing it,"
"No killing other pokémon Brook," He chided as I forced my legs to walk over where he set down my food. They burned with agony with every step but I got there and plopped myself down to eat.
"Are they always like this?" Chris commented as they ate next to Laura and her pokémon.
"Not really, I guess this path is really getting to them,"
"It's still weird to see Gale in a conversation with another human though. Like, I kind of understand her when we talk, but nothing like this,"
"What are you even arguing about anyway?" Laura asked.
"Brook's still dead tired from yesterday, my hatred of Jagged Path is the same as ever and Gale's cheeriness is not helping," Nikki explained before biting eating into his food. "As such I'm currently considering Brook's request to blast Gale of the side off the mountain,"
"I'd rather you didn't," Chris said with a laugh as they walked over and scooped up Gale. "Gale, maybe you should let Brook be for a bit?"
"But I was having fun," She whined as I felt the soreness in my legs flare again.
"Look on the bright side Brook, I think the pain meant that your little work out worked," Nikki said, cruelly joking. We really did need to finish this leg of our adventure, this path was really getting to him.