"Well, I guess the important place to begin is that many Pokemon are capable of learning to speak a human language."
Jonah listened intently as Caroline began her explanation. The group had set out early in the morning on Raticlaw's insistence, and there were still a couple hours before noonday was a reality. The rat Pokemon walked several feet ahead of the trainers, looking for any potential trouble.
After his "operation" on Syl, Raticlaw had declared to the trainers that--given their sorry state—he was taking on the responsibility of making sure they made it to civilization safely and was not going to take "no" for an answer (questions about his origins were rebuffed with equal vigor). Despite volunteering of his own volition the pair periodically heard Raticlaw grumbling under his breath about something or other, and they had decided to let him take point so that he could vent a healthy distance away from them. In any event, they had little choice: Syl was too badly injured to risk battle, and even as they walked along the winding path through a small mountain range the psychic type rested inside her Pokeball. Jonah had noticed the lack of her presence seemed to make Caroline fidgety and uncomfortable, and he had decided to start a conversation in order to distract her.
"Well, if Pokemon can, er, speak human, why don't they?" Jonah asked.
"Beats me," Raticlaw said loudly, not bothering to turn to face him, "how would they be able to live without talking to a brilliant gentleman such as yourself?"
Jonah stopped in his tracks. Caroline stopped as well, trying to figure out why Jonah had stopped. This in turn caused the noise of the pair walking to trail off, which drew Raticlaw's attention and caused him to stop walking and turn around. There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Dude, what the Hell is your problem?" Jonah asked Raticlaw. "Ever since we started out today you've been on my case about everything!"
Raticlaw seemed unfazed. "First off, I'm not your dude. Second, it's because you're an idiot."
"What?!"
Raticlaw nodded. "You heard me. You're just another dumbass city kid with no clue about the wild and you'll always be a dumbass city kid until you can prove you've smartened the Hell up." The rat Pokemon watched the teenager stew in his own anger with obvious amusement, and held up one clawed hand when the trainer began to reply. "Save your breath, kid. I don't have to give the girl crap because one, she's not a moron and two, if her Gardevoir hadn't been banged up she wouldn't even need my help. You, on the other hand, are currently total deadweight, a liability in battle and most importantly you owe me big time for saving your ass. So if I were you I'd be grateful every time I offer you advice on how to not get yourself killed as you think about what you're going to do to repay your debt instead of acting like I pissed on your patsy."
And with that, Raticlaw abruptly turned on his haunches and began to amble away, ending the conversation before Jonah could reply. Caroline watched Jonah try to burn a hole in the back of Raticlaw's skull through sheer force of will for a moment before coughing politely. It managed to get Jonah out of the staring contest with Raticlaw's back hairs.
"Sorry about that," Jonah apologized.
Caroline shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You did help us out yesterday." Caroline avoided adding even if Raticlaw doesn't think so to avoid provoking another argument. "Where was I…oh yeah. Anyway, most Pokemon can learn a language, but most don't. For wild Pokemon they usually don't have any reason to, and for trained Pokemon you can usually get by so long as your trainer knows when you're asking for food, water, or a bathroom break."
A flock of Starly flew overhead, off to some unknown destination in the horizon. The trainers watched them go, and then Caroline continued.
"So…yeah, Syl and I. Well, my parents are Pokemon breeders, and as it turns out my dad's Gardevoir gave birth to Syl around the time my mom gave birth to me. So we were both together from a very young age." Caroline smiled at the memory. "You know how psychic Pokemon bond with humans, right?"
Jonah nodded. Nearly all prospective trainers were required to take a course on Pokemon training, due to someone's insistence that if one was required to take a course in order to own a mere pistol one should also have a rudimentary level of education before being handed de facto control over creatures who could breathe horrific gouts of flame and punch through two inches of steel with jets of water.
Caroline continued. "When psychic Pokemon and humans bond at a very young age, they share aspects of each others mental development, particularly in the parts of the brain that control language comprehension. Long story short, Syl learned English because of me and I learned Pokemon because of Syl."
"Wait a second, what do you mean 'learned Pokemon'?" Jonah asked. Caroline stared at him, trying to figure out what to say: it was something she had known all her life and taken for granted. She would have found it easier to explain sight to a blind man.
"I can understand Pokemon when they speak their…um….native language," She finally said, "I don't need them to speak ours because I can understand them already. Pretty helpful when you're a breeder actually: it's nice to have the Onix tell you where it hurts rather than poking around until the tail to the face lets you know."
Caroline watched Jonah's face contort in thought as he mulled over this newfound information. She couldn't help but feel like she had just admitted to having twelve toes.
And if the subject had been about toes, Jonah's reaction would have suggested that six-toed feet were his sexual fetish. "Can you teach me to speak Pokemon?"
Caroline was taken aback by his response, but quickly regained her bearings. "Sure. Well, it won't exactly be 'teaching' in the way you're expecting."
"How so?"
"Well, it turns out that Syl can pull double duty as a translator. As long as she's around she can 'translate' anything a Pokemon says to you."
Jonah frowned. "Isn't that a lot of work though?" Intrigued by the idea as he was, he was already tired of being considered a burden and wasn't looking to enhance the reputation.
Caroline shook her head. "She's psychic. Once she's decided to translate for you her subconscious mind does all the heavy lifting for her. Even better, she'll be teaching you subconsciously even while she's translating. Hang around with us long enough and you'll be able to understand Pokemon without Syl's help."
The conversation ceased as the pair walked on, mulling over what had just been said. A concerned look spread on Caroline's face.
"I just agreed to travel with you, didn't I," Caroline said.
"Yup."
"Crap."
Raticlaw took the opportunity to jump back into the conversation. "Sounds good to me."
Jonah's face brightened, apparently pleased that his stature had risen in the eyes of a four-foot-tall rodent. "Really?"
The trainers—staring as they were at the back of Raticlaw's head—were able to make out a nod. "Sure. If you two run into an Ursaring, she just has to outrun you instead of the bear." He sniggered.
Caroline felt a sinking feeling in her gut as she saw an already depressingly familiar facial tic that on Jonah signified a wellspring of anger boiling just below the surface. She watched as Jonah began to pick up speed, apparently eager to catch up with Raticlaw in order to start yet another argument. He decided to shave off some time by walking through a bush that Raticlaw had decided to circumvent, and found out why the rat Pokemon had chosen to do so when his foot contacted a bundle of dark blue mass and three leaves and sent it bouncing along the ground.
To a casual observer, it seemed like time froze for Jonah as he literally stopped mid-stride, transfixed on the unfolding spectacle. The Oddish looked up at the unwitting trainer who kicked it, and the raw survival instinct necessary to survive a world full of fire breathing monsters when one is a one-foot tall plant Pokemon quickly overrode the Oddish's conscious thought. Crying out and shaking its leaves, it released a thick cloud of spores that bore down on Jonah.
Elementary physics holds that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time (this law is apparently lost on most drivers stuck in traffic). Raticlaw made use of this physical principle as his body traveling at high velocity forced Jonah's out of the area he had been occupying a moment before. Jonah went tumbling backwards as the startled Oddish made a break for the nearest tree line.
The first thing Jonah was aware of past the sudden pain in his tailbone was the sound of footsteps running towards him. Deciding to risk opening his eyes he found his vision filled with a Caterpie's-eye-view of Caroline.
"Are you okay?" Caroline asked (the fact that people will ask this of others when the person being asked is in several pieces is a hot topic of study amongst anthropologists). Jonah sat up, and feeling nothing broken nodded. Then he turned to Raticlaw. Caroline followed his gaze, and then the two trainers turned to each other in unison.
"Crap."
Raticlaw gurgled weakly. Paralysis tends to do that to one's vocal capabilities. Neither trainer paid it much heed: he probably hit a bump or something.
Jonah and Caroline found themselves carrying the paralyzed and barely-conscious Pokemon through the forest, utilizing a hastily cobbled together sled made out of a sheet and a couple tent posts to carry him. Not surprisingly, this made for an uncomfortable ride, made even more uncomfortable by the speed at which the two trainers were moving, both hoping to be well out of the forest before something with a large number of sharp teeth realized that the two trainers were easy pickings. Raticlaw had told the pair at the outset that the current path would get them to the nearest town by late evening: both trainers were hoping that a mid-afternoon arrival was in the cards.
Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry: in this case, "awry" happened to be sitting in the middle of the path, its attention drawn to the humans that suddenly skidded to a stop upon seeing it. It was human-shaped, albeit shaped around humans who thought that gluttony was less of a sin and more of a lifestyle choice. It appeared as if whatever had designed the creature had decided to create one with a barrel-chested body and hands large enough to comfortably grip a redwood tree and then near the end of the process realized that arms, feet and a head probably needed to be included somewhere. It gazed at the trainers gawking at it with the about the same level of concern a Steelix gives a Diglett with dwarfism.
Jonah lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, in case the gigantic fighting Pokemon somehow took offense. "I thought Hariyama didn't live on this side of the ocean."
"They don't," Caroline said, and hurried to clarify before reality made a liar out of her, "but I think some came over on boats a couple hundred years ago for the railroads and…well…" she gestured vaguely in the Hariyama's direction, who was busy using his meaty hands to get at an unpleasant itch.
"So, what the Hell is it doing here then?"
"How would I know?"
"You're the one whose family raises Pokemon for a living, aren't you? Go talk to it, or something."
Caroline realized—and not for the first time that day—that she had talked herself into trouble. Jonah watched nervously as Caroline took some tentative steps forward, testing the fighting Pokemon's reaction. She breathed a sigh of relief when the Hariyama made no move to fight or even stand up, and strode forward with as much confidence as she could muster.
The sheer size of the Pokemon suddenly became apparent to Jonah as he realized that even sitting with its legs splayed out in front of him the Hariyama had to look down on Caroline to make eye contact. He couldn't make out what Caroline was saying, but the fighting type's rumbling voice easily carried across the distance.
A few minutes later Caroline came back, clearly puzzled. The Hariyama watched her go with mild interest but remained sitting.
"He says he wants a fight," she reported, responding to Jonah's question before he even asked it.
"Then he can find something to fight in the forest, right?" Jonah, like many people, was well aware of the penchant of fighting Pokemon to pick fights for little apparent reason. He had also assumed that a fighting Pokemon would seek battle with things they couldn't pulp in a single hit.
At least .500 is a good percentage in baseball.
"He says he's been sitting on the path for days, and he's not leaving until he gets what he wants. He won't let us pass until then." What Caroline didn't say is that the latter had been assumed rather than explicitly stated, but she had decided to not try her luck with a Pokemon capable of sending a truck flying with an open palm strike.
Jonah looked to Raticlaw. The rat Pokemon was still lying on the sled, groaning and periodically twitching through his paralysis. "He does know we don't have any Pokemon that can fight, right?"
Caroline shrugged. "He wants something, and I don't think he's too picky about where it comes from at this point."
A glimmer suddenly came into Jonah's eyes, and he began rifling through his pack. Caroline saw what he was doing and began hoping that her wish to take back anything she said would be granted, preferably immediately.
"You're seriously not going to do it," Caroline asked rhetorically as she watched Jonah fasten a wicked-looking knife to the end of a tent pole with the help of large amounts of duct tape. While he hadn't let them keep guns, Raticlaw had brought back some knives that he had scavenged: a Pokemon trainer with a knife would be asked fewer questions than if he had a gun, Raticlaw had reasoned. More importantly, accidental fatal injury was largely restricted to the user and not everyone within a 50-foot radius.
Jonah paused just long enough to vaguely gesture to the surroundings before returning to work. The path had been cut into the side of a mountain years ago, and whoever had done so had decided to let the work of countless feet handle the thankless task of maintaining it. To the path's left the side of the mountain towered towards the sky at an angle too steep to climb, occupied only by trees with courageously tenacious roots. To the path's right was a similarly steep mountain face angled downwards, promising anyone trying to climb down it a messy but brief union with the rocks below. The path was relatively wide--enough for a medium-size vehicle to traverse--but with an 8-foot tall Pokemon sitting in the middle of it both trainers badly wished that the designer had thought to make it wider.
Jonah didn't even turn to look at her as he said, "Raticlaw said the fastest way besides this would be three days at least, and I dunno about you but I want to be out of this god-forsaken shithole well before then. If you've got a better idea I'm open to it." He took Caroline's silence as an admission that she did not.
Jonah grunted as he finished his work, examining it with some satisfaction. He gave a series of quick thrusts to some unseen foe, making sure that the spear tip wouldn't break off after the first strike, and then stuffed an extra pair of knives wherever he was reasonably sure that it wouldn't accidentally shank him in the middle of the fight. Caroline watched as Jonah turned towards the Hariyama, assuming a fighting stance that reminded Caroline of the image of a caveman—primitive but bold—about to take on a Mamoswine with nothing but the clothes on his back and the spear in his hand in a primal battle for survival. The image might have even been impressive had Jonah had the body type of Conan the Barbarian and not the body type of Conan O'Bradley, the newly hired fast food employee.
Jonah leveled the spear point directly at the fighting type in challenge. The Hariyama cocked its head at the strange display, before giving a noncommittal grunt and moving to stand up. In the time it took him to do so Jonah had already crossed the distance and leapt at the fighting type, spear point at the ready. Jonah felt grim satisfaction as he heard the Hariyama grunt, the spear tip piercing the Pokemon's torso with the wet sound of metal cutting flesh.
Now, some might think that Jonah was either a coward or full of stupid bravado. The reality, however, is somewhere in between: it wasn't that Jonah was cowardly per se, it's just that he was possessed of a certain pragmatism that said trying to attack foes who (to use military parlance) have a significant force multiplier over you is in general a very bad idea. And it's not that Jonah was fearless, but merely that when backed into a corner a man's primal instincts take over and insists that if it must go down, it would prefer to leave a few bloody noses in its wake and win the moral victory. Jonah looked up and saw the Hariyama staring at him with murderous intent, injured but unphased by his reckless assault. This is also about the time where Jonah's competing mental processes collided in a horrible wreck and tried to untangle themselves, doing little but making the problem worse.
Jonah's mental bureaucratic fustercluck soon gave way to the sensation of flying through the air punctuated by a sudden horizontal stop. He was vaguely aware that Caroline was screaming as he felt his body slide off the side of the mountain back towards the path, and he hazily threw out his arms to stop himself from landing flat on his face. Eventually his mind returned to a semblance of order: he had taken a glancing hit from one of the Hariyama's massive fists, and even now he felt his body screaming at him as the Pokemon's thundering footsteps came closer. Jonah risked looking up. The Hariyama was looking at him with a stare that suggested he would not be so quick to underestimate the trainer next time, and the spear wobbled where it lay impaled in the sumo Pokemon's flesh, seemingly forgotten in the fighting type's rage.
Jonah barely managed to roll out of the way as one of the Hariyama's feet came crashing down, throwing up dirt and putting a dent in the place Jonah had been moments earlier. He unsteadily clambered to his feet, drew a knife and assumed what he felt was an intimidating fighting stance. Had the Hariyama not been nearly 3 feet taller and a quarter ton heavier this might have actually worked. He circled, managed to dodge another hastily thrown palm, and struck with the knife. A thin cut appeared on the Hariyama's torso, but the fighting type didn't even flinch as he stomped the ground, causing Jonah to stumble. This saved him, as his body was jerked to the right just as the Hariyama's foot shot out in an awkward kick, catching only air. Regaining his balance more quickly than the fighting type, Jonah struck again and again in desperation, which only grew as he realized that he was barely inflicting superficial damage on the Hariyama and that there was nowhere to run.
He hadn't even brought a knife to a gun fight, Jonah realized. A more accurate comparison, his brain added, would have been bringing a plastic fork to take on a tank.
Jonah barely avoided another open palm strike that would have sent him tumbling to the rocks below, nearly caught off guard by the deceptive speed of the Hariyama's attacks. In his haste to dodge Jonah wound up tripping over his own feet and then on his backside. The Hariyama leered over him, seemingly savoring his victory before delivering the final blow.
Jonah tentatively felt behind him. He felt the edge of the cliff, and realized that the only way out of this was most likely terminal. He had always been told to face his fear like a man, his brain reminded him, and to stand proud no matter what comes.
Yes, another part of his brain shot back, but "fearless" is an honorific frequently used to describe dead men.
The Hariyama stepped forward and tripped.
Jonah's mind once again came to the rescue by reminding him that he could still roll to the left, and he did so, avoiding joining the Hariyama on its descent as the fighting Pokemon went tumbling ass-over-teakettle down the cliff, yelping in pain all the while. Seconds later there was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground below, then the settling of rubble, then silence.
As the realization that he was still alive faded Jonah turned to look at Caroline and found her holding Syl under the shoulder, the psychic Pokemon's face contorted in pain and her breathing labored. Jonah noticed a large mound of dirt that the Hariyama had tripped over and realized that it had not been there mere seconds before. He hazarded a look over the cliff--as if afraid that the Hariyama would somehow be climbing back up to get him—and was greeted with the sight of the fighting type splayed out in the ravine, its groans audible even from so far below. It was a sight that was more comforting to Jonah than he cared to admit. He barely noticed as Caroline approached him, holding a Pokeball that she had taken out of his pack.
"Syl, would you be able to get this from here?" Caroline asked her Pokemon, holding the Pokeball in front of the psychic type for emphasis.
Yes, Syl replied, and Jonah registered the sensation that even this simple statement took considerable focus from the Gardevoir, even as her red eyes shone with pained determination. Caroline nodded and turned to Jonah.
"Congratulations on catching your first Pokemon," she said, dropping the Pokeball over the cliff towards the Hariyama below.
