"A desire to provide the children of the Hoenn region with a chance to encounter many Pokémon welled up inside of me and led to my decision to open here."

14

Dawn brought with it a break in the rain.

The metal beast had not let go of his (for I had found out, through various grunts on his part, that 'it' was a 'he'—I guess not all poke'mon languages transfer over) trainer for even a second for the rest of the night, and when the entrance of the cave proved to be too small for his wide berdth, he simply tucked the guy as small as possible and forced his way through, exploding rock across the clearing. I barely dodged some of the shrapnel.

"Frick, you're a tank."

It grunted, whether in approval or protest, I didn't know. But its strikingly blue eyes were back down to his trainer, who looked even worse in the pale dawn light. The guy's face, the only part of him not covered in gray-tan dust, looked pale as paper and patches of his suit stood out amidst the dust from the blood that soaked through.

"What kind of weirdo wears slacks and a suit jacket to dig around in a cave?" I muttered to myself as I reoriented my north and south. "Alright, if we keep going east we should hit the lake around Mount Pyre. We can follow that straight North to the Safari Zone, where we should be able to find him some help."

My metal monster friend gave another grunt, again, the exact meaning lost, though if the nudge of his pointed, steel chin was anything to go off, he probably meant "Lead the way."

And so I did. I managed to find a quick trot that I could keep up without tiring too quickly. His heavy footsteps crunched and thudded after me, easily keeping pace with me despite his short legs and huge size. Any poke'mon in or near our path fled, screeching with alarm. Branches as thick as the trees themselves snapped away in his wake, little more than toothpicks in his determined stride.

I swore then to never be on his bad side. Hey, I had already admitted to being a coward. Maybe that'd make me a good lackey.

By late morning the trees gave way to the pebbly gray shore of the lake. It wasn't till I was standing near the glistening water that I realized my paws, up to my elbows, had turned gray from the dust. I didn't know about the rest of me. I gave myself a few minutes to catch my breath and cool myself with a drink from the lake, rinsing my paws as I did so, before taking off at the same quick pace.

The lake was more like a wide river that vanished around the bend as Mount Pyre stood tall and green in the center. To call it a hill would have been an understatement.

Something about looking at it made one of my tails grow warm. It was one that had not done so before, and I considered it as we ran along the length. The thundering crackle of the huge steel poke'mon's feet were somewhat muffled by the sand underneath.

Still, Mount Pyre was small for a mountain and we managed to make it to a broad dock at the north end before the sun had reached its zenith. A lone, elderly man sat at the far end, fishing, and he did a double-take on seeing us. But I didn't spare him more than a glance as I leaped over the grass and onto the dock. Behind me, wood groaned and squealed in protest under the steel monster's weight.

Fortunately for us, it held, and I could already see a tan building with Safari Zone broadcasted above it in bright, red letters displayed across a montage of Pikachu, Duduo, and painted leaves.

The poke'mon behind me gave a low, desperate roar which, while not groundbreaking, still startled a couple of girls who had been sitting on the steps up to the building. They squealed and scrambled to get away as we ran up the stairs.

The automatic front doors barely opened up in time to avoid being smashed through.

"Oy! Anyone!" I barked, sliding to a stop on the tiles. "We got an emergency!"

If a black Ninetales barking "Nine Nine Nine-Tails!" wasn't enough to get the attention of everyone in the building, the lumbering, almost too-big-to-be-allowed-inside beast behind me definitely did.

"Holy—is that an Aggron?"

"What's he carrying?"

"What is that?"

"Is that a Ninetales?"

The only one who actually reacted as they should to our appearance was a browned skinned man in a ranger get-up who cleared the counter in one leap and crossed the space to us in the other. He didn't so much as hesitate to close in on—someone said he was an Aggron, right?—Aggron and get a close in look on the bedraggled man in his arms.

"April, bring out a gurney! Don, call the hospital in Lillycove! This one's bad!"

Panting, burning up from my run like crazy, and the whole of my spine aching something awful from having carried the guy's mongo backpack the entire way, I tried to back up towards the door as covertly as I could. Aggron's reptilian blue eyes glanced at me as I eased past his leg, but turned back to the man now fluttering his fingers over his trainer with a grim set to his jaw.

"His pulse is strong," said the guy, giving Aggron a reassuring pat on his black, metal arm. "He'll be alright."

A wave of relief washed over me, releasing a tension within me I hadn't realized I'd had.

And in the same swoop, took away the last rope that had been holding up my overheated, exhausted body. I had, after all, run farther than I ever had and with a mongo heavy adventure backpack probably the same weight as me as well.

What do you know? Adrenaline is a thing.

My legs buckled. The backpack tore me down to my side, like lead drawn to a blackhole.

The ground and ceiling spun about me, switching places. My aching tongue slapped across the cold tile, my breath heating the air to ripples before me. Footsteps thudded up through my skull with the panicked voices of the humans inside echoing about them. Black fuzzed the corners of my vision.

Don't pass out! I thought madly. Images of poke'balls flying, of wanted posters for a black Ninetales, of greedy shiny collectors assaulted me. I scrabbled for my feet, even as I felt my claws scraping uselessly across the tile.

"Easy girl, easy!"

The tone was so reminiscent of Carlos, I panicked and just pushed harder. But no sooner had I pushed myself upright, the world spinning all the way, that the straps of the backpack brought me back down.

"She's burning up. I can't even touch her."

"So it is a Ninetales. I've never even heard of one coming as black. Shinies are usually, what, silver?"

"Doesn't matter. Wet down a blanket, we need to cool her down. Criminy, she must have run the whole way here," I felt the straps dig under my arms a bit. "And this thing ain't light."

Fear twisted up my breath. I tugged back, trying to get my forelegs out of the straps, trying to gather my bearings enough to get the world right side up. I could see the ranger man and another reaching for me, their hands in gloves to resist my heat.

Only to be blocked by a thick, heavy black leg. I felt the tile crack beneath its weight.

Aggron growled from above.

"Whoa! We meant no harm, Aggron. We just want to help, really."

"She's probably his as well too. Maybe we can find her poke'ball."

Aggron's heavy tail brushed above me, wonderfully cool compared to my heat. I shivered in relief at the touch, finally allowing my head to fall back down.

"Thanks, man," I breathed. "Thanks…thanks…"

And with that, I finally let my eyes close and focused on breathing.