(A/N)

A quick reminder: I don't own Pokémon/Kaijuu and you don't have permission to use my OC and/or ideas unless you ask and I agree.

The Adamant Key

By Trivnar Silversword

Chapter two: ...And the Beginning of Another

Kepa's strong grip on Rowan's arm was the only thing that kept her upright as she stumbled over the uneven ground.

"Why didn't you go?" he asked between breaths.

Rowan shook her head, still unsure herself. "I don't really know. I almost ran, but I couldn't bring myself to leave while you were in trouble." She ducked a bolt of lightning sent after them. It hit an already dilapidated building, which shuddered and started to crumble, filling the path ahead of them with debris.

"Ok, now what?" she asked, glancing behind them. "We can't really go back."

Kepa Nur cast a critical eye over the debris. "I can handle that, no problem."

"But what about me!" The blaziken scooped her up again, his pace not even faltering. "Oh."

A loud buzzing noise rose around them, emanating from a dark cloud massing above them.

"What is that?" Kepa cried out, reaching the edge of the debris and beginning to jump from wood to rock to wood again.

Rowan frowned, looking up at the cloud. It reminded her of something, although she couldn't quite place it... "Beedril!" she said, suddenly remembering as the first of the insects began to dive towards them.

"Where the heck is Damian getting all these Kaijuu from!" Kepa complained, clearing the last bit of debris and setting Rowan down again. He frowned in concentration then sent a wave of fire at the insect Kaijuu. "That ought to slow 'em down."

"We don't want to slow them down, we want to stop them," Rowan pointed out with infuriating logic.

"Yeah, yeah, give me a minute!" He picked her up again, something she was really beginning to dislike. They ran down the road that Rowan had come earlier that day. "If we could hide somewhere." Kepa grumbled.

Hide... Rowan recalled the geography of the plateau, creating an image in her mind. "Turn left!" she cried suddenly, "towards the cliffs!"

The blaziken did not argue, veering off into the forest and agilely dodged between the trees. "Where are we going?" he asked after a while, looking back over his shoulder at the black cloud that followed. "The beedril can still rea- Whoa!" There was suddenly nothing but air under the blaziken's feet as he ran off the plateau for which the town was named.

The pair started to tumble down the cliff face, Rowan bouncing out of Kepa's arms as he thudded into a boulder sticking out of the face. Rowan stretched out her arms, trying to grab hold of something to break her fall. Her fingers scraped against the rocky face, but she felt no pain, only a growing numbness as her body half fell, half rolled, forever downwards.

A tree finally stopped her with a bone-jarring thud. Rowan was completely stunned, a fortunate condition for the beedril flying overhead took her to be dead and ignored her. Also, she could not yet feel the pain that would swamp her when she regained consciousness, five minutes later.

"Rowan?" Something cool was placed on her forehead, under her bangs. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light. "Are you alright?" Kepa was kneeling beside her, looking as bad as she felt and holding his palm over her forehead. As she opened her eyes he removed it. Rowan shifted, testing all her limbs and thankfully finding nothing broken or life threatening.

"I'll live." The Trader was bruised and covered with scrapes, including her fingers, which were rubbed raw from being dragged across the rocky face. Her clothes had been torn to ribbons in places and there were raw sores where the cloth had been completely torn away. She was still sitting under the tree which had stopped her and used it to pull herself up. "What happened?"

"I stopped before you did and hid myself in a crevasse; the beedril didn't see me and flew back. I guess they thought you were dead. We'd better get going, though; Damian is bound to send scouts after me." He rose to his feet, closing his eyes with pain as he did so.

Rowan looked the blaziken over more closely, with her healer's eye. "Your ankle is twisted," she proclaimed.

"Yeah, that's how I broke my fall; slamming against a rock."

She sniffed, "you're lucky it didn't break your leg. Hold on, I'll patch it up a bit." Using branches broken from her saviour-tree and strips of green and blue from her shirt and pants, she bound Kepa's ankle.

Together they limped down the cliff side, taking the remainder of the afternoon to do so. A copse provided them shelter for the night, where they lay down under the shelter of two twisted pines, too tired to hunt for food.

Kepa Nur turned a pleading look to Rowan. "I... have a favour to ask of you, Trader. I need your... help. I need... a human companion to go where Kaijuu are conspicuous. I need someone who can ask questions and who will be forgotten soon after."

Rowan looked up from the flames in surprise. "I refuse to help until I know exactly what I'm getting into. I have no desire to step into a gang war."

The blaziken sighed, resigned. "I suppose it couldn't do any more harm than what has already been done. Damian is after something, something that I know." Rowan nodded. "He is working for a woman named Loth, who has been trying to take this information from me for years."

"And what is this information!"

"... I am a blacksmith Kaijuu, you know that. A year ago I was tinkering with a number of alloys and discovered how to create adamantine, or, if not adamantine, a metal with similar qualities, similar enough to name it after that legend."

Rowan started at Kepa Nur, not daring to believe what he said. "...but adamantine is a legendary metal! There is no such thing!"

"Adamantine; a metal so strong it cannot be bent, melted or dulled. With time, it stays as strong as the day it was forged. Yes, I thought it ridiculous as well so I tested it." He shrugged, "I couldn't mar the surface or reforge it. If not adamantine, it is stronger than any current metal."

"..." Rowan sat down, mulling the possibilities over in her mind. "So why don't you want to share your secret?"

"At first I was ecstatic, thinking of all the good uses it could be put to. But others have different uses for my discovery. They want to use it to make weapons, armour and other elements of war. If I let this knowledge loose, it will be used to kill instead of to help. I could not live with the knowledge that I set this horror loose on the world."

Rowan traced a figure into the ground, then crossed it out angrily. "I suppose that makes sense." She arched an eyebrow at him, "I still don't believe you though. Do you have any proof?"

Kepa Nur bent and untied something hidden under the hair of his unwounded ankle and tossed it to Rowan. It was a small metal disk polished to a high shine with no blemishes and bound with a leather cord. The disk flashed brightly in the firelight as she turned it over and over in her hands.

"This is adamantine, then. It doesn't look very special"

Kepa shrugged, retrieving the disk and tying it around his leg again. "Even so, that is what it is. So will you help me?" A hint of desperation crept into his voice at the last bit.

Rowan threw up her arms, "Oh, alright! I've lost my cart and my Kaijuu and without them I'm no more a Trader than you are. You'll have to pay for all my food and accommodations, though. New clothes too," she added as an afterthought.

Kepa Nur grinned happily, "you've got yourself a deal, Trader!"

They talked a bit longer about nothing in particular, but sleep soon overtook the two exhausted companions, and they sank into oblivion.

Kaijuu:

- Beedril: resembling a wasp, with a stinger on each of its two front legs as well as their tails. Element poison