9: Down the Rabbit Hole
Luke quickly hurries through the light brush and broken branches to return to his carefully made tent. As each step takes him further from the people faking for the sake of their own image of themselves, Aqua hurries along by his side. "They don't think poorly of you."
"You didn't spend years by their side." Luke ignores her feelings as he trudges through mud and broken tree limbs. "Do you know how much it hurts to be told you matter after years of living alone?"
Aqua shakes her head. "I didn't even have people to ignore me. I was alone."
Luke nods in understanding. "From the moment I met you, I saw something special in you." He stops his retreat and kneels down to meet her face to face. "You can just look at a person sometimes and know they could mean the world to you."
"I'm not a person." Aqua's reply gives Luke pause. "I'm just a Pokémon."
"You're not just some Pokémon and you're not just some Ralts. You're Aqua, my Aqua…" Luke questions his phrasing and stands up. "I couldn't replace you if I met a thousand Ralts lost in a forest."
Aqua leans down and fights the feelings inside of her. "Don't people who lose someone they love move on?" Luke pauses. "When you were out, your father talked to me. He said… He said he loved a woman before he met your mom."
Luke shrugs. "It's a hazy memory but he told me he had a family with another woman once. I never knew them."
"Do you believe he loves your mom with all of his heart?"
"Yeah, I do." Without a doubt, even if he was often bad at showing it.
Aqua's hard expression as she focuses up on his face quells any joy he had. "Then you could find another Ralts to care for. It would be the same."
Luke slams his fist into a nearby tree and startles her. "Don't say that!" Within him he finds an emotion boil over within him he doesn't quite grasp. "If I died today would you just find another Master!? Would you turn to Nathan or Mark and leave me rotting in the forest while you move on like nothing happened!?"
"I would never leave you!" Aqua's psychic response carries significant power and Luke's other Pokémon, watching the dispute rise in intensity, stand by.
"Then do you Pokémon think of humans as the kind of creature that can just… replace you!?" He turns on his other friends. "Do any of you seriously believe I could just leave you!?"
Torbital shakes his head and firmly believes in his Boss. Midnight nods in assurance of his trust but Skittle doesn't chirp at all.
Memories of his first trainer come to his mind and Skittle remains silent. The broken wing he had healed many times over reminded him of the cruelty of man.
Aqua slumps over and fights tears from welling up. "My dad said he loved me… Now he's gone." She knows he probably didn't leave her intentionally. According to the people around her, they said he died.
But all those nights of him holding her in his arms and telling her he'd give her the world haunted her every time she slept and wept at the thought that he was gone and maybe he wasn't dead and maybe, just maybe, he did abandon her.
"You could just decide to give up on this whole thing and leave us. You didn't even want to find us! That's what you said, right!? We were just happy accidents!" Luke's negative emotions coupled with those leaking from Skittle overpower the gentle soul. "Maybe you're the faker!"
Luke never understood the meaning of a broken heart than at that moment. "What the hell does that mean!?"
Aqua rounds on him with anger burning within her. "You said you only do stuff for others, right!? So every time you helped us, you didn't do it because YOU wanted to! That's what you said!"
"Hey, that's not…" She had a point in that he did phrase it that poorly.
Without another word, Aqua sprints off further into the forest and leaves Luke behind.
As Luke reaches out and calls for her, he turns to Midnight. "Midnight!" With the quick thinking he isn't exactly known for, Luke attaches a tracker to his partner. "Keep her safe. I'll be right behind you!"
Midnight nods and darts off after Aqua into the night. Luke quickly returns to his campsite and rips the tent out of the ground. He rips and tears in desperation, destroying his tent and eventually abandoning it.
"Luke? What happened?" Kelsie appears behind him, somewhat panicked.
"Stop following me! You don't care!" Luke's emotional state collapses around him as he begins to feel the weight he felt when Buddy didn't come home. That feeling as he walked down the stairs to find a blood-stained cover wrapped around his beloved dog as he screamed into the heavens. Not my Buddy, not him!
With the most important items he could gather in hand, he sprints past her. Torbital keeps up next to him but as Skittle flies to reach him, Luke turns on him with anger in his eyes. "No! If you don't believe in me, you can rot here with the rest of them!" With those harsh words, Luke follows the tracker's position and gives chase.
Kelsie watches him sprint off and Skittle, tears falling from his little face, flies gently off into the night away from them both.
Mark and Nathan appear behind her. "Hey. How's he doing…?" Mark sees the destroyed tent and haphazard packing job. "Kelsie. What happened?"
…
Aqua tumbles and falls over repeatedly as she heads deeper and deeper into the forest. She overthinks every moment they ever had together. Every single time he held her or every time he read spooky scary stories to lull himself to sleep and she listened in when she wasn't supposed to. Every time she kicked him awake and he picked her up and rubbed her head until she calmed down. Humans could fake love. She knew that. She had seen it before in the wild. Weak Pokémon abandoned by the wayside by soulless monsters that thought better of themselves.
Of course she thought Luke was different. She was a dumb girl. She didn't understand others. Humans and Pokémon could never understand each other.
As she reaches the beginning of a rickety bridge made of wooden planks that span a canyon that cuts the two halves of the forest in two, Aqua places one foot after another and crosses the canyon. Midnight appears behind her and hisses.
"What do you want!?"
…
"I don't care if you move on without us." Nathan gathers up his gear and ignores Reina's complaints. "Luke is right. He was alone and we never even tried to talk to him. We cared so much about ourselves we never saw what he was going through."
Reina's eye roll pisses Kelsie off as she watches the exchange. "Who cares what he's going through? I'm not responsible for every loser and reject out there that wants a friend. He should have tried harder."
Jonas watches from afar and says nothing.
"I understand why you're going. Just make sure to stay safe." Daisy warns them. "If you meet us at the third encampment down this path, we can just rejoin each other."
"I'm not waiting for them." Reina reaffirms her stance. "Jonas and I have the will to win. We won't wait for that idiot."
Mark walks by with his laptop placed firmly against his chest as he struggles to keep his backpack on. "Good for you. Enjoy trying to catch up to a wall like Cynthia, you stuck up wretch."
Reina pushes Mark to the ground. "Screw you! You're no better than that idiot is! No actual human being wants to be a worthless nobody with nothing to live by like you!"
The loudest slap ever heard around Unova rings out as Kelsie's palm collides with her enemy's face hard enough that Reina stumbles. "Touch one of us again and I won't hold back next time!" As tears of frustration leak from Reina's tear ducts, Kelsie warns her. "Lay a single finger on ANY of us and see what happens to your perfect plans!"
"Let's go." Nathan adjusts his hat and starts walking off into the night. With a flashlight in one hand and Flyby gently illuminating the night just above them, Nathan, Mark, and Kelsie march into the night in search of the one they failed.
Reina glares at them as they leave. "Looks like it's just us three."
"Yeah, no." Jonas picks himself up off of the tree. With an empty branch in hand, Baron lights the end of it with a quick Ember and he marches off after them. "After everything I did to him, I owe him this."
With that, Daisy and Reina exchange a quick glance as the others leave.
"That's alright. I don't need anyone. I'll just…" Reina pauses in the middle of her sentence as the path before her blurs. "I'll…just…" She collapses to the ground and goes completely motionless.
Nightshade drops from the tree he was hiding in and Daisy gives him a curious grin. "Who told you to sleep powder that stuck up bitch, huh?"
With her leftover escape rope, Daisy begins tying a knot to the nearest tree and lifts Reina's body up against it. As she ties the rope as tightly as she can, she explains herself to Nightshade. "Don't you know, buddy? If a contestant goes immobile for twelve hours for any reason, they're ejected from the test. It would be such a shame if she didn't make it…" Daisy makes a fake pity voice as she boohoos her way into another vile plot. "Now let's go join the others. They won't come back for her after that display."
Within minutes, Daisy rejoined the Luke Expedition Team and the five remaining students continue onwards never knowing just who they left behind.
In a lot of ways, they didn't truly care.
…
"I can't believe him." Luke is broken as he and Torbital take the path slowly and cautiously to avoid waking any dangerous Pokémon in the wild forest. "I thought Skittle appreciated me more than that. I'm not an abusive Trainer like the one he used to have. How could he even think of me that way?"
Torbital said nothing. Without Aqua, he was powerless to transmit his feelings to his Boss in a meaningful way. Sadly he rolls next to him and hopes his presence is enough.
…
Skittle lands on a branch of a tree overlooking the bridge. He doesn't even notice Midnight and Aqua on the forest floor beneath him. Crying softly into the night, he just wishes for Staria's embrace.
…
"What do you have to say to me?" Aqua lashes out at Midnight as he checks the tracker is still attached to his new collar. "You want to believe in him blindly, leave me out of it!"
Midnight growls in a dark tone as if to threaten sense into her. You may not be able to read minds but you can read hearts, can't you? Did how he feel towards you really feel artificial?
Aqua tries to reason with his words and fails to satisfy her own negative feelings about it. "Humans can change what they feel. It's easy for them to lose faith and love in another."
You're the only person I see losing faith in anyone here. Midnight's strong nature pushes through the hazy fog of paranoia she remains trapped in. I know how you must feel about him. I'm not stupid. You're just afraid of what he really means in your eyes.
"I'm not afraid! I know exactly how I feel!" Aqua yells back as the psychic energy swells within her once more. "I fear nothing anymore!"
Midnight shakes his head in disgust. You haven't even reached the power needed to read minds and you talk like you have anything on me. Let's go home.
Aqua powers up a psychic attack. "Don't come near me!"
Before she can escalate the situation, Luke arrives at the edge of the forest. "Thanks, Midnight. I knew you wouldn't let me down."
"Glad you have faith in someone." Aqua bites back.
"I'm sorry. Did you forget the part where I buried Buddy!?" Luke raises his voice at her as he stomps his way onto the bridge. "I didn't even get to be there for him when he died whimpering on the road, damn it! I couldn't be there for him! I couldn't be there when Lucky bled out and died without his family by his fucking side!"
The negative emotions exploding inside of and out of Luke threaten to overtake Aqua entirely.
Skittle hears the commotion and drops down, bearing witness to Luke.
"They die and what do I get out of it?" Luke's tempo increases as he speaks faster and faster. "I get Jonas mocking my dead dog! I remember a brawl and getting sent home! I remember my classmates mocking me for losing it when all I did was suffer! I suffered in silence every day! No one once cared what happened to me! You think you know abandonment!? At least your own kind didn't do it!"
"I have none!" Aqua fires back. "I wouldn't know that, would I!?"
Luke ignores the dangerously weak bridge he's moving about with every step towards his partner while Midnight and Skittle watch on as Torbital joins their side. "Well, I didn't abandon you! From the moment I met you, I knew the suffering I saw in your eyes! I let you into my home, into my heart… You're family to me, Aqua!"
Aqua continues maintaining an even distance from Luke. "Family means nothing to your kind. Reyvin said it all the time and now he's gone!"
"Where the hell is Voire then!?"
"What!?"
Luke grips his head and nearly pulls out hair from the stress they're putting each other through. "Fine, Reyvin left you. What about her!? Was she willing to abandon you, too!? Was your mother a monster like him in your eyes!?"
Aqua launches Confusion at Luke out of pure spite and nearly knocks him over. As he stumbles and reaches for the rope and grips it tightly, he glares at her. "How dare you mock her!? You know nothing about my mother!"
"Then how can you judge me like I'm the same as Reyvin!?" Luke feels tears roll down his cheeks as he lets go of the rope and risks plummeting to his doom. "I'm a stupid fool who can't speak his mind in the right way and I can't even acknowledge how I feel most of the time. I'm aware! But I never once, ever took you for granted. I could never have walked away when you were in danger."
"Luke, I want to believe you." Aqua says just loudly enough for him to hear. "I just couldn't handle it if I was wrong again."
Luke falls to his knees as a sudden surge of wind picks up and he crawls on hands and knees to approach her. "You won't be. I swear on my life that I won't leave your side."
Aqua struggles with her thoughts before finally reaching out for him.
As he pulls her in close and allows the tears to flow down his face, he squishes her a little too hard and stabs himself on her feelers. "Please don't run away again. I couldn't handle losing you."
As Skittle flies over and lands on the edge of the rope as it sways in the wind, he chirps at his friend.
"You're still a bitch for that." Luke wipes the tears away on his sleeve. "You steal my Skittles, come into MY house, and have the audacity to backtalk me!" He can't stop from laughing at the look Skittle gives him. As his feathered friend angrily chirps and stabs at him playfully with his beak, the noise of others draws his attention over to the new arrivals watching the scene unfold before them.
Mark presses the laptop against his side and reaches the end of the bridge that Luke is now halfway across. "Hey. Um… We came looking for you."
"Everyone but that bitch." Kelsie adds, still bitter. "The six of us are what's left and frankly, if the next camp only has room for six, better for us, right?"
"You guys don't have to make it up to me." Luke sighs and returns his partners to their capsule homes. "Yes, it felt terrible being alone, but it's not your responsibility to make me feel included, either."
Kelsie jokingly threatens as she steps up beside Mark. "I already slapped Reina for talking like that. I'll do it again."
"I thought you hit her because she hit me?" Mark asks.
"That too. You're a big boy, you can defend yourself." Kelsie jokes at his expense. "Of course it was for both of you."
Nathan interjects as the good times roll too long for the incoming storm. "We should just push on to the third camp since we're this far out. This bridge is dangerous and it won't get better."
Luke senses the wind picking up again and hurries his way across. Nathan guides the others along one by one as Kelsie and Daisy move across.
Nathan grabs Jonas by his pants and hoists him up. The two make their way over carefully as the rickety bridge groans and creaks with every bit of weight pressed down on either side.
Mark is the last one to go and makes it halfway before a powerful headwind slams into the bridge at full force. Mark loses his footing and misses the rope as the whole bridge lifts sideways and he plummets to the forest floor.
Though the distance is only about twenty meters, the crashing sound indicates he clearly hurt himself on the way down.
In a panic, Luke summons Aqua to his side and rushes to the edge. "Aqua, do you see that lake pooling down that way?"
Aqua joins his side as sprinkles start to fall. She nods to him. "I'm going to jump down there with you. When we nearly hit the ground, you know what to do, right?"
"What the hell are you doing?" Nathan asks as the sprinkle turns to rain and the rain begins to downpour on top of their position. "What is the mission!?"
Luke stands as close to Nathan as possible. "I'm going down there to get him the help he needs, okay!? I need you to reach camp and weather the night! Come for us when the sun is up, understood?"
Nathan salutes his friend. "Understood, Sergeant Luke, sir! We'll meet you at 0800 hours!"
"Good on you, Private Roble! Keep those girls in line! And Jonas too, I guess." Jonas seems offended but all offense is lost when Luke grabs Aqua and hoists her up before jumping onto the bridge's rails and leaps off into the air.
As the earth comes closer and closer, Aqua focuses all of her energy on teleporting them safely and in a moment they appear under the lake's surface. Because the momentum doesn't meet the surface itself, the pressure from hitting it is weakened greatly. Unfortunately for Luke, they have to be within a close enough proximity to jump through space like this. Otherwise he'd have just teleported straight down to Mark.
Maybe once she evolves could a technique be possible.
Or maybe Palkia would just get angry.
As the torrent of water beats down on Luke, he returns Aqua to her Friend Ball and sprints towards the area underneath the bridge. Scurrying Sewaddle and Pidove return to their nests in the trees while Tympole bounce around and enjoy the rain as Luke tries to cover himself with his arm and runs between the many moving sights and sounds.
When he finds Mark crying in pain and clutching a clearly broken leg, he curses to himself.
…
It took about half an hour to build Mark's tent without help from anyone else. Luke helps Mark inside and summons Aqua. As she dries off and begins using Healing Pulse on his leg to mitigate the pain, Luke powers up the mobile stove and starts boiling water to make a stew.
The pain caused Mark to fall asleep the second he was inside and he was warmed up by the body heat Midnight and Torbital could produce by lying beside him. Furfrou and Snivy sleep at the front of the tent to guard it from intruders.
As the food nears its completion, the injured teen stirs at the delightful smell of boiled carrots, potatoes, and beef as his mouth waters and his belly growls. "Is it time for breakfast already?"
"It's like three in the morning, man." Luke tells him bluntly. "In a few hours, Nathan and the others are coming down for us. Until then, we have to stay safe."
Mark gradually reaches a sitting position as he presses the bandages crudely wrapped around his leg. "I'm surprised you know first aid at all."
Luke gives him a curious look. "I fight wild Pokémon. You think I never got hurt?"
"You don't seem like you do." Mark admits aloud. "You were intimidating to us, man. How do you think we reacted that morning Jonas came to school and told us you knocked Baron out?"
"Did he say he started it?" Luke says while nonchalantly sipping more soda from a thermos it wasn't designed to be in.
Mark gently grips the bowl and spoon feeds himself methodically as to avoid spillage. "You probably know the answer to that." As Mark looks over to their partners sprawled around the tent, he shifts the topic. "You get along well with Pokémon despite avoiding them. We thought you hated them."
Luke contemplates what his image must have been to people who didn't know his own struggles. "I certainly can say I never anticipated this adventure. I mean, risking my life is something I did naturally so that part isn't surprising. It's just… harder when you care about others you're not sure will make it out. If I die, I mean, how can I be pissed, right?"
"You take pride in the risks you take." Mark analyzes his companion. "If it's only at risk to you, it's easy to take that responsibility. It's when others do the same, either in spite of or because of you that you grow uncomfortable. You didn't want Aqua to fight because of that, right?" Luke grimaces. "We heard she got hurt pretty bad and you might have… issues fighting with her."
"Amos mentioned that, did he? Did he know what the teams would be before this started?"
Mark nods. "He's the one who grouped us up."
Luke bites his lip. "We're his rejects, then?"
"Well, I decided to do a sneaky little thing and look up why on his PC when he left class." Mark admits to his undercover mission. "All I can say about his decision is that I don't disagree with him logically."
"Do tell. I think we have time." Torbital and Midnight sleep next to each other. Every one of their friends falls asleep gradually during their talk except for one eavesdropper.
Mark opens up his laptop browser and presses his machine delicately along his thighs. "Reina has behavioral problems that caused a lot of petty squabbles with other children. We left her behind for a reason."
Luke sighs. "I rather you hadn't had to do that. She doesn't' deserve to lose a team over an argument."
"Well, she ended up laying hands on me so by then it was pretty much a given we were through." Mark explains a bit more. "Amos marked her down because he was worried she'd go off on her own."
"So the others in our group were the ones who failed the test and Richard…" Luke reasons that one out himself. "Richard lets his anger control him. He'd be dangerous to have as a Trainer in such a competitive and toxic environment."
Mark smiles at Luke in an honest way. "You're not as dumb as people think you are. Good." Luke feels he should be offended but lets him continue. "Daisy failed the last three tests. In her first run she failed the opening test. In her second, she ended up missing the tests because she got hurt training with her father. She had a broken arm and looked terrible the next time we saw her."
Luke didn't remember that but it gave him a peculiar feeling he didn't quite like.
"Last year her team split up due to infighting and she was crushed by an early test because it required knowledge and resources she could have never hoped to keep by her side. Her father told us plainly he was placing his trust in someone else. Tyson, that quiet kid that transferred in last month, is apparently his new golden child."
"So that's why she'll be without a home if she fails." Luke realizes her dire circumstances. "If Tyson succeeds and she doesn't…"
Mark decides to move on to keep their spirits up. "Nathan's gotten into disagreements with others and acts like he's in basic far too often. Amos's concern here is probably along the lines of the fact that you have to give orders, not follow them, to survive."
Luke remembers Operation Lightning Rod. "I think he's proven capable of planning. I doubt he'll fall behind."
"I feel about the same." Mark looks back at the registry. "Jonas obviously is because of how he just is. The legacy he's fighting to be free from makes him both a self-righteous person but also a short-sighted one. I'm surprised by how he's grown."
"I think it's because of the circumstances." Luke thinks about how he feels the same as Jonas in that way. "He's being faced with the reality of his dreams and he's improving rapidly to attain them. Plus, now that he's zero to one on victories, his pride will demand recompense."
Mark grits his teeth for a moment. "According to Amos, I was originally intended for Shauntal's team but being unlucky got me here. Honestly, I prefer it this way." As he moves on, he nods in understanding. "You're here because of… Well, you know why."
Luke pretends to struggle to work it out. "Aversion to fighting with Pokémon and my battle tendencies?"
"That's about right." Mark is thankful he's self-aware. "Kelsie is an odd case. Her file just says this is the perfect placing for her. All it notes is that she's selfless and makes foolish decisions to protect others with no regard for self-preservation. You sound a lot alike."
"Hey, that's rude." Mark finishes his food and sets the empty bowl aside. "Are you going back to sleep again?" Luke asks as he too swallows the last bit of meat he purposefully saved for last in his own bowl.
After a few seconds of dragging silence, Mark asks an entirely out of field question. "How much do you know about Reyvin?"
Luke sits upright. "Besides the fact he was in a crashed helicopter and disappeared and that he studied interbreeding between Pokémon species, not much. Amos was friends with him but he doesn't like talking about it. It makes him sad."
Aqua listens in more intently as the topic changes to something more personal.
"Well, I found him interesting." Mark talks on a more personable level. "My mother studies botany and the links between plants and grass types. My father was a psychiatrist who studies diseases of the mind. It can get pretty crazy."
"Um…" Luke begs how that all ties together with a clearly confused look.
Mark's fingers slide across the sleeping bag he's lying on top of before allowing the Magikarp-shaped bag to consume his legs and stomach. "Father was curious how Pokémon thought compared to us and whether they could experience mental illness like us. He found that Pokémon take after their master. Basically, if a master is good, they act moral. If their master is evil, they sink into depravity. If their master is a pacifist, then they tend to become benign and muted."
Luke thinks about how his own experiences have shaped him and vice versa. "I will say Skittle is far more likely to run into scraps now. Maybe this isn't a good thing I'm like how I am. Even Aqua has this newfound desire to throw hands."
"Well, it's interesting to note this. Pokémon have mostly the same capacity for growth as we do but are inherently united to us in dependency. When you consider how closely we have to work for this symbiotic relationship, it raises other questions." Mark leans back. "My father wondered whether Reyvin's… wife, I guess. They did get married. He wondered if Voire's feelings were of her own accord or whether Reyvin himself had that potential for loving her and that reflected in her own emotional state."
Luke was smart enough to grasp the idea conceptually but the actual application of the idea was ridiculous to him at best. "No, that's where I disagree."
Mark raises an eyebrow. "Why's that?"
"My actions may affect my Pokémon, but I think who we are around also affects us as humans, even if it's not as intense." Luke notes from his own life experiences. "You can't force someone to love you. I can convince you whether Aqua is stronger than say, Skittle, by having them fight. I can't convince you which one you find cuter. Attraction is more than just how a person conducts themselves. You try to stamp out feelings and it breaks a person to live that lie eventually."
"So you think Reyvin didn't affect Voire in that way?" Mark wonders about this since Luke does have proof of their love as his partner. "You think it was mutual and irrespective of their prior beliefs."
Luke affirmatively shakes his head while reaching out and petting the sleeping Skittle on his only pillow. "I think it could be very easy to love a Pokémon."
Mark's sinister grin leaves his unasked question an obvious one. "You think that, huh? Are you capable of feeling that way?"
"What?" Luke deadpans.
"Well, you said you identify with them more." Mark recounts his tally list. "Plus, your bond with your Pokémon is far stronger than quite a few of us have managed in so short a time. Torbital and Skittle admire you, Midnight respects you, and I don't have any doubt Aqua feels very strongly for you."
Luke stares at the supposedly sleeping Ralts and laughs it off. "You might be gifted when it comes to reading and studying but you have a ways to go to understand emotions, I think."
Mark rests his head against his pillow lifted up by a small blanket to elevate it. "Au contraire, Luke. I think I know more than you." Luke rolls his eyes so Mark changes pace. "Okay, so pretend that maybe a Pokémon of yours did like you. Then what?"
"Did you hear me at all earlier?" Luke scratches at an itch at the back of his head. Whether it was natural or created from nervousness he didn't know. "I don't really think about things like love and the like. I mean, I do want it like everyone else. I just don't give it thought."
"That would be the low self-esteem talking." Mark's psychological assessment of Luke nears completion. "It's very common among unpopular young men to view themselves as undesirable. I'm not asking if you feel you deserve love. I'm asking, if it found you, would you engage the prospects seriously?"
Luke shrugs off the question as long as he can before Mark's serious expression wears him thin. "I mean, it's wrong. That's what most people would say."
Mark revels in teasing his friend. "You're not most people. You're the guy fist fighting Pokémon out in the wilderness. Who cares at that point if you're pounding one into the dirt or a mattress?"
"Okay, what the fuck?" Luke was very aware that people his age talked about shit like that casually even if they were total virgins. It didn't throw him off any less. "There's a hell of a difference."
"Like what?" Mark passes the buck back.
Luke hesitates to phrase it properly. "Generally speaking, no one consents to getting an asskicking. That just happens."
Mark nods and gives his mental foe a single point on the scoreboard. "I don't know. I'd feel like Amos would think of you less weirdly if you dated Pokémon than broke your knuckles on them."
"We wouldn't have made it this far if I tried to romance my way through that Scolipede encounter, my man." Luke counters with a curveball. "I'm not a bard. I'm not even good at stuff. I broke my tent trying to get out here."
"Okay, yeah, dating a four-hundred pound centipede would be weird even for us." Mark agrees on that point. "I also don't expect you to walk arm-in-wing down the aisle with Skittle there. I'm specifically curious about the one that's a child of a human and Pokémon relationship."
Luke rolls his eyes. "Why? Because she's the only girl in my party? You don't know what I'm into. I don't."
Mark spends a long minute collecting himself for the true point of his nagging questions. "I just think that her strong emotional resonance with you might be a multitude of factors. You're the first friend she's ever had. You care for her in such a devoted way it raises to my mind at least a few queries. She is strong of heart enough to argue so strongly with you. That looked like a break up out there, dude. Pokémon generally don't dispute their Trainers like that."
"She has no experience being around Pokémon that aren't trying to harm her." Luke reprimands his verbal opponent as an uncomfortable presence within him begins to doubt Mark is entirely wrong. "I ask a lot of her. She teleports us and now she even fights. I'm just taking care of her like she's family. All of my Pokémon are."
"Look, this is just food for thoughts inside your mind, Luke." Mark takes a step back and rebuilds his point in a structured way. "Even if you don't see it in a romantic light, what if she did? Then you would have to address this situation, right?"
Luke considers his words and presses his hand against Aqua's sleeping head as she breathes at a quick pace. Is she awake? Unable to discern that answer, Luke hedges his bets. "I doubt she sees it that way. I'm not trying to woo her. I'm her partner. She's my friend, the one I trust to keep me safe… I never even thought of Pokémon in that light. Not until I heard who Reyvin was…"
Mark's face lights up. He's won the point he needed. "So you ARE thinking of them like that now."
"Bitch, no." Luke dismisses him entirely. "I mean, I am considering how people could think that way, but it doesn't mean for a second I'm jumping into the world of Poképhilia."
"Odd you know the correct term." Mark slyly replies.
Luke wants to break his neck on the nearest signpost. "It's the literal only Greek word I know besides phobia… It is Greek, right?"
Mark shrugs. "It's suspicious is what it is. I doubt anyone else in our group has even thought of what Reyvin did like you have."
"All I can think of is how horrible it must have been for him. I mean, if he really did die in that plane crash, he died without even knowing for sure Aqua made it." Luke's sour tone frees him from awkward conversation. For him, being depressed was better than any other discomfort Mark could offer with more questions. "If he did survive, that might be why he never found her. Maybe he didn't know where to look or hell, maybe he disappeared because if he didn't people would look and they would find her first."
"Regardless of how or what happened with Reyvin, his legacy is with you now." Mark steers the conversation back into pain. "And I am a thousand percent sure that cute little shit likes you."
Every fiber of being inside Luke wanted to shut Mark up in any way possible. In the end, he settles on peaceful discussion. "You know, you're asking all these questions, and it makes me wonder if it's you projecting."
Mark ignores his accusation entirely. "When she ends up confessing, you owe me a beer. Unless it happens like next week. I'll settle for a hundred dollars or a formal apology."
"Avoiding the question makes me think I struck a chord myself." Luke tears back at his accuser. "Methinks the nerd protests too much."
"Hey, if a beautiful girl asked me out, I'm not saying no." Mark dismissively jokes. "Who cares if she has green hair or bunny ears? I'm a human. We adapt."
Luke grabs his own sleeping bag and prepares for slumber. "Sure thing, buddy. That's adaptation, not perversion."
Mark lies down and readies his body to sleep as well. "Why not both, huh?"
As the two young men fall asleep, Aqua sits up and moves closer to her partner while muttering to herself. Mark thinks I like him? What? No. No! Of course not. I could never…
…
Marshall opens the door to the building that the Four were using as a base to watch over and monitor the activities of the students.
Officers Cyan and Magenta stand at the door wearing deadly serious expressions.
"What happened?" Marshall asks as he wipes the tiredness from his eyes.
Cyan holds out a file filled with documents. "It's Team Rocket. We have reason to believe they infiltrated this test in the worst kind of way."
Without a single wasted moment, Marshall grabs the files and quickly flicks through them. As he finishes getting the cliff notes, he points behind him. "Magenta, wake the others. I have clarification questions for Officer Cyan here."
Magenta salutes him and enters the building to recruit the other Elites from their rooms.
Cyan stands tall. "Topaz is creating a barricade around the forest's main entrances and exits right now. We have reason to believe this was a Pokémon stolen a few weeks back. They've hyped it up on all kinds of performance enhancers and adrenaline shots. We also suspect their new drug Lazuli is responsible."
"Lazuli…" Marshall had never heard of it before but he had been made aware that Team Rocket was expanding worldwide at a rapid pace. The Unovan Branch was a fledgling group that International Police hoped to destroy before the rest of the nation's regions succumbed to their poisonous influence. "So we have a supercharged Machoke out in the forests so hopped up on drugs it kills the Grunt they gave it to."
Cyan nods. "We don't know if this is direct retaliation for our previous arrest but Rubin's shop was vandalized as well. Alder has personally agreed to provide funds to rebuild it. He's been informed as well."
Marshall nods and hurries to the police car Cyan came in. "The second Magenta gets back out, we leave. Our trackers will allow us to find our respective groups and I don't want to scare them. If we have to, we'll redo the tests later."
"I understand." Cyan reaches for the passenger door and lets Marshall inside before marching to the driver side and hopping inside with ease.
Grimsley awakens last as he hears Magenta's announcement and makes a bet it's his team that ends up having the unlucky bastards.
God, he hoped to lose.
