Chapter Five - Claustrophobia

The night was almost perfectly peaceful. But then, Noel wouldn't remember much of her sweating through her clothes. At least, Nikolai hoped that she wouldn't. She still was reluctant to walk after dressing herself and settled for merely poking at her legs. He brushed her hair into braids, easy and harmless, earning a meager smile.

There wouldn't be much progress today, he assumed.

The pokemon, being the epitome of health, acted otherwise. They were refreshed from the night in their pokeball nests and were moving about. Kaylee was bounding around much faster than Percy but that was presumably normal for a turtwig and a shinx.

"Wanna keep going today?" He asked Noel, coaxing a warm piece of bread into her hands. "Or stay here and train? Mt. Coronet's not going anywhere."

Honestly, he'd rather just keep her in bed. Was that the right thing to do? Was it even the right thing to want? He worried his lip as she took a cautious bite.

Noelani dipped her head as she slowly chewed. She shut her eyes sleepily before opening them again. "Mm… I wanna go to Oreburgh and find a stone."

"What kind of stone?" He smiled at her, handing her an ice water next.

"A pretty stone for Mama's togekiss." She sipped through the bendy straw. "Will it mess up our journey?

Nikolai patted her on the head. "Well, we would have to go to Eterna to get a mining kit, not Oreburgh, but the gym leader might have a nice stone for us to find. What do you say?"

Noelani nodded, clinging to his hand.

"Think you'll be able to go most of the way?"

For a moment, Noel hesitated. Then, she screwed up her face and nodded.

Nikolai's smile tightened but he didn't disagree with her. Instead, he helped her off the bed. "Then let's show them what we can do."

She smiled and managed a little bounce.

He would take that.


The cave route between Jubilife and Oreburgh made Nikolai's skin crawl.

Despite his biggest asset in height being his white hair first thing in the morning, Nikolai found himself easily feeling the walls and ceilings close in like the crowds of Goldenrod and Rustboro and Sunyshore all wrapped up into one. It was all too easy for him to look around and imagine it and promptly consider losing his poffins. So he had twice the reason to book it through that tiny cave.

But Nikolai! You invisible weirdo reading over someone's shoulder would say! You're heading into a mountain! It's full of caves. Yes, yes it is, but there weren't just caves. There were sources of water and all sorts of pokemon and ways to escape a cave in. A mountain range like Coronet had multiple exits. Surely that would make a difference! It had for him before. But then again he had been much younger and properly distracted.

So for her sake and his, he was booking it through here as quickly as possible. It wasn't like there was much of any value here aside from a few stones and a TM or two.

Also, and as he had forgotten, a whole lot of zubat.

After the second flock of them, Nikolai proceeded to give up and nearly throw Noelani on his back in an attempt to speed up their escape. During that process he threw a pokeball, all pretense forgotten. A large orange mouse rose into the air, sitting on its tail and staring irritably at the multitude of screeching bats.

"Thunder Wave," Nikolai ordered, feeling Noelani shivering on his back. Zubat hordes tended to be troublesome at best, but no one had seen what would happen if the bat poison mixed with the blood of a victim of Reversal Flu and he never wanted to see that.

Either Tora agreed or hated flying types much more than was probably necessary as the resulting attack was less of a thunder wave and more of a slightly less powerful thunderbolt. Each small body thudding to the floor made Noel flinch.

Nikolai however, couldn't take any time to comfort her, focusing instead on getting out of here before he stopped breathing properly. That ceiling was much closer than it had been a few seconds ago.

Kaylee barked at the Raichu, who only did a strange gesture with his paw, chubby white cheeks sparking with amusement at the sight. The shinx returned the movement, though this was more with annoyance than anything, and then leaped from the ground to climb him. Then. she flung herself into the remaining cloud, electricity bursting from her body to send each zubat drooping to the ground.

Noel made a face. "I didn't tell her to do that," she said, sounding somewhere between offended and afraid. The tremble in her voice was leaning towards fear though.

"She was pretty temperamental when you caught her," Nikolai said, trying not to smile or worse, smack the little kitten for being what it was: a baby predator. "She woke up rather quickly from Laikas Grasswhistle. Also, based on the strength of her legs, she's already a relatively practiced hunter."

Noel's breathing slowed a little. "So… so this is normal?"

"In a-" He caught himself before his voice would tremble. "In a cave full of poison bats? It's essential. We can talk to her in Oreburgh."

Feeling Noelani nod, he shifted to move away from the mess. Then she twitched her hand and threw a PokeBall. (He had totally missed her pulling it out like an idiot.) One of the tiny zubat went spiraling into it and unsurprisingly did not move. Nikolai winced and stooped to pick it up.

"Really?" he couldn't help but ask once they were both secure and he had no reason to not bolt the hell out of there. Tora flew beside him, occasionally zapping more stupid bats out of the way as he went. Kaylee raced after them, growling with irritation. Then again, the kitten's legs were still young. They weren't used to the kind of speed of a grown human's stride, particularly one that did not want to be here! Expressly!

He still had to be careful not to jostle Noel on his back, but he was getting the feeling she wasn't even paying attention anymore, cradling his neck with her spindly arms.

"You okay?" he asked her, keeping his voice as soft as possible. She nodded a little.

"My legs are asleep," she said and for a moment, Nikolai could hear the bead of strength in his daughter's voice. "But I'm not hot or anything, Daddy. Not right now."

"No throat tickle?"

"Huh-uh."

"Good." He kept his voice firm. "Great."

They were almost there.