A/N: Well, I finally did it. I forgot to save a document and wound up saying ¡hasta la vista! to seven thousand words. In order to keep some sort of consistency I got the action scene down as well as its fallout. Sorry...
Doggy blinked to get the carriage back into view. Shards of glass rained from the back of Doggy's head. The remaining window funneled in orange light.
He huffed, unable to see past his forepaws. If my head felt full of dust before, he thought.
"What do we do?!" Upright's voice. It tapered off into a yowl.
Liv spoke next—his voice, on the contrary, sounded flat. "The bandits must be gone. They got to the bags."
Sniffles. Doggy glanced up, squinting at Grain's shape by the door. "No way. I can smell them. I smell blood, too."
"My nose is numb," Liv replied. "All my senses are gone. I can't even see straight… Grain?"
His hushed tone was the final push to return Doggy's vision. The linoone surmised their fears with the shinx's name: does it end here for us? Before they saw Pathen, before they joined the Initiative, after all the emotion that went into their choice, their journey could end without ever beginning.
It was already over for Tello. His roars had ceased, replaced by the bandits' focused rummaging. The other three children collapsed into tears. Doggy wished to join them, and would have, if he weren't dazed.
In the recesses of his mind, instinct started to rouse his spirit. Somewhere, amidst the panic, he returned to the same thoughts he had whenever Grain bullied him, or when he had to save Upright. His pride returned piece by piece.
The growlithe took in a deep breath. Then another. You're a deathseeker, Doggy, he thought, standing up. No matter the situation. If you can't survive this… you don't deserve to be an adventurer!
"Liv," he said, coughing. "Lock the door."
His friends whipped around to look at him. Doggy refused to betray his fear. His presence seemed to calm the others.
"Lock it," he repeated, louder this time.
The growlithe's confidence relaxed the linoone. He slipped over to the door and slid its bar in place, no questions asked.
Doggy gestured for them to come in close. Now, his voice fell to a whisper. As he became quiet, so did their surroundings. The entire clearing was noiseless.
"They think we've trapped ourselves," Doggy whispered.
"W-We did," Upright said. Then, unable to control himself, the quilava threw his paws over his eyes. "Tello..."
Doggy nodded. "Good, Upright. Keep crying. You too, Grain. They can't hear us plotting."
The shinx walked over to the center of their tipped carriage. She opened up and let out a sad howl.
"Help!" She mewled. "Anyone!"
"Shut your mouth," a bandit snarled from outside. "We'll get to you later."
She hissed under her breath. "Bastard." For the moment, it seemed she had found herself. A twinkle appeared the shinx's yellow eyes.
Upright, whether he meant to or not, joined in on the plan, shouting Tello's name.
"Liv," Doggy said. "You've quickened, right?"
The linoone shuddered. "I can't fight. Those are adults, I'll be slaughtered-"
"We're jumping out the window. You have to go first."
"Why?"
"Breaking the other window knocked me out. Your fangs are better."
Liv looked up. He snapped his teeth and spun around. "Tello should have listened to that grovyle.."
"Regrets won't help us."
"Yeah."
"You have to be ready. Everyone has to jump through and run the same direction. So..." he didn't want to be the one who led them straight into a bandit's clutches. Once they reached the brush, escape wasn't impossible. They had no idea what laid between the brush and the several yards of clearing. "Follow me," he said.
There was no use waiting: Doggy rose his mouth and started to howl.
"W-What if they find out," he cried, "that all our valuables are hidden underneath the benches?!"
The rummaging stopped. "Well, our job just got a bit easier," a bandit said. He let out a scratchy cackle.
A terrified, betrayed look flashed over Upright's face. Even Grain stopped whining, turning she should gape at him. Liv, at least, knew the plan: he tensed himself, ready to pounce.
Doggy thought of something else. "Grain—when they try to open the door, put a bolt through the handle. Like you used to do to me at the school's trough. Whenever he attempted to drink from the trough at school, Grain would hide underneath and spark, giving the hunk of metal a nasty current. He hoped she could amplify it to harmful levels: the ornate handle to the carriage was btonze.
Grain grinned, sneaking over to the door. "Good idea. I'll really give it to them-"
The handle jerked, breaking off the wood. Doggy's heart stopped beating. His veins turned to ice in the sweltering box. As Grain flew towards the door, her fur standing on end, her jaw reaching for the handle while the door flung open, Doggy fled to the corner.
I always try to quit, he thought, stopping. There's no more time for doubt.
"Now!" He sputtered, his heart thrumming. "Break the window, Liv!"
Grain let out a yowl. The door cracked open an inch, revealing a furious poliwhirl on the other side.
Doggy heard the glass shatter. He looked up, expecting to see Liv climbing out. Instead: there was screaming, the plopping of blood on the floor of the carriage. A blitzle had broken through the window first—the bandits had planned to cut off their escape. Liv jumped anyway, too pent-up to stop his charge. Now he hung from the blitzle's face.
Liv, spurred on by his power, bit down had on the blitzle's snout. She howled and bucked out of the window, taking the linoone with him. The bandits outside began whooped.
The other bandits will be watching the windows now, Doggy realized. We have no way out of here!
A high pitched whine broke out. Grain was still howling.
Something happened: a ripple went through the door—it wavered as if it was made of water. The poliwhirl's eyes twitched and it bolted up, like it was standing attention.
"B-B-B-B," he stammered. "B-B-B..."
"Bully?" Grain asked. Eerily, she sounded more curious than angry.
"Brat," the poliwhirl gasped.
She lunged forward.
An explosion rocked the carriage. Doggy, not thinking, flew in front of Upright to block the splinters. They shredded him, but miraculously, most of the shrapnel went outside.
Doggy looked up, opening his eyes. Grain was panting, a static field protecting her from the wood. Her concern was the poliwhirl: it laid in the rubble of the door, not moving. A faint smoke rose from the bandit, and his body had been thoroughly lacerated. If he had been a stag, not hardened like all pokémon, there would be little bits spread across the grass.
"I..." Grain balked, backing away. "I-I think I killed him."
Doggy breathed hard, trying to voice his thoughts.
He shook his head wildly. "Now's our chance. Go, Grain, go!" He forced Upright to follow with a sharp tug on his arm. They broke outside. Fresh air seemed to help Grain, who had to hop over the poliwhirl to leave. Doggy did too, trying not to pay the creature any mind.
Outside, Liv had incited chaos in the remaining three bandits. They chased the lithe pokémon. They vied to be the one to take him out: at the moment, the blitzle led the pack. Its eyes blazed with fury at having been bitten. She gained on the pup, who was making a mad sprint for Tello's body.
The blitzle dove. Doggy spotted the ripples in his pelt—the growlithe shouted Liv's name.
Liv's powers quickened again, giving him agility. He dove into the satchel, spun around, and drove something into the blitzle's maw as it tried to bite him.
She reared up, eyes rolling down to see the wooden idol of Xerneas stuck in her maw. Like the door, it began to wobble. Like the door, it exploded.
She fell onto her side, wailing and kicking at the air in vain. Liv snarled at her, glanced at an approaching scyther, and bolted towards the brush.
"After him," Doggy told Upright.
The quilava didn't need to be told twice. He fell onto to all fours and—for the first time, Doggy realized—moved like a pokémon. He was surprisingly quick, and Doggy's own legs pounded the ground in pursuit.
Grain's shout broke his concentration. He skidded to a stop, short of cover.
He turned around, ready to face whatever bandit had caught up to them. Grain wasn't nearby. She was over Tello''s body, struggling in the grip of a heracross. Tello showed no signs of life.
Idiot! He thought. Why did she go over to him?
She held a pouch in her mouth. Their payment, plus… a blue ball at the bottom of the bag. Daté's orb, which he had given to Tello for safekeeping until they arrived in Pathen. X
This heracross was different from the poliwhirl. When Grain tried to use her power, however concentrated, the heracross's chitin absorbed it. She was harmless again, about to have her bones snapped by the bandit's pincers.
That armor is too much for my teeth...
Grain's words in the forest a week ago came to him: you don't thrust your claws into it. You slash across, adding small cuts, weakening your opponent until you can…
Doggy's body-heat rose until he felt nauseous. He huffed, digging his paws into the ground.
Grain really is a good pokémon, he realized. Tello brought us along, even so we annoyed him. He cared enough to break a promise to someone who could easily hurt him. He deserves our help!
The scyther walked in between Doggy and the heracross.
"Take care," he said. "This growlithe is quickening."
Doggy gaped. I am? I am.
The heracross grunted. "Who cares, Ormen? These children are all out of tricks. Guess what?" He called out to the growlithe. "She killed Spritz. I'll make her suffer for that."
"Stop it!" Doggy barked.
"Don't approach," the scyther, Ormen, said. "I will maim you before your attack even begins. I would rather spare you the pain."
Something inside of Doggy demanded to take control. Battle instinct. Even Doggy himself didn't know what his body planned to do with all this fire. He might expel fire from his mouth, or spray sparks from his ankles.
He lowered himself. The answer was neither: he wanted to bite.
The scyther shot forward before Doggy had taken a step. Ormen's blades seemed crimson in the evening's light. He was upon the growlithe on the third step.
Doggy's paws flared with heat.
Ormen sent his blades flying down.
Doggy dodged it.
He slid across the grass, propelled by a burst of energy in his paws. Wherever his paws touched, the grass became blackened. When his slide finished, and it left him tumbling, smoke rose from the line he created. He rose to his feet and rushed the heracross who, perhaps spurred by confidence, didn't drop Grain to guard.
The growlithe leaped and punched his teeth into the heracross's shoulder. The bandit laughed.
"You've just shattered your own teeth, idiot! What sort of fire-affinity charges in like that?" He shook, expecting Doggy to fall the ground, teeth reduced to powder. "Huh?" Doggy didn't fall, or even slump over. He remained embedded in the heracross, body straight as a log.
"Defend yourself," Ormen recommended. "The child has you."
"No… no, they're kids. All our practice, and we can't fight kids?" He squeezed Grain's neck, whose struggles had faded.
The heat in Doggy's paws returned. He growled, his last warning.
Ormen snorted. "Don't call me for help."
"Help? I won't need—gah..."
Doggy flipped himself, teeth still gripped in the heracross. The bug jerked—the spin let the growltihe dig in a bit deeper. Doggy spun again, then again, until he had a rhythm going. By the eighth spin, Doggy felt blood in his mouth, and it wasn't his own.
"Ah, my armor! H-How is he doing this?" The heracross cried. He slammed Grain into the ground and extended a pincer to remove the nuisance.
Doggy's legs deflected the claw. The spinning grew faster, faster, till Doggy lost count.
The bandit howled with pain, now attempting to stop the growlithe using both claws. One of them didn't follow: Grain, panting for air, grabbed his right arm.
A crack resounded through the forest. Blood flowed freely from the heracross's shoulder, as did smoke.
"Orm-ee-n!" He screeched. He fell to the ground, which did little to stop either pokémon. "Ormen..." he started to sob. "Ormen-" Grain bucked her hind legs into his head. "Ah… please..."
A gust of wind knocked Grain and Doggy off of the heracross. The scyther had knocked them away with a swing of his arms.
He didn't do it before, Doggy thought, struggling to his feet. What kind of pokémon lets his friend suffer?
"Be thankful your hubris didn't bring you to Spritz's fate," Ormen chided. "You two have done enough damage to my company. Surrender the bag and come with me. You have no more tricks to spare."
"All this over fifteen-thousand poké," Doggy said. His teeth throbbed. It was painful enough to steal his vision. "Grain, get to the trees..."
Grain had picked up the pouch. She stared ahead, perfectly stoic.
"Mutt… I'm still wondering. What's your real name?" The shinx asked.
Doggy understood. "Grain, don't do it."
"What is it?"
The growlithe hung his head. "It's Doggy, Grain. It's always been Doggy."
She smiled through her grip on the pouch. "Wow. You aren't lying. Well, I've always thought you deserved a better one. You want this?" She called, addressing the last bandit. "Come and get it from me!"
She turned and bolted for the trees, bag in her mouth. Ormen gave Doggy a look, a note of surprise on his face. Then his wings began to hum. He gave pursuit, flying into the forest at breakneck pace. In a matter of seconds, all sounds of their chase disappeared.
Once again, the sounds of nature returned to Warm Woods. It sounded like any other place. But the smell of burnt flesh and blood hung in the air. Their carriage laid in pieces.
Doggy started to move, not sure to where but walking just for the sake of it. Something pressed against his hindpaw.
Daté's orb: when Ormen had blown them away, Grain had somehow hidden it under him. With the dying light and his shadow cast over it, even its glow was too dull to notice from a distance.
Doggy sat down, staring at the wreckage.
Minutes later, Upright emerged from the forest. He moved slowly, trying to get near the growlithe. Doggy heard him breathing and twisted his head, barking at the quilava with bared teeth. The quilava didn't flinch.
"Sorry," Doggy whispered. He resumed his vigil. The heracross and blitzle were incapacitated by pain. They posed little threat for the time being.
"Liv saw Grain run away. He chased after her, I couldn't stop him."
"He'll be back."
Upright nodded. "Is this what it means to be a pokémon? The powers, the fighting. The killing. You almost had me convinced."
"Of what?"
"That pokémon are the same as humans. But they're not. What happened here was… was... I can't think straight. I have no idea what to say, let alone do."
Doggy wiped the blood off his muzzle. I was almost convinced, too, he thought numbly. When Grain said she didn't want to hurt me anymore.
Upright walked over to Tello. Doggy thought the quilava was all cried-out for the day, but the quilava started to sob.
"Oh, D-Doggy." Upright gasped. "He's alive. T-Tello's still breathing. How do we heal him? These gashes are huge."
"I don't know." His mind was dust. He stared on while Upright made attempts to soak the wounds with spare blankets from Tello's bag.
Soon, Upright saw the futility. He sat down, rubbing Tello's shoulder with a paw. He shut down, like the growlithe had.
Liv arrived half an hour later to the two staring up at the sky. He panted hoarsely.
"I couldn't find her," he whined. "Grain was my one friend. Now she's gone." He tested the word. "I'll never see her again. Maybe, though..."
The other two responded to the noise.
"Tello's alive," Upright said to no one.
"If I was stronger," Doggy recited to himself. "If I was faster. If I was smarter. If I was braver. If.."
Liv sniffed the air. Then he walked over to the carriage, taking care to avoid the poliwhirl. He came out holding a wood block. Sitting by the carriage, he began to lazily sculpt a figurine in the shinx's image.
"Every single time," a sandshrew said, throwing his claws into the air. "I regret your idea of fun."
A mudkip jumped onto a low-hanging branch. He tested its bearing with a couple of bounces. It snapped, and he spun in midair to land on his paws. The branch smacked the ground nearby, its remaining fall leaves exploded into the air.
"So-oo-bre." The mudkip groaned. We are about five minutes ahead. Imagine the crazy fun of finding something dangerous, and having to run or fight it."
"Oh yes, fun for all the crazies, Acker."
"No, crazy fun for everyone—gah." Acker rolled forward. He sprung up right in front of Sobre, causing the sandshrew to dive backwards. "So. We never played much during our time in school. What made our dads agree to take me to the Initiative?"
Sobre pondered a drifting scent. After years in a brewery, he had a nose trained to trouble boiling in the kegs and elsewhere. It was too faint to discern. "Well," he said, "our families have always been allies." He, Sobre Wright, and the ball of energy, Acker Flow, were just two more heads forced together by their family's treatise.
"The earth and the rivers are inseparable," Acker recited. He raised his head and sniffed the air, tail-fin slowing down. "I bet you really don't care for me all that much."
Sobre fumbled for words. He stumbled over a few possible lies before taking a chance on the mudkip's smile. "No, not at all. This night-walking business scares the daylight out of me. You are loud."
Acker's smile didn't falter a smidgen. He turned around and started to walk down the path, towards the strange smell. "That's hunkie-dory. Let's not gab about it to your father, though."
The sandshrew sighed. "I know what you're doing."
The mudkip cocked his head to the side.
"You're being accommodating to rope me in. I really don't want to be out here."
"You told me already… oh." Now, Acker's smile turned into an understanding frown. The pokémon changed himself like water, always trying to pour into the sandshrew. Sobre appreciated his drinks fermented. "You're afraid they won't accept you, and you will disappoint your father."
Once again, Sobre found his legs swept out from under him. "W-What? I just don't want to adventure. I'd much rather tend to the breweries."
Acker shot him a coy grin.
"I loathe you, to be brutally honest.."
The grin grew wider.
"Fine! I despise the thought of failure. My father says in the past couple years, the Adventure Initiative's recruitment process has become far more rigorous. Did you know, the Initiative last year accepted a measly thirty apprentices for Outside roles, and fifteen of those graduated? Those numbers should worry anyone."
"Nuh-uh! My father says they'll love me if I show my stuff. Flows have a one hundred percent acceptance rate. Bang!" He teetered over, throwing his weight into a tree. Once again, his nose lifted.
Sobre took a whiff as well. They both stopped dead in their tracks. The sandshrew forgot his manners and began to bleat, this smell was not far worse than discovering a botched batch of drink. Acker breathed it in.
"I think our foray through Warm Woods is at an end," Sobre said. "Come on, Acker, come on now."
"That smelly smell, it's on the path." Acker skittered back. "A-Ah! Somebody must've been mugged!"
"Improbable, impossible! Every cart going through at this time has an armed guard. Our cart has three, for crying out loud, no one is dumb enough to rob an East Territory escort."
"Use your eyes, not your sniffer."
Sobre squinted, trying to see through the grogginess. His eyes widened, and his bleating grew louder. A cart laid destroyed in a larger clearing ahead. Darkness seeped into its entire front—where a door should be was a gaping hole. In front of the carriage, hard to discern, but definitely possible, was a body.
"It blew apart from the inside-out," Sobre breathed. "Acker?"
The mudkip had sprinted down the path.
"Good idea," the sandshrew called. "I'll go the other way and get help."
He turned around—his eyes fell on the path back. Dark and menacing, with odds of housing the same bandits who blew the carriage apart from the inside, which could mean one thing: psychics. Sobre imagined crossing paths with a murderous psychic, his body pulled apart as he struggled to take control of his mind.
"Actually, I'll go with you! I loathe the woods, I loathe this mudkip, I loathe traveling..."
Up ahead, Acker had skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing. By the time Sobre reached the edge—also coming to a stop, not willing to take the lead-the mudkip was shivering.
Then he flat-out bolted the other way. Sobre watched him leave, jaw ajar. He took his own turn looking out at the wreckage.
There were pokémon alive, two of them that were small enough to be his age. There was a large, hulking body in by the carriage, its chest heaving. One, two, three grownups, all the same.
A full company? Sobre thought. This carriage looks familiar… is that old Tello? Tello, the tauros who was supposed to deliver him to Pathen. At least, until his father ousted him. He was promised an ample sum, a place within the walls of the Wright's comfy estate. All the drink he could ever desire. Yet the tauros chose this, a life's end at the hands of bandits. Tello never used guards. So the three grownups were bandits defeated by the carriage-driver.
Sobre inched forward. All of this is terrifying. But what could make Acker run away? Better yet: if he ran, why haven't I?
"Hello?" He asked the two children. They both looked up quietly. "I'm here to help. Um..."
A third body appeared from behind Tello's. Its yellow eyes flared in the gloom, and when Sobre met the glare, he was unable to break away. The creature had to be psychic, as it had taken complete control of the sandshrew's body through mere eye-contact.
It's going to kill me, Sobre realized. I can see it in its eyes, it's going to tear me to ribbons-
"Help us," the monster begged. The fire in his eyes faded, without that fire, the beast became a quilava. The pokémon waddled forward on his hind legs.
Sobre backed away, but didn't flee. "Okay. Stay over there, though."
"Tello is alive," the quilava said.
Sobre found a nervous smile. "That's good. Our carriage has supplies to mend wounds."
"Tello is alive," the quilava repeated. He curled in on himself and fell asleep.
