One step at a time. One branch at a time. Higher and higher until the sky peeked out of the pale spring leaves. A clear day with a brisk wind and the call of Spearow and Pidgey's to calm a troubled mind. It was what Cameron Oak needed.
Having made her way to the top of a Pecha berry tree, the young researcher settled onto a sturdy branch and relaxed against the smooth bark of the trunk. Her week had been a giant roller coaster of trouble and headaches, and all she wanted to do was enjoy a little peace before setting off on another of her Gramp's assignments. One afternoon of things just going right was all she wanted — just a few hours.
The call of a Pidgeot echoed through the trees, a troupe of Mankey made their way past led by a Primape, and a soft breeze ruffled the sprouting buds and leaflets as the sun continued to shine warmly. Like every time before when she saught it, Cameron found the peace she craved here.
Hoisting her pack from its spot on her shoulder, the young woman dug out a small thermos of Pallet Town's special tea and a bag of Oren berry cookies her sister had baked. The little treats were still warm enough to be soft, and the tea steamed out of the metal lid in an aromatic cloud. Not a big or elaborate meal, but it was well looked forward to.
With a bite of cookie and a sip of tea Cameron fully relaxed against her perch and thought of her week as she watched the clouds wander.
Cameron's primary focus when working for her Gramps was to find and study the egg moves of local-born Pokemon to compare to egg moves of regional cousins. To accomplish this, she had set up an extensive network of cameras and monitoring equipment in areas Pokemon routinely made nests. The majority of this groundwork lay in Kanto and Johto, but she had a few monitoring sites in other regions for the same purpose.
The problem that turned her week upside down had been Kanto local and involved the nesting period of Pideotto and Pidgeot. There was a specific site that Cameron had monitored for years. It had seen countless eggs born and multiple generations grow and never had even a slight problem with predators or with signal issues. Most of the data gathered on the laying habits of Pidgey and its evolutions had been garnered from the site making it one of the single most valuable sources of research Cameron had. That was until the nest of newly laid Pidgey eggs had ended up in the belly of an Arbok, camera and all. Having been in the field at a different location had cost Cameron the initiative to cut the cobra Pokemon off at the get-go, effectively blinding her entire monitoring site. Years' worth of building trust with her camera's presence destroyed in one single act of nature.
The Arbok itself had lasted a few days with the inoperable camera in its belly until something significantly big squished both pokemon and monitoring equipment. The tracking chip in her camera then moved from its spot near Pewter city, likely in the digestive tract of whatever scavenger had gotten the Arbok, and been deposited to the south of Lavender Town near the uppermost bridge of Route 12. That had been where she'd finally managed to recover it after chasing the trail for nearly four straight days. The course it had taken to get there had been all over the place, leading her to believe it had been a bird of some kind carrying it. She hadn't seen the culprit but hoped it was one of the nesting parents. It seemed only fitting.
A soft jolt of the tree brought Cameron's attention to the ground. Below her was a dark silhouette with red-tinted wings. Bright red eyes peered up at her, and white fangs glinted as the figure huffed out a grumpy snort.
Cameron smiled. She had wondered how long it would be before Cheri would make her come down. Her partner had always been a bit wary of her trainer's tree-climbing habit and rarely went more than fifteen minutes before chasing her down from what she deemed as a too high perch.
"Alright, I'm coming down. You know, for a flying type, I don't see why you don't like heights." She called down to the dark scaled lizard as she packed away her barely eaten snack. "You better move, though. I might fall on you."
Another snort was the only answer Cameron received as she made her way back to the earth. Upon her arrival, the researcher found herself face to snout with an irritated Charizard.
"What has you so riled up," Cameron asked. "I wasn't even up there that long this time."
A grumbled tirade met the researcher's ears as Cheri scolded her. She was promptly informed that her unannounced departure immediately after returning with a destroyed and desiccated microchip had alarmed several people. Cameron's older brother chief among them. Not a good thing. Gary had always been a hothead, and when given a reason, he was quick to jump. In less than an hour, her brother had organized a town-wide search. Cheri had overheard one of the poor fools roped into the manhunt a few moments before she had chased Cameron down.
"Ten minutes faster than last time," she mused to the further annoyance of her partner. "I suppose I should head back to the lab then. I should have checked to see if he was in town or still at his gym before I bailed. Gotta remember to do that."
A bop on the back of her head from Cheri's wing earned an apology from Cameron, but both woman and Charizard ended up laughing before they turned to make their way to Route 1 towards Pallet.
Explaining to the search party was a lot easier than explaining to her brother why she hadn't registered her assignment report. Most of the residents of Pallet were used to her coming and going. Her research had her in the field for weeks at a time. She didn't exactly have a set schedule. Gary, however, was rarely in Pallet anymore and had yet to accept the fact that, like him, Cameron was an adult with a job.
He'd never entirely understood her retirement from the league. He saw it as her giving up instead of following in his a Red's footsteps. Somehow it had solidified her childishness in his eyes. She didn't want to be a gym leader like him, and she certainly didn't want to deal with the crushing weight of a champion's title on her shoulders. She'd seen the strain firsthand that it had put on Red and the toll it took. It wasn't something she ever wanted. But trying to explain to her brother that different didn't mean less had never worked. He couldn't grasp that she was more than happy to spend her life watching Pokemon hatch and grow from egg to final evolution. It wasn't like her goal was much different than his own anyways. She was a trainer; she just didn't have the same rules as him.
It took half the afternoon to convince her brother she was alright before he finally left for his apartment in Viridian City. A not so subtle demand that she call him if she decided to run off again rang loud in her ears long after he had closed the door to their sister's house.
"You need to stop doing that," Daisy reiterated for the thousandth time as Cameron seated herself at the kitchen table to try and finish her snack. "He really worries when you run off like that. After all that noise with Team Rocket and the recent attacks on trainers, I can't blame him."
"I know." The tiny guilt monster that crept up after the fact was humming in Cameron's ear now. "I just needed some air. I should have said something before running off."
"Or at least taken Cheri," Daisy said while setting a fresh plate of cookies down and snatching the soggy bag of dough Cameron had fished out of her pack. "You didn't even have a Pokemon with you, Cam. Gary wouldn't have gotten so worked up if he hadn't seen Cheri wandering around the woods without you. I mean, come on, you and her have been stuck together at the hip since Gramps gave you her egg."
The guilt monster grew a bit with Daisy's words, and Cameron found herself losing her appetite. She had been pretty careless. Reemerging activity from Team Rocket had been growing in volume. They could have taken Cheri right from under her while she was goofing off in a tree. She was small for a Charizard, and her coloring was unusual and rare, a prize for a collector if not bait for bigger and more powerful Pokemon. Though not a weakling per se, Cheri was a head and half a neck shorter and fifty pounds lighter than most of her species. A runt by all means, as were the majority of Pokemon categorized as 'Shiny' by Dex standards.
A warm and rough snout rubbed against the regretful woman, and Cameron looked up from staring a hole in the table to her companion.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Next time, you have to climb the tree with me, okay?"
An amused snort and another snout rub settled the deal, and both trainer and Charizard started on the pile of warm cookies.
Neither wanted to think of what might have happened to the other had they not been together.
The room remained silent for several moments until Cameron's Rotom phone began to ring. Halfway through a cookie, the younger woman stopped and held the little orange device up like it was a bug-type Pokémon.
"Oh, I forgot mom sent me this thing." Tapping buttons, Cameron tried to quiet the ringing. "Darn it. It's so much more demanding than the old one I had. This one barely listens at all. Whose bright idea was it to let a barely trained Rotom free in one of these."
"Didn't she send it so you could Poketime your sister after you transferred your other Rotom into your Datapad," Daisy asked. "It's pretty early for you to get a call, though. They moved, didn't they? From Kalos."
"Yeah, to Galar, a couple of months ago. Darn it, how do I answer?" Having had enough of the wrestling match with the uncooperative Rotom in her phone, Cameron turned to voice commands. "Answer."
The Rotom did nothing but giggle.
"Answer, or I'm going to let Cheri use you as a chew toy. You're under warranty."
A second later and Cameron was greeted with the upshot image of her younger sister's nose. Both nostrils as the ten-year-old was busy talking to someone off-screen.
"You're looking well today, Glorybug," Cameron greeted as Daisy wished her goodnight and left for her room to give her sister some privacy.
"Oh, Cam! You answered! I wasn't sure what time it was there. It's morning here." The view up Gloria's nose didn't change, and Cameron wondered if her sister knew she was on video. For a moment, she considered telling her but ultimately decided not to.
"It's dinner time. I'm eating cookies."
"No fair." Gloria moved a bit more as if she was walking, and finally, her phone zipped upright. Cameron was greeted with the big brown eyes, dark hair, and pale cheeked rounded face of her half-sister. "Is this a good time? Can you talk?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm on house arrest until tomorrow, so yeah. I can talk."
Gloria giggled. "What did you do?"
"What I tell you not to." The guilt bloomed again, and Cameron glanced at Cheri, who was watching the phone with a slight lizardy grin. "I went into tall grass without a Pokémon."
"What? Really?"
"Yep, I got scolded really good too."
A voice other than Gloria's came through the phone. It sounded a bit distant but was still audible. Cameron had been introduced to Gloria's neighbor, a boy named Hop, a few times and had conversed with them both on occasion. However, she was pretty sure he hadn't sounded much older than Gloria. The voice she heard was either a man's or an older woman's; it was hard to tell.
"Oh, sorry, I'm on the phone! I called my sister to tell her!" Gloria was again looking off-screen and had answered whoever the voice belonged.
"Called to tell me what?" Guard up, Cameron tried her best to see past Gloria to decipher who or what she was talking to or about. The entire conversation had once more made her think of the Pidgey eggs. She didn't want to hear any more bad news. "Gloria, what's going on?"
Gloria didn't have a chance to answer. Instead, something turned the phone, and Cameron was met with bright golden eyes. At first, they were all she could see before the phone repositioned itself. It was then that the face of a man became apparent. Earthen dark skin and golden eyes, long purple hair barely held down under a SnapBack cap, a trimmed beard that ended in a high line to each side of a square jaw. Every bit the image of what the boy Gloria had introduced her to might look like in ten years.
"You must be Cameron," the man greeted with a smile a bit too bright to be entirely genuine, shining through the phone at her. "Gloria told us a lot about you. I'm Leon. The Champion of Galar. I wanted to let you know I'm sponsoring my brother and his best mate for the Gym Challenge. From what Gloria says, it's a lot like your league challenge. Figured you would want a heads up before she sets out."
"Isn't it awesome, Cam!" Gloria hopped a few times to see into the camera screen, which had yet to turn from Leon back to its owner. "Mom was worried since we left Kalos before I was old enough I wouldn't get a chance to have my journey like you. But I'm going to get to go! It's going to be on television and everything. You'll watch me, right?"
There the guilt was again. Cameron had known her sister would be looking to start her journey soon, but she'd hoped to be there. She had even scheduled for a trip to Kalos before her mother had announced her and Gloria's move. She had ended up canceling the trip to avoid muddling up any chance at them settling into their new home and got swamped with work during the hatching season. Months had passed, and it was already Gloria's time to set out. And she wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere near there. Half a world away, in fact.
Perhaps it was time for a real vacation — a real shot at something other than work. Cameron turned to Cheri, who had lost interest in the call when the man had taken over and gone to curl up in her bed by the couch. They both deserved some rest. At least for a short time.
"Yeah, Glorybug. I'll watch."