Chapter 4: Front foot forwards

"Come on, can't we stop and take a rest, my paws are starting to hurt from walking all day," Rose complained out loud.

Max couldn't agree more, although he did understand the urgency of the situation, it had been quite a while since they had even eaten anything.

The Minun was now wearing the strange compass around his neck, as after he had shown it to Lucas the previous night he noticed a hole running through the back of it and decided to run a piece of string through it, thinking that it made himself look just a tiny bit cooler.

"Trust me I'm just as tired as you but for all, we know he's either still captured by those other Pokemon, or has at least something to do with the forest fire in the distance after all his trail did cut off in the exact direction of the smoke plums. As long as we have reason to believe he's in danger, we have to keep pushing forward."

"I guess you're right..." Rose let out softly and the group continued on the way with few further complaints for the time being.

"But…" the human continued on, "it is getting late, it might be in our best interest to find a place to rest soon."

None of them commented on this and instead kept walking silently further into the jungle.

…

Landon, despite the injuries that covered his body and the fact he was very much exhausted, couldn't bring himself to fall asleep. Perhaps it was due to his near-death experience, but, more likely, it was the result of his close proximity to Grave.

The Cubone was sitting at the opposite end of a fire, one that he had lit once they were certain they were outside of the Houndoom's territory.

"You know, just because you saved me doesn't make us pals," the Minccino released while trying to combat his fatigue

The other Pokemon let out a slight chuckle before commenting, "Is that so? and here I was thinking you'd be all over me."

"Trust me, first thing in the morning I'll be gone, as far away from you as I can get. You'll be lucky I don't slit your throat in your sleep."

Grave kept his slight smirk as he listened, "you know you can drop the tough Pokemon act now, I have no interest in hurting you, and especially no interest in ever returning to that tribe."

A moment of silence hung in the air as the fire crackled happily. The other Pokemon's words did gain his attention though.

"Plus," an almost razor-sharp smirk grew across his face, "I'm sure you'll find yourself helping me soon enough."

"I'd rather rot in hell then be near you for a second longer than I have too."

"Exactly," he remarked, "and given your current state, if you were to try and go out on your own, you'd probably be hunted down and killed by a predator soon enough."

"Regrettably, he isn't wrong, I'm covered in cuts and bruises, I can barely even walk and it's not like there's anyone else who can help me." The Minccino gave in and said in an annoyed tone, "fine, what is it that you want from me anyways."

The Cubone's tone changed into a prideful smile, "there we go, now we're getting somewhere, was complying for once really that hard?"

Landon just let out some air through his nose aggressively.

"First, I would like to know more about you, where you're from and so one."

"Bold of you to assume I'd reply to your question with the truth, but I'll give you an answer if you agree to receive a few questions from my end."

"fair enough, but in this scenario, a lie may be just as valuable as the truth."

Landon, not seeing any real reason to actually lie, replied with, "I was born on the outskirts of Motostoke in Galar, I ran into a few problems there and decided to escape them by hopping on the first ship leaving the region. We spent a few months at sea, hopping from small island to island until we got lost in the open ocean for a while and ended up beaching on wherever here is."

"Galar," Grave said while raising one eyebrow, "never heard of it, much less a place called Motostoke. And this 'we' you mentioned, I'm guessing the crew mates with you on the boat, do you think they would be searching for you right now?"

"Probably," the Minccino let out, not really putting any care into his response, "But you don't have to worry about that, I don't have any real allegiance with them."

"That's a bit cold don't you think?"

"Yeah, but as far as I'm concerned they've fulfilled their use to me, I needed to escape from where I was, and now I'm here, everything worked out as it should."

"And here I thought Cubones were supposed to be the lonely Pokemon. Anyways I think all I got all I needed from you so it's your turn to ask the questions."

Landon was caught a bit off guard by the other Pokemon's willing to dispose of information, but still made use of the opportunity anyways. "Well, tell me why was it that you were so eager to watch your friends get murdered and abandon them when you knew what was coming?"

"Well, I wouldn't say I wanted to see them dead, but eager to escape, definitely. Trust me, I've been trying to figure out a way to abandon that tribe for at least a month but they're pretty adamant about once you join, you serve for life. So I needed an opportunity to disappear so I wouldn't be hunted down and have my head pit on a stake, and that's when you came in."

"So what were you doing there if you didn't want to be there," he said in a somewhat belittling tone, already losing interest in the Pokemon's life story.

"Well, it began with me simply looking for a place to live, you know provide shelter and food and all that. On my quest for this, I quickly learned that the Pokemon here aren't like the ones from the mainland. Sure you have the same predators needing to kill to survive, but the ones that group together and form colonies seem to be a bit more, to put it nicely... tribalistic. I personally think it has something to do with the lack of any human civilizations to mimic."

"You talk like your no-"

"Your right, I'm not from here, just like you, I came from the mainland, Sinnoh to be exact."

The Cubone then turned around, taking off his skull helmet and pulling an item out before putting it back on.

"Here," Grave said while tossing a small metal object towards the Minccino, "take a look at that."

The item was a thick pin with the top half being a rounded semi-circle and the other a trapezoid. In the middle was a pentagon surrounding and surrounded by a material that was topaz in cover. The design in its entirety as outlined by a silvery material. He flipped the pin around to see, engraved on the back, 'Malcolm – 2016 – Coal Badge.'

The Cubone quickly grabbed the item back from his paws and stores it in his helmet. The Pokemon was obviously waiting to see how the Minccino responds.

"So I'm guessing you have a trainer."

"Had. I had a trainer," Grave said, taking on a deeper, more serious tone.

"So what does this have to do with anything," Landon said, purposefully trying to sound as unemphatic as possible.

"Well, just like most of the young and ambitious Pokemon in Sinnoh, I dreamed of becoming stronger, to become the best me I could be, and I knew the only way to do so was to befriend a human. Eventually, I run into him, Malcolm, playing around in a cave. We were both young, I had only been alive for a year or so, and he was still just a child. The kid had managed to piss off a Zubat nest and was just about to take a few too many wing attacks to the face. Naturally, I couldn't just watch an innocent kid get mauled to death so I jumped in to defend him, I ended up taking the brunt of the damage and fainting, but being a Pokemon its a lot better than I was the punching bag and not the human. I ended up fainting from the damage and waking up in a Pokecenter emergency room and learned that the kid had, of course, rushed me there and had watched my recovery closely every day."

"Man, if I knew this was story time then I would have put a bit more effort into telling my story," the Minccino scoffed, having grown bored of the exposition.

"Fine, I'll hurry it up. As you can guess Malcolm and I grew very close to each other and, when he came of age, I choose without hesitation to be his starter as he fulfilled his dream of entering the Sinnoh league. After a few close calls, we finally managed to beat the gym leader and earn the coal badge. It was, just a few hours after this, that he started throwing up blood and collapsed onto the ground. At the hospital, we learned that Malcolm had stomach cancer and only had a few weeks to live. By some miracle, the cancer was eliminated and he ended up surviving, although the doctor knew that it would return, and the odds of a miracle like which he was granted were slim to none."

"Finally something interesting in your story, a little drama and death has never hurt anyone."

"Do you have any consideration for others, now that I think about it, probably not. Anyways, he was contacted by the Make-A-Wish foundation and he made his desire clear; before he passed he wanted to see as much of the world as possible, so they made that happen. A few years ago we traveled around the world on a boat the charity provided until he passed. Having nothing to return to, I took the ship and decided to see what was out there. You can probably "

"Well, that was a complete waste of time."

"You asked for my backstory, I gave it to you."

"I asked why you were standing guard of the cage I was captured in, not for an 80-page essay."

"It looks like you got both anyways."

"So what exactly does any of that have to do with me, after all apparently I owe you some grand favor."

The ground type once again turned around and pulled something else out of his skull helmet.

"Geez, how much do you store in there, you wouldn't happen to keep any ibuprofen in there?"

Grave just gave him a dirty look before tossing an object into the Minccino's paws.

This item was completely different from the pin he was given previously. This thing was a large (for his size) light blue plate with intricate lines of a darker blue running across it, at a glance it resembled a blue circuit board. On top of its alien design, the panel also gave off an eerie deep blue glow with no explainable source for the light.

"It's a piece of metal, why should I care about it?"

"Well-"

"I swear to fucking Arceus," the Minccino growled slowly, "if you're about to waste another five minutes of my life with exposition, I'm going to rip out your fucking esophagus."

"There's no winning with you is there? Anyways, I found this thing just lying in the jungle on one of the first days I arrived here. It looks like it must belong to something important."

"Or it could just be a useless piece of junk."

"Or you could shut your mouth and let me finish. You see, it only started to glow a few days ago, and only when it's pointing facing a certain direction, meaning…"

"This is so fucking stupid…"

"That, naturally, it's trying to lead me to something," Grave said with a slight bit of excitement in his voice.

"Well that's just great for you but where do I fall into this?"

"Because I can't just go wandering throughout the jungle alone, sooner or later I'll come across a predator or a trap or something, so I'll need someone to watch my back."

Suddenly things were starting to make sense for Landon, facts fell perfectly into place in his mind like pieces of a puzzle. "So the real reason you decided to allow me to escape was due to the fact you wanted someone to go on a fantastical adventure with?"

"I guess you could say that."

"So why didn't you just take one of the hundred other numskulls I saw back in your tribe?"

"Like I said earlier, they aren't like me or you, they haven't grown up in the presence of humans and therefore act a lot more primitive than me or you from the mainland. I mean they still practice Pokemon sacrifice to appease a god that obviously doesn't exist, if I were to even bring something like this up to them, they probably shove me into a cage for going against their common understanding."

"Well that does seem like a pretty interesting problem you're stuck with, I hope you have a grand time trying to solve it with someone who's not me."

The Cubone didn't appear even the slightest bit put down by his adamant statement. "Come on, it's not like you have anything else to do."

"Yes I do, it's called making sure I'm not wasting my precious time following you around all day."

"I'm not gonna force you, but at least try thinking it over before you fall asleep tonight. Even if you don't, I'm sure you'll feel different in the morning " Grave then promptly extinguished the fire that was burning fiercely between the two, shrouding them in almost complete darkness, only broken by the faint rays of light reflected off of the moon.

Landon fell asleep almost instantly afterward, having been thoroughly exhausted by the past few days.

…

They had been walking for almost two days straight, albeit the group had just reached the area of the jungle where the occasional tree or patch of grass had been charred black.

"I'm starting to get a bit worried," Max spoke softly as they walked, "We're- we're in some predators territory and it probably won't be happy with us just walking through..."

"Relax," Lucas said, "all three of you together can easily take on any enemy. Plus…" the human paused his speech as he pulled something out of a leather holster on his side.

The object was a large two-tone, blocky metal tool which he did not recognize, much less had ever seen Lucus with. The item, from what he could see was made up of many complex metal parts, all that seemed capable of moving in some way. Despite the object's foreignness to him, he couldn't help but get a menacing vibe emanating from it.

The human must have caught onto his uneasiness because, instead of finishing his sentence, he released a large rectangular container from the object and showed it to him.

"Relax, they're just rubber bullets, I'd like to harm any Pokemon as little as possible if it comes to it."

This didn't really help him understand what it was, but Max found it calming nonetheless.

The human then slid the container under the tool, which resulted in it giving off an audible 'click.'

Not much happened as they continued deeper into the embered forest, the only real distinction that they had even moved was the fact that the ground here was mostly scorched and the smell of ash was almost overwhelming.

"How you holding up," Rose asked Max, something caught him off as this was the first time anyone had spoken in a long while.

"Huh-" was all the Minun could elicit to the other Pokemon.

"You know-" the Plusle spoke shyly, something that wasn't very characteristic of her. "I just thought that this place might bring back some memories…"

Suddenly Max realized what she was talking about. "Yeah..." the Minun released in a somber tone while facing the floor, "yeah…"

"You know I probably shouldn't have brought it up, it's better being left in the past."

"No… you were always right when you told me not to run from how I feel, and right now I'm feeling the effects of the past."

"Max I-" she paused, obviously conflicted by what words she should use next. " I think we'll both be just fine," Rose spoke, her words being accompanied with an uplifting attitude and a quirky smile.

These words helped in settling his anxious mind, something Rose proved time and time again to do without hesitation.

This moment of uplifting calmness didn't last as the sound of rustling nearby broke the almost silent air.

"Quiet down you two, I think we have company," Lucus whispered to the pair.

The cause of the noise quickly revealed itself as the creature rose from the burnt grass on the forest floor. It was a Marowak who appeared to not take instant anger in their presence. The Pokemon was wounded badly, having several gashes cutting across its body and burn marks all over its appendages. The ground Pokemon simply gave out a deep breath before turning around and walking away.

Lucas turned down and looked at the trio of Pokemon with an expression urging them to do something.

Jae went first, who had remained surprisingly silent throughout the entire journey. The Scorbunny quickly started running up to the Marowak, shouting, "Hey! Hey you, as he rushed closer.

The other Pokemon seemed to not take too kindly to this as he spun around with a surprising amount of energy and launched his club towards Jae. The bone just barely missed the fire type and instead ricocheted harshly off the ground and flew straight back into the Pokemon's hands.

Rose quickly ran to Jae's side and scolded the other Pokemon, "you know that wasn't very nice, we just wanted to talk with you."

The Marowak had now taken up a defensive stature, staring straight at the two who had approached him.

"Max, Rose, use Play Nice, try to calm the Pokemon down," Lucus said in a fairly calm tone.

Max ran over to near where the Plusle was and both of them launched the attack in tandem. They both pulled off a pose and a ring of sparkles surrounded them individually before two large hearts shot out of them and sunk into the Marowak.

The move appeared to have worked like a charm, the ground type dropped from his aggressive stance and a look of peace filled his eyes.

"So now do you wanna talk," Rose asked while inflecting her voice in a cutesy manner.

The Marowak did reply, albeit in a deep and unemotional voice, "I have nothing to talk to you about."

"Aww, com'on don't you wanna chat for just a little," she repeated in the same tone in an attempt to charm the Marowak.

"What are you even doing in this part of the forest, I'd leave as soon as possible unless you want to end up like me."

"Were… looking for someone. You wouldn't have happened to have seen a Minccino named Landon would you?"

The ground types head shot straight up the second she mentioned this name. "If I had to take a guess, hopefully, he's somewhere dead in the jungle. Anyways if you're after him, your best bet would just be to get out of here before you end up like me."

"If you don't mind me asking, where di-" Rose was abruptly cut off by the other Pokemon.

"I think I've told you enough, I'm getting out of here now," he said while calmly turning around and walking off.

"Hey wait, before you go," Lucus said, prompting the other Pokemon to stop and face him.

It looked like the ground type was just about to say something when Lucus pulled an object out of his pocket and lightly tossed it to him. The Marowak caught it in his off-hand effortlessly and looked at it with confusion.

"What's this?"

"It's a potion," Rose informed, "you push the handle and a liquid will come out, you put that on your injuries and they will heal much quicker."

The Marowak looked down at the bottle, then back to the group before giving thanks beneath his breath and finally getting his wish of leaving the area.

After the Marowak escaped out of sight, Jae turned to Lucas and spoke, "so he could be dead…"

"Not quite," the human replied, "although that definitely a possibility, that Pokemon didn't seem very firm in his knowledge over Landon, and at the very least we know he's somewhere in this burnt forest."

Rose jumped up and spoke in an excited voice, seeing an opportunity to lift everyone's spirits, "yeah! We can't just give up over someone else's rumor! We should keep searching to the ends of the earth in order to make sure our friend is ok!"

"See I like that view on it much more," Lucus spoke, "but it is getting late and there's still the possibility of predators, so that will have to wait for tomorrow, right now we gotta find somewhere safe to stay the night."

Author's Note: ...and that makes four! As always I hope anyone who has read this far enjoyed it thoroughly. If you did enjoy it then you should make sure to keep an eye out for the next chapter, so many questions need to be answered. Will they find the Minccino? Does he even want to be found? What's up with Grave and his story? Most importantly, what's with backstory of Max and Rose that keeps getting alluded to? Well, I'd tell you but your gonna need to keep reading in order to find out!