Chapter Eight:
Off the Beaten Path
Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.
Notes: It is officially December, my lovelies! Happy Holidays! We've almost reached the New Year!
Current Team: Keno the Mudkip, Sela the Poochyena, Ambrose the Ralts
"Travel far enough, you meet yourself."
-Hae-Joo, "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell
The beach to the west of Petalburg, and just south of Petalburg Woods was clean and pristine to the eye. Shay breathed deep the scent of brine as she took her time strolling along the beach, and it soothed her down to her bones. It was a scent that was ever-present, if rather faintly, in Littleroot but here—it was full and fresh and something she missed so very much. Sela padded across the golden sands, trotting after the surf as it retreated and deftly dodging it as the water chased her back up the beach, her tongue lolling and her ruby red eyes bright with excitement. Keno wadded out into the waters and bobbed along the shallow surf adjacent to Shay as she walked. Ambrose was perched on Shay's shoulder as they perused the beach scene.
There were a decent number of people out and about, most of them enjoying their time outside, sunbathing, playing, or fishing. Only a handful of them were interested in battling with her. She was almost regretful of losing out on more beach time and half-wished she was able to enjoy the day at the beach more fully. But the air had a slight chill to it, and as she eyed the waters, they looked colder than she would have liked if she ever wanted a quick dip.
It took the better part of the morning to pick her way up the strip before it ended at a set of docks moored with several ships. A strip of shops and a few seaside cottages made up the end of the cove. After stopping for lunch, healing up, and restocking on a few supplies—simple first aid for her pokémon, mostly—they were on their way back on the main road that led to the woods.
This is definitely taking a lot longer than I anticipated, she mused as she scoured the map app in her x-transceiver device. A little dot representing her on the map blinked, tying into her device's geographical location using a satellite transmission. They were about a half day's hike from the divide of forest that stood between them and Rustboro City.
'Maybe you shouldn't have spent so much time hanging out at the beach then,' an intrusive and smug voice whispered. She shivered, like she always did whenever Ambrose spoke to her telepathically. She wished he wouldn't do that. He claimed it was hard to not comment or even resist from listening, not when her mind was so unguarded, so open. It was instinctive for a psychic-type to learn to listen to the words left unsaid and hanging in the mental air around them.
Or so Ambrose claimed.
Shay had said nothing to Keno or to Sela so far on the matter. Ambrose had requested that much of her, and she was going to respect that…so long as he at least attempted to try and stay out of her head or kept himself from voicing her concerns aloud.
The talk they had the other night had been…enlightening. Surprisingly. It was after Keno and Sela had both fallen asleep on the bed in the Pokémon Center the night before they set out. Shay had wanted to put the Ralts on blast for the invasion of her privacy, but before she could even get a word out, he had spoken first, holding up a paw in the air in a polite request that she remain quiet, so he could get out what he had to say.
"I know what you're going to say. I've heard every word, every edit of every word, and every re-edit of every word, tumbling through your head," he had started off, talking aloud to her, perhaps so as to not upset her further. That had nearly set her off into a frenzy, but instead, she had ground her teeth together so tightly it made her jaw ache. Nevertheless, she remained quiet and had nodded curtly to him to continue.
"It's unsettling to have someone else in your head. I try not to do that. Most other pokémon don't appreciate it either, but it's difficult when your thoughts aren't exactly behind a mental barrier. The only ones that know how to block me out are other psychic-types. And dark-types, but that's only because they're our polar opposites. No one can read a dark-type's mind, it's impossible. For everyone else…it can take training. Or so I've heard from my mother. I've only ever willingly aligned myself with humans when I decided to come along with you. I chose you for a reason."
That admission had quelled the surge of anger inside Shay, bringing it to a grinding halt and she felt herself drained completely all of a sudden.
"Why, though? Why would you do that?"
"Because you're not from this world. You've never seen a living pokémon before. And I find that interesting as hell."
Shay had begun fidgeting at that, her mouth having gone dry, her heart dancing erratically in her chest, her hands trembling.
"I…I don't…"
Ambrose had sighed at her stalling. "Please don't lie. I know when others lie. You're basing your entire journey on the premise of a lie, but it's an effort to look for a larger truth."
"You're…kinda scary." She had finally admitted, resisting the urge to squirm in her seat on the bed.
"Thanks. I try." Ambrose had grinned at that, and Shay had seen a flicker of tiny yet very sharp little canines in his mouth. The moment of humour passed them and it was all business again. "It is true, though, isn't it? That your world is…different? You have no pokémon there…not in the conventional, living sense."
Shay hadn't wanted to continue the conversation. Not at all. She had wanted to drop the subject, but she knew remaining silent was just as damning as any verbal confirmation she could have given. Even though Ambrose was blind, she felt as though he was boring a hole into her, somehow, and a chilling tingle crawled up her spine like prickly ice. So, she had done just that; she sat there on the bed quietly, finding solace in taming her fidgeting hands by gently petting Keno at first, and then running her fingers through Sela's fur. It was soothing, to an extent, especially when they slept on, unaware of what was being spoken of.
She'd only known them for less than a week, but she already loved them. She didn't want anything terrible to happen to them, not if she could help it.
"…please don't tell them. I don't…want them to hate me. And no one else can know, either."
"If there are more humans like you out there, you know that it isn't going to stay a secret for forever. They might not react like you have. Quiet, calm, with a hint of terror guiding their actions." Ambrose had replied, exasperated and cajoling all at once.
"I know. I know. Whoever they might be, they're probably loudly proclaiming that pokémon aren't real, that in their—our—world, pokémon are nothing but video game pixels, plushie dolls, Saturday morning cartoon characters! I know! I went through it when I first got here! Some of them might be diving wholeheartedly into this place, thinking it's a dream come true and that they'd better live it up as much as possible before they wake up! Some might be straight up in denial, even now! I KNOW!"
She'd gotten up to pace at that point, going back and forth like a predator locked in a cage and looking ready to pounce on anyone who dared to open the cage door even an inch. She positively snarled at Ambrose, in frustration and rage, but just as quickly as it had overcome her, it fled and she had sunk into the armchair across from the bed, exhausted. Luckily, neither Keno nor Sela awoke during her tirade, and embarrassment paired itself with her sudden bout of fatigue.
"I know that what I'm doing is insane. Lying to become a trainer, with a gym leader and a region professor's help? Attempting the League Challenge? I wasn't born in this world, but the fuck I don't know what I'm doing. If I can make it all the way to Champion—"
"—you might find a way home, by traveling out of the region and challenging veritable gods. Yes. You focus on that particular train of thought quite a lot when you aren't worrying about us." Ambrose was frowning as he had interrupted her, sounding almost…wistful. Sad. He shook his head, fur swishing back and forth as he did. "I'm not going to pretend I know everything. I've never traveled outside my home forest. All I have to go on are the thoughts and images I've cherrypicked from the minds of trainers and pokémon, and what my mother's told me of the world. What I do know is, it's going to be a long road ahead, for all of us. But…I think you could make it."
When he had smiled at her, genuine and without any hint of smugness, it had left Shay speechless. She felt less conflicted and less alone. Ambrose had offered her something she hadn't thought she'd be able to have, not to a complete and full extant: a shoulder to lean on. It felt strange to consider, but behind the cocky little façade he seemed to have coated himself in, he was perceptive and open-minded enough to see her worthy of being his trainer.
She had wanted to cry but berated herself instead to suck it the fuck up, which earned a knowing smile from Ambrose. She had sent him a sour look, but by the time she had crawled into bed later on, he snuggled in alongside her, patting her cheek and told her it was okay to cry if she ever wanted to, and that he wouldn't tell Keno or Sela any more than what she wanted them to know.
She still had her concerns and fears but having Ambrose and Keno and Sela around made it feel less terrifying. They trusted her. They trusted her to know things, to lead them, and that was daunting enough as it was, but at the same time…she felt secure in knowing that she had support.
"The girl is where?"
Norman had to fight the urge to smile, feeling a mite triumphant in wrecking the usually perfectly crafted air of cool control that Steven Stone was so famous for. Cool as a cucumber, yet calculated as hell, it was rather difficult to ruffle Steven's feathers.
And at this very moment, Steven was very ruffled.
Norman must have allowed something to slip, because Steven glowered at him through the screen, his steel grey eyes narrowed.
"Is something funny, Norman? Is there something I'm failing to find hilarious about this situation?"
"Nothing at all, Steven. I just think you're taking this all too seriously."
"This is incredibly serious. We have an unlicensed and inexperienced outsider running amok somewhere in Hoenn with a stolen lab starter and—" Steven fell short abruptly, his mouth clacking shut as realization dawned on him. "You let her go. Didn't you? And that starter wasn't stolen, was it?"
The monitor in his office was moderately sized, sitting upon his desk, with reams of unfinished paperwork towering either side of it. It was late, and none of the aides or trainers under his tutelage were in the building. It was simply him and his pokémon, and they were all out in the training field, idling about and waiting for him. So, at the moment, it was only him in his office, reporting in as Steven had requested on Shay's status. He had held off for as long as he could, but now he had to let the Delcatty out of the bag.
Norman stared at the monitor and at the visage of Steven staring at him from within the boxed screen, lifting his hands palms-up in mock-surrender, smiling in a conceding manner.
"I have no control over her, although I will say she's a bit of a stubborn one. Also, Steven, for the record, she isn't a little girl. She certainly isn't a child. Despite her…youthful appearance, she is a full-grown woman with her own agency."
"That is a funny little way of saying, 'I wash my hands of any responsibility'."
"Perhaps that is what I'm saying. You said to watch her. You didn't say to make a prisoner of her and prevent her from leaving my home."
Steven closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, scowling.
"Of course. We can't make the Appeared into prisoners—but we can't let them have free reign with the world, either. They don't exactly…belong."
"I don't feel it's necessary to treat her as though she's an alien species. She just as human as you or I. If you wanted to treat them as such, maybe you should have snatched them all up and locked them in a lab. Or perhaps stashed them away in an underground bunker far from the prying eyes of the public. Let soldiers guard them and a cavalry of scientists poke and prod them with needles and tubes, if that's where you're going with this." Norman said as he crossed his arms over his chest, staring challengingly at Steven. The other man, to his credit, allowed some manner of abashment to cross his features.
"No. That's not what I want, either. I don't want them to be harmed and I don't want them to feel…alienated."
"Locking her up and throwing away the key would have done just that," Norman pressed. Steven sighed noisily and nodded.
"You're right. But really, Norman—letting her go? Out into the world, without any clue as to how to survive?"
"From what I've gathered in conversations with her, she's had training in survival, first aid, camping in the wilds. In fact, she made it seem as though it was a part of her job back home. I doubt that she's as fragile as you're attempting to make her out to be." He gazed poignantly at the other man. "You haven't even met her, and you're already attempting to pin her into a box without knowing a thing about her, other than her status in this world."
"All right. I get it, Norman. My god, you've become quite an old curmudgeon in your age, haven't you?"
"I'm not that much older than you, son." Norman muttered sourly, mock-affronted. Steven chuckled, seeming to have deflated some.
"Right. Except, between the two of us, no one will be able to tell when I'm getting up in my age, whereas you are starting to go grey in the temples."
It was Norman's turn to scowl and Steven laughed again, looking relaxed like he usually is. Or used to be, at any rate.
"Do you know where she is, Norman? It'd be a good idea to keep tabs on her."
"I don't, not at this time."
"You're not telling me anything else, are you." It was a statement above all else. He already knew the answer, he simply wanted to hear it for himself. Norman's lips twitched at first.
"I'd rather not, no. I will say to watch your ass, though. She's intent on taking your title."
This news surprised Steven. His shoulders squared back, and his eyes widened as he processed this new information. His façade melted back into calculated caution. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly as I said. She's got her eye on the title of Champion and all that entails. I think she has it in her mind to use the connections of being Champion to travel to other regions." Norman frowned now, his face turning stony. "Like Sinnoh."
Steven's features relaxed into a neutral yet guarded mask. "So…she plans on taking what she wants by force."
"Not by force, necessarily. She's following the rules. She'll go through the gym circuit and challenge the League, through all legal channels, just like any trainer would."
"And you're not going to give us any information on her. Don't think I haven't noticed you've failed to provide even the most basic of details about her to us in the past several weeks. I don't even know her name."
Norman made a show of shrugging, feigning apologetic. "She's a rather private person. She requested I keep her information that way."
"It isn't as though we're going to broadcast it to the world."
"Regardless, I think I'd rather leave her a surprise to you all."
"Does she have any idea with what she's doing? With pokémon?"
"She's been under Birch's tutelage for the last few weeks. Apparently, he was impressed at how quickly she's picked up on everything just by proxy of being there and decided that she would be just fine on her own if she so chose. But we both know that if anyone wants to learn about pokémon first-hand, it's to get out there in the world and travel, battle other people and growing together with a team."
Steven cogitated the matter, his face betraying nothing as the seconds crawled by. Norman was tempted, as the longer his wait stretched on, to inform him of his arrangement with Birch. Steven broke the silence before he could.
"As long as you're keeping tabs on her—I'll…allow this matter to continue. I'm not a fan of it, but…perhaps we can see how well someone outside of our world adjusts."
Norman closed his eyes and sighed. So, she was just going to become another party's experiment? Of course, he couldn't very well judge on the matter.
He was letting it happen.
"I'll keep you updated," he conceded, opening his eyes. "Is that all, Steven?"
"One more thing…I want to know her name."
Norman's lips twitches and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Of course. There was always a catch. He was letting her do this, but at a price.
"Are you going to inform the others in the League? The other gym leaders?"
Steven smiled, strangely enough. It was genuine, without secrets or ill intent hiding behind it. Confusion briefly stole away inside Norman as he tried to interpret the meaning of it.
"Of course not. That would ruin the fun of everything."
"Never saw you as the type to have fun," muttered Norman. Shaking his head, he exhaled. "I suggest you commit the name to memory. She doesn't seem the type to give up easily. Her name is Shay Kenway."
Petalburg Woods loomed before them. At first, Shay saw it as an imposing mass from a distance, but as they drew closer, she began picking it apart—dissecting it by its individual trees to distract herself from the thought of the long hike ahead of them all. Her feet throbbed, especially where she still had blisters. She tried not to think about them, either, and instead counted her blessings that this wasn't a forced march, that she wasn't with her old unit and hiking nine or ten miles just for the sake of soothing and/or stroking the ego of one of her superiors. She could go at her own pace. She could set the pace, instead of being forced to follow someone else's, especially someone else who had longer legs and a larger stride than her.
Her back was beginning to hurt more as well. It's been hurting for hours, but she's been resisting the urge for just as long to down something to ease the pain. Finally, she couldn't take it any longer. Gently, she put Ambrose still riding in her arms down on the ground and threw her pack down on the ground, startling the others. They came to a halt and watched as Shay dug around in a pocket until she produced a pill bottle. Shaking out one of the painkillers, she downed it with a gulp of water from her canteen, replaced everything, and pulled her pack back onto her back.
"Okay, gang—let's skedaddle," said Shay, painting a smile on her face as she regarded her team.
She didn't want them to see her upset or in pain—not like they had the other day. She didn't want them to hear her complain either. Bitching and moaning was reserved for certain ears. She saw her team as equivalent to junior Marines. A sergeant didn't duke it out or chew another sergeant out in front of the junior Marines, not if something could be resolved in private, sergeant to sergeant. The same thing went hand in hand with bitching and moaning just to bitch and moan. If there were any troubles, she'd handle it, without complaining, without letting on that anything was wrong. As far as she was concerned, it was her role as a trainer, wasn't it?
They kept going for roughly another half hour, their pace slow and purposeful. When they reached the trail that would lead into Petalburg Woods proper, she called for a proper break. Surprisingly, Keno, Ambrose, and Sela were more than glad for the time being to simply plop down and rest just as much as her. She wasn't long in carefully peeling off her boots and then even more slowly, her socks. She hissed at the aggravated patches of red skin and throbbing blisters along her feet.
Haven't been hiking in a while. Jesus, she thought with a grimace. She let her feet air out, and checked on her blisters, careful not to disturb them. Piercing them and letting them drain was tempting, but after that was said and done, it'd be difficult to stand the rubbing of raw skin on raw skin for the rest of the day until she was able to rest up again. Shay was glad to see no new ones had formed yet and hoped it remained that way. She rewrapped them, and after pausing long enough to put on fresh socks, she began doling out snacks for the team. They dug in, tucking away the food with gusto. She did the same, taking her time until her feet had stopped throbbing.
As she ate, she rechecked her map, enhancing it to trace over the trails that trainers used, each of them that were marked for Petalburg Woods. Something gently touched her arm, resting on her to peer over the map. She caught a glimpse of blue and a flash of orange and knew it was Keno before turning to face him. He was staring at the screen.
"How much farther do we need to go?" He poked at the screen, tracing a paw across it. "It doesn't look that far to me."
"We've got a ways to go. It looks like at least a half day's walk until we're out of Petalburg Woods, and then—"
"—we challenge the gym!" Keno finished enthusiastically, wagging his tailfin and rump. He looked up at her, excitement glittering in his coal black eyes. "I'm ready! We've been training on and off since we left Petalburg! We can do this, I know we can!"
Keno's eagerness was infectious, and Shay found herself grinning broadly at the Mudkip. "Easy, bud. We still have to make it through the woods. And there's at least one grass-type in there we have to watch out for. Shroomish."
She didn't even need to look it up. The fleeting thought that she was tracing the journey that a player character in a Pokémon game proper would be undertaking crossed her mind, and not for the first time. She decided to try and ignore that for as long and as much as possible, telling herself it wasn't the same. Denial is the name of the game and oh, god, I really don't wanna think about it.
Her thoughts instead turned to the aforementioned grass-type, Shroomish. It could use a multitude of powders that could incapacitate in several ways: sleep, paralysis, poison. She did a mental inventory on all her supplies, almost to a feverish tune until she had the mantra down to pat: awakening, paralyze heal, antidote. Paranoia and deep-set anxiety were just some of the things the good old armed forces gave to her in her last ten years of service. And severe manic anxiety-depression one-two hit combo.
She tried to shake that particular thought off.
"Let's try to get out of here in the next five minutes," she announced, already beginning to pack up her things. She let her team finish off their food, stretch, get ready for the next leg of their journey. Just as she threw her pack onto her back, she saw a flicker of movement flitting about just beyond the tree line. It was small, but it was fast, just a shadowy smudge to the eye. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and an electric tingling trickled down her spine.
She ran through a mental checklist of known species of pokémon that showed up in the Petalburg Woods. Nothing big or predatory, nothing like that early on. That didn't mean there wasn't anything relatively dangerous in the area. She was still worried about Shroomish and their concoction of powdery attacks that could incapacitate them.
What else, what else? She wracked her brain. Slakoth, Wurmple, Cascoon, Silcoon…Zigzagoon and Taillow.
It was possibly that what she saw was a Taillow. It was the only flying-type that could glide easily through the trees.
Unless it's a Dustox or Beautifly. I mean, forest full of Silcoon and Cascoon and Wurmple and none of them evolve into their final stages? C'mon, that's not realistic.
Neither was being able to speak to creatures that had previously been fictional to her up until a few months ago, but that was neither here nor there. She had to make the best of things and keep moving forward. A gentle series of pats and pulls on her leg startled her, and she looked down to see Keno staring up at her.
"Are you okay? You've been staring into space for the last couple of minutes."
Shay knit her brow together, feeling her face heat up in embarrassment.
Get your head out of the clouds, she chided herself, even as she offered the Mudkip a placating smile.
"Yeah, just…got distracted. Thought I saw something."
"Oh, you saw something all right. It's heading this way," Ambrose stated rather matter-of-factly. Sela and Keno both turned to face the Ralts, who had his little arms crossed over his chest. Sela narrowed her eyes at him, then began sampling the air with pointed sniffs, her black nose quivering as she swayed it to and fro, her ears swiveling about. Startled, she turned to Shay, and confirmed much the same.
"I hear flapping. Must be a flying-type," she relayed to Shay.
"Taillow are pretty common," she muttered, more to herself, eyes ping-ponging back and forth across the tree line, searching between the shafts of light and pillars of shadows beneath the emerald canopy. What came at them was fast—faster than Shay expected it to be.
Ambrose was the one who got the warning in seconds before they were hit by the fast-moving projectile. The rush of air following it cut over the four of them. Into the sunlight the fast-moving creature flashed, its dark wings cutting a slim silhouette, arcing through the wild hot blue sky.
"Definitely a Taillow," Shay confirmed, her heart thundering like cannon-fire, beating a tattoo against the inner curve of her ribs. Whether it was from the sudden shock and awe moment of the Taillow's arrival, or from the rush of adrenaline roaring through her body and making it thrum in excitement, she wasn't quite sure. What she did know was that they were being attacked, and they needed to defend themselves.
Correction: they'll be defending me, since I can't do jack shit, Shay thought sourly as she glanced at her team. A part of her was tempted to drag her switchblade out, but stifled the temptation. She'd probably end up becoming a bigger target if she did that. And that wasn't going to solve anything.
Sela was a bundle of bristling fur, while Ambrose simply thrummed with a faint glow of psychic energy, and…Keno didn't look as ready as the other two. He didn't bristle and quiver with pent up energy as he had the night when they had met Ambrose. Keno was staring at the circling Taillow, his head turning in time to the pirouetting flying-type, curiousity painted on his face.
She didn't have time to ponder his complacency, even when it burned her up on the inside. She had to tamper down the kneejerk response to snap at him to get moving, to do something. Shay had to remind herself that Keno wasn't one of her junior Marines, that she couldn't just…yell at him for the sake of yelling. It wouldn't have been right, in so many ways. It would have reminded her of too many jackasses that did just that to her when she had been a junior Marine…
Keep your cool, keep your cool, focus on what's circling above us like it's a damned red-tailed hawk from back home.
The Taillow tipped its wings and began angling itself back their way with a scream. If anything was said, nobody seemed to hear it. Instead, Shay felt something in her snap in response to the little bird's war cry.
"Keno, use Water Gun! Ambrose, see if you can't hit it with Confusion! Sela, when it gets close enough, use Fire Fang!"
The Taillow whirled out of the way of the gushing torrents of Water Gun attacks shot its way, but it took a few hits from the quick blasts of Ambrose's Confusion attack. That seemed to slow it down, but not by much. It was still charging them with reckless abandon. A faint glint of an aura began to encircle its little body, growing brighter by the second.
"What is…that?" Shay muttered, a sense of dread beginning to grow like ice in her gut and make the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. The air shrieked as the glow grew brighter, bigger, until it was a hot blue that nearly dissipated the Taillow's silhouette from view. Her gut clenched and her shout for everyone to get down and out of the way came too late: the Taillow came blasting through in a blaze of glory, the air ringing with pure energy. The Taillow blew them all down, its aim true and hitting all three of her pokémon and threw Shay off her feet. They all went flying as the Taillow pulled up with a sharp tilt of its streamlined wings, the blue glow now gone from its body.
Shay saw double of everything, her head was ringing, her back and hips aching fiercely as she pushed herself back up, trying to find the flying fiend that was attacking her and her team. She heard one of them shouting, but it was difficult to hear who it was; her ears were both muffled completely and still ringing. She squeezed her eyes shut, popped her jaw open and closed several times, trying to get it all to go away.
'You might want to get up now! We need help!'
That voice was crystal clear as it overrode the ringing in her skull. Ambrose. Without opening her eyes, she snapped off an order, pushing herself up into a more proper sitting position.
"Keno, Water Gun attack! Shoot that damn bird outta the sky!"
While her voice still sounded distant even to her ears, she was regaining her hearing, slowly but surely, and the sounds of combat were beginning to come back. Another round of shrieking began to pick up in strength, heralding the Taillow closer with each passing second.
"Ambrose, Confusion! Sela, see if you can't Tackle it from the side as it gets closer, throw that Taillow off course!"
When she opened her eyes, she found one of everything—the way it should have been—just as the sight of the Taillow came crashing to earth, wreathed in the radiant blue glow whilst under heavy attack. Keno kept up a barrage of Water Gun attacks, Ambrose threw down with a barrage of Confusion attacks, and Sela timed her Tackle attack perfectly. She leapt into the air, colliding with the bird and managed to knock the Taillow off kilter, throwing its attack completely off. She was just as quick to follow up with a vicious Fire Fang attack. The dust kicked up and Shay jumped to her feet, sliding the straps of her pack off as she scrambled over to the heart of the battlefield.
Her team had the downed Taillow surrounded, each littered with their own series of gashes and cuts, each one weeping trails of red from them. Shay stared at them all, frozen, thunderstruck, before she slowly pulled out an empty pokéball and tossed it at the little Taillow. The pokéball barely wobbled after the Taillow was sucked into it, then stilled seconds later. A chime burst into the air, clear and tinny, but damning in its victory.
Shay let off a shaky, relieved exhale as she tiptoed closer and gently picked up the pokéball. Keno and Sela watched her, their eyes never leaving her. Ambrose tilted his head in her direction, a little smile painted on his white face.
"That was intense."
"That's an understatement," Ambrose retorted. Shay let off a stilted laugh.
"Yeah. Yeah, you said it."
She stared at the pokéball, the trembling in her hands beginning to fade. She glanced at the others, clipped the pokéball to her belt, and went back to her pack.
"Let's get you guys fixed up before we head out. We've got a long day ahead of us, and it's more than halfway over." She paused, a potion bottle in hand as she looked back at her team whilst they began to make their way to her. She smiled at them. "Great job. Really. You all did fucking fantastic."
They each beamed with pride in their own way. Shay fixed up the bigger wounds first before moving onto the smaller cuts and lacerations. An interesting difference she found in this world from the games themselves was the medicines used on pokémon. A potion vial, for example, was simply sprayed on a cut, although depending upon how deep and severe the wound was, it didn't just magically went away. Instead, it accelerated the healing process exponentially. Deeper lacerations or gashes couldn't be fully healed with a potion vial and while stronger medicines were available, they were limited to who was authorized to buy them. More severe injuries, such as broken bones, ruptured organs, or disease still needed to be treated at Pokémon Centers, and couldn't be reliably fixed by spray-on medication bought at a Pokémon Mart.
When Shay's team were secure in their dressings, she unclipped the newest team member from her belt and let them out. The Taillow stood still as stone, staring up at her, feathers slowly puffing up until the bird was nothing more than a fluffy poof-ball with wide, staring eyes. Shay could barely keep the smile from her lips as she pulled up another potion and waggled it in hand.
"Hey there. Sorry about that rough time you had with us. How about I fix you up before we get going?"
The Taillow said nothing, but did deign to look at the others, wordless in her inspection. While the Taillow was distracted, Shay did her own examination of the Taillow, tilting her head to see there were singed and sopping wet feathers alike in the mix; evidence of both Keno's and Sela's respective attacks. The Taillow turned back to face Shay, then nodded to her, slowly flattening feathers. Shay was slow in her work and took her time to ensure she didn't miss anything.
When she was finished, she packed up the discarded and empty potion bottles into another compartment of her pack. As she did, she asked the Taillow, "Do you have a name?"
The Taillow stared at her, as though contemplating how to answer. Keno came closer, drawing the Taillow's attention on him.
"You can tell her. She can understand you."
Feathers ruffled up once more, tilting her head to stare at Keno with one eye, looking dubious as she asked, "She can?"
"Yeah, it's great, right?"
The Taillow turned back to Shay, staring at her face for a few moments longer before answering her.
"Call me Faye."
"Faye it is, then. Welcome to the team!"
Additional Notes: Faye caused me a great deal of pain in-game. She had a scary arsenal of attacks, since she was one of those "special pokémon" type deals that popped up and then you could sneak up on for said scary arsenal attacks in Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. She nearly wiped my team out, for realsies. I had to switch them up a few times, heal them up, and use all three to take Faye down.
…It probably did not help that my team were all under level 10 and Faye was level 14. But my team fucking won, so there.
Pokémon: Faye the Taillow, Level 14
Nature/Characteristic: Serious/Alert to sounds
Move Set: Brave Bird, Peck, Growl, Focus Energy
