Let's check in with our other characters, shall we?
The stupid Cubone thought he was better than Jak. He made it well known every time they made camp and Ren would try to manipulate the earth. He would sit there, near the fire, and stare at the ground with focused concentration. After a short while would pass, little stones would pierce through the soft dirt and mud like the teeth of a long dead beast to come to a rest on the surface. Then Ren would heave a contented sight and throw Jak smug looks as he went on to eat his dinner.
It was really pissing Jak off.
Yes, she remembered what he did at the hospit. She remembered perfectly well how easily Ren had put out her fire so why did he have to rub it in like this? Perform minor tricks just so she would never be able to forget what he was really capable of?
Ren was doing it again now, staring down at the dirt damp from the thaw of early spring and the melting snow. It was taking longer tonight. He had to be drawing it out on purpose. Jak glowered at him, not that he ever bothered to look over at her.
Jak stood up. Enough was enough and she didn't have to put up with the stupid Cubone's judgement. She stepped around the campfire between them and stood next to him. He didn't glance up from his dirt. Jak's irritation spiked. Was she below even mud on things that were worth notice? So she set it on fire.
Ren flinched back from the small ball of flames that erupted before him. Jak felt a surge of satisfaction and grinned feraly at him. He stared back, before, very slowly, he swept a hand over the cracked smoking ground spotted with tiny glowing embers. The dirt trembled slightly, then swirled into a miniature cyclone, and with a jerk of his hand Ren directed the dirt deposited into a small pile of dirt beside him, never taking his eyes off of Jak until it was done. Then he went back to staring at the ground in front of him, the thin surface layer baked by the heat gone.
Jak lost her grin. With a snarl she spun around and stomped off into the darkened woods around them to search for something to hit away from the stupid Cubone who thought he was better than her.
...
Jak was getting stronger. All this time of near constant fighting and combat would do that to a Pokemon. Ren only had to look at her to see the difference. Jak was getting larger, more muscular, the flame on her tail bigger and brighter. He could see it in the harsh angles of her face, the hard planes of her body, the darkening of her skin into a deeper shade of red. Each day she looked less and less like the Charmander she was and more like the Charmeleon she would soon become.
Ren hadn't made anywhere near the amount of progress Jak had. He stared at the ground, the dirt damp, almost muddy, and focused on that one spot intensely. He could feel the stones beneath, less than a foot away, but he couldn't get them to do anything. He could feel Jak's eyes on him. She always watched him when he tried this, silently judging, seeing just how weak he really was.
He remembered the night in the hospit and his dramatic display. It was common when a Pokemon discovered a new move for it to burst out with more strength and focus than they had. Every time he attempted to affect the earth after that night his accomplishments were small.
Ren wouldn't give up. Jak was getting stronger, Ren needed to too. What help had he ever been in a fight? Minimal at best. He needed to learn something more than the one move he used over and over again. He refocused his attention on the ground. There! He thought he felt one of the stones twitch-
A ball of flame erupted before him like a miniature, dying sun. Ren flinched away and looked up to where Jak stood over him, loomed over him. Her eyes seemed to glow and her bared teeth gleamed in the firelight. She thought he was useless, the 'stupid Cubone' that spouted nonsense and did nothing. That had always been Ren's problem. How many times had he remained a bystander? Sat back, thought about problems, thought about solutions, thought about how things should be, but never actually doing anything? Ren had been stuck in a pattern of 'this is bad, if only it would change to this', waiting for something to happen but doing nothing to help. Sometimes action was needed much more sorely than thought.
Like what Sol and the others of Team Wanderers had done. Seeing them for the first time, a group of novice explorers led by a Riolu still healing from injuries and without much hope for success, but still they were doing something. Even if they failed they would have accomplished much more than Ren ever had.
Jak knew this. She made it clear with every glare and hiss. Ren was trying to do better, to get better, but it wasn't working. Jak saw this. Her grin was feral, a challenge, a threat.
Not daring to break eye contact, Ren put his hand out an inch over the baked, cracked ground, feeling the heat rise up. Dirt was much easier to manipulate than rocks. He didn't feel the strain on his focus, more like a pull on his muscles that made them feel weak and loose but he could always count on it to work.
Ren felt the dirt tremble like one might feel the prickling of budding excitement. The dirt rose and swirled. With a refocusing of his efforts he moved the scorched dirt into a neat pile to the side, leaving a fresh layer of earth untouched by the heat exposed.
There. Ren was making progress even if it wasn't much. He wouldn't be recreating his actions at the hospit any time soon, and this may have looked like a cheap trick in comparison but it was something.
Jak didn't look impressed. She snarled and stomped away in disgust. Any pride Ren felt in his achievement vanished.
...
"Jak does not need you here."
Ren blinked in surprise. Lost in thought, he hadn't noticed the Charmander return. Jak was breathing heavily from whatever fight she had found in the surrounding woods and something gleaming a metallic silver coated her claws, slowly dripping like liquid towards the ground before evaporating into nothing.
Ren didn't say anything in response. This wasn't a new statement. Jak made it every couple of days and Ren answered with the same silence and steady stare.
"This one is stronger than you. This one is stronger than Sol and the Eevee."
This was new. Jak often declared she was stronger than Ren, which he had trouble finding any evidence to contradict her, but she never mentioned their other team mates in her tirade. Ren tilted his head to the side. "Has your goal been achieved?"
Jak hissed, turned, and stalked away.
"Are you stronger than the hidden threat poised to snuff out our shining sun?"
Jak glared at him over her shoulder. Ren sighed.
"You say you left because the pack marched towards ruin. Do you plan on returning once you believe you are strong enough to prevent that?" Jak puffed smoke into the air. "... Not all battles are fought through physical might-"
Jak was on him in an instant. Her hand shone silver in the moonlight, solid metal sheathing her claws and poised inches from Rens face.
"Enough," she growled and took a step back before pacing back and forth in front of the camp fire.
Ren watched for a few minutes, trying to calm himself. Jak was steadily becoming more agitated and Ren didn't know what he could do to help.
In theory they should have been the perfect team. That's how these things always worked in stories. One hero, hot headed and reckless, joins another hero, this one cautious and planning, and together they would balance each other out and save the day. It didn't work like that. At least not for Ren and Jak.
Ren knew that for that type of partnership to work there had to be a level of trust and communication. A collaboration of strengths to minimize each others weaknesses. Instead of the all-about-action Jak and the all-about-thought Ren forming a perfect single whole, they ended up with one off picking fights with wild Pokemon while the waited on the side lines theorizing about how well they should be working together.
In reality, opposites don't just balance each other out so easily. There had to be some common ground for any relationship to work, and that common ground didn't exist. Or, at least that common ground was approximately two months travel north-east of where they now were.
Even if Ren knew this, that didn't mean he couldn't fight against this. He didn't have to accept the inevitable. What he believed to be inevitable. He watched Jak for a short while longer and began to piece together what he thought was the problem.
"As each individual is unique and as such fear manifests itself uniquely."
Jak froze, then turned her head to stare at him with open hostility. If only Sol were here. She was the only one Ren knew who could really talk to Jak.
"If you-"
"Enough!" Jak snarled. "You talk and talk and talk and do nothing! Worthless! Weak."
Jak looked away from Ren and puffed smoke into the air. She glared at the small cloud until it dissipated. Ren thought about pushing the matter. He didn't that night.
...
Jak's mother had never spoken much. Instead she had used a soft chattering, not made of real words but instead a series of noises that conveyed a general feeling. That was primarily how her mother had communicated with her and her siblings, simple messages of 'stop', 'danger', 'bad' and 'good'. It had been soothing, almost, if one could afford to feel soothed in the wilds. Always be on guard, that was one of the lessons her mother had taught them, lessons that were deemed important enough for her to use the words she saved.
Jak remembered one such lesson, when her and her siblings were taught the difference between oran berries and oren berries.
She had spread her wings wide, momentarily blocking out the light to the nest at the base of a rocky outcropping before sweeping them closed. Jak, her two sisters and four brothers, immediately snapped to attention. You always listened when mother spoke.
She held up a branch speckled with blue berries. Silent and still, they watched with a single minded intensity. Freely given food was steadily becoming more rare as they were taught to fend for themselves and hunger was common when they had to fight amidst themselves for each bite.
"Safe," she said. The word was carefully pronounced, forcefully spoken and with more meaning then one would expect from a single syllable. She held up the branch for them to see. Each of them watched, even if they didn't understand why, as the branch was turned around and swept over their heads just out of reach, though none of them would dare make a grab for it.
The Charizard tucked the branch under her arm where she held a bouquet of berry branches. She freed a different branch from the bundle and held it up for them to see.
"Dead," she hissed slowly. She repeated the showing with this branch, directing their attention to where the berries connected to branch. It looked identical to the previous branch, same shade of blue, same shape, same size, but the stem was different. Instead of a single, straight stem holding the berry to the branch, the stem here split off into three small prongs that held the berry.
When she was done, she gathered the bundle of branches and threw them to the floor of the nest. Instantly seven Charmanders were biting, scratching, and puffing smoke. They weren't old enough yet to make real flames. This was fortunate or they food they were fighting so fiercely for would have been ashes.
Jak's smaller sister snapped off a section of branch and retreated to the back of the nest. That had always been her strategy, go in fast and run with something small, enough to get by but not enough for the others to bother chasing her down. She was smart and quick and it worked for her.
That left six. Jak's other sister was the one to worry about. She was bigger, stronger, and greedy. She'd take everything there was to take and defend it with everything she had. And so through necessity Jak and two of her brothers always banded together. Her first pack, as it were. The two boys bit and hissed and drew the sister's attention long enough for Jak to blindly grab a handful of branches and retreat, one of her other brothers taking advantage of the distraction to do the same.
And so it was that three Charmanders ate alone, three shared, and one was left with nothing.
They all ignored the last brother. There was often one left with nothing and today was simply his turn. Jak inspected the branches she had won. She squinted her eyes at one and held it up for her two brothers to see. They looked up briefly from stripping the others of their berries, shook their heads, then went back to work. Jak set the branch to the side.
It didn't take long for that last brother to notice. Desperate and hungry, and ran over, snatched it up and began stuffing the berries into his mouth before anyone could take it from him.
Then there were six Charmanders in the nest.
"Weak," her mother had hissed, fire burning in her eyes. Weak was the worst thing you could be.
Jak would never be weak.
gummyninjagirl01: Every so often, I remember your review and giggle uncontrollably. We'll see how the interview goes, but I think Sol is done with everyone's crap, even her own.
TheEternalTimeline: Yeah, no roads in air travel, sorry about that.
Mister L: Shenanigans!
Leaf of Forest Energy: I'm not the only one who bursts out laughing for no reason?! Thanks for the comments, and I know I do have areas I need to improve on. Physical descriptions are always difficult for me to write and I usually leave things for people to imagine for themselves, but I will try to work on it in the future.
coaster3000: All the time, much to Jak's frustration.