A/N: To the guest reviewer of the last chapter, thank you for your comments, I do appreciate them
Special Chapter – Into the Wild
Joshua
Josh inexpertly tied his hair back, half-listening to Eve huskily singing in the shower. She was spending an awful lot of time in there tonight. He paced vaguely back and forth, with little Meg's Poké Ball in hand. He still felt apprehensive about raising her from a seedling despite all the preparatory reading he'd done. For now, at least, it was a relief that she had germinated safe and healthy.
"- When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair!"
Oh how I love that she knows that song, Josh thought. He was glad, too, that she was in higher spirits. In the face of all the feuds, he was pretty sure she was missing her family tonight.
When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold - "Ack!"
Josh almost tripped over what turned out to be a discarded pair of Eve's underwear. He growled at them cursorily. Something strange had happened to her since he'd started wearing girl's clothes; for some bizarre reason she'd become steadily more careless about her underwear, and with properly shutting the door when she changed. He unceremoniously kicked them under the bed.
He was trying to read when Eve finally came out of the shower. Eve with her hair down was still an odd sight. She flopped down onto her bunk with an exaggerated huff. "Come lie with me!"
"Would you like to review that sentence?" Josh said drily.
"Pervert. Come on, lie with me!" Eve insisted.
"Alright, ye big babby," he said. "Move over, I'm not clambering over you."
Josh lay back next to her and tried to let the tension out of his muscles. It had been another long day.
"Can I have a story," Eve said.
"What kind of story."
"Tell me about that deer you caught," she mumbled.
"It's a long story," he warned.
"I'm not tired yet," Eve obviously lied.
Josh smiled at the bunk above. Eve could be such a child when she was tired.
"Well … it happened when I was sixteen, I think."
I
Glasswater River, Misho Region
Saturday 18th August 2007
The air of Misho was crisp and clear, tasting of pine needles and summer. The river was like a ribbon of blue winding through endless leagues of wild forest. Throughout these long leagues the greenwood ruled, maples and pines and balletically straight Godwood cedars. The land beneath the trees was hilly, rough, and lonely. Between Route 53 in the north and the Lake of Rage the Glasswater River flowed through a near wilderness. Towns along the river were rare before the Johto border. Maybe, in the distant past when Misho had once been part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, the river had been a busy trade route, but now, no-one travelled the Glasswater.
- almost no-one. A canoe glided downstream, cutting a glittering wake in the mirror-like surface of the water. It was piloted by a pair of teenagers. The girl in the stern was short for her age, with a round face bedashed with freckles under her eyes. Her long black hair lay like a sable sheet over her short grey dress, cinched at the waist with a belt threaded with a variety of canvas pouches.
Joshua Cook sat at the bow of the canoe, trying to just enjoy the moment. This was the first time either of them had been entrusted to an unsupervised wilderness journey of this length. Well, reluctantly entrusted. There had been plenty of scepticism from his dad and her dad, but between the two of them they were more resourceful, more knowledgeable and better navigators than anyone else of the younger generation. Not that there was much to navigate. The plan was simply to follow the river south to Brandonburgh at the Lake of Rage, about a seven day journey. They'd need to stop at Thain's Hill before nightfall tomorrow to resupply, since there'd be no more villages till the burgh.
Glasswater was a broad, peaceful river, about two hundred feet across from bank to bank. Supposedly it was near seven fathoms deep, but who knew what lay beneath that mirror surface, reflecting green forest and blue sky? There weren't many pokémon in this part of the world, either. From the canoe they could see small tribes of aipom in the trees or the odd shadow of a wooper swimming under the bow. Once, Josh was sure he spotted a pidgeot soaring high above, flying towards the peak of Duncrag Pike.
Singing helped pass the time. "J'ai récontré, trois joile demoisel-le!
J'ai pas choisi, j'ai pris le plus bel-le!" Josh sang.
"C'est l'aviron, qui nous mène, qui nous mène,
C'est l'aviron, qui nous mène en haut!" Linda finished.
And that was the reason Josh couldn't settle, right there. Seven days alone with Linda was both blessing and curse. There was no-one he'd rather spend a week with, that was the blessing of it. For so long now he'd felt like there was a warm compass lodged somewhere in his chest, and the needle always pointed due Linda. Linda made the most beautiful baskets, and that was cool. She could make the most tasty food from whatever was around, whatever the environment, and that was cool. She was powerfully curious about apparently everything, and that was cool. And despite all that she never made him feel small or out of place and so he couldn't help but want to be near her. The curse of it was that Josh couldn't help but wonder what they could get up to if he'd actually had the bloody courage to ask her out. Ah, what am I thinking? She wouldn't have said yes.
Josh twisted round in his seat, intending to ask her a question. Linda was singing tunelessly. Whatever the question was, it was immediately replaced by an appreciation of the view; river, forest and Linda together.
"Woss wrong with your fizzog?" she said, her accent endearingly full of Mulberry Town smoke.
"What?"
"You look happy," she smirked.
Josh never quite understood why Linda wasn't rated among the royalty of locker room pin-ups at school. She had a figure he privately thought of as callipygian; a figure he was well acquainted with by way of stolen glances, though he would never admit it.
The canoe subtly lurched as a swell passed beneath. "Did ye feel that?" Linda said.
"Ah …" Josh confirmed with a note of uncertainty.
"Where the hell is tha' coming from?" The boat lurched a second time, slightly more vigorously. Josh let his mind wander again. Linda Callipyge, that's got a good ring to it, he thought, wondering what she'd look like in a peplos.
He only got a moment to imagine it before havoc reigned.
II
The river erupted. Something huge and serpentine and scaly rose from the river, water cascading from its flanks. Its hollow, guttural roar thundered in his ears. Surging waves contemptuously spun the canoe around like a plastic bottle.
"Fucking hell!" Linda screamed, desperately paddling to stop the canoe from capsizing.
Josh's blood ran cold. That powerful scale-armoured body towered eight feet above, surmounted by a large, brutal head, its face twisted into a permanent snarl. A pervasive musky, piscine smell wafted from it. Its maw gaped improbably wide, incongruously flanked by pectoral fins and barbels.
Gyarados … Josh froze, transfixed by terror, his paddle completely forgotten. Another, leaner gyarados rose from the water with murder in its eyes. The first monster lunged, seizing the smaller gyarados below the head and mercilessly biting down. Huge plate-like scales crunched and ground in its jaws. It screamed, flailing ferociously in anguish. The thrashing monsters churned the river into a cauldron of whitewater.
Something warm that smelled of salty iron splashed Josh's cheek. He automatically touched his face – his hand came away bloody. The canoe pitched so violently that the gunwale nearly went under. Josh suddenly remembered his paddle and started slashing inelegantly at the water.
"Make fer the eastern shore!" Linda yelled. "We'll ride the surf out!"
"What the hell are gyarados doing in the Glasswater!"
"Shut up and paddle!"
An indigo fireball blazed by at head height and incinerated the treeline. The heat wash rippled back across the river, carrying an acrid smell of charcoal and boiling sap. Linda swore vehemently and kept on going regardless. Josh just paddled as hard as he could, hoping that she knew what she was doing.
The flight to the shore seemed to take forever, and at every moment he expected a Dragon Rage to come flaming across the stern. The noise was awful. Agonised roars, the crash and spume of water, visceral tearing … Josh risked a glance over his shoulder. The foaming waters were turning pink.
When he looked back the canoe was rapidly approaching the eastern shore, driven by the surf thrown up by the battle. Mud and gravel scraped against the keel. Heart pounding, he piled out, pausing just long enough to haul Linda out when she tripped at the gunwale. Indigo fire still burned smokily off to the left.
They fled up into the forest, two woodsmen slipping and stumbling like daytrippers out of Saffron. Linda was faster than he was, and usually she had the sharper eyes. But this time Josh saw the parasect in the leaf litter before she did.
"Linda, wait!"
"Parasect!"
A cloud of ochre spores mushroomed into the air. Linda ran right into it, her curse cut off by a bout of volcanic coughing. Josh grabbed her at arm's length and pulled her away from the spore cloud while she re-oriented herself. She coughed out thanks as they ran, and kept on running till the sounds of battle faded away.
III
Only when they were a good half mile into the greenwood did they dare to stop running. Linda slumped down against a tree, gasping down lungfuls of air. "Fuck … fuck me. Bastard bloody fish."
Josh didn't say anything. He realised his hands were shaking; his heart felt like it was trying to beat clean out of his chest. The forest seemed safe and familiar, softly lit by the August sun filtering down through the green summer leaves. The wholesome smells of earth, pine needles and warm leaves almost masked the tang of gyarados blood; he wiped his bloody hand on his jacket sleeve. Damnit, the forest was safe and familiar. But the river was now closed to them – he didn't want to think about how lucky they were. Whichever way you sliced it, gyarados were savage pokémon. If one of them took it into their head to overturn the canoe, well, that would be it.
"That's it for our journey, Lin," he managed. "I'm calling for help."
Linda just grunted. Josh studied his map for a moment before dialling. The stiff paper rattled in his shaking hand.
"Ranger Union, what's your emergency?" the operator recited.
"Hello, we've been stranded on Glasswater River. We were heading downstream by canoe, we were forced to the bank by a couple of battling gyarados."
Josh more than half-expected the operator to react with surprise. Instead he asked, "Do you know where you are on the river, where's the nearest landmark?"
"We're at grid reference MRSO, two-six-one, four-four-two."
"Okay … do you have any supplies with you?"
"What?" Josh said. He was getting a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. "What's going on?"
The operator went quiet for a moment. "There's been a gyarados outbreak at the Lake of Rage. I'm afraid we are extremely busy."
"Oh … er. We have two day's worth of food, but I'm more worried about my friend. She's inhaled a lot of parasect spores."
"Parasect spores, okay, how is she, what are her symptoms?"
"Violent, dry cough, breathing troubles."
"Not tha' bad!" Linda claimed.
"Okay," the operator said. "I'm really sorry, but it's going to take a few days to get you out of there. If your friend gets any worse, or if you change location, you must call nine-nine-nine, okay?"
"Right. Er, thank you," Josh said, hanging up. "Well. We're on our own for a few days. There's been an outbreak of gyarados at the Lake of Rage."
"That explains a lot," Linda said sourly.
"Ah," Josh replied. Gyarados weren't sociable pokémon at the best of times – the two monsters in the Glasswater must be exiles from the Lake. "We're going to need the stuff from the canoe."
"I know …" Linda said. She pulled herself to her feet. "Right, then."
"Hang on, hang, on you stay here, you're chuffing like a damn chimney."
"Woss that gotta do with anything?" Linda asked challengingly.
"Everything! If those two gyarados are still there we don't want them to see or hear us!"
"Are you -" Linda suddenly doubled over coughing. "Oh, fine! Be careful!"
"Obviously."
"I mean it. Don't be taking any risks."
"I won't," Josh insisted, wondering why on earth Linda thought he would.
Josh stalked back down to the river with almost exaggerated patience. He placed each footfall carefully, pausing every few yards to listen.
Nothing.
Trees still smouldered sulkily where the Dragon Rage had hit; waves rippled slowly in to the shore and slopped down onto the mud. He lurked behind a hawthorn bush, just in case, but there was no sign of the gyarados. Something floating in the shallows caught his eye, thin and filmy like a discarded trash bag. Bits of stringy flesh clung to it.
It was a severed pectoral fin.
Well, that's a disquieting sight, Josh thought, wondering which gyarados the fin belonged to and trying not to think about the fate of the loser.
Their canoe was still intact, luckily. All of the absolute essentials they kept on their person – their knives, firesteels, maps and compasses, Linda carrying the folding saw, Josh carrying the axe. Most of the equipment they could do without if push really came to shove, or replace with a natural substitute. That brand of self-reliance was the whole point of woodcraft, after all. Even so, considering the situation he was in no mood to make do if he didn't have to. He started to unload as swiftly as possible, starting with relaying the sleeping equipment up the hill.
Josh was just hauling out some of the food when he caught sound of an innocently soft rush of water. So innocently soft that he almost ignored it at first – but then, a strange, deep, croaking roar seemed to echo across the river. Something in the timbre slid right down into the primitive reaches of his brain and compelled him to pay very immediate attention.
Gyarados was back, and it was glaring right at him.
Josh didn't even curse. He simply fled, the fear-induced flush of adrenaline overruling his tired muscles' protests to drive him away from the canoe. The greedy crackling sound of a charging Dragon Rage helped. Hardly a second later the bow of the canoe ricocheted crazily off a tree, trailing a banner of indigo flame.
The river was definitely closed to them.
IV
Linda was getting worse.
The river had become suspiciously quiet, though a few scraps and scales had floated ashore. They set up camp in a sheltered hollow next to a narrow glade at the corner of 261 442. With their hammocks slung beneath the low crowns of a couple of linden trees, tarps pitched close above to keep off rain and honeydew, it was remarkably snug for hilly, chilly Misho.
Over the northern lip of the hollow the land fell away into a soggy dell inhabited by a slow-running burn. Water loving weeds thronged the mud; marsh marigold, watercress, saxifrage – but unfortunately no bullrushes. The western side was dense and thickety, with thorny coils of bramble shielding the campsite from the wind. Josh liked brambles. They were working-class plants, unmistakably weeds, thriving even in grey, graffitied corners of the urban maze. And from those woody, thorny, barbed wire tangles they put forth the most glorious crop of bluk berries.
But Linda's cough was getting worse. She headed off into the hills with her pikachu to get a look at the land while Josh stayed near the camp, taking advantage of the daylight and downtime to ferociously study the map. South away in the direction of Brandonburgh the river described a long, meandering arc circling the rugged, obstreperous highlands around Duncrag Pike. North, back towards Route 53, the land was considerably smoother.
Linda was gone for a few hours, not nearly as long as he expected. Usually, he'd see Lin's pikachu long before he saw or heard her. This time he swore he could hear her dry, racking coughs from a mile away. By nightfall she'd withdrawn to her hammock; her breathing was noticeably more difficult, and she'd coughed her throat raw. Josh was making tea from wild blackcurrants in the vague hope that it would make a difference. It was a decent remedy for colds but he had no idea if it would work on a fungal infection. Probably it wouldn't do any more good than soothe a sore throat.
He ducked under Linda's tarp, steaming mug in hand. "Lin," he said gently. "Tea."
She rolled over and made a nondescript moan. "Ye don't have te look after me."
"Yes I do," he said flatly. He laid his hand on her forehead. "You're definitely running a temperature."
"Mmpfh," she said, waving him away. He sat back down by the fire, to think.
Josh could feel the frustration welling up. That figure of two day's food he'd given to the Ranger Union would have been accurate enough, had the canoe not ended up as so much charred matchwood. Now he was rapidly revising that estimate down. A wait of a few days before rescue could mean anything. Under "normal" circumstances it would take at least two days to make him feel concerned, but … Linda's symptoms changed everything.
The key problem was, there weren't really any high-calorie wild foods around. There was no way he would let Linda go short while she was ill. And how am I supposed to find enough to feed us both while fasting? Brandonburgh was out of the question. That was the best part of four days away by canoe – it would take at least that long on foot, even without the Pike in the way. Thain's Hill though … that was only a day's journey away. But on the wrong side of the damn river.
"What am ye thinking about?"
"Nothing really," Josh said lightly. "Don't worry."
"Oi! I am not some urban! Don't you lie to me," Linda growled dangerously.
Josh didn't dare push his luck. "I'm thinking I need to go hunting tomorrow."
V
Sunday 19th August
The morning's hunt took Josh north. It had rained during the night, turning the earth beneath his feet dark and squidgy. He was travelling as light as possible, carrying just the minimum tools and a bit of bannock in his jacket pocket. Linda's pikachu scurried alongside him, occasionally scrambling up the trees in search of bird's eggs. Pikachu was no chubby scamp from Viridian Forest but a belligerent Mulberry-chu, and had been living in a bin till Linda caught her. She was part of his toolkit, too. Her sense of smell was better than his, of course, but without a bow Pikachu would have to bring the quarry down.
Josh made a laconic notation on his map, marking the direction of some tracks. The area to the northeast was spotted with light green, indicating open meadows and sparser woodland, good deer habitat on paper. He chewed a scrap of bannock pensively. The plan was to scout it out in a circuitous fashion, approaching from the southwest to stay downwind. In theory, assuming there was enough evidence of cervine activity, he could then find somewhere quiet to wait in ambush.
In theory. Two words he wished he didn't have to use. Truth was, he'd never actually been on a hunt, per se. Oh, he knew how to move quietly in the woods, how to interpret tracks, how to butcher a carcass, but -
"Piiika!" Pikachu squeaked impatiently.
"Sh," Josh said sharply, for what good it would do.
There were two prevailing views in the community in regards to hunting. One side held the view that they should emulate their hunter-gatherer ancestors in every way possible, and that included hunting for meat. It was a stance Josh didn't entirely agree with. He wouldn't take a life unless he needed to. The irony of that wasn't lost on him – he wouldn't hunt unless he really needed to, and now he really needed to he didn't have that critical experience.
He painstakingly circled round west-northwest, pausing frequently to listen. Nothing. Even the pidgey were quiet. A shallow slope ran up to the meadow, a babbling burn running on the western side. He was pretty sure at least two deer had been here since the morning, based on tracks approaching from the north and heading off in roughly the same direction.
What now?
Josh stood in an agony of indecision. Stantler would probably return at dusk, but was that true of red or sika deer? Damnit. Josh had no idea whether there was a better hunting ground further north. He wondered if this was how most people felt when lost in the woods – not daring to make a mistake but completely unsure about what the mistakes were.
Damn it. Damn and blast it. It could take hours to find a better hunting ground, and he didn't have hours. He would just have to wait in ambush and hope for the best. He chose a tree as his hiding place. An oak, with the oak's characteristic low, twisty branches, growing usefully at the south side of the meadow. Finally, some bloody luck. About eight feet up there was a point where two branches formed a natural crook, close enough to make a reasonably comfortable seat.
On any other day it would have been an entirely pleasant place to sit. The day was warming up, the sun breaking through a grey blanket of cloud. A persistent east wind rattled the leaves and sighed through the grass, a lullaby sussuration whispering about summer. Then there was the odd sensation from knowing the absolute certainty that the only other person around for leagues and leagues was Linda, trying in vain to cough her own lungs up.
Linda … he was starting to feel like an emotional tangle on that count. Hardly twenty-four hours ago, he'd been pointlessly crushing and indulging in his own social cowardice. Now he was crushing good and hard, but the focus of it all was – well, he didn't know how ill she was, which was worrying in itself.
Time drew out mercilessly. There was nothing to do but watch, listen, and worry, and no way to mark time but by the slow, slow ticking of his Pokégear. There were no new sights, no new sounds but the waving leaves and whispering in the grass. The rough gnarl of the oak's branch steadily ceased to be comfortable, developing into a constant ache in his arse. He didn't dare shuffle around – too much noise, and the meat was more important.
Time drew out mercilessly. Pikachu scampered off, the treacherous rat, though she at least had the decency to stay in sight. She scrabbled around in the leaf litter looking for gods-knew-what. Nuts, fruit, carrion, it was all the same to her. The old habits of a street-chu die hard.
Time drew out mercilessly. Frustration rose in him like a hot cloud. The light changed from gold to grey as the late afternoon wore on to evening. Intrustive thoughts of the food he didn't have and couldn't leave the tree to find added to the worry and the uncertainty and the damn ache in his arse. And still nothing changed. Maybe he was wrong about ordinary deer being at all like stantler. Probably he was wrong about ordinary deer being at all like stantler. Damn, blast and curse that bastard gyarados. This forest was making a fool of him.
That night he returned to camp empty-handed.
VI
Sleep did not come easily that night. Josh lay awake in his hammock, tired but not sleeping. And hungry, too. Dinner had been what amounted to a light wild salad, since he didn't dare eat any more of the packed food, not yet.
Linda was worse. Probably. Her cough had abated somewhat, but now she was shivering and mumbling cryptically to herself.
Josh curled up guiltily. What he really wanted to do was climb in the hammock with her; for her comfort, was the reason he told himself. Ah, but that wasn't entirely true now, was it? The other reason was not the sort of thing to be thinking of while Lin was ill, damn it. The dishonourable thought squatted smirking at the back of his mind like a palpitoad at the bottom of a pond.
The Ranger Union wasn't any more help, either. So much for 'calling them back if Linda got worse'. All he got was generic advice for treating fevers.
Something dashed along his hammock and sat on his midriff. "Pi."
"What dun you want," he mumbled.
"Pika."
It wasn't too hard to guess what she was trying to say. "Don't know. But if you want to help, behave yourself tomorrow. For her sake."
VII
Monday 20th August
"Yoink," Josh murmured, thieving an egg from the nest in the reeds. "Sorry, absent birdie, but I'm ravenous."
And if there were more he would have pinched them all. He immediately stopped to cook the egg in embers, simply pushing it right into the hot ash. Thankfully it hadn't 'babbied', as they said in Mulberry Town – no half-developed chick, just a perfectly good egg.
"Go find your own," he told Pikachu, "I know you can."
The day unfolded much as it had done yesterday, except with added hunger and anxiety. Anxiety, hah. Fear, more like it. Linda was still burning up. For reasons he didn't really understand, she'd flown into a fury just before he left camp that morning, then just as inexplicably burst into tears when he did leave.
Tears, of all things, from Linda! The fever must be getting to her.
From his uncomfortable oaken seat Josh found himself focusing on every sound and sight. Anxiety turned every meaningless rustle and flicker into phantom quarry, for hour after hour.
The day was tending towards evening when a twig almost coquettishly snapped. Josh's head whipped round. East-northeast. Upwind, directly upwind at that. There was too much waving foliage and branch in the way to see what had made the noise. Sunlight scattered off flecks of dust on the lenses of his glasses, which didn't help. Had he imagined it?
"Pikachu," Pikachu said quietly. Josh gave her a warning tap on the head.
There were a few more rustles of leaves that could not be blamed on the wind. Come on. Show me what you are.
A slender head appeared among the bushy undergrowth, followed by the graceful ruddy-brown body of a red deer. Josh felt his heart leap sharply – he stifled a gasp of surprise. The doe was young, perhaps thirty inches at the shoulder. She picked her way across the meadow with an apparent lack of concern, which he took as a sign that she couldn't smell him.
Come here … come a little closer. I'm not here.
I'm not here. He mentally chanted the words like a lucky charm. He could almost smell her now with his inferior, human nose.
Go. He gave the order with an urgent wave of the hand. Pikachu shot down the tree head-first and raced through the undergrowth like a yellow streak. One moment the doe was looking up suspiciously, the next a flash of silver and she collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Silence.
"Pi-kachu! Pika!"
Josh awkwardly clambered down from the oak, limbs stiff from long hours of inactivity. The doe was lying like a discarded plushie with no obvious injuries. Pikachu's Iron Tail had efficiently broken her neck. The sight seemed to drive the implications of what had just happened into his mind. Relief, blesséd cool relief, washed over him like a wave. He dropped to his knees and passed his hands across his face.
He stroked the doe's pelt with a certain reverence. "Thank you for the gift of your life," he told her. "Oh … neatly done, Pikachu."
"Pi."
Now. How best to divvy her up? One of the older guys in the community had been something of a traveller, in the sixties, when the Empire was still Imperial. He'd told Josh once that when the hunters in northernmost Haakono brought down a reindeer or a great elk-like hjórþr, the first thing they'd do is drink a cupful of the blood, like warm instant soup. He'd seen it done, apparently.
Josh had reason to take the old man's story with a pinch of salt. But then, as he recalled, he was also an excellent hunter. And well, he usually told very obviously tall stories. He drew his fine aron steel knife and drew it smoothly across the doe's throat, hastily catching the spurting blood in a cup from his stripped-down pack. Hmm.
Josh usually had a neutral attitude towards blood, but still, there was something sort of grim about drinking a cup of scarlet vitae. Pikachu had no such reservations, however, cheerfully lapping at the growing pool in the grass. Well, I'm not going to be outdone by a pikachu. He took a small, cautious sip. Then he took a rather larger one. Maybe it was due to hunger, but the salty, coppery taste was at least agreeable – his body's way of saying 'More of that!' he supposed.
He worked quickly, feeling vastly more confident with a familiar task before him. He warded the area with Super Repel and lit a cooking fire before starting the hard work of the butchery. Always hard work, even with good tools, he thought, patiently peeling back the skin. The liver went on to the fire as soon as it was hot enough, for a wolfed-down lunch. In the end he had most of the meat bound in to a cannibalised rain poncho with everything else fair game for man or monster. Including Pikachu, face deep in the heart.
Super Repel would be wearing off soon. Josh washed his bloody hands in the burn and went to retrieve Pikachu. "Come on, you yellow rat."
"Chu," she said dismissively.
"Your loyal concern for your trainer is so heartwarming," Josh said sourly, stepping over the discarded skin. He'd removed it neatly, out of habit. Shame to leave it really, it was a beautiful pelt. But … it was extra weight to carry.
The doe's severed head seemed to stare reproachfully. You'll drink my blood and eat my flesh but you won't do me the courtesy of using my skin?
Damn it. "I'm going to regret giving in to you," he told it.
VIII
"You came back!" Linda sobbed, desperately clinging to him like a remoraid.
"Linnie, where's your dress?" Josh managed. For some reason she'd stripped down to her underwear. The girl was burning up, she felt like she'd spent an hour in a hot spring.
"Hot," she said shortly, "the, the shaymin said that you weren't coming back, that you'd gone to Brandonburgh -"
"Shaymin?"
"Yes. He had nettles," she said cryptically.
Feeling scared and flustered, there's a lovely new experience, Josh thought, in a rather brittle frame of mind. He gently extricated himself from her grip. I went hunting, remember? Linnie, I need you to put your dress back on -"
"But -"
"Linnie. And then you can tell me how to cook this venison, ok?"
"Um. Shaymin said -"
"I won't leave you."
Smoke and fire, she's delirious. But she put her dress back on, slowly, as if she didn't really understand why. Thank whatever gods were listening – at least now he could concentrate on looking after her. With food, useless bloody food that wouldn't cure whatever the hell she was ill with.
Gods he was scared. Scared, and out of ideas. Nothing left now but hope.
Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together.
IX
Tuesday 21st August
Ranger John Rosenberg shifted position on Lapras' back, standing upright braced with one hand on her neck as they cruised steadily upstream – on the hunt for rogue gyarados, primarily. Westwards on the left bank of the river Ranger Fisher was patrolling on foot, likewise Sergeant Jensen on the right. They were all dog-tired from long days of active duty without much real sleep. Finally reinforcements were beginning to flow in from neighbouring Reserves and the Misho Union, but not so many that anyone could be rotated off. So many magikarp had evolved so quickly, that no-one knew how they were going to control them all. The Rocket's evolution machine had wreaked havoc with the ecology of the Lake.
Such a bland way of describing it. The sheer callous disregard for human life was breathtaking – filling the Lake of Rage, with all its lakeside villages, with bewildered new gyarados that would inevitably have to battle for their own survival. And when gyarados were feeling bewildered and threatened they tended to spread the violence around.
Rosenberg tapped his free hand restlessly against the UD6 submachine gun holstered at his thigh. It wasn't just gyarados they were patrolling for. Some of the Rockets – no-one knew how many – had fled into the wilderness to escape arrest. Which was the specific reason why Rosenberg was here. His rank was technically Constable-at-Arms, a firearms officer, insurance against any especially violent Rockets.
"Keep it sharp, lads," Marshal Henley radioed from astride his pidgeot. They banked out of the thermal they had been riding and glided back north towards the rest of the patrol. He kept an eye out for any signs of a camp. They were coming up on 261 442, and he was keen to get those stranded hikers located and rescued as soon as possible.
"Gyarados surfacing," Rosenberg radioed calmly. It burst from the mirror surface of the river in a spume of foam, roaring. "She's a new one."
"Engage," Henley ordered.
Rosenberg's lapras hit it with a sustained Ice Beam, aiming for the head. With a flash and a splash Jensen unleashed his feraligatr.
"Rosenberg, hold fire. Fly, Anemos."
Anemos gained speed with a few strong wingbeats, lined himself up on target and plunged into a dive. As Anemos leaned forward, Henley leaned back, remaining poised and upright in the saddle as the wind rushed in his ears and the river rushed up to meet them. Anemos' wings flared, talons presented -
- impact. The gyarados thrashed its head violently, trying to throw them off – Henley seized the grab rails in front of the saddle – but Anemos took no notice and tore at the flesh between its scales with his beak.
"Back to the sky," Henley said. Gyarados tried to snap at Anemos as he took off, only to find that Feraligatr had chosen that moment to drag it back down. It turned to bite, and took an Ice Beam to the face. The two pokémon tenaciously harassed the gyarados, goading it into exhausting itself with useless thrashing and snarling.
"I'm going for the catch," Henley said.
"Right, sir."
"A slow circle, Anemos." His pidgeot swooped low and banked slowly round Gyarados, giving Henley ample time to pull a Dive Ball from the saddlebag. A nice, easy throw. The Dive Ball engulfed Gyarados and dropped down into the water. After about half a minute of inactivity Rosenberg went in for a closer look.
"Capture confirmed, Marshal."
"Good. You take custody, Rosenberg. Someone, give me a grid reference."
"Er … north side of two-six four-three, sir," Fisher said.
"Right. Nice, wide search, gentlemen, we need to -" he broke off abruptly. He could see a figure desperately trying to get his attention. "Forget that. Quarter mile upstream, eastern shore. I've found our hikers."
"I don't remember much about that day," Josh said. "There was a lot of first aid – Heal Bell, Aromatherapy … they got her out by air ambulance, but there wasn't room for me in the helicopter, so I stayed behind. Two days of, I don't know. Faffing around with crafts to try and take my mind off it."
"Was Linda ok?" Eve asked.
"Eventually. She was in hospital for nearly three weeks in the end. The parasect spores had caused a form of aspergillosis, apparently. That explained her fever and delirium … the doctors told me that keeping her fed had tipped the balance, but I'm not sure I believe them."
Eve sighed thoughtfully. "You should tell Mum that story."
What, including that bit where I get distracted by Linda's butt? Besides, that story wasnt anywhere near impressive enough to get Gabriella Joy to like him.
"I was lucky," Josh insisted. "I later found out that red deer aren't usually active till dusk. Apparently that little doe was an adventurous one."
"I think I might tell her," Eve said as if she hadn't heard him.
Josh scowled up at the underside of his bunk, remembering the frustration and the gnawing anxiety. "Stupid bastards. They almost killed Linda with that vile machine. And the worst of it is that none of them would have even known if they had."
Eve laid a hand on his chest. "Maybe you should believe the doctors," she said. Her expression turned mischievous. "Don't think I don't know what 'callipygian' means, sweetling."
"Ah …" Josh said, realising he'd got a bit carried away in the storytelling.
"Aww. Iron boy has red blood in his veins after all," Eve teased.
"You shut up, you."
"Do you want me to leave while you think about her some more?"
"You have a filthy mind, Evelina Joy," Josh said accusingly.
"No I don't. I'm a young woman with a healthy sexual appetite," she said with a saucy wink.
"I'm going to my own bunk," Josh said flatly.
"Aww, stay here!"
"No! You've had your chance to make fun of me."