Sorry for the delay! College likes to sap up my time. I do what I can, though~
As y'all can see, I don't plan on giving this story up, so do not fear! It is just sometimes a struggle to get chapters up in a timely manner. But hey, this one's longer! Wow!
Thanks again OMG for your sweet words! They mean a lot ^^ Also, you right, haha, I should probably switch the rating to T. (I did!) I try real hard to write stories that are kid-friendly, but then they get kind of serious and I should maybe just give up on that dream, hahahaha.
Chapter 5: A Man's Astronomical Vision
Layke
My footsteps resound like dim teardrops down the long corridor. I can't see the hall, since there happens to be a bag over my head, but the rough hands that clasp me around the wrist, holding my hands twisted behind my back, haven't pushed me in awhile.
That was pretty stupid of me. Just thinking about it makes the shame of my idiocy flush through my cheeks with the fleeting passage of a bad dream, except for the whole part where morning doesn't come, can't come, won't come. Really makes you... rethink your actions, when this is where they land you, uh?
But it's too late to change anything, so to march is all I can manage. The bag rustles against my skin, coarse, and it faintly smells of Niri's weird, soft lotion yet oceany scent. I'd watched them—the people whose hands now chain me—dump the contents of my bag to the ground, then flop it over my head, leaving her blankets and extra jacket and all of our meager cash to be lost to the oncoming avalanche of rock.
Why did I do that... why did I falter...
Nice going, right? I find a secret cave and take my pokemon in with me, thinking there to be some sort of secret extra boss, and this is where I am now.
Well, I guess I'm gonna find the secret extra boss. Sure would be cool if they hadn't confiscated my pokemon. Of course, wouldn't be a problem if I could speak to them like freaking Niri. Too bad she's not here.
Though I guess it's for the best if she's not.
If she's safe... My heart ties a sudden bow in my chest.
Finally a nudge, then a thrust as I'm pulled aside and directed into another long hallway. No warning, no anything, just shoves that serve as conversation.
It... gosh, it hits in the heart as a slap from Niri. She must be... She must be worried, right? What did she do when she couldn't find me? I-Is she still looking? Did the cave collapse over her? Did she...
Would really pay off if my pokemon could communicate with me.
Would really pay off if I wasn't so useless, but we all saw how that went. I... Niri says I'm strong, says I always beat her when we train because I know what I'm doing (and her piplup doesn't), but then something like this trips me up, and I can't help but wonder what I'd see in myself if I had a mirror. Instead I'm left in the dark of my own freaking bag.
Where are you taking me, I think about asking, but the words don't quite leave my mouth. They've yet to say anything: to each other, to me. To their pokemon. The way they fought, in robotic symmetry, working in tandem to effectively cut off my escape and knock down my unfairly weak pokemon with such little effort—just thinking about it makes me shiver.
And they're so quiet, deathly quiet, icy quiet. Don't speak when I trip and manage to trip one of them to the ground, don't speak when they pick me back up and set me straight.
They don't speak when they stop, just tug me to a halt and go still, chillingly still. I struggle, a little, in their grip, just to test it, and ultimately give up before I've really tried to break through.
The bag is lifted from my face, and my eyes meet this horrifyingly sharp gray gaze.
I stare into it, mesmerizingly gray, as silvery speckles dance slowly around the pupils. "Wow, who are you?"
The man gazes back and utters, "My name is none of your concern."
My mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again. "Wow." A little sensational trill spills down my spine. "Nice, dude." Then the words tumble out, and I can't stop them as I strain against my captors' hold: "But seriously like what in the world are you because whoa, though, you look so evil and tough."
He can't do anything else to me, at this point, right? So... who cares if I speak?
A sickly silence hovers over the chamber. Behind the sharp man's head of spiked blue hair lies some sort of control panel, with blinky buttons and bleepy sounds. In a chair by the largest monitor, a woman in a tight black-and-white dress sits, her hands on a keyboard and computer mouse. The only speck of color in the entire room is her choppy red hair—and probably the flush on my face, too.
Niri's... not here, so there's that.
"What is your name?" the man asks, his tone low and gruff and commanding of my attention. It curls in through my ears and snakes about my heart, tugging into me, coiling about me, holding me deathly close.
Licking my lips, I reply, "None of your concern, my good sir," my eyes still trained upon the girl in the corner. I have no idea who she is, but when I force my eyes on her, this pale short-haired woman with the only color in the room, it focuses my mind on her, and this narrow-faced man's snake-shaped words don't quite grasp hold of me.
When I think about it, when I'm allowed to think about it... I hate how much my body compels me to speak.
A weight attacks my shoulder. I flinch; it's the man's pale, weathered hand. "My name is Cyrus. Now tell me yours."
"Layke," I wheeze, "it's Layke, it's Layke..." and it comes out so sudden I hardly notice until his head has leaned in close to me, so close our noses just about touch. His scent of the outdoors overwhelms me: trees and flowers and little fresh clovers. I keep waiting for some sort of unnatural smell to hit me, some kind of perfumey chemical, but it never does.
"Lake," he utters in a low growl.
"No, no." I shake my head. "Layke."
He blinks. "Ah. Layke." (There is no pronunciation difference, but somehow I know he gets it this time.) "Layke, you shall join our cause. There is no other option: for someone whose prowess reaches all the way to me, your path is not allowed to cross any other. This is all that remains of you.
"Come this way."
The grunts suddenly release me, and I can feel my pulse beating again. "What if... I don't want to?"
My best friend is out there somewhere with no extra anything if she gets cold, and she's got actually, literally zero money. No food, no supplies... All she's got with her are a piplup, a talking lucario, and her wits. Maybe a helpful freaking chapstick in her pocket.
If... people like these guys are out in the shadows, just waiting to kidnap a cute girl like her, then, like... she might be next.
Ah—Wait, if I'm part of these guys, then I could stop her from—
"There is no other option, Layke. You must join Team Galactic. It is your destiny, your galactic fate."
Well, great. I just realized joining them is in my best interests anyways. "Okay. I guess I'm in, then."
Gosh, this is why I hate strangers. You never freaking know when something like this might happen. I go through all this effort to get us to Oreburgh without interacting in a big city, without letting something happen to Niri like what happened to my mom, and all for what?
No, no... I can't think like that. Ignore the dull throbbing pain... I could still keep her safe. This might even let me keep her safer. Safer than she would've been if we were still together.
Together. The word draws a dull, bittersweet ache in my chest.
"Follow me, Lay—"
"Wait wait wwwwwait, Dad I'm—
Someone's head rams against my back. "I'm... here," the imposter finishes, then snaps her mouth shut. She squirms out from under my shadow, her long diagonally-cut hair streaming behind her like a blizzard. Her narrow eyes grow narrower the moment she meets my face.
Huh. It's that chimchar-stealer from before.
Ah—Galactic—That's what the G on her shirt stood for.
"Keebae," Cyrus switches from me to her, "your tardiness?"
"I..." She swallows. "The cave-in... I, uhm, I got stuck in the rocks... b-but I made it out as quickly as I could." As if in memory of the pain, her hand cups a sore spot on her forehead. Other than that, she's relatively unscathed, though dirt clods her clothing in such detail that it almost looks like she rolled in some before running over here—but why would she do that? Clearly it's the cave-in that smattered the dirt all over her. There is definitely no other explanation that I just don't know about.
Unless there is, of course, but how silly would that be? Why am I dwelling on this, anyways?
Although his face and voice don't change, somehow the very air of the chamber has gotten heavier. Maybe it's the way he reluctantly speaks, his voice rising over the girl who referred to him as dad. "Sloppy." Then he gestures to a hallway at the other end of the room, and little Keebae looks up at me, a snarl splitting across her face, before she turns and rushes off into the metal corridor.
The woman with red hair watches this. While Cyrus gazes after Keebae's departure, she gets up. Her heels click as she walks over to me, and she's taller, but only by her shoes.
"You will refer to me as Commander Mars, grunt. Now answer me: why did Keebae look at you with such animosity? How does she know you?"
"I don't..." Geez, what's it this woman want with me? "I don't really know." Niri, probably. Some sort of connection to her—
Wait—Keebae might know something about her. Why did this just occur to me.
Without another thought to it, I twirl and dart down the opposite hallway, Keebae's slight form growing closer and closer. She's stopped running once Cyrus has looked away, and I easily surpass her, grabbing at her arm and tugging her to a halt. "H-HEY! L-L-Let go of me! You and your stupid girlfriend have done enough for me today, you—rrrrgghh!"
"What?" I whisper. "What did Niri do?"
"Niri—" Flustered, she glares up at me. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe this?" And she points at the sore on her forehead. "N-Niri has a terribly good aim." Under her breath, she adds, "I hate that she's so cute. It's not fair... all cute girls are mean..."
"Hey!" I brighten. "I think she's cute too! We have that in common!"
"Y-YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO HEAR THAT." Keebae blinks her too-bright eyes rapidly, breathing hard. "Besides, it doesn't matter if she was cute... she's mean..."
If... Keebae saw her, then that means... "D-D'you know if Niri's okay? I heard that landslide and..."
Her eyes slowly, slowly creep up to me, and this awfully sinister grin cracks along her lips. "Oh, you sure you can handle it?" Over her shoulder, at the pit of the hallway, I catch the two grunts who kidnapped me fast-walking up to us. She senses my body tensing, and her speech slurs, quickening. "Yeah, I saw her in the landslide. I watched the rocks fall around her, and I watched her scramble for purchase, for safety. I watched your stupid talking lucario block a few rocks from falling down on her, but before long, there were too many.
"I watched her die down there, you hear me? So you should just let go of your attachment to her and join us with an empty heart. Let it fill you." Her gaze averts, and she mutters, "It's the easiest way to live again..."
Then hands shackle over me once more, and the grunts hurdle me onward. They're in front of me, dragging my reluctant feet, and as they heave and shove, I catch—a red mark around their necks, peeking above their matching shirt-collars, a red mark I didn't see around Keebae.
Does that... have something to do with...
But then my head can't focus on that, can't focus on it at all, and all I see is her face, her face, her face tattered by the rocks. Worn with exhaustion and pain and—and—and... gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't really want to know, either, yet at the same time it overflows my headspace, the many ways that Niri could've been torn apart. And then it's her eyes, her bright blue eyes, like quartz yet with this utterly faint blue sheen—growing brighter by the moment as she stares up at me, then cut off and unmistakably dull, so dull, so... cold. Like I'm a stranger. Like I'm nothing. Like the world holds nothing left to offer her.
I reach out, but I can't touch her, and I watch her falter over and over again. Then the grunts release me in front of their leader with his speckled hazel eyes, their leader who killed my—
I... have no other option. He said so himself. I don't want to know what he'll do if I refuse.
Or maybe I do.
It could have anything in the world to do with the strange red circle around each silent grunt's neck.
M-Maybe they just got the exact same injuries while fighting me, but... I catch Mars's pale neck from her seat, and I wonder again why the grunts won't speak. Maybe they're just shy, like me, but somehow, there's this awfully, uncomfortably warm sensation lanced within the very air of the chamber, and I feel it pressurizing in my lungs. I wish I knew how to ask about it without sounding suspicious. Niri's—Niri was good at that.
Releasing sharp breaths that squeeze around my throat, I fill the silence before Cyrus can poison it with his utter presence. "She watched my best friend die."
His brows but quirk for a moment; then his face returns to its stony complexion. "I see. Do not act out of place again—Do precisely as I or your commanders enforce, or I will stifle your potential. You do not want to meet such a fate, Layke." His lips dwell on my name, and I shudder with the crack of the k.
Red-haired Mars watches the tension twist between us. She gazes at the computer console for a moment, then steps into place by Cyrus's side. "Don't take this proposition lightly. Dear Cyrus sees something wonderful in you—if he's giving you this chance, then he desires to cultivate your strength in order to realize his perfect dream. You want this."
She brushes by me as she returns to the console.
I stare up at tall, striking, incisive Cyrus as Keebae's words rotate around my head, its planetary axis too strong to ignore.
...just let go of your attachment... join us... let it fill you...
join us... fill you... fill you... fill you...
It's the easiest way to live again.
Breathing in sharply, wincing, I mutter, "O-Okay. I won't act out again, I-I swear." I have nothing else to live for, anyways.
My best... Niri's... H-How did it come to this...
And I don't know. I truly don't. I just watch, dumbfounded, as Cyrus gestures for me to follow him down another endless hallway, and so I blindly do. He doesn't speak, and I have nothing left to say, hardly any reason to exist. I'm just going.
They're gonna make Turt and Geodudette strong, huh... well I guess that's a reason to stay around, to see them become the protectors they never could've been for Ni...
Breathing hurts. How am I gonna get through this.
Niri
"Alright, Lucaro. Now what?"
After a night of sleeping in the woods and a breakfast of nature's berries, I'm surprisingly awake. The sun peeks out from the overhead branches, glimmering over us like a happy sign. It dances warmly over my skin. If only all days could start like this.
Lucaro shifts over to me, pointing through the trees. "I see some children playing over there with their little pokemon. We could fight them."
I sigh, closing my eyes. "I feel terrible about this."
He shrugs. "I do not. They captured those pokemon and tore them from their families, almost entirely without a care for the will of the pokemon they now refer to as partners. It is sickening, and we need supplies, so why not use it from their poisoned careers as trainers?"
I cup my hands over my mouth and hiss, "Lucaro! Oh my goodness!"
"Niri, I hear them. They want release."
Lup explodes from his poke ball in order to chirrup at my feet, Okay, okay, I think he's being just a little bit dramatic, Niri. I can't hear their voices from all the way over here, so I dunno if he could either. Plus, pokemon are pretty good at hiding from humans. You're a loud bunch. If we don't want anything to do with you, we will have absolutely nothing to do with you.
Lucaro's mouth scrunches. "I... I was trying to make it easier for Niri."
The piplup blinks. Ah. In that case, yes, Niri, those pokemon are being abused and we should end their suffering.
"You are both the worst." A reluctant chuckle squeezes out of my tightened chest. "Let's get this over with."
Lucaro sidles up next to me like he's my best pokemon (which I guess he technically is even though he isn't my pokemon), and we hike down a small slope. My feet threaten to skid down and take me with them. My fingers anchor around Lucaro's arm, and with a stifled snort, he abides. Lup dances around my toes before he slips and falls himself.
We reach the bottom. The children look up as our shadows pass over them. "W-Whoa," one utters, gazing upon me and my powerful bodyguard of sorts. "Lookit that thing. I wanna beat it."
The child's friends chirrup afterwards, filling the air with battle claims.
"I'll beat the big blue dog first!"
"Noooo you will not because I am gonna beat him up into next year! Then I'll toss him like SMACK into yesterday and punt him so hard he'll be in the newspaper for five thousand forevers ever!"
"What if he's a girl though," another pipes up.
The other kid stares back, disgruntled. "I-I-I, uhhhhhh, then I'll do the same things except he's a girl."
The children rise up and parade around me, each's claim louder than the last.
Lucky me, the unspoken rule of a pokemon battle is that the winner receives a prize from the loser. Luckier me, my "big blue dog" could punt literally any of these tykes and any of their pokemon into the depths of eternity if he wasn't such a softy.
"Okay, ooookay, step back, kiddos." I ward them off, waving my palms out to them. "I will take you on one at a time so that everyone gets a fair chance. If my lucario gets knocked out by any of you, I'll even heal him up for the next one." Lucaro tosses me a pained glance and mutters I am not anyone's lucario but my own to himself. None of the children notice. "Does that sound good?"
Cheering meets my rather standard set of rules. They form a makeshift line, screaming obscenities at the ones in front of them.
The first child stands up tall, his pair of bright green booties mashed into the earth, and out he tosses a small black-and-white bird. Starly.
"Starboo, goooooooo!" he cries while Lucaro forms a ball of blue aura with his paws. Everyone stares up at him, then stares up at me, whose lips have yet to move. Somehow I get the feeling that I shouldn't intercede with Lucaro's battle strategy.
Maybe it's because yours always suck, Lup offers, and I think about strangling him. At least nobody else hears him.
While lithe little Starboo flits about the small tree-lined arena, her tiny wings hardly capable of holding her body in the air for long, Lucaro's aim grows closer and closer, his ball glowing brightly in a sheen of cobalt against his face.
Then whoosh he sends it flying—and Starboo hits the ground like a lost comet.
Bootie-wearing baby's eyes are so wide that he hands us an extra dollup of cash "for effect", as he puts it. He politely picks up his bird and steps back as another contestant takes his place: a little girl this time, her hair up in messy braids.
She swallows, then shouts, "If you think you can beat me... well, you can't! So there! I've never lost a battle before, ever!"
Lucaro's eyes meet mine, painfully bright. He does not want to cause her first loss.
I bite into my cheek and glance at Lup, but he shakes his head. Hey, you promised them a big blue dog. I am a tiny blue flightless bird. The thrill is not the same, Niri.
In a bit of flair, she twirls two poke balls off of her fingers. Maybe that's why she always wins. Out comes a pair: plusle and minun, red and blue bunnies. Lucaro gazes upon them, his face pale with emotion, and he shuts his eyes as he lands a karate chop on the first, sending it down to its little bunny butt.
The blue one, minun, releases a squeal, then shoots out a spark per its master's command. It hits Lucaro, and his complexion doesn't shift whatsoever. It's like hitting a freaking wall. Another chop of his arm, and the other collapses. Lucaro whispers, returning to my side, "I feel like I've failed everyone I ever loved for the sake of..."
When a child glances up at him, I growl his name, and he shuts off his voice. Not that anyone would believe a kid who apparently heard a talking blue dog, but we don't need the chance of that problem arising. Not with everything else going on, such as our utter poorness and my missing best friend.
The little girl gazes at her fainted pokemon, then carefully draws them into their poke balls. "W-Wow... I've never lost before. That was kind of a rush..."
She hands me a larger sum than the last kid—probably won a lot more than little Starboo.
Well thank goodness for children and their charity.
I ask, "Does anyone else want to try against my big blue dog?"
Lucaro smirks.
The kids notice and gasp. One of them whispers under their breath, "It's like the big blue dog knows what everyone's saying..."
Then another squeals. "Hey! That's not fair! Is he reading our thoughts, you mean lady?"
My cheeks flush. "N-No! No! Not at all! Geez! I am not a cheater! He's just really strong and smart!"
Lucaro's cheeks singe purple. I have to stop myself from hugging his cute fuzzy self.
Clearing my throat, I add, "If you still don't want to fight my lucario, I have a piplup too," and nudge my foot at the stupid flightless bird clinging to my leg. "He's not very strong, but he needs the exercise."
From the back of the small group, one final contestant reveals himself. He's got his hair all long and covering one of his eyes, and it must be extremely itchy underneath the shadow of darkrai-black strands. "Yeah. I'll fight both your pokemon at the same time, yeah? Sooooo... yeah. Get ready."
"Y-Yeah," I choke out, struggling not to let my laughter escape, as Lup and Lucaro move in front of me. Gosh, as... as potentially rude and awful as this is, just picking on children in the outskirts of a forest, I haven't hid this many smiles since when Layke and I were playing checkers back in Nurse Morrow's horrible pokemon center of death.
I'm... ahhh... this is for a good cause. We're gonna use this money towards the faraway, currently unfeasible goal of finding him, saving him, and returning him home. I have no idea how to tell his family, so maybe I just won't—i-if I can recover him, then it's like it never happened anyways.
The boy throws another "yeah" at me, and I break down, forcibly swallowing my cackles, as he releases a pokemon whose shadow suddenly eclipses the sun. With a squeak, I glance up, and it's—a gigantic dragon. A horrible massive dragon with three heads, and like, two of its heads are where its arms should be, and it's got this nasty purple ruff, and it just altogether makes my skin break out in metaphorical hives.
Ah, yes, a flying dragon. Perfect.
Lucaro breaks no sweat, scooting back and summoning another aural sphere within his palms. When the dragon ducks and fires a beam of prismatic light without a gesture from the trainer, Lucaro ducks back and resumes his sphere-building. Lup helpfully pecks the air far below the dragon's body.
"Yeah, it's my dad's hydreigon. Pretty sick, yeah? His name's Arnold, but he doesn't even listen to Arnold, so I just call him Butthead. Pretty funny, yeah."
Well, shoot.
Lup coughs. I think he just used a hyper beam. So he'll be immobile for a little while. Boost me up, will you?
I shake myself and act as if I've come up with an amazing idea. "Lup, over here!" He waddles over to me, and I lower my outstretched palms so that he can climb right in. I toss him toward the dragon demon, and he sprays a fluttery array of bubbles. They pop innocently, leaving nary a scratch, but I have absolutely no other plans, so up I toss him again, and again, until the dragon begins to move and his eyes follow after the annoyance: me.
Throwing Lup to the ground—he scowls—I grab my bar and hoist it above my head. Arnold's sick dragon eyes strain upon me, even as Lup hurries to his waddley toes, even as Lucaro fires ball after ball of incredible blue power at his side. Then the three dragon heads' maws fill with horrifying bright color, and the blood begins to rush to my cheeks.
FRICK—
I duck back behind a tree and swing my club like it means anything. Two of the beams strike the tree, shaking the trunk and convincing me that my death is nigh, but my swinging metal bar strikes a strand of the hyper beam and sends it back at the dragon. It catches around a wing. With a horrible, rampant screech, the hydreigon crashes upon the ground, still awake but certainly, massively angry.
Some kids scream for foul play, but the boy just chuckles. "I think Butthead thinks you're a pokemon."
I think it is time to panic. "LUCARO!" I squeak. "TRY TO GAIN HIS ATTENTION!"
"I—" Lucaro whimpers. "I'm trying..."
In the midst of my hysterical crying, none of the children hear Lucaro, but they laugh a whole darn lot at the very quiet tears streaming down my pathetic face. Maybe I should charge them for the freaking show and make some cheap extra bits of cash off of their entertainment. The longer they laugh, the harder my gut curdles. A part of me wants to just—to just—
Keebae flashes before my mind, Keebae and the cut on her forehead, the cut that I...
No, no no... they're just children. They're just children, just selfish babies that don't know any better...
Niri, stop thinking about yourself.
I gasp, look up, and watch as Lup drills relentless holes into the hydreigon's still body. Then—just as sudden—the monster takes to haphazard flight while Lup is perched on his back. Squawking, Lup attacks him again and again from behind the three heads, drilling holes, spewing bubbles, attacking and attacking in this nasty crapshoot that chips pathetically away at Arnold's health. The child watches his dad's pokemon writhe as the agony grows hotter and harder, and the psychopath baby giggles.
When I step out of my hiding place, a catch of light blooms overhead. It's in the opposite direction of the midmorning sun, like a—like a second sun, but brighter, whiter.
Then I gasp again when my eyes hit my piplup. The light engulfs him, then bends his body, forcing him outward, stretching his wings and head and feet and chest.
As the light grows whiter, stronger, suddenly it dims, and behind it is left a slightly larger flightless bird.
Lup..?
He blinks. Oh I think I evolved. Aw, sweet. Lup the prinplup at your service, milady. Then he goes back to drilling holes into the hydreigon's neck, and somehow it's—more pronounced. His weight, his power, it's... it means something more powerful than it ever did before. Quickly, perhaps in shock, Arnold bends to Lup's weight, and then he crashes once more into the ground.
Lucaro steps over and tentatively jumps, then kicks at one of the slow-moving heads.
Arnold grows still.
The children stare, and they stare, and they stare. Lup awkwardly gets up and waddles over to me. I send him into his poke ball. Lucaro steps close to me, his paw hovering by my shoulder as if to pull me aside in a moment's chance of danger.
Then, in a rush of symphony, unanimous clapping erupts before us.
"THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I EVER SAW! THE REST OF MY LIFE IS GONNA BE DOWNHILL FROM HERE ON OUT!"
"OH MY GOD I THINK I'M CRYING! I DIDN'T EVEN CRY WHEN MY LITTLE SISTER WAS BORN."
"WWWWHOOOAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"I WANT A LUP! I WANT A LUP! I WANT FIVE HUNDRED, ACTUALLY!"
Then there's the boy whose dad owns the hydreigon. His lips smear into a magenta smirk. "Didn't see that one coming. Pretty cool, pretty cool." He upends one of his pockets and hands me the stack of cash—plus a couple bug shells and a broken poke ball—within. "Yeah, that was worth it."
The kids go around and throw loose change at me like I'm some sort of fountain—a few even make wishes—and we wave goodbye to one another.
One they're far behind us, the trail spreads long and wide and empty. Trees ring our vision, and grass meets our feet, and our pathway eases along a leisurely expanse.
"What did you think?" I ask.
Lucaro shudders. "Many ugly thoughts. I did not like the child who used the father's pokemon. Arnold... did not like the child. You made him angrier, because your pokemon listened to you. Because you laughed... He just wanted to sleep, after your pole deflected his hyper beam."
"D-Dang..." Man, I can't feel good about anything I accomplish with this guy around. Using my bar as an easy cane, I shake it. "Do you think, with this thing, I'm almost like a pokemon? That seemed to be what the freaking hydreigon thought."
My companion's brows raise. "I do not know. One would expect humans to be able to defend themselves without their pokemon, but it appears that they rely too heavily on our unearthly powers. I think... I think it is a good idea to be able to defend yourself, in case your pokemon—and I—cannot."
We continue down the sunlit pathway in a contemplative silence.
"Well, uh, Lup evolved, so that's cool." I snort. "He looks like a prepubescent penguin, but hey."
Lucaro cannot stifle his laughter. That makes me feel a little better about things. We might not know exactly where we're going, but I got a lucario to chuckle in a bout of low, barking laughter, so there.
And we have money. And we have sweet money.
"Where d'you think those kids are from?"
Lucaro scoffs. "Somewhere rich and halfway wedged in the forest. Somewhere... scenic, as the humans call it."
"Okay..." I shrug. "Well, I feel less bad now."
We leave it at that. All we can hope is this path leads us somewhere closer to Layke, or at least somewhere with a vending machine.
