Everyone had to let their body clocks readjust after the staggered sleeping time of the previous night. Espir was the first awake, sleeping barely a wink, while Alexis slept heavily following the experience with the rift.
Groggy and disorientated from the messed-up sleep, Alexis and her team left Eterna the following day to get back on the road and, in Alexis' case, to get away from all that had happened within the city.
Espir was just as eager to leave the city. Even though he knew that there were like areas of research he could pursue with the museum, he couldn't risk getting caught by more Team Cosmic members. They would be better prepared next time.
They had only completed two gym badges out of the eight and Espir knew that Alexis was eager to get on with her mission and avoid too many detours due to Team Cosmic and his issues with them. For once, their goals aligned with needing to simply move and keep moving.
If Espir could remember correctly, the next gym along was in Veilstone City and was a fighting-type based gym. That meant he would be an asset when it came to not taking damage, whilst Letos might be less advantageous once again. Starly, Starly could be useful if they were able to get a bit more powerful before the gym. They held their own well in the previous gym, but would need to improve a bit more if they were to have the team's hopes riding on solely their wings.
Espir still held onto a small notepad and a pen, so that he could try and communicate with Alexis when he really needed to. Otherwise, their communication issues persisted as normal.
Espir tugged on Alexis' jumper to get her attention, having drawn a few symbols to try and get across his thoughts about testing Starly.
"You'd like to talk to the others?" Alexis asked with a smile, looking down at what he had drawn and clearly misinterpreting it.
Espir just shrugged, unsure how much better he could make the drawing in his current state.
"If you say so," Alexis said, pulling out the Pokéballs of Letos and Starly. She pressed the buttons and the red lights blossomed once again, releasing both of the birds; Starly and…
"Letos?" Alexis said, looking at the new Pokémon before them. This new Pokémon was twice the size of the old Piplup, slightly taller than Espir, if anything. It had dark blue wings, tipped with lighter- ice blue and a pattern that appeared to look like a light blue waistcoat with white buttons over its torso. It had two golden strips pointing out of its head like mohawks, meeting at its beak.
"You evolved?" Alexis asked, "you're a Prinplup, now, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Letos nodded, although Alexis only heard him reply with his Pokémon name, like normal.
"Amazing," Alexis said, grinning, "well done!"
"When did it happen?" Espir asked, but remembered just as Letos was explaining.
"During the fight to save you," he said, "I began to evolve right before I was retracted into the Pokéball."
Espir remembered the bright light that they had seen momentarily.
"Well, congratulations?" He said.
"This changes nothing," Letos said, flatly, "human."
Espir's stomach fell, or at least, the feeling of one did. In all the action, he had forgotten their conversation that led up to it. That was a mess he'd rather avoid altogether, but the cat was out of the bag now.
"I'm sure it won't be long until Starly is evolving, too," Alexis smiled, oblivious to the standoff that was currently happening, "I wonder if Marshadow has any evolutions? I'd say no, because you're a ghost, but Ghastly turn into Haunter."
Espir shrugged again. He thought he knew most of the rules of this world, but it would be just like his luck to claim that he wouldn't evolve, only to figure out that there was an entirely new Pokémon form waiting for him right around the corner.
"Trust you to take this moment away from me and hog the attention," Letos sneered at Espir.
"Nobody is taking the moment away from you, Letos," Starly said. "We're just talking, that's all. Just talking."
"There was a reason I asked if you could come out, Starly," Espir said, glancing at Letos and knowing that what he was about to say would likely set the water Pokémon off on another rant. "The next gym is likely made up of primarily fighting type Pokémon. That would mean you're our most important piece for beating them, but we might need to get you bulked up a little before then. Do you think you can handle that responsibility?"
"Who do you think you are to be calling shots like that?" Letos snapped, which only caused Espir to roll his eyes.
"I'd be glad to, if that's what everyone thinks is best," Starly chirped, trying to ignore Letos' anger.
"Shut it," Letos said, "I'm Alexis' starter, I should be in line to tow the team. Not some second fiddle to a bird."
"You're a bird," Espir muttered.
"Shut it," Letos snapped again, "if you want to bulk up so quickly, Starly, then why don't we do some training? Right here. Right now."
Espir immediately stepped in between the two Pokémon as Letos tried squaring up to the small bird.
"What's going on?" Alexis asked, confused at the gradual escalation during the Pokémon conversation, "why did you want to talk to them if you're inciting a fight?" She asked Espir, who started gesturing at Letos, knowing that she wouldn't understand the full picture.
"You had all better calm down," Alexis said, "or you're all going in the Pokéballs for a time out. Including you, Marsh."
Espir held up his hands and backed away, not wanting to risk getting put in a Pokéball for trying to stop a fight he only half instigated.
"That's right," Letos laughed, "back up."
"You talk such a big game for someone who finishes fights with his face," Espir argued back.
"I'll finish this next one with your face," Letos said.
"Great comeback, chicken."
"You are the one backing away."
"Yup. For your sake, not mine," Espir grinned, as he watched Letos begin to dive towards him. A quick flash of red and Letos was gone.
"Be warned," Alexis said to the remaining two Pokémon, "you'll both be following him if you keep this sort of attitude up. Marsh, why would you call them out just to start a fight?"
Espir knew this was likely his last chance to try and explain his plan to Alexis. He pointed at Starly. He then stuck his finger out and drew a three in the dirt trail that they were walking upon and did a motion like he was flexing his muscles. Finally, he pointed at Starly once more, then at the three and then pretending to fall over unconscious.
He opened one eye, while lying prone, and watched Alexis try and figure out his charades. She looked back and forth between him and Starly. Then, finally, he saw the lightbulb go off in her head.
"You want Starly to head up the third gym?" Alexis asked, to which Espir immediately began to nod, jumping up from the ground. "And you want her to train up in order to stand a better shot?"
Espir held up his thumbs, cheering for Alexis' attempt at translating his madness.
"But how do we train her?" Alexis wondered out loud.
"We do need more Pokémon eventually," Espir said, but obviously Alexis didn't understand.
"I'll try," Starly said to Espir, flying up a little and then making pointed attempts to draw Alexis' attention in a certain direction, towards the mountains.
"Well, we do need to make our way through there," Alexis mused, "but are you sure you can take the kinds of Pokémon that might be hidden with those peaks?"
Starly nodded proudly. This was her moment and she wasn't going to let it slip. The resulting couple of days found Espir and Starly talking often as she was out of her Pokéball quite a bit more than she used to be, to allow her to be battle ready for wild Pokémon and potential trainers. Espir wasn't allowed to be the first point of call for them and Letos would wipe the floor with wild rock or ground Pokémon, so this was truly a training exercise for how Alexis and Starly worked as a team, in order to get Starly over the last hurdle to getting to her next evolution.
Espir really only knew about the Pokémon experience from Letos' fury at him, and his own experience, so talking to Starly regularly helped to broaden his perspective a little more on what Pokémon life was like. Unfortunately, Starly's choice of conversation when talking about her own life didn't help Espir's emotions that much.
He found that she longed to go home, even if just for a moment, to see her family. She knew an entire flock from the woods near where she was captured and had actually been lost when they came across her. She didn't have a chance to say goodbye and, while she knew and accepted the rules of being caught by a trainer, it didn't stem the pain as much as she hoped it would. She didn't truly feel like she fit into the team and hoped to return to her own family soon, if she didn't manage to mesh well with the other Pokémon in the coming weeks.
All of her talks about wanting to go home only seemed to reignite what he had been avoiding. His own feelings about his home, his family, how he had left them. He hadn't done it willingly, but neither had Starly. Their issues were entirely different and yet, so very similar.
It also didn't help that Espir was feeling these emotions as the group walked through the cave system, through the mountain range of Mount Coronet. Too many harsh memories were being thrown at him, none of which he wanted to face. Then it happened, the distraction he had been hoping for, searching for.
Starly was getting towards the end of a brawl with a Geodude that had attempted to ambush the group as they climbed towards the exit of their long, dark journey. They could literally see the light as the Geodude sprang out at them. Starly, however, was at least more powerful than she had been during the first gym battle and this Geodude was nothing in comparison to Roark's Pokémon.
Though bloodied, Starly finally put the rock Pokémon to sleep. Espir thought that the light was coming from the entrance, considering how close they were to it, but the cave around them continued to get brighter and brighter as he watched a Pokémon evolve for the first time, before his very eyes.
Starly rose into the air as bright, white sparkles surrounded her and Espir had to wince to continue watching this spectacle, seeing the wings elongate as more feathers grew to cover the larger area. The beak extended further, the claws became sharper. Starly had become a Staravia.
"If that isn't proof I've gotten stronger," she said, "I don't know what is."
Alexis was too busy squealing in excitement to give a coherent response, but Espir just applauded as Alexis rushed in to hug the now larger bird.
Espir waited for the two to finish their embrace before urging them forward to the end of the cave system. Ironically, for a being made out of shadows, Espir was dying to see some sunshine for the first time in days.
Espir's emotions and memories had combined to make the cave walls feel oppressive, claustrophobic. Even the darkness held less comfort for him now. He needed to feel the weight off of his shoulders. He needed to feel like he could breathe again.
Unfortunately, as the three of them stepped foot back into the sunlight for the first time in days, Espir felt none of that relief. His pain that he had bottled up so efficiently for weeks, had finally broken open. He didn't know if he would be able to put it back into place. Or if he even truly wanted to.
ultima-owner: Only time will tell what could happen, but there's certainly a lot of possibilities right now :)
Mitzi-SAGA: That's a really big honor to have you say that, and we really appreciate that a lot! Familiarity for myself specifically was important going into this story, since I actually haven't really played that many Pokémon games since Generation 4. Of course though, it's important like you said for that familiarity to not go too far, or else the story just gets kind of bland when there's too much focus on the game world you already know about.
This story's plan is to slowly break away from that familiarity, and create an identity of its own. I'm glad you noticed that :)