The house was dark and quiet when Cheren got back, which probably meant his parents were asleep, so he didn't greet them. He checked in the fridge, but there wasn't much there besides white rice and some steamed vegetables. He sighed and warmed them up; he should have called ahead and said he'd be home, or his mother would have made extra for him. He missed fresh, home-cooked meals.
Usually, napping during the day made it hard to sleep at night. This time, Touko must have awoken him during the wrong part of his sleep cycle; he fell asleep right away. And he was still fast asleep at seven in the morning, when he became aware that his Xtransceiver was blasting in his ears. He opened his eyes and, after a brief moment's confusion about where he was, picked up his Xtransceiver long enough to hang up and go back to sleep. Two seconds later it rang again, and this time Cheren stayed on the line long enough to see who was harassing him. Unsurprisingly, it was Touko.
"Stop calling me; I don't want a ride," he grumbled, or at least he thought he did – what actually came out might have simply been a brief series of random vocalizations at a pitch that conveyed displeasure. He hung up without waiting for a response, but the second his head hit the pillow, he heard a knock at his bedroom window.
He was going to kill Touko, he thought as he fumbled for his glasses, and staggered over to the window, which Touko's nose was currently pressed against. Though his fine motor skills weren't at their best in the morning, he managed to fling the window open; Touko leaned backwards and gripped the window pane more tightly. Cheren wasn't worried. It wasn't the first time she'd climbed onto the rafter.
"Can. You. Stop," Cheren said flatly.
She ignored his gruffness. "Cheren! There was a landslide! Alder wanted me to tell you!"
"A landslide?" Cheren echoed, heart accelerating. It was the panicked way she said it and the fact that Alder apparently wanted him to know about it that caused that reaction to the relatively common phenomenon. He imagined a collapsed tunnel in Victory Road, trainers or maybe even Elite Four members dead.
"Yeah, at Route 10!"
"Was someone… hurt?" Cheren asked. Route 10 wasn't Victory Road, but it was right next door.
"No humans, as far as we know. But it was really bad and there are trapped Pokémon! Alder wants experienced trainers to come help the rescue team. He called me and said to bring you, if you were okay with helping, and I knew you would be! But I had to call you, like, six bazillion and seventy-two times to wake you up!"
"Be right there," Cheren muttered, a pang of guilt at having blown Touko off. It wasn't terribly unlike her to wake him up at ungodly hours for trivial reasons, so he really couldn't blame himself for not knowing this was an emergency, but his blamelessness didn't mean Alder wasn't waiting and there weren't still injured Pokémon. Unbuttoning his silk pajama top, he looked towards the window and added, "After I change!" She got the hint and jumped down, undoubtedly onto Reshiram's back.
His parents greeted him warmly when he went downstairs, offering breakfast and tea. "I saw your shoes at the door! I was so surprised!" said his mother, seeming overjoyed about the surprise visit. Briefly and guiltily, Cheren explained the situation and why he wouldn't be able to stay any longer. His mother seemed disappointed, but was contented with a hug and a promise to visit again soon.
The air was foggy and cool, but it was the damp, gentle coolness of Nuvema Town, the specific scent of racing to school with Touko and Bel on the first day of the academic year, taking shortcuts through dirt damp with morning dew, new shoes and all. It was nothing like the crisp mountain coolness he'd grown accustomed to on Victory Road, and it made him nostalgic. He would visit again soon, he'd decided; winter was coming, and he wasn't quite self-disciplined enough to spend it outside in a mountain.
"Hey. You ready?" was all Touko had to say when he met up with her. He nodded and she wordlessly coaxed Reshiram down to let him on before she climbed on in front of him. Again, the wind beat at his ears and eyes, and he watched the watercolor world below him through wet eyelashes. When they neared Route 10, the first thing Cheren noticed was the crowd – more people than he'd ever seen there, mostly wearing matching vests, a blur of yellow and red. Interspersed among the volunteers were a few people in darker colors, probably press, and various Pokémon – mostly Stoutland and its pre-evolutions, and some smaller pinkish blurs that Cheren assumed were Audino or maybe Chansey. If it weren't for them, he wouldn't have known there was anything amiss in the area. Maybe the landslide wasn't so big after all, or maybe he just wasn't familiar enough with the aerial view of Route 10 to know the difference without his glasses. As they began their descent, a good number of the crowd turned their faces and cameras toward them. Soon Cheren caught sight of a flaming head of hair that could only belong to Alder.
"Cheren. Touko. Glad you two could make it," Alder said kindly, cutting through the mass of people to approach them. Cheren rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on. A few of the volunteers continued on as nothing happened, but most were either stealing glances at Reshiram or blatantly gawking. Touko bounced off the dragon's back. Alder offered a hand to help Cheren down. As Cheren offered his own hand to accept, he noticed the red polish on his nails, sparkling in the sun, and jerked his hand back.
"So. How can we help?" Touko asked, interrupting at a convenient time for once.
"Let's see," Alder said, glancing around. "So, the landslide ended up knocking down internet lines, so right now, we aren't able to send any of the injured Pokémon directly to the PC. We've been gathering them in Poké Balls and flying them out to Pokémon Centers… Opelucid's is full to capacity, so that leaves the rest of Unova. Touko, go talk to that young lady over there at the table, the girl with the curly hair, and she'll set Reshiram up with the next batch of injured Pokémon… Cheren…" Alder gestured towards a group of people crowding around a particular part of the mountain, watching intently while a pair of Drilbur clawed at something Cheren could not see. "…I think they needed help with something."
They separated promptly. The people with the Drilbur didn't notice him approaching. They were watching the Pokémon dig, intently, commanding the Pokémon with precision – and seemed to know what they were doing. He didn't feel right about distracting them to ask if he could help. For a second, Cheren felt like he was back in school, in one of the classes he didn't share with Touko or Bel, and he was the only one left who hadn't been asked to join a group for a project. But that was a stupid thing to feel. This wasn't about him, it was about the Pokémon. He turned on his heels and began to scout on his own.
It wasn't long before he was approached by a barking Herdier. One of the many in orange vests, it was clearly trying to get his attention – maybe its own handler was busy. Cheren followed it and it led him almost directly up the hill, no trail, not very many good places to put his feet. The nimble Pokémon hopped from foothold to foothold with ease, periodically looking back to make sure the unathletic Cheren was still following it, each check followed by a chiding bark as the Pokémon continued. It stopped at a burrow that Cheren never would have noticed if the Herdier hadn't disappeared into it. Rocks jutted out from the entrance at all angles to conceal it. From inside, there was a hiss, then a yelp. The Herdier poked its head out the hole, barked one last time, and disappeared again as Cheren scrambled over to it - soon finding himself leaning against the hillside, nearly vertical, to peer inside.
Glowing red eyes. It was a Patrat. He twisted his neck, squinting, getting a better look. It was vibrating, trembling under the weight of a rock – not a large rock, but a rock upon which other, larger ones were clearly resting upon for balance. If it moved, everything would go toppling down. Feeling more confident now that Cheren had arrived, the Herdier once more bounded over to the Patrat, who let out a loud, vicious, and desperate hiss. There was something in its body language – it wasn't just scared of the bigger Pokémon, it was protecting something. Cheren re-angled his neck to look past the Patrat's other shoulder.
Cheren gasped in horror. A whole family, Patrat and Watchog. Huddled together. Flattened. Dead.
The picture became clear immediately – the landslide had been last night, but Patrat had not been holding up the rock that long – that would be impossible. And those poor Pokémon had clearly been crushed, but they were no longer pinned underneath anything. The poor Patrat, the sole survivor, must have known its family was trapped and undug them. The digging had caused more rocks to fall, trapping it. And now it was stuck, utterly helpless – if it so much as moved, it would die, just like the rest of its family.
Cheren tried to suppress his horror, the part of him that wanted to snatch the poor creature up and take it somewhere safe, and think rationally – he had to protect himself, and the Herdier, and everyone else in the area, as well. He looked down. There was no one directly below him. That was good. He leaned back, still clinging to the burrow, mentally calculating the impact of moving one of the rocks. There were quite a few loose ones in the area, but he couldn't tell which ones were directly resting on the one Patrat was holding. At least they were all on the smaller side. He knew it couldn't be too much weight, either, or the Patrat wouldn't be able to hold it.
It would be a risk, but he had a plan.
"Herdier, retreat," Cheren said. The puppy seemed to understand, and trotted away from the hole. Cheren told it to retreat several more times; each time it dutifully moved away a few paces until Cheren said, "Go get your trainer!" at which point it bounded away without looking back.
He made eye contact, and the Patrat hissed.
"Don't worry. I'm here to help," Cheren said softly. He was trying to soothe himself as much as Patrat; he couldn't afford to mess up, and his trembling hands weren't helping. When he'd taken a few deep breaths, he retrieved an Ultra Ball from his bag and threw it at the creature with the steadiest hand he could manage.
The rocks lost stability as soon as the Ball hit the Pokémon in the abdomen – it doubled over, disappeared into the ball immediately, and Cheren had about two seconds to snatch it out of harm's way and remove his hand from the tunnel before the whole thing collapsed. He lost his balance and fell backwards, rolling down, accelerating uncontrollably until the button on Serperior's ball mercifully got banged against a pebble and the Pokémon escaped. It reacted immediately, putting its own body into Cheren's path and grounding itself, using its two vines to stabilize its trainer as a few rocks continued to rain over them. When all was still, Serperior relaxed itself, and Cheren opened his eyes – banged up and bruised, but cradling the Ultra Ball with the Patrat safely against his chest.
"Th-thanks, Serperior," he managed with a cough. Serperior offered him a vine to help himself up with, and he managed to stand. The mountain seemed to whirl around him as he stood, but as he focused his eyes on the mass of volunteers below he found his balance.
The Pokémon Center. Patrat had to get to the Pokémon Center. Just as the thought crossed his mind, a warm breeze came over him from above. He looked up. Reshiram. Touko was already leaving, already high enough in the sky to look approximately Togetic-sized. Cheren fumbled for his PokeBalls again, finding Unfezant's, and released it. With another second's fumbling, he'd removed his jacket, gotten Serperior to slice through the sleeve (the jacket was stained and fraying anyway), placed the Ultra Ball inside, and tied it snugly into a limp ring shape. He held it out to Unfezant, who took it unquestioningly. "Follow Reshiram! Take this to Touko!" he said, pointing upwards towards Reshiram. "Hurry!" The directions were close enough for Unfezant, who probably had some instinctual recognition of Reshiram and had spent enough time around Touko to recognize her name. It pointed its nose to the sun and flew straight up until it was little more than a speck. He didn't see Touko taking the Ball, but after a second of being out of sight, Unfezant swooped back down towards him and landed on his arm with an empty beak. A second later, Reshiram's engine lit and it zipped away, disappearing into the clouds in a matter of seconds. Cheren could only assume she'd gotten the message.
He returned to the mass of volunteers on shaking legs. No one seemed to pay him any mind; all eyes were either on the work or up in the sky, in the direction Reshiram had flown away in. Of course people would gawk, he thought pessimistically; what was even the point of volunteering if you couldn't say you saw a Legendary Pokémon and got to meet a famous trainer, volunteering alongside you? But that was hypocritical – he shook the selfish thought out of his head. He would have gawked too, if he'd never seen Reshiram before. Had he been that distracted the first time he saw a legendary? It wasn't even a year ago, but his memories were in bits and pieces. A flash of lightning here, a jolt there, the weight of Alder's hand as Cheren helped him to his feet. He'd not quite gotten around to weaving the memories together into a coherent stream of events. Everything in between hugging Touko good-bye on Route 10, and reuniting with her up in N's throne room, he'd more or less blocked out. Perhaps there had been too much going on for his long-term memory to process.
It certainly wasn't the time to reminisce on that now. He glanced around for the Herdier who had alerted him, but it was nowhere to be seen; it must have sniffed out another Pokémon in need of saving and found another volunteer to save it. Instead he made his way towards the table Alder had told him to go to in the first place, where he was promptly given an orange safety vest and a handful of revival herbs. He was to sort through the pile of Poké Balls on a blanket on the ground, all injured Pokémon gathered by volunteers earlier in the day, heal them as best as possible, and sort them from most injured to most stable to get the next group ready to be flown out to Pokémon centers.
Most of the worst-off Pokémon had already been sent out, to Cheren's great relief. Of course, that meant that the remaining Pokémon were well enough to protest against Cheren's help. Serperior stayed by Cheren's side, intimidating the wild Pokémon whose teeth came too close, though Cheren felt bad he had to handle it that way. The Pokémon had already been traumatized enough. To them, Cheren was a complete stranger making them swallow something that tasted like poison; he hated to scare them even more. Two Pokémon, one particular Lillipup and a Minccino stood out by being tamer than the others. The Lillipup initially barked and growled, but instantly calmed down when Cheren spoke to it soothingly and patted its head, and the Minccino came out of the Ball and immediately ran straight towards Cheren for comfort. He wondered if some of these Pokémon had Trainers from whom they had been separated, and he marked each of the friendlier Pokémon's Balls with cheap adhesive bandages from a mini first-aid kit so their Trainers might be found later.
He was the last to notice the roar of Reshiram's engine overhead when Touko returned. By the time it was loud enough to get his attention, the other volunteers had all paused in their tasks to gape and point. Oddly, Reshiram dipped straight down just outside the gate to the route and disappeared from view for a minute. People murmured for a minute, got back to their tasks, and then went back to gaping when Reshiram reappeared a few minutes later, with two human passengers. Cheren didn't stop to see who Touko had brought with her, but when she descended close enough to him that the beat of Reshiram's wings produced enough wind to send some of the loose Poké Balls rolling away, he waited for her to land before resuming.
Alder approached to greet her. "Touko. Did everything go all right?"
Reshiram kneeled and she slid down its back, carrying a large, full drawstring sack which slammed on the ground with a thud. "Roger! The passengers on the Reshiram Express, flight number 00001, arrived at their destination safely. Returning with an unexpected passenger rescued from a shipwreck, as well as some cargo. Free sandwiches, guys!" She loosened the drawstring and the sack deflated, spilling a portion of its contents – as far as Cheren could see, potions – onto the ground.
A few of the lead volunteers hurried over to the "cargo" to sort it out. Touko ignored them and turned to her passenger, a teenage boy who peered nervously at the not-great distance between Reshiram's back and the ground, as if completely unsure how to get down.
Touko ignored his hesitation. "This is my friend, Touya. I told him to come but he couldn't get through the gate. I had to vouch for him. Don't worry, he's an experienced Trainer; we do double battles together on the subway. Anyway, do you have more passengers for me? Reshiram Express, flight number 0000002 is ready for takeoff."
"I believe Cheren is the one you should be asking about that," said Alder. "Cheren, which of those Pokémon are priority?"
"It might not matter," said an approaching orange-vest volunteer, interrupting with an authority that hinted she was one of the organizers. "We got the PC network up and running again. Send the rest of the Pokémon out to the remaining Pokémon Centers in the region, excluding Opelucid and… uh, Touko, where did you take that last group?"
"Icirrus."
"Excluding Opelucid and Icirrus, then."
"I'm assuming the Pokémon League is full as well, then?" Cheren asked.
"No," Alder said, "it's not full, but we haven't been sending them there. We don't have the same capacity there as the normal centers."
Cheren dug through his piles to find the Balls he'd marked with the stick-on bandages. "Is it okay if I send these two? These Pokémon seemed tame; it seemed like it would be a good idea to keep track of them so we can search for their Trainers?"
Alder took a fraction of a second too long to answer, doing that thing he did where he looked way too directly into Cheren's eyes. Cheren forced himself to hold his gaze. "Yes, Cheren. That's a wonderful idea," said Alder. His voice sounded, for some reason, almost surprised.
Alder left, and Touko knelt down by the piles of Balls. "Tame Pokémon, suddenly living in the wild by themselves to suffer from natural disasters and no idea how to get to safety. I wonder who would cause that?" she said sarcastically, taking out her Xtransceiver "What's the deal with that one Pokémon you sent me? I didn't see what it was," she said.
Touya, having managed to disembark from Reshiram, made his way over to Cheren's station. He knelt down to the right of Touko and slightly behind her, as if hiding. Touko pushed a handful of Balls in his direction for him to transfer and he did so, after a moment's pause of watching to see what Touko and Cheren were doing.
"…It was a Patrat," said Cheren. He wished he had telepathy, the aide of some psychic-type, who could convey the horror of the Patrat's situation to Touko. Just telling her that it was trapped under the rocks and its pack dead would get Touko's and Alder's sympathy, but Cheren needed more than that. Cheren didn't know how to explain the desperation in its face, the helpless situation of having the world on its shoulders, but nothing left to protect. His stomach churned to even recall it.
Cheren didn't elaborate. Touko and Alder waited for him to, but he pretended not to understand their cues until they shuffled off in different directions, looking for more ways to be helpful.
The day passed in a blur. Cheren grew tired, but focusing on his task, he barely felt his aching muscles and aching heart. It was a feeling Cheren relished – pure drive, blind to any distractions, blind to any weakness. He couldn't invoke that kind of drive at will. When he did find it, it was always because there was something on the line more important than his pride.
As the operations wound down, the general mood of the rescue crew was one of victory. They had been fairly successful. No human casualties had been found, and they'd been able to catch, treat, and transport hundreds of Pokémon. Objectively, it should be a cause for celebration. But when there was no task left for Cheren to do and his adrenaline stopped flowing, Cheren could only think about the poor Patrat and the broken bodies of its family.
Touko sat beside Cheren on the tree stump he'd been using as a seat and slumped backwards, palms behind her, her gaze turned up towards Victory Road. Her hair, swinging slightly in the breeze, grazed his cheek, and her knee pressed against his thigh. She didn't seem to feel like celebrating, either. Cheren didn't greet her. He didn't need to.
They sat there in silence for a while until Alder and Touya came to join them, offering each of them a chilled water-bottle. Cheren wrestled with the plastic top, slick and wet from melted ice in the cooler it had come from, and tried not to be bothered that Touko opened her own bottle with a single twist.
"Any news on the cause of the landslide?" Touko asked, which surprised Cheren. He was more the type to try to understand why things happened, and it hadn't even occurred to him to think about it.
Alder sighed. "We still don't know for sure, but… we will most likely have to cease the restoration project on Victory Road, lest anything like this happen again."
Cheren registered pain in Alder's voice, and everyone looked up at the mountain beyond. Remnants of Team Plasma's castle remained, visible even from this distance. An eyesore, now to become an eternal, ugly scar. He tried to remember what Victory Road had looked like the first time he lay eyes on it, but he had no memory of the mountain as it should have been – a beacon of hope and courage, a challenge to prove yourself, a symbol of pride to have gotten this far. No, for Cheren, Victory Road had been an obstacle course to rush through as fast as possible, because Touko needed him, because Alder needed him – and it had taken him far too long to get there. Victory Road had been nothing but a nightmare for Cheren, a reminder of how far he had fallen behind Touko.
Alder must have known Victory Road in happier times. He must have remembered it for the days he'd spent training with his beloved first Pokémon, now deceased. Cheren grieved for the loss of the Victory Road Alder must have loved, and he felt a pang of loss of his own, for the happy, hopeful Victory Road he'd never known.
"That's not so sad," Touko said, as though she'd been reading his mind. "What happened with Team Plasma is part of Unova's history now. So all that crap they left behind is… it's like a monument, or something."
Alder smiled. "Wise you are, Touko. It does no good to dwell on the past, but we mustn't forget it."
Cheren tried to brush away the twinge of jealousy that statement brought out. Why couldn't he have thought to say something like that?
After taking one more swig of water, Touko twisted the cap of her bottle closed and readjusted herself, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. "If N knew about this… it would break his heart."
Her words were met with awkward silence. They didn't talk about N. More specifically, Touko didn't talk about N. She all but pretended not to hear whenever anyone brought him up.
But it had been months. Maybe she was finally getting over her feelings, whatever they were.
The other volunteers had started to clean up. Folding foldable chairs, dumping ice out of coolers, attempting to sort their orange vests by size. Cheren stood and removed his own vest. "It looks like we're done here," Cheren said. "I'm headed back up to Victory Road."
"Okay," Touko said quietly. She looked up at Touya, who still hadn't said a single word. "I can give you a ride home. Bye, Cheren. Bye, Alder."
"Farewell, Touko, Touya."
Touko released Drumstick and Cheren released Unfezant. Alder stood by and watched them get settled, shaking hands with Touya and thanking him for his help. But before Cheren could fly away, Alder stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. "Cheren, just a second," he said.
Cheren turned around and looked at him expectantly. "Yes?"
"There's something I've been wanting to speak about with you. Come see me when you have time for a conversation. Sometime after this is all over."
Alder was looking at Cheren intently. It made Cheren want to look away, but that's what a weak person would do. "All right," he said evenly, and tried not to let his burning curiosity show.