Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. I do however own Alex, and this characterization of a member of the Darkrai species. Also, this characterization of Tobias, as he is very different in this story from his anime counterpart.

Chapter Sixteen:
Last Quarter

-o-O~OOO~O-o-

"How can you not like to battle?" Tobias gaped at her, nearly tripping over his own feet as he turned to stare. They had set out from Oreburgh early that morning, while it was still dark out, and had let their Pokémon out (at least, Alex did—Tobias still refused to let anyone other than his Darkrai out to walk with them) as soon as they were out of sight of the city. Interestingly, Alex's Darkrai seemed to have taken her advice from last night to heart, and had approached Tobias's Darkrai to speak with it briefly. After exchanging a few words, Tobias's Darkrai had nodded in assent and went back to its trainer to ask to be returned. Tobias had complied immediately and didn't even send a questioning glance in Alex's or her Darkrai's direction, merely looking relieved that the two had actually made a small amount of progress.

Alex had, of course, asked Tobias about the strange itching sensation she'd felt last night, to which he replied with a nonchalant, 'Yeah, that happens sometimes. Should go away after the next new moon.' Alex wasn't about to let him get away with brushing off the incident however, and had threatened to have Ponyta melt the zipper on his sleeping bag in the middle of the night if he didn't elaborate. That seemed to do the trick, as Tobias then confirmed her theory that Darkrai had been inadvertently soaking her in essence while she slept, but then went further and told her that the itching sensation was caused by Darkrai's lingering essence trying to flow back and forth between her and her Pokémon. He promised to tell her more if it became relevant, and had moved the conversation on before she could protest.

Eventually, their dialogue had moved to the topic of battling (as it often seemed to when it came to talking with the champion), and Alex had made the mistake of admitting her disinterest in Pokémon battles.

"I just don't," Alex replied, tone demanding that the other trainer drop it.

Tobias normally followed her conversational cues, but this time (to Alex's extreme annoyance) he refused to let the comment slide. "Why? Do your Pokémon not care about getting stronger?"

Alex mentally recoiled at the question, self-consciously glancing to her team (who seemed to be ignoring the humans, but (Alex knew from experience) were actually paying very close attention—Darkrai seemed to be the only one who didn't get the memo and was openly watching the trainers with a look of keen interest) before turning her head to stare down Tobias. "There are other ways to get stronger."

"No," he countered, returning her glare levelly, "There are other ways to get smarter, or wiser, or more physically fit. True strength come from being able to rely on your own abilities in the heat of the moment, and the only way to get that is to battle."

Alex snapped. "You know what? You can mind your own goddamned business, Mr. 'I haven't lost a battle in ten fucking years'!" She glanced at her team again. Purugly, Kricketune, and Ponyta remained staring straight ahead while Darkrai regarded her with open concern. Murkrow (who had flown back from her exploration of the trees to perch on Darkrai's shoulder) just looked… confused. Alex tore her gaze away from her Pokémon to collect herself enough to apologize for the outburst. The words died in her throat though when she caught Tobias's expression. He wasn't mad, he wasn't frightened. He was instead looking at her as if she were a puzzle that needed solving… or a specimen that needed dissecting.

After a pregnant pause in which Alex half expected the other trainer to suddenly come running at her with a scalpel, Tobias broke the silence in an unexpected way. "My mother died when I was nine years old. My father… wasn't always the nicest person, but he got much worse after that. He made the four weeks between her and his own death feel like an eternity."

Alex stared in silent surprise at the sudden personal turn the conversation had taken as Tobias continued, keeping an eye on the ground as they walked.

"After they passed, I was shipped off to Hoenn to live with my remaining relative. She wasn't much better than my father, but her brand of abuse fell more onto the neglectful side of things rather than the outwardly physical, so I was able to get by well enough—providing I took care of myself. A few months later, I left on my Pokémon journey." Tobias smiled. "Best day of my life."

Alex shared a secret smile at the sentiment, recalling the day her own journey started over four years ago. She'd been fifteen at the time, and her family had just moved back to Sinnoh following an attack on the Weather Institute by Team… was it Magma or Aqua? She dispelled her thoughts with a slight shake of her head as Tobias continued his tale.

"Back then, I was obsessed with winning." The man frowned in thought. "I guess I still am, in a way. But when I was a kid, I had something to prove. I wanted to be so strong that no one would even think of threatening me again. I clung to this idea desperately, and pushed my team as far as they could go, then pushed further.

"The first Pokémon to run away was my starter, Mudkip." Tobias sighed, turning his gaze upwards. "You'd think I'd have learned after that, but instead of being sorry for making my Pokémon run away, I was enraged. I ordered the rest of my team to look for Mudkip and to drag him back by his tail if he wouldn't come willingly. Surprisingly," the man huffed sarcastically, "none of them returned after that.

"So there I was, ten years old and abandoned in the middle of a forest by a team of Pokémon I refused to respect." Tobias frowned again. "No, that's not quite right. I won't sugarcoat it—I was physically abusive to my Pokémon whenever they lost. Like father like son, huh?"

Alex's mouth had slowly slid open at the other trainer's admission. She snapped it closed when Tobias glanced in her direction. "So… what happened then?" she asked, partially to get away from the disturbing idea that anyone (much less her newest traveling companion) could be capable of beating their own Pokémon, and partially because she was genuinely curious as to how the man before her had grown up from the boy he talked about.

A slow grin stretched across Tobias's mouth as he turned back to watch the horizon. "Then I met Latios." The man sighed. "I stumbled upon the stupid bird lying in the middle of the path, too wounded to move. One of his wings had a cord of barbed wire wrapped around the base that had cut at least an inch deep all around, nearly down to the bone. Naturally, I wanted to catch this rare and powerful Pokémon, so I offered to take him to a Pokémon Center if he let me put him in a ball. Latios refused. I tried to catch him anyway, but he broke out of the ball I used and then fainted. I was pretty pissed at that—I had found out the hard way early on that a Poké Ball wouldn't work on an unconscious Pokémon—so I had to figure out some way of reviving Latios before I could catch him.

"I didn't want anyone else to stumble across my find, so I dragged him into a nearby bush to hide him from passersby, and ran to the nearest Poké Mart to buy all the potions my meager winnings could supply. Luckily, Latios was still out by the time I got back to him, and no one had discovered him. I cut the barbed wire out of his wing and spent the next three weeks caring for him. Two weeks after that, he trusted me enough to let himself be caught. It took another few days before I realized that I had actually come to care about him as an individual instead of just a powerhouse. A week after that, we battled together for the first time. And for the very first time in my life, I didn't care if I won."

Alex blinked, considering the tale. "Did you win?"

"We did," Tobias said, sly grin creeping onto his face, "And every battle after."

Alex snorted at his expression, but the bitterness was mostly gone. "I'm sorry for snapping at you—it's just kind of a sore spot."

Tobias shook his head. "No, I get it. I shouldn't have pushed." He paused, glancing at her before humming. "Battling is just so important to me… it's like a physical representation of the bond of trust between a trainer and their team—how the Pokémon trusts the trainer to know what to do, and how the trainer trusts the Pokémon to follow through… It's weird to think there's a trainer out there that doesn't care at all about it."

"Yeah…" Alex sighed awkwardly, letting the topic die as the silence began to stretch.

Darkrai seemed to sense her tone and floated over to where she was walking, Murkrow having left the safety of the legendary's shoulder once tensions had faded. "Krai rai?"

Alex smiled. "I'm fine." The dark type looked unimpressed, so the trainer continued. "Just a little tired, I guess."

Darkrai snorted, then, falling back a bit, scooped her up into its arms and carried her.

Alex blushed as Tobias looked on, amused. "I'm not that tired, I promise!"

The legendary just snorted again and refused to let its trainer down, ferrying her the rest of the day until the party came to a stop for the night, Tobias carefully not commenting on the arrangement while the two humans managed to keep up a light conversation.

Darkrai's renewed catering of her continued as the group set up camp, only letting her feed her team and herself and set up the portable fire pit before grabbing her again to groom her. Tobias for his part simply set out his sleeping bag and sat on it while the Pokémon worked to set up Alex's tent, looking as if he was debating on whether or not to offer his help to the industrious crew. In the end, he simply decided to watch Alex get her hair combed by the doting legendary, finally breaking his silence.

"How are you tolerating that so well?" Tobias asked.

Alex blinked, refocusing on the other trainer as Darkrai ignored them both, intent its task. "Well, it's a little annoying, I suppose, but it's kinda nice to know they care so much about my health…" Alex trailed off as Tobias shook his head.

"Not that," the other trainer clarified, "the Dark Touch—most people can't stand being in contact with such a powerful dark type for more than a few seconds—it took me a year to build up enough of a tolerance to my Darkrai's aura to not tense up every time it touched me."

"Oh." Alex blushed as Darkrai repositioned her head with a talon. "I kinda like it, actually. It reminds me of my childhood."

If anything, Tobias's eyes grew even larger. "What in Arceus's name happened in your childhood to let you draw comfort from that feeling?"

Alex glanced down, feeling a familiar pang in her chest at the memories of her time with Mightyena. "I guess you could say I grew up with a pack of dark types."

Tobias's eyebrows scrunched in thought. "You were raised by Pokémon?"

Darkrai snorted as Alex continued, raising her head back up in an effort to keep her hair straight as it worked. "Not exactly—I had a mom and a dad, but they had… trouble showing that they loved me. I knew they did, but they'd get so caught up in their work that they'd forget I was there. They weren't neglectful," Alex amended at Tobias's look of distaste, "they always made sure I had food and was home before dark and stuff—at least, when they remembered to check. But they never tucked me in or hugged me or told me they loved me without me prompting them to do so first."

"That's still sad."

Alex shrugged, causing Darkrai to huff at her. "I was a quiet child. I never really acted out—except this one time when I was eight." Tobias nodded encouragingly, giving her his full attention, so Alex continued, "We had just moved to Hoenn from Sinnoh, and I was a little upset that they only gave me a two day warning that we were leaving the only home I'd ever known for a strange place in the middle of a jungle with no other kids around. They said they wanted to study the effects weather had on Pokémon evolution, which seemed like a flimsy excuse to me because it rained in Sandgem too, and why couldn't they just study it there?"

Alex smiled, shaking her head and prompting Darkrai to growl a reprimand. "So, my first day at the Weather Institute went something like this; we arrive at the front door in the pouring rain after a six hour flight and a twelve hour car ride over rugged terrain; dash back and forth from the jeep to try and get our luggage inside without getting it too wet; realize that there was a huge hole in the roof of the jeep, negating our efforts entirely; throw all the clothes we brought into the facilities dryers and throw out all of my ruined books—including my first attempt at a journal—and the small supply of food we had; watch as my parents commandeer a more intact jeep from the facility and drive off on a supply run—because apparently the scientists were out of food too and the supply truck had been waylaid by the rain, and my parents wanted to make a good first impression by being proactive (and forgetting they had a daughter again)—leaving me alone, soaking wet, with a group of strange—and often eccentric (but mostly harmless)—adults with absolutely nothing to keep me entertained while they made the eight hour round trip to the nearest town and back."

The younger trainer paused to catch her breath, letting Darkrai's careful ministrations soothe her as Tobias looked on with raised eyebrows. "That sounds rough," the older trainer commented.

Alex smiled in remembrance. "Yeah, I wasn't a happy camper, that's for sure. Luckily, one of the older researchers noticed me shivering in the corner like a wet Rattata and helped me get settled in, showing me how to work the shower there and getting me a few towels." The younger trainer's grin widened. "He gave me a tour of the institute and kept me entertained until my parents got back. As it turned out, he was the lead researcher at the facility, and didn't really approve of my parents' idea of 'proactive'. They paid more attention to me after that. Well, for a few days at least, then they got caught up in making discoveries or something."

Alex snorted, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, about a week after we arrived, the rain finally let off—and you can bet I burst out of that place as soon as I got my boots on."

"Adventurous," Tobias noted.

"Bored out of my skull," Alex countered, "There was nothing to do other than wander around the facility and get chased out of labs—even the library was filled with nothing but dry scientific texts. The place wasn't made with kids in mind."

"So there you were," Tobias spoke up as Alex lapsed into thoughtful silence, "alone in the middle of a Hoenn jungle… did you then meet a Pokémon that forever changed your life?"

Alex let out a dry laugh. "As a matter of fact…" She smiled softly at the memory. "The Pokémon I met then wasn't a legendary—it was actually one of the most common Pokémon in Hoenn. A Zigzagoon. We played together in this huge muddy pit just out of sight of the institute all day—you couldn't tell us apart by the end of it for all the mud."

"I bet the researchers weren't too happy about that," Tobias commented.

"Actually, they were a bit preoccupied at the time…" Alex chuckled. "I wanted to keep playing with Zigzagoon, so I stayed out even though it was getting dark, I think Zigzagoon felt the same because it didn't seem to be bothered by the night. It must have been young, like me—ignorant of the dangers of staying out past sundown. We were playing and have just a grand old time in the darkness—then I looked up, and we were surrounded by this huge pack of Mightyena."

"Oh." Tobias's eyebrows shot up. "That's not good."

"No," Alex grinned, shaking her head and prompting Darkrai to grab her chin to keep her still, "No it wasn't." She glanced up her legendary. "I'll stop moving, I promise." The dark type snorted without releasing her head, so Alex simply continued her tale with one of Darkrai's claws absently pressed to her throat. "I knew enough about predation to know what was going on; they wanted to eat my new friend for dinner. Of course, I couldn't let them do that—after all, Zigzagoon was the only friend I had at that point—so I picked up Zigzagoon and told the snarling pack of dark types that they couldn't eat it.

"Then, one of the Mightyena stepped forward. He looked at me, then at Zigzagoon, then back at me, and raised an eyebrow." Alex giggled. "I had never seen anyone, much less a Pokémon, with such a look of incredulity before in my life. I thought he was going to start berating me on how stupid I was."

Tobias's mouth—which had slowly fallen open—closed with a click. "I assume this tale has a happy ending?"

Alex laughed and tried to nod, forgetting for a moment that Darkrai had a hold on her chin. The dark type leaned over to give her a very flat I-told-you-so look before continuing with their grooming session. "After a rather awkward staring contest, I offered to feed the pack from the food stores at the institute. I knew from talking to the lead researcher that the scientists kept a large store of food for their Pokémon, but not many of them had a lot of Pokémon, so there was always this surplus that they had to throw out every month… Anyway, Mightyena accepted and let me lead him and his pack back to the institute. Before I got there, though, this Linoone came charging out of the brush and claimed Zigzagoon from me. I never saw it again after that." Alex hummed thoughtfully. "Looking back, I'm not too surprised that Linoone wouldn't let Zigzagoon play with me again—the pack wouldn't let me travel through the jungle alone after that."

"So they adopted you," Tobias said, staring into the fire pit with a faraway look in his eyes.

"Well, the pack leader did, so the rest of the pack just followed suit." Alex hummed. "Mightyena was more parental to me than both of my parents combined—he seemed to take it upon himself to keep me from pulling stupid stunts like I did with his pack again. He always made sure I had an escort whenever I left the institute, and that I was always back before it got dark. He and his pack ended up making their den in a corner of the institute lobby. It was lucky that most of the other residents of the building were scientists and didn't mind having a pack of wild Pokémon make their home on the ground floor between the settees.

"One night, the heater broke and it got really cold in my room. Mightyena found me all huddled up in my blankets shivering, and practically dragged me down the stairs to sleep in the warmth of his pack. A team of mechanics fixed the heater a few nights later, but I continued to sleep with Mightyena and his pack every night.

"Around the time I turned fifteen, the Weather Institute was attacked while I was out exploring the jungle with Mightyena and his pack. When we got back, Mom and Dad said we were moving back to Sinnoh. At this point, I didn't want to go back—I'd spent half of my life in that jungle and actually had friends. To quell my teenage angst, they promised to get me a Pokémon when they got back." Alex snorted. "As if any Pokémon could replace Mightyena. I wasn't the only one to take offense at the idea, though. Mightyena ran off at the announcement and came back holding a Poké Ball in his jaws.

"I actually ended up going back to Sinnoh with two filled Poké Balls—the other contained an egg that one of my Pokémon friends had given me." Alex paused her tale, frowning. "I still have that egg. It's been four years now, and it hasn't hatched."

Tobias hummed. "Perhaps it's waiting for the right moment."

"It must be," Alex sighed, finishing up her tale, "I set out on my Pokémon journey the moment we were back in Sinnoh, Mightyena at my side. I started off doing the whole battling thing, but stopped after a few months—I much preferred to explore and study Pokémon habits—which was probably a good thing, 'cause I kinda sucked at it."

Tobias frowned. "I still don't think you should give up on that."

"I haven't won a battle in nearly three years," Alex stated bluntly.

The other trainer raised his eyebrows. "And you never will if you don't try."

Alex rolled her eyes, shaking her head as Darkrai finally finished grooming her and snuggled her close to its chest. "We'll just have to agree to disagree."

The camp fell silent for awhile after that before Tobias broke the quiet with a tentative question. "So, whatever happened to Mightyena?"

Alex shifted, causing Darkrai to readjust its grip. "He was at the lab when Hearsay attacked. They—killed him."

"Oh." Tobias stared into the flames of the fire pit. "I heard that a Pokémon had died… I didn't know it was yours."

"He wasn't just a Pokémon," Alex stated, no real emotion in her words.

Tobias slowly looked over to her, then down to his belt where his team lay in their balls.

"They never are."

-o-O~OOO~O-o-

End chapter.

To clarify the whole ghost-bond thing I introduced in the last chapter—it's really not much of an effect, and it's typically only noticeable if you spend nearly all of your time with one. I'd describe it best as an advanced case of the heebie-jeebies, if that helps at all.
But Darkrai isn't a normal Pokémon, and what develops from prolonged contact with it is a major plot point in this story—but if you're worried about this turning into a universal-Pokémon-translator/constant-effect-mind-meld thing, don't be. I'm hyperaware of how cliched that is, and I've taken great pains to ensure that things don't get out of hand and go the path of the Mary Sue.
I care about my characters way too much to let that happen.

As for the literary aspect of 'why'; I simply needed to set precedence for a future event. It's a bit shoved in there, but I didn't really have anywhere convenient to put it earlier in the story. I tried to foreshadow it a bit in chapter four with the journal entry, but I didn't want to keep constantly referring to it whenever Alex and Darkrai made contact.

Questions? Comments? …Concerns? Well, not even Darkrai can read your mind (and trust me, it never will), so if there's something you want to say, make sure to post a review to let me know. I welcome constructive criticism. I will never yell at you for stating your opinion-but please include a reason if you're going to flame.

Next chapter; one last story from someone we haven't yet heard.