"Hm... I spy something... uh, green," Rye said, leaning out of Cap'n Brine's bill and gazing down at the vast forest below.
"Shaghh..." I groaned, dragging my paws down my face. We had been playing this same game for maybe half an hour by this point, and I could tell we were both bored of it. It was mildly entertaining the first ten times, not so much the next twenty. As if to prove my thoughts, Rye quickly gave up on trying to continue and shifted in his tight spot. Surely there was something else to do other than this?
'Really, why is I Spy the go-to game in the field? Couldn't we just as easily play fire-water-grass?'
I was about to try and inform Rye of this groundbreaking idea when I stopped myself and took notice of my paw, particularly its lack of any fingers to play such a game.
'Again, curse you, stubby paws.'
Without anything else to do, I made sure Cap'n Brine wasn't hitting any turbulence and opened our bag.
"Uh, what are you doing?" Rye asked, giving me a dubious look. I shrugged as I started to dig through the seeds and berries, idly looking for anything to do. As I dug deeper, I felt a flat shape brush against my paw. Pulling it out, I was met with our notebook, stained but still in one piece.
"Oh, wow, I forgot about that thing." Rye said, leaning over to see as I cracked it open, finding my crude stick-figure drawing of a human staring back at us.
"Huh. We never did use it after that, did we? Could have helped a lot, I could have started teaching you to write..."
My ears perked up as Rye said this, my revelation back in Bassa Village coming to mind.
"Ah, Rye! Sheah?" I asked, miming out the act of writing and gesturing to the bag. Surely being able to read Unown script meant I could write in it, too?
"Oh, uh, you want a pen? Um... okay, then," Rye said, handing me a piece of charcoal from the bag's side pocket. Squinting in concentration, I turned to a blank page and started trying to write. Drawing random lines and squiggles, I tried to remember how exactly to put them together into letters, then those letters into words. My inner monologue wasn't much help in writing, seeing as it was mostly just noise and images that didn't translate into words easily, and my primary arm being broken left the characters looking sloppy at best, though with enough effort, I managed to squeeze out a recognizable word among the page full of failures.
'The. Just... the. That's all I could get out? Well, at least I know I can write something, I guess...'
Despite my disappointment in my limitations, Rye didn't seem to care about how little I could do, moreso that I could.
"Wait, are... a-are those Unown runes?" he asked, eyes wide. "Wow, th-this is... this could be great for us! There aren't many Pokémon out there that can understand those; around here, only Guildmaster Arcanine can for sure! You... uh, you can read those, right?"
I nodded, earning an excited grin from Rye as he looked over my shoddy writing. As he did, however, his smile faded, replaced with that familiar troubled look on his face.
"Dill and I would always try to read Unown script like it was Gray-tongue... y'know, s-see the weird things it would say..." he said, looking away from the book. He stared off for a minute before sighing.
"I... you've figured my story of what happened with him is a load of crap, right?" he asked. I shamefully nodded, causing Rye to avert his gaze from mine.
"Uh... I-I wasn't able to get it off my mind after what happened with the Krokorok, so Sinni and I were talking about it back in Bassa Village. Uh, it was just... really nice to actually talk with someone about it, you know? She also told me that... that..."
His tail twitched as he stared off.
"C-can you do me a favor, Beck? Please don't tell anyone about this..." he asked of me. I gave a slow nod, prompting Rye to hang his head.
"It was maybe three years back, and we lived in a little town at the foot of Mount Twist. I-it's true that Dill died when he went into Mount Twist, but... I... I was the one who made him go in there. We heard about treasure in the cave outside our town, and we thought we could get it first if we went in and got an idea of what was in there. B-but while Dill was in there..."
Rye shifted uncomfortably.
"Th-the mystery dungeon in Mount Twist expanded into the cave, and Mount Twist erupted. I tried to go back for him, but I couldn't make it. I ended up under a tree, and I would have died if Mr. Arden and the others weren't there to chart out the caves in the area. Th-they went in to go get Dill, and... h-he..."
He sniffled as I listened intently.
"H-he was still alive when they pulled him out... he was burned and cut all over, his bones were broken, and he could barely even speak... h-he was going through all that pain because... because of me! H-he was staring right at me when he died... I just held him there. I could have gotten help, but I just... stood there..."
Rye finished as he clenched his eyes closed, tears beginning to fall down his face. Unsure of what else to do, I put a paw on his shoulder.
"Rye, shaah. Sha," I tried to comfort him. Rye didn't look back to me.
"S-Sinni said I'm not a murderer like she said back then, that I shouldn't focus on the past, that it wasn't my fault... but a-am I really a good Pokémon, Beck?" he asked. My eyes widened.
"Y-yeh!" I said.
"H-how do you know, Beck? How do we know that... I won't leave you to die to save my own tail?" Rye asked tearfully. Looking around frantically, I eventually gestured down at the forest below and the wide, winding Serperior River snaking through it, then back towards myself. Rye stared down at the ground below before finally meeting my gaze with bloodshot eyes.
"...y-you mean when I pulled you out of the river back in Quinite Woods?" he croaked. I nodded, finally getting a small nod from the Treecko.
"I... I guess..." he said simply, cracking a smile. "Heh, I guess you'd have ditched me already if I were still that bad?"
"Ha, shyah," I said. Rye sat up and looked out towards the horizon, his prior gloom less intense. After a minute, he looked towards me, a small smirk on his face.
"I spy something green," he said. Grinning, I rolled my eyes and went along with the game.
We finally stumbled out of Cap'n Brine's bill gasping for fresh air as the sun hung low over Brine's harbor. Our arrival was met with enthusiasm from the Wingull we had seen before we had left as Brine sat down.
"Good ta see ye kept me port in one piece, Piku. Oi'm gonna go an' have me a nap, lemme know if the lass an' her crew shows up, ye?" Brine asked. The Wingull cleared her throat.
"Can't, sir, Team Apex arrived earlier yesterday. Not sure if ye can have that nap, we need all wings on deck, we had a guy quit and go with 'em," she said. Brine blinked hard as he took in this information.
"...well, shite," he muttered before turning to us.
"Er, looks loike we're gon be a bit busy 'ere. It's been a pleasure servin' you lads," he said earnestly.
"Thank you, Cap'n. I-if you want us to repay you, we still have Poké..." Rye began. Brine waved a wing dismissively.
"Ah, don worry 'bout it, consider it repayment for wot 'appened a week back, eh? Go on back to ya Guild, and say hello to Leafeon fah me!" he said before taking off. The two of us waved him off until he disappeared into a building in the center of the port. Once he did so, we started on the long walk back to Impetus Town, our spirits high. We had survived the mission, successfully apprehended criminals, learned a good bit, and we had a disgusting trophy to show for it. As we finally approached the Guild's gate, we held our heads up high, confident in what was to come next...
...and then we noticed Cinccino sitting in her kiosk, sending us a glare that could pierce an Aggron's armor.
"Team Reach. Here. Now," she demanded.
'...oh.'
Our prior enthusiasm crumbled away as we stood before her office, trying not to look her in her eyes.
"You're lucky I like you two, because... ugh. Abandoning your posts, taking a request not approved by the Guild, going off on an outlaw mission without prior approval, and not even consulting us when you went off, just to name a few of what you pulled when you went off. What were you thinking?" Cinccino snapped. I swallowed hard, raising a trembling paw up as Rye let out a weak noise, looking ready to bolt at a moment's notice.
"Sh-sha..." I tried. Cinccino's eye twitched before she hung her head and sighed.
"Agh. I'll let you two off since you're just rookies, I suppose. The Guildmaster won't be very happy about this, but live and let live. Carry on," she muttered, turning back to a confused Pokémon at the front of the line.
Swallowing nervously, I followed a still-shaking Rye into the Guild's grounds. Ignoring several glances from the Pokémon passing us, we dragged ourselves to our base. As we walked in, a small table in front of a window caught my eye. Struck with a small bout of inspiration, I pulled Mizu's Iron Thorn out of our bag and set it down on it. Rye admired the horrid thing as the dying sunlight lit it up.
"The first piece of our collection... here's hoping we'll find more than just this, huh?" he joked. We shared a chuckle before a low gurgle sounded. Rye clutched his belly in response.
"Er, how's dinner sound?" he asked. Putting a paw to my own stomach, I nodded in agreement, so we tossed our bag aside and left the Iron Thorn to proudly confuse anyone who happened to walk by.
"We-ell, look who it is! Good to see you're alive! Where you two been?" Raticate beamed as we stood in front of his window.
"We were, uh, chasing outlaws in Bassa Village, sir," Rye said.
"Bassa? Good distance away, not too shabby for rookies like you! No offense," Raticate piped as he took notice of my cast. "I suppose those outlaws gave you that?" he asked. As I nodded, he sniffled to himself.
"You gotta be careful, those assholes don't play fair. Guess you already went and figured that out for yourselves, huh?" he said as he went to fill our trays. As we watched him start to pile food up, I looked up with a start.
"Sha!" I yelled after the cook. He glanced back at me confusedly as Rye blinked in understanding.
"H-he doesn't want extra food, sir. Same amount as me, please," he explained. Raticate watched us for a bit before giving a yellow-toothed grin.
"Sure thing, kid," he said. With that, he handed us our trays and we filed into the loud crowd of Pokémon. Shuddering as a nearby team of Ghost-types gave a long, eerie laugh, we dug in. As I chewed on a fruit with a name I couldn't quite put my paw on, I overheard a voice talking beside me.
"...yeah, the Guildmaster found a new Water trainer, apparently. 'Bout damn time, I'm tired of just divin' into the river and whaling on the Basculin!"
I cocked my head at this comment. A new Water-type trainer?
'Honestly, I'm not expecting much from that after the last time we tried at training.'
I pushed the unpleasant memory out of my head as I turned to face Rye. As he leaned back to converse with someone behind him, I couldn't help but feel happy for him. Sure, he was still the anxious Treecko I had grown to know, but he was starting to get better, at least.
'It may have been rocky, and it honestly could have happened without too much changing, but I think that mission was worth it in the end.'
With that in mind, I lost myself in the joyous atmosphere of the mess hall, allowing myself a nice moment of reprieve from all that was happening. Though I knew it wouldn't last past tonight, I savored it all the same.
