Hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving. My American readers that is. If you aren't... hope you had a nice normal day I guess. This one is more of a character building chapter, and a minor one at that, so it's a short one today.

January 5th, 2019. 9:17 am.

After N had walked off to get his Pokémon medical attention, Ben glared at Logan who merely shrugged. "You and I need to talk."

Logan rolled his eyes with a huff. "The only things we need to do are eat, drink, and breathe." Ben was, understandably, not in the mood for Logan's bullshit remarks. He was furious that Logan had nearly killed a Pokémon that belonged to someone else. Now Ben wasn't stupid. He knew that Pokémon like Zoroarks had to kill to survive, and that often meant other wild Pokémon. That Purloin however was not wild, and neither was Logan. There was absolutely no need for Logan to do what he did. Logan had just eaten. He was not out for the kill to fill his belly or protect his territory. It seemed he wanted to kill purely because he could, and to Ben, that was simply unacceptable.

The duo silently walked to Route 2, and after a short bit of walking, Ben confronted Logan. "I know that you don't care about others, I know you want to die, but that's no reason to be cruel and try to kill anyone whenever you want. I don't know why you think attempted murder is ok, but it's not, and I want that to stop right now." Ben's voice was calm, but authoritative. Logan, once again, didn't flinch. Ben could try to stand up to him all he wanted, but it wasn't going to work on him. He knew the only reason Ben was so ready to stand up to him was because he couldn't harm Ben because of that fucking Pokeball. If it wasn't for that, Ben would've been dead five seconds after his capture.

"Don't pretend to understand me, you know nothing. I don't think murder is ok."

"So why do you keep trying to do it?!" He wanted an answer for this fox's bizarre and violent behavior. Sure, Zoroarks were predators, apex predators for that matter, and when needed they would be aggressive to scare off or kill as needed, but the situations in which Logan had acted did not call for that behavior one bit.

"Why the hell should I tell you?" Logan dodged the question, but didn't exactly hide the fact. He'd done something like this, back when Ben asked him why he wished to die. Whatever the answer was, it was important to him, and he didn't want anyone to know about it. Ben knew that the answers to his questions lie within there, but he would have to gain the Zoroark's trust first. He took a breath and changed his approach. Confidence and confrontation was clearly not going to work on him.

"Ok look, I'm sorry for capturing you. I was just trying to defend myself. I know you don't owe me anything, but like it or not, we're partners now. If we continue to be at each other's throats the whole time we're both gonna be miserable the whole way. Can we just start over and try to at least pretend we get along?"

Logan adopted a thinking face. He was tossing the idea around in his head. This was good. It meant Logan was willing to at least hear what Ben had to say, which was progress to say the least. After a number of moments, Ben realized he was holding his breath, and slowly exhaled to breathe normally again. Soon after, Logan nodded. "Ok. Ok fine. I can appreciate someone trying to be reasonable. I'm smart enough to know when something can work out for both of us."

Ben couldn't help the thought that crossed his mind. 'Coulda fooled me. You haven't shown me much reason.' "Ok then. Hi, I'm Ben. Trainer from Nuvema Town." Ben extended his webbed hand. Hoping Logan would hold be reasonable enough to shake hands.

"Logan, Zoroark from... well a number of places." Logan looked at the hand before hesitantly shaking it. 'Perfect.' Ben thought. 'That kind of answer can be a great conversation piece.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, I was, well not born, I hatched in Nacrene, but before I was old enough to remember, we moved to a Castelia. We lived there for a few years, and by the time I was five, we moved again. I can't remember any details. I was still just a kit. We then moved to a town about an hour of driving outside Nimbasa. We lived there for many years, until we moved after I finished school. They then moved to Mistralton while I left and set up a territory in the forest a bit a ways from our home near Nimbasa, where I lived for two years before... before... nevermind. Anyways I left shortly before my 20th birthday and took up a territory in Route 1."

Ben gained another piece of the puzzle. 'So whatever happened, seems to have happened to him occurred when he was at that territory by Nimbasa. So it wasn't that long ago.' "Well that's quite a bit of moving for one so young. I spent my whole life in Nuvema and only traveled outside when we went on vacation." Ben was hoping he would be asked where they went, but it didn't seem that Logan cared. "So what was your life like before you went to the wild?"

"Boring. I went to school, which I hated because I was made fun of a lot for being an anthro Pokémon. You know how it is. If its new its bad in the eyes of dickhead children. Anyways I pretty much just stayed at home when I wasn't at school. The only thing I ever did besides school was I played hockey during middle school and high school."

Ben knew exactly nothing about sports. He never watched any because he never got into them as a kid. His main focus had been Pokémon. Information he relayed to Logan. "I can't say I know anything about hockey. I was pretty much solely devoted to learning about Pokémon. In fact I delayed my journey for over a decade to learn more."

"You're patient I'll give you that." Logan didn't say anything after that, and they continued in awkward silence. Ben met a single trainer who challenged him with his Patrat, which Oshawott won without much trouble thanks to the Water Gun Move it had picked up after getting to Level 7 back at Route 1. By the time the sun was low in the sky, Oshawott was Level 11, and Logan still had not fought a single battle for Ben, and Ben was beginning to wonder if he ever would. They had some food before Ben began to set up camp. Due to his thick fur from being an otter, the crisp winter air didn't bother him in the slightest, and the same could be said for Logan, so a fire was not needed. It was when he was about done setting up, that he noticed something odd. Logan had some kind of glass bottle in his hands. Ben did not have any glass bottled in his backpack that he knew of. The liquid in this bottle was an amber color.

"What's that you've got?"

Logan's reply was a simple one word answer. "Whiskey."

"Where'd you get that? I didn't buy any at the store and I didn't bring any." He had a suspicion about how he got it, he just hoped it was wrong.

"I stole it." It wasn't.

"How and why? You were next to me the whole ti-... you used an illusion." Logan nodded and took another swig. "So why'd you take it?"

"It helps numb me." Ben knew that he wasn't gonna get anything else out of him. This pertained to whatever he was trying to keep secret, and Ben had gained nowhere near enough trust to get that answer.

"Ok look, just, please don't steal anything else. I don't approve of you drinking your problems away but I know I can't stop you. If you want me to get some I will, just no more stealing ok?" Logan looked at him with a sort of surprised sort of inebriated look on his muzzle. He nodded before climbing into the tent and curling up. Ben got in his sleeping bag after closing the tent zipper, and began to sleep.