Friday, October 6th, 2017
I awoke to howls.
For a bleary moment, I didn't think anything of it. It was far from common, but it had happened on more than one occasion when I'd visited a friend's cabin in the northern part of the state back home. My indifference lasted for about two seconds before I realized with a start that there was a far cry between hearing wolves from the safety of a cabin and hearing them when camping in the middle of a forest. My growing concerns were amplified when I felt Peren shift beside me as he started to pull himself to his feet, despite the fact that he couldn't stand up all the way inside of the tent.
The howls went quiet and there were ten seconds of complete silence in the night air, making me relax a bit. Just as I was about to lay down to go back to sleep, there was a loud squawk from outside of the tent, followed by a glowing red light that lasted several seconds. Without hesitating anymore, I unzipped the entrance to the tent and Peren rushed out while I quickly slipped my shoes on. Once that was taken care of, I stumbled out of the tent following my starter with Ekans and Scout only moments behind me.
Even though it was the middle of the night, the full moon illuminated enough of our campground so that I could clearly see what was causing the ruckus. Six Poochyena and a Mightyena were softly growling as they slinked through the trees towards the tent while Blitz buzzed them with Flame Charge from above. While the Poochyena looked like the normal ones of their species, Mightyena had the same white fur as the one that I had seen on my first day in this world. Blitz was focusing his attention on Mightyena but he hadn't been able to reach the evolved Pokemon since one or more of the Poochyena would jump up at him whenever he made a pass.
I took several steps away from the tent to stand behind Peren who stood resolutely watching the approaching Pokemon. I wracked my brain trying to remember how to scare off different types of wild animals, and while I was pretty sure that noise was what you used for wolves, I had no idea what you were supposed to do for hyenas. The only thing that I was sure of was that you shouldn't turn your back to either, which meant that running away wasn't a good idea.
"Growl!" I ordered, much louder than was strictly necessary given my Pokemon were barely a foot away from me. Peren made a guttural noise that was much deeper and louder than I had thought he was capable of, but the pack paid him no mind and continued their advance. In fact, the only change was that Mightyena shifted its full attention to Peren, seemingly content to let the Poochyena continue to protect it from Blitz's attacks.
Mightyena's rapt attention made me realize the uncomfortable truth that all of my Pokemon were prey animals, or at the very least, much lower on the food chain than the Pokemon we were facing. I'd already eliminated running away as a possibility, and returning my team was out of the question since I doubted that I'd be left alone if I didn't have any protection. That meant that fighting them off was our only remaining option.
Any remaining drowsiness I had was burned off by adrenaline as I loudly called out commands, "Blitz, keep focusing on Mightyena! Peren, force them back with Bullet Seed and Tackle as a last resort! Scout and Ekans, use Thunder Shock and Glare to paralyze the Poochyena!" Mightyena must have had the same idea as me since it tilted back its head and Howled, prompting goosebumps to cover my entire body as the Poochyena darted forward.
Now that his target was undefended, Blitz mustered flames around himself and dove back down towards Mightyena. Not missing a beat, Mightyena stopped Howling and pivoted so that its maw was facing the diving bird. Blue-tinted wind shot out of the white predator's mouth and snuffed out most of Blitz's fire before he could alter his course. Blitz was still able to slam into Mightyena's side, but his attack appeared to do almost no damage because of his diminished flames. Undeterred, he flew back up and worked to resummon his fire before making another pass.
The Poochyena had charged towards Peren after Mightyena's initial Howl, though their advance was quickly slowed by a steady stream of Bullet Seeds. The attack's rapid attack rate meant that Peren was able to minorly threaten all six Poochyena at once, forcing them to approach carefully instead of maintaining their initial sprint. As Ekans slithered past me, I saw a flash of yellow from his eyes at the same moment that the leftmost Poochyena stopped in its tracks. Ekans continued moving forward past Peren, but I quickly lost sight of him in the night because of his coloring.
A tiny bolt of electricity briefly added additional light to the fight, but the strike hit the ground next to Peren instead of even getting close to hitting one of the Poochyena. I looked down to check on Scout and saw that she was hiding behind my right leg, shivering badly. Being sure to keep an eye on the battle, I slowly leaned down so that I could pick her up and move her up to my shoulder. "It's going to be alright," I said softly while watching Blitz come down for another pass, but Scout continued shaking from her new perch.
This time, Mightyena wasn't able to slow Blitz with the attack it had used previously and there was a flash of red light and a yelp as Blitz landed a Flame Charge on its back. The Poochyena halted at the noise and Ekans took advantage of the distraction to strike. As the light from Blitz's attack faded, he slithered across the leaf-covered ground and Wrapped himself around one of Poochyena before Biting down on it. The Poochyena yipped in pain and two of the other attackers broke off to help their packmate.
Mightyena hadn't taken Blitz's attack without a fight and before he could fly out of range, it whipped its head around and blasted him with another burst of chilled air. As Blitz struggled to stay in the air, Mightyena reared back its head and loudly Snarled. With the poor illumination, the dark ring of light that came from Mightyena's mouth was hard to see, but its effects were obvious as it blasted through my Pokemon. With a desperate flap of his wings, Blitz managed to land on a low-hanging branch to regain his strength while Ekans and Peren shuddered before resuming their own attacks.
When the wave of blacklight hit me, I took an involuntary step back at the sharp pain in my stomach while feeling like someone had splashed cold water on me. Though the effects of the attack started to fade after a couple of seconds, I wasn't able to regain any previous feelings of warmth and shivered violently in the cold October night.
He'd been able to rewrap his current target, but the Snarl attack must have disrupted Ekans's Glare since the Poochyena that he had paralyzed shook itself before bounding towards him. Without missing a beat, Ekans's eyes flashed yellow as he Glared at a different one of the Poochyena while simultaneously smacking a third with his tail. While he had temporarily disabled two of them, Ekans was fighting four opponents by himself and I tried to call out to Peren to help, only for my voice to get caught in my throat.
As I shivered from the cold and Mightyena's attack, I could still feel Scout doing the same from my shoulder. Despite her fears, Scout managed to shoot out another bolt of electricity, this one arcing forward and hitting the first Poochyena that had been paralyzed by Ekans. The Pokemon yowled as electricity coursed over it for the few seconds that it took for the attack to fizzle out. Mightyena apparently had enough of letting the Poochyena lead the attack and Howled one more time before bounding towards Peren, with Blitz taking back to the air a second later to follow with another Flame Charge.
The Poochyena that had been attempting to attack Peren were invigorated by their evolved form's call and suddenly lunged at him. Rather than trying to continue to force them back with Bullet Seed, Peren reared back on his hind legs before bringing his forelegs back down on his attackers, pushing them down and into the ground where they lay stunned. Finally having a moment of respite, Peren didn't relax and instead fired another volley of seeds at one of the Poochyena trying to attack Ekans before turning his attention towards the quickly approaching Mighyena.
Blitz had finally built up enough speed to catch up to Mightyena, but the heat and light that his attack gave off alerted the white wolf Pokemon to his presence. Without missing a step, Mightyena spun around and tried to Bite at Blitz, once again forcing him to call off his attack at the last second to avoid his target's maw.
While I'd been distracted by Mightyena's charge, the Poochyena that had been hit by Peren finally made it past Ekans's tail and managed to Bite on the coiled Pokemon. In his attempt to wiggle free, Ekans unraveled from the Poochyena that he was Wrapped around, leaving that Poochyena struggling to regain its footing. Another Pound from his tail made the Poochyena that had bit him let go and Ekans surged forward to Wrap it next, but the dog Pokemon jumped backward with its teeth bared.
Not paying any mind to the battle taking place at its feet, Mightyena rushed past Ekans and his opponents to charge directly at Peren. The deer Pokemon attempted to repeat his success against the Poochyena by rearing back again, but this time his opponent lithely dodged around his hooves and bit down on his flank. Peren grunted loudly and flailed his legs to try to dislodge Mightyena but the wolf held fast for the few seconds that it took for Blitz to hit it in the back with yet another Flame Charge.
As Mightyena jumped back, I desperately tried to think of what we could do to take care of what was obviously the largest threat. Ekans's Glare attack had been extremely effective at removing opponents from the fight, but the fact that he had only used it on one Poochyena at a time made me doubt that he could paralyze more than a single target. If that turned out to be the case and he tried to Glare Mightyena, there was a good chance that he would be torn apart by the four Poochyena before my other Pokemon could come to his aid.
As Peren narrowly avoided getting bit again, I realized there was something that I could do and rushed back to the tent. Careful not to knock Scout from her perch, I shoved my right arm through the tent's flap and found my backpack. After a few seconds of blindly searching, I managed to find what I was looking for and stood back up, now holding my last two empty Pokeballs.
"Can you try another Thunder Shock?" I hoarsely asked Scout, hoping to get a lucky paralysis on the Mightyena before attempting to catch it. There was a few seconds delay before a bolt of electricity shot from my shoulder, but once again the bolt hit the ground next to Peren instead of its intended target. Mightyena was doing a good job of holding its own against both Peren and Blitz as it blasted them with another burst of cold air, so I decided that I couldn't afford to wait for Scout to try again.
After shifting one of the Pokeballs to my left hand, I threw the other as hard as I could at the brawl taking place less than ten feet away from me. The Pokeball sailed through the air, curving slightly through the air to avoid Peren, and hit Mightyena with a loud smack. For the first time, I saw a Pokemon resist a Pokeball as Mightyena pulled away slightly from the red light that started to engulf it. Despite its efforts, the Pokemon was sucked into the Pokeball, which landed on the ground with a thump.
Almost all of the combatants stopped what they were doing to intently watch the Pokeball that was slowly shaking at Peren's feet. The one exception was Ekans, who used the distraction as an opportunity to Wrap and Bite the Poochyena that had previously evaded him. I barely gave his attack a glance before returning my full attention to the ball as it shook for the third… fourth… fifth…
With a loud crack, the Pokeball burst open with the two half flying off into the forest in different directions. I watched with dread as the newly reappeared Mightyena shook itself violently before tilting its head back and loudly Howling for the fourth time. The call worked like a rallying cry and the three Poochyena that had been knocked down all slowly rose back to their feet. Even the one that had been stopped by Ekans's latest Glare recovered from its paralysis and bounded towards its opponent.
I watched helplessly as my team fell apart.
Blitz tried to use Flame Charge on Mightyena again, but his target seamlessly transitioned from Howl to its breath attack, once again snuffing out his flames and this time forcing him down to the ground.
Ekans did his best to contain the Poochyena near him, but the one that he had most recently Wrapped managed to wiggle free and joined the others in relentlessly Biting him.
Peren tried to fight off the two Poochyena that he had previously knocked down, but with Ekans overwhelmed, a third was able to split off and join them. He was too tired and injured to deal with three opponents at once and it only took a few seconds for one to get past his defenses and Bite him on his left foreleg.
With no other options, I readied my second Pokeball with my right hand and shifted my left to the Pokeballs hanging from the bottom of my shirt. The odds were slim that my second attempt at catching Mightyena would be any more successful than the first so at this point, the only thing that I could think of was to use it as a distraction. As soon as Mightyena was in the ball, I could recall all of my Pokemon and make a break for it through the woods. My hand slowly fell back to my side when I remembered that I'd already decided that running wasn't an option.
Well, it wasn't an option for me.
Blitz and Scout would be safe in the upper branches and Ekans might be able to slink away in the darkness. I had no illusions that they would let either Peren or I escape, but at this point, I was out of any other ideas. Better three of us get away than none. Besides, I'd already died once when I came to this world, so what was one more time?
Despite my conviction, I had to take a deep breath to steady before I could quietly address Scout, "I'm going to help Ekans. Climb into the trees and get away." I got a series of panicked squeaks in reply, but ignored her and threw my second Pokeball as I ran to Ekans's side.
Instead of jumping off of me like I'd told her, Scout dug her claws into my shoulder as I ran. There was a flash of yellow light out of the corner of my eye followed by a red one, but I paid neither any mind. Instead, I gave my full attention to the Poochyena that were still mauling Ekans, who was somehow still feebly fighting back. I didn't deviate from my plan when one of the three noticed my approach and bared its fangs at me with a feral Growl. When I was only a foot away from the small black dog, I firmly plated my left foot into the ground, reared back with my right, and-
Ding!
I stumbled at the noise and whipped my head around to see a Pokeball sitting on the grass next to the still-dazed Blitz. A Pokeball that wasn't shaking.
If Mightyena's escape had been a rallying moment for the Poochyena, its capture was twice that for my team. Two of the Poochyena fighting Peren quickly received hooves to their faces, knocking them down once again. Blitz shakily flapped his wings to get back into the air, and then was instantly back to full speed as he hit the third one with a Quick Attack. Ekans whipped his tail into one of the Poochyena that was still at his side while the other was hit with a Thunder Shock from my shoulder.
Within seconds, the Poochyena that I had been about to kick was the last one standing. It snarled at me again before slowly starting to back away into the woods, with Blitz speeding after it. "Stop! Let them go!" I ordered and was relieved when Blitz listened and banked back towards the tent. My Pokemon were too injured to risk any further fighting and simply routing the Poochyena was beyond what I had thought possible only moments ago.
Ignoring the dazed Poochyena by his side, I knelt down and gingerly picked up Ekans, doing my best to ignore the blood oozing from his wounds. When he was secure in my arms, I raced back to the tent and set him down just as carefully as I'd picked him up. I once again grabbed my backpack, but this time simply turned it over instead of searching for what I needed. Clothes, a large bag of Pokemon food, trail food, a cooking pot, and several other things all tumbled out, but I ignored all of it except for the three small bottles that had fallen out.
While the rest of us were back at the tent, Peren was still warily watching the remaining Poochyena as they struggled to their feet or retreated back into the night. "Never mind them," I said sharply. "Get over here so I can heal you!" I turned away from him and grabbed one of the bottles at random, before starting to spray its contents on Ekans. A few seconds later, Peren finally made his way back to us and I started alternating between spraying the large bite mark that Peren sported and the myriad smaller ones that covered Ekans.
I'd emptied two of the bottles before I finally felt like they had received enough of the wondrous healing liquid, but with the dark, it was hard to tell how well their wounds had been sealed. Ekans's dark scales made it particularly difficult to see his injuries and there was something odd about Peren's fur, but I couldn't place what it was. The entire time that I healed them, I softly praised all of my Pokemon's bravery, toughness, tenacity, and every other positive trait I could think of.
As soon as the second Potion bottle was empty, I began shoving all of my things back into my backpack with Scout's help. I only paused from my task to change out of my bloodstained shirt. Thankfully I hadn't slept with my jacket on, so the only thing that was ruined was one of the shirts that I'd gotten from the Brainerd gym. When everything else was put away, I hastily took down the tent and sloppily rolled it up before it joined the rest of my belongings.
While we had been putting things away, Blitz had been circling around our campsite to keep an eye out for the return of the Poochyena. He seemed relatively fine, so I turned to the three Pokemon at my side and said, "We're going to have to keep moving. I'll return you guys so you can get-" My statement was cut off by three sharp cries of disagreement and I found I couldn't build the energy to argue. "Alright, fine. Let's go."
I slung my bag onto my backpack and gathered the last thing that I needed before we could head out: Mightyena's Pokeball. Even in the dim of the night, I could see the Pokemon snarling at me from within, though I ignored it as I clipped the ball to my clean shirt. I didn't have any idea what I was supposed to do with my newest catch but it was far from the right time to give it any thought.
We finally left the campsite with Ekans draped around my neck like a large black scarf. His long-distance endurance was even worse than Scout's and I didn't want to make him push himself to keep up. Thankfully, the Potions had closed his wounds and washed off the blood so it wouldn't look like I was the one with a major wound at the end of the day. With the blinding light of my Poryphone, I led the way as we continued our path towards Duluth. It felt weird to continue on as if nothing had happened, but we lacked a better destination so we had no other options than sticking to the previous plan.
We walked for hours through the night with me softly cursing every time that I tripped over a root or downed branch. Instead of leading the way like he normally did, Blitz quietly circled about our group as we traveled, occasionally doubling back to check behind us. Light eventually started to tinge the eastern sky and I was finally able to get a good look at my exhausted team. Everyone was moving much slower than usual with Scout having stopped trying to keep up and was sprawled out on Peren's back. Weirdly, Peren's coat had changed from green to orange which accounted for the oddity that I'd noticed when I'd healed him.
It wasn't too long after first light that my Poryphone began buzzing in my hand and the map was replaced by a notification about an incoming call from Tammy. Having a feeling that I knew what the call was about, I reluctantly answered the call, "Hello?"
I had barely gotten the word out when Tammy's voice cut through the other end, "Thomas! Are you okay?"
"Um, yeah, I'm fine. Why?" I asked nervously. I couldn't help but remember that she had asked me to be careful while hiking cross-country during our very first check-in call. The fact that I had absolutely not done that made me not look forward to the rest of the conversation.
"You caught a Mightyena at three-thirty in the morning!" Tammy's voice practically screeched out of the Poryphone's speaker, "That's not something people do when they're fine! Where are you now?"
I winced both at the noise and her tone, "We're a couple of days out of Brainerd on the way to Duluth. We got attacked by some Pokemon in the middle of the night but we fought them off," I said, doing my best to downplay the events. I absolutely wasn't going to let her know that it had been dire enough that I had briefly thought that I was going to die. "I promise I'll be more careful going forward."
There were a few seconds of silence on Tammy's end of the line before she spoke back up, "You're still going to Duluth?! Just come back to the cities and take it easy until the Brawl."
Her tone had shifted from incredulous to almost pleading, but all I could do was resignedly reply, "I wish I could take it easy..." As I spoke, Peren slowly turned towards me and gave me a concerned look.
"Why can't you-" Tammy started to ask before cutting herself off. There was another moment of quiet and then, "Oh. Oh! Thomas, I need to check on something. I'll call you back in a bit. Stay there. Bye."
I didn't even have a chance to reply before the call ended and I pulled my Poryphone away from my ear to stare at it confused at her sudden end to the conversation. "Uh, well, we're going to rest here for a bit," I hesitantly told my Pokemon as I helped Ekans back to the ground. I then started checking his and Peren's wounds, which I belatedly realized I should have done a while ago. Thankfully, the Potions had done a miraculous job of healing their wounds and all that remained were large red welts where they had been bitten.
While I was checking their wounds, Blitz had once again turned around to check behind us, but this time I heard several growls and yips from the west. I slowly slid down to the ground so that I was sitting with my back to a tree and tried to figure out what to do with our pursuers. I suspected that they wouldn't try anything during the day, but it wasn't out of the question that they would attack again during the night. Despite what I had said to Tammy, I didn't have a good solution to the issue other than setting a watch, and I wasn't confident that would be a sufficient deterrent. I would just have to hope that they wouldn't be as brave without their evolved form backing them up.
While I was thinking, something that Tammy had mentioned during our call finally registered and I pulled my Poryphone out again to look something up. I checked the battery to make sure that it was still charged enough to accept Tammy's call when she called back, but there was still plenty of charge left on the device's kinetic battery. Reassured, I finally looked up something that I had meant to investigate back in the St Cloud gym and did a search for the Blizzard Brawl.
It turned out that the Brawl was a special event that ran over the winter which boasted several different battle formats and events as the months progressed. It was divided into the novice, amateur, advanced, and master sub-leagues that I'd read about previously. From the list of events, it looked like the lower leagues, especially novice, got very little attention, but that was hardly important to me. What was important was that for the entire duration of the Brawl, participating trainers had the option of staying in provided housing in downtown Minneapolis.
I was still trying to process what exactly that meant for me when Tammy called back. We once again skipped right past the usual hellos and she jumped right into what she wanted to say, "I checked with one of my colleagues who has a lab in Aitkin, near where you are. He could use a research assistant for the next month or so and would be happy to have you. He's got a place for you to stay and you would get a small stipend for your work. What do you think?" As she finished, her voice was almost pleading for me to accept.
I considered for a few seconds and found that I couldn't think of a single downside. Being able to stay in one place for a while would be incredibly useful for being able to do some more research into my situation. The fact that I wouldn't have to deal with looking for a place to stay or food while doing so only sweetened the deal. "That sounds great."
A sigh of relief came through the speaker, "Where exactly are you now? Al can come pick you up in his truck so you don't need to walk the rest of the way."
"Uh, one sec," I said while I pulled the map back up. Before I had just been making sure that I was going in the right direction and that I wasn't going to walk into any lakes, but now I zoomed out to get a better idea of where exactly I was. The wider view of the map revealed that I was completely in the middle of nowhere, which certainly made the attack by wild Pokemon make sense. I took a few more seconds to check what roads I was closest to before speaking up again, "I guess I'm not that far away from Highway forty-seven, but it'll take me a bit to get there."
"Okay, great. I'll let Al know and give him your number. Good luck with your internship!"
Before she could hang up, I quickly said, "Wait! How do I release a Pokemon? I don't think Mightyena will be a good fit for my team." I'd already broken one of the promises that I'd made Tammy, but had full intention to follow the second. I had peered into Mightyena's Pokeball a few more times during our walk and every time had been greeted with the sight of the Pokemon quietly staring daggers up at me.
"That's a smart decision," Tammy said approvingly, "First you need to send Mightyena out. Then take her Pokeball and pry up the central button which will reveal a second button underneath. Hold that button for five seconds and it will release her. You should wait until you meet up with Al first though."
Even though she couldn't see me, I nodded at Tammy's words of caution. I had no interest in releasing Mightyena only to have to fight her again. "Got it. Thanks for everything."
"You're absolutely welcome. Good luck!" Tammy said with her usual warm voice before hanging up.
After making sure that my Pokemon were ready to move again, we set out in a slightly different direction. We would have crossed the highway eventually on the way to Duluth, but it made more sense to head to the nearest section instead of continuing the way we were going. We had only been moving for a few minutes when I got a text from an unknown number.
Hi Thomas, this is Albert but you can call me Al. Just let me know when you're at the road and I'll head over to pick you up. Looking forward to working with you!
I quickly texted back thanks and let him know that it would probably be at least another hour before I got there, which was immediately answered with a thumbs-up emoji. With that taken care of, my Pokemon and I resumed our slow trudge towards what would hopefully be our final destination for the day.
About an hour and a half later, we finally arrived at the highway and I shot Al a text with our location before falling to the ground again, desperate for rest. Peren likewise sat down next to me, but Blitz continued his patrol of the area behind us while we waited. After ten minutes of waiting, a silver pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road and a man in his late thirties with a thick beard got out and walked over to where I sat. "Hey there Thomas! It's good to meet you!" Al said as he reached down a hand towards me.
I grasped his hand and he helped me to my feet before transitioning the grip into a handshake. "Good to meet you too," I replied with a tired smile. "Thanks for picking us up and the opportunity to work with you."
"No problem at all! I'm looking forward to having some extra help," Al said with a chuckle, then gave me and my Pokemon an appraising look. "You ready to get out of here? We can talk details on the way back and we can stop by the Pokemon Center. Looks like you all are pretty roughed up." Even though he was stating the obvious, I appreciated that he spoke with concern rather than judgment.
"Before we go, I need to release the Mightyena that I caught. Tammy said that I should wait for you first."
Al nodded knowingly, then retrieved a Pokeball from his satchel, and a few seconds later I was staring in awe at the Pokemon that appeared in front of me. Most of the Pokemon that I had seen so far had either looked like normal animals, apart from differences in sizes or coloring, or were completely different from what I was used to. There was something completely bizarre about standing only a foot away from what looked like a fairly normal horse, except completely covered in flames.
While it took me a few seconds to realize that I was staring, I eventually pulled Mightyena's ball off of my shirt and sent out my newest capture. As soon as the wolf appeared in front of me, she Growled deeply but was quickly cowed by Al's Rapidash when the Pokemon loudly neighed and stamped its hooves into the ground. Peren and Scout scrambled back to their feet at the sight of Mightyena while Ekans lifted his head off of the ground to stare intently at her.
Trying to be quick before anything could happen, I brought the Pokeball that I was holding closer to my face and managed to find the latch that Tammy had told me about. I used my thumbnail to lift that and then pressed the smaller button that was revealed to be underneath. The Pokeball blared out loud warning beeps but I kept my thumb on the button until a bright white beam shot out of the ball and hit Mightyena. The Pokemon shook herself and then Howled as the two hemispheres of the Pokeball split apart in my hand.
Mightyena stared at me intently for several seconds but her focus was broken by replying calls from beyond the treeline. Mightyena turned back towards the forest when she heard the cries but for some reason, I found myself calling out, "Wait, don't go yet!" I quickly unzipped my backpack and dropped the broken Pokeball inside, belatedly realizing that I had left the other one in the forest. It didn't take long for me to find what I was looking for and once I had pulled it out, I walked a few more feet away from the road to dump out a large pile of Pokemon food out of the bag.
I slowly backed away from the food at the same time that Blitz burst back from the treeline. I was just about to tell him to stop, but to my surprise, he simply landed on a branch and carefully watched Mightyena instead of immediately attacking as I'd feared. Since I didn't have to deal with that potential disaster, I returned my full attention to Mightyena, "That food is all yours." The Pokemon gave no indication that it had even heard me, standing unmoving and showing no emotion as it stared at me.
Doing my best to pay its attention no mind, I returned the much lighter bag of Pokemon food to my backpack and then tapped my remaining four Pokeballs in quick succession to return my team. When that was done, I turned back to Al and quietly said, "I'm ready to go now."
Al didn't verbally respond, instead nodding and giving me a considering look before leading me to his truck. His Rapidash stayed where it was until Al returned it once we were both safely in the vehicle. Without any further delay, Al turned the truck around so that we could go back in the way that we came and started driving away from where Mightyena still stood unmoving.
As we slowly picked up speed and started to drive away, six Poochyena emerged from the treeline. They charged right for Mightyena and began nuzzling against her which she eagerly returned. After a few seconds, Mightyena padded over to the pile of food that I left and the Poochyena eagerly followed to start chowing down without any hesitation.
I watched them until we drove out of sight and then turned to Al, expecting some sort of comment from him. He stayed silent for several long seconds before speaking up consideringly, "I can't say that I think that was the right decision. But I do like where your heart is at Thomas."
I didn't have any reply to that and simply shrugged as we once again lapsed into silence. The quiet only lasted about ten seconds before Al spoke up again with a surprisingly cheerful voice, "Well then! Now that that's taken care of, let's get you to the Pokemon Center, and then we can go to the lab. Today is actually my day off, but I can show you around and we can get started on Sunday."
I was glad for the abrupt conversation change and nodded, "Sounds good. Sorry for making you come get me on your day off."
Al laughed heartily, "Don't worry about that! Technically I should be working today, but I moved a few days around because of the weather. Sunday's looking a lot nicer than the last few days have."
"So it's outside work then?" I asked, realizing that Tammy hadn't told me anything about what Al's research was. With how exhausted I was, it had been a good enough deal that I had accepted without really caring what I was signing myself up for.
"Yep! Right now I'm ramping up my research on the Pokemon who live in the nearby lakes. I, or make that we, go out and survey the lakes before, during, and after turnover to get more complete data on how Pokemon react to the seasonal changes. The ecosystem of each lake can be completely different from the next so the more data, the better."
Despite the amount of time I had spent on or near water growing up, I had never been particularly interested in fishing so I had absolutely no baseline information about lake ecosystems. "That sounds pretty interesting," I said sincerely.
"We'll see if you still think that in a month," Al said with a chuckle. "Now, as for your living situation, I've got a futon in the lab that you can sleep on. I know that's not ideal but I don't have a guest bedroom to put you up in. I figure that staying in the lab would at least give you some privacy instead of my living room couch."
"That sounds great," I quickly assured him. A futon wasn't exactly high-living but it would be a massive step up from sleeping on the ground every night.
"That's decided then! Now, the only thing there is that there's a no Pokemon in the lab rule," Al said apologetically before quickly adding, "But there's plenty of parks nearby that you can send your Pokemon out at. There's even a gym you can use for when it gets too cold out."
I instantly sat up straighter, "There's a gym in Aitkin?" The league's website hadn't listed a gym in Aitkin, but given that twelve gyms was already such a weird number, I supposed it wasn't out of the question.
"Ah, no sorry. I meant a gymnasium. It's just a large public building for trainers to use for training and battles and such. None of the locals are particularly serious as far as I know, but I bet you could still get some decent matches."
"Got it. Well, that sounds good either way," I said, knowing full well that Blitz would likely get antsy if I made him go a week, much less a month, without battling.
It only took us a few more minutes to reach the Pokemon Center, which turned out to be basically identical to the others that I'd been to. Thankfully, the healing machines were able to take care of all of my Pokemon's injuries so we didn't need to get any assistance from the nurses. Al and I waited in silence as the machines did their work, and I was once again grateful for the short opportunity to rest. Once my Pokemon were fully healed, we got back into Al's truck and a few minutes later we arrived at a small building on the eastern side of town.
Al gave me a quick tour of the lab, but it turned out that there wasn't much to see given that the entire thing was barely larger than the room that I had met Peren in back at Tammy's lab. As promised, there was a futon that would be my bed for the next month pushed up against the far back wall of the lab.
"Well, I should get back home to the missus," Al announced once he had finished showing me around. "I'll come back later tonight with some clean sheets and dinner for you."
"That's really not necessary," I protested.
"I couldn't think of doing otherwise," Al said with a shake of his head. "Besides, it looks like you could use a little meat on your bones."
It had been some time since I'd last seen my reflection, but I realized that Al's assessment probably wasn't wrong. My eating habits over the last few weeks had been far from healthy since I had almost exclusively eaten either fast food or the cheapest and easiest food that I could find at the supermarket. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."
"Not a problem. I'll text you when I'm heading back over, but for now, why don't you get some rest. It's barely noon and I'm sure you've already had a long one."
I couldn't help but smile wryly and run my hand through my hair, "You're definitely not wrong about that."
When Al left a few minutes later, I immediately made my way over to the futon and curled up on it. I was asleep within seconds.
A/N: Hope it was worth the wait. My planning session went really well so I should be back on my schedule of a chapter every 2-3 weeks.
Thanks to Star for betaing. Next up is Chapter 13: Onboarding.
