Wanderer

by Renaerys

Disgraced and ashamed, Alain drifts in self-imposed exile in the wake of a personal failure. But not all those who wander are lost, and those who listen may find something they never knew they were searching for. [Realistic Pokemon AU, post-Mega Evolution Specials]

3. Chapter 3

Wanderer
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon

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There was a time in his life when Alain felt energized, awake and ready to start the day, to go on an adventure. That time in his life, when he was young, when he was naïve, when he hadn't made the masochistic decision to train at the Tower of Mastery, was so far behind him that he could barely remember the feeling. Every day tested his physical limitations, and every night he felt as though he'd crashed through them, only to repeat the process the next day.

Drills began at seven in the morning, sharp. Korrina had not been kidding about the laps for those who overslept. Alain made that mistake once—Heliolisk had electrocuted his alarm clock in the middle of the night when he'd made the grievous mistake of letting the yellow lizard sleep in his room at the foot of his bed. The incessant ticking had irritated it. Alain had never run so many laps in his life. The island where the Tower of Mastery was situated was just north of Shalour across the bay, about four miles across. He ran from about eight thirty in the morning until dusk, and Gurkinn did not let him back inside once until the sun had set. Korrina had to bring him power bars and water in between her Gym duties, and only because watching Alain keel over and die would probably reflect poorly on her as a Gym Leader and his personal trainer. Alain made Heliolisk run with him until the poor thing could run no more. After that, it could have slept through one of Tyrantrum's Earthquakes, it was so exhausted. Yeah, never sleeping in again.

Gurkinn took tea just after dawn, and no one disturbed him during that time. Alain had started out eating a light breakfast right when he woke up to maintain his energy until the official breakfast at ten thirty every morning, but soon abandoned the idea when he kept vomiting it all back up once he hit the mat. First were warm-ups with the other Gym trainers and Korrina in the main arena to get everyone awake and moving. Then Alain joined the Gym trainers for a grueling cardio workout until breakfast—running, jumping, circuit training, the works. Hence the vomiting.

Breakfast was always with Gurkinn and Korrina, and they always invited one of the Gym trainers to join them, a different one every day. Alain watched a transformed Korrina socialize with her trainers, talk to them not just about their progress in the Gym, but also about their personal goals, both for themselves and their Pokémon. He quickly discovered that they respected her not just as their leader, but as their friend. They loved her, the young and the old, the men and the women, the plebs and the couple Bellators that had found a place here. They were devoted to her, and she was devoted to them. Loyalty, it soon became apparent to Alain, was the cornerstone of the Shalour Gym's success, be it in the ring, in the Gym trainers' peacekeeping duties around the city and the outlying territories, and to each other. Korrina made a point of introducing Alain to every Gym trainer, and then reminding him that they had met whenever they ran into each other until he memorized their names, their Pokémon, their goals for training here.

After breakfast, Korrina would work in the main arena and oversee the Gym trainers working with their Pokémon. She would coach them, sometimes with Gurkinn's assistance, on how to move like their Pokémon, how to anticipate the next move, how to read the opponent's tells in a split second where there was no room for indecision. Fighters, Alain came to understand, were not muscular brutes with no other purpose than to smash and thrash. There was emotion in their fighting, an elegance that would forever be lost on Alain, a Titan with no real ties to Fighters in any meaningful sense other than what he heard and observed. But he could listen, and he could watch, and the more he did, the more he started to realize how much he'd been missing.

Korrina herself moved with a grace and fluidity that he could never hope to comprehend. There were a couple other Bellators among the ranks of the Gym trainers, Mack and Shiri, and sometimes he would get to see her spar with one of them while the others ran through whatever exercise she had them doing. It was like watching a prima ballerina dance Swan Lake, watching Korrina exchange blows with a fellow Bellator—Mack today. When she struck, Mack would move with her, let her graze him, then swing around, forcing her to twirl just out of range. Like oil and water, swirling together but always distinct from each other, as close as two opposing forces can possibly get without fusing.

It was beautiful, Alain grudgingly acknowledged. It was art, what she did. What he could never do, no matter how many years he spent training. It was in those moments, when she was so absorbed with the dance and her Bellator partner for the day and Alain watched her from the sidelines that he found her truly mesmerizing. Gone was the caustic tongue and the wary gaze that watched his every move just waiting for him to slip up, and instead she was all feeling, all instinct and freedom as she moved without barriers, without worrying about training her opponent when she could just live. And her smile, the way it lit up those bright, green eyes and brought out the dimples in her cheeks... Damn.

But Mack and Shiri needed little coaching in hand-to-hand combat, being naturals themselves. They were here to work with their Pokémon in exchange for helping out the local Shalour Police Department. It was later that Alain understood she did it for fun, for her sake and for theirs. To unwind with one of your own in a way only they can understand. It was in the blood they shared, in the inheritance. As much as he couldn't look away watching her move in those times, he also hated the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach, the guilt that coated him like a second skin and reminded him that he would never know that feeling. He would never again experience that kind of harmony with his kin, with another Titan. Once a deserter, always a deserter. He was on his own.

While Korrina worked with the Gym trainers and their Pokémon, Alain busied himself in the weight room pumping iron. He used to be in the habit of working out his muscles, so this part of the day before lunch was his quietest and, in many ways, the only peace he got without having to interact with others. He worked with systematic efficiency, choosing a different routine every day from the ones drawn up by other Gym trainers. One day he'd focus on his legs, the next on his arms and back, another day solely on his abdominals. As a result, he'd toted around a constant ache for the first two weeks of his training as his muscles screamed for reprieve and he stubbornly denied them.

He would shower before lunch and change into a set of blue and black gi, standard issue for the Shalour Gym, in preparation for the afternoon activities. That was when the real fun started, or torture, depending on your perspective. Afternoons were reserved just for Korrina and him.

She always had Training Room Eight reserved for them, and she would run him through his daily hand-to-hand combat exercises, which generally consisted of her beating the living shit out of him and then giving him comments on how he could suck a little less next time.

"Oof!"

Alain hit the mat on his back, his favorite position, as Korrina loved reminding him, and gasped for breath.

"Rule Number One, Alain," she chided as she caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her brow.

"Stay on my feet, yeah, I know," Alain grumbled.

"And yet you keep falling. You see how I'm not sure you're really listening?"

She grabbed two water bottles from the mini fridge and tossed him one, which he caught without looking.

"You do it on purpose," Alain returned after he'd gulped down half the bottle. "If I didn't know you so well, I'd suspect you like having me on my back."

Korrina sucked down a few gulps of cold water then dumped some of the liquid on her face. Her bangs darkened as she wiped them out of her eyes, and the water ran down her neck in between her cleavage, disappearing under her black tank top. Momentarily forgetting his frustration, Alain followed the path of a particularly fat water rivulet over the curve of her left collarbone and down over the modest swell of her chest.

"That a good view from the floor flat on your ass, Titan?"

Alain's cheeks flushed with embarrassment—not so much at being caught, but more at the fact that she knew what he saw when he looked at her like that. Admittedly, it had been a while since he'd gotten any action. Not since Astrid, now that he thought about it, and that was almost two months ago now. He groaned and fisted his hand in his sweaty hair.

"I hurt all over," he complained in a moment of self-indulgent weakness.

Korrina padded toward him and kneeled down. She gripped his chin in her fingers and made him look up at her. "Want me to kiss it better, baby?"

He frowned, but before he could ask her if she'd completely lost her mind, she swung around with her fist and socked him in the jaw. Alain went down hard with a smack on the mat. Blood and spittle sprayed over the floor in a sad little splatter near his mouth, and he coughed. The entire left side of his face throbbed as though his heart had relocated into his cheek and had begun pumping acid through his veins instead of blood. He rolled over with the pain and resituated himself on his hands and knees, blue eyes alert as he searched for Korrina just in front of him.

"Korrina, what the actual fuck!" he spat.

She shrugged. "What? A kiss with a fist is better than nothing."

He gaped at her like she'd proposed they strip and paint each other with animal scat and initiate a Gym-wide game of Survival Capture the Flag. She smirked and got to her feet, then offered him a hand up.

"The pain will take your mind off your blue balls. Now get up. I still have another half hour to beat you into shape today."

No kidding.

It wasn't all miserable. He was getting better, slowly. He could feel it. His energy was lasting longer, he wasn't falling as much, and in those rare occasions when he caught Korrina in a hold, he was strong enough to overpower her with brute force. Most recently, about a month after the kissy fist incident, he'd caught her from behind, his arms wrapped around her middle and his hands squeezed around each of her wrists to keep her from squirming free.

Four seconds of absolute bliss. She froze, taken aback at being caught like an animal. For a terrifying breath, she was trapped and completely at his mercy. But like all these stolen moments with Korrina, it was over far too soon. She jammed her elbow backwards into his sternum, and Alain choked as all the air left his gut. She then lashed out with her feet to trip him up, but he'd been expecting that after all the times she knocked him on his back. So he bent his knees and caught her leg as it shot backwards, wrapping his leg around hers and twisting. They fell together with a grunt, Korrina on her stomach and Alain on top of her.

"Ugh, get off!"

Alain sputtered, having gotten a mouthful of her ponytail, and didn't register her indignant demand fast enough because all of a sudden she flipped him onto his back and rolled over him. Blazing green glared down at him from just inches above, and before he had to time to react, she pushed off him, got up, and snatched a sweat rag from on top of the mini fridge to dab her forehead and neck.

"Hey, Korrina," he said, swallowing the pain in his middle, "Do I get a treat for dragging you down with me, at least?"

She threw the damp, smelly rag at him in a fit, and he pretended to gag.

"Oh, shut up," she said, biting her cheek not to laugh at how ridiculous he looked.

"Hey, c'mere and give me a hand up. It's the least you can do."

She eyed him, skeptical, but relented and offered him her hand. He took it and, in a move she'd shown him a couple weeks ago, hooked his knee around her leg and used his weight to drag her back to the floor. She landed on his chest with a soft thud and immediately scrambled off him.

"You ass! I was helping you!"

Alain burst out laughing. "Your face!"

Yeah, he couldn't remember not being tired and he hurt in places he didn't even know existed on a near-constant basis, but it wasn't all bad. He was getting better. And he was keeping his word to Korrina and Gurkinn. He would do whatever it took.

Whatever it took, as it turned out on this crisp spring morning, led Alain and Korrina to their first field trip together on behalf of the Shalour Gold Mining Company. Alain had woken up today, nearly three months into his training at the Tower of Mastery, and found Korrina in the kitchen bustling about like a headless chicken. He didn't even get a good morning in when she threw him a granola bar and a water bottle and told him to change, he couldn't wear that.

"But these're my work out clothes. I wear this kind of thing every day," Alain said, sniffing the nondescript granola bar to try to figure out what flavor it was through the wrapper.

Korrina herself was dressed like he'd never seen her before in brown leather pants, boots with a low heel, a white button-up, and a navy jacket rolled up to the elbows. She chewed and swallowed a piece of her own granola bar and got that look like she was fed up with the very idea of Alain, which was pretty much all the time. "Not today, you're not. We've got Gym Leader business to take care of. You're coming."

"Whoa, hold up, Wonder Woman, I'm not the Gym Leader."

"Yeah, obviously, but I am and I'm telling you we're going. This is part of your training."

Alain gave her a withering look. "You mean, you have a problem and you're dragging me into it so you don't have to deal with it by yourself."

"Well gee, Alain, I thought you might want to get out of here for once and see some of Shalour and the Golden Coast."

Alain took a bite out of his granola bar and made a face. It was chocolate. She knew he disliked the chocolate ones. "What's in it for me?"

"I won't kick your ass today."

He rolled his eyes. "You know, I am getting better. You only knock me down four times a day now instead of, like, ten or twenty."

"Look, this isn't up for debate. Mack and Shiri are still with the police, they've been on duty all night and they're exhausted, so I'm not about to make them work through the day. And Grandpa doesn't do this kind of thing anymore, you know, so it's not like I planned—"

He put up his hands. "All right, all right, cool it. I'll go with you. What's going on? Is it serious?"

She blinked and her mouth twitched. Alain's gaze was drawn to the faint scar on her lip he'd noticed during their first spar. "Can you ride a bike?"

"Um, what?"

"A bike, genius. You know, two wheels, metal frame, once you learn you never forget?"

"I know what a bike is, Korrina." Goddamn, woman.

"Good. Wear something that won't rip."

He waved her off and headed back upstairs to change. "For the umpteenth time, you know I hate the chocolate ones," he called.

Ten minutes later, Alain was changed into jeans, a violet jacket, white undershirt, and a blue neck scarf he'd had with him for years. This far north, spring was always a little chilly, and it was only April. He was pulling on a pair of fingerless, leather gloves when he met Korrina on the ground floor. She was holding two black helmets with chin guards. Alain stopped short when he saw her.

"When you said bike, I didn't think you mean that."

Two identical, red-painted dirt bikes, older models but well cared for, were parked outside on the dirt road leading from the Tower of Mastery to the short bridge that connected the island with Shalour City on the continent to the south.

"Problem?" Korrina swung a leg over one of the dirt bikes and gathered up her hair in a bun before slipping her helmet on.

Alain approached the other bike and ran his hand over the leather seat cushion. He grinned to himself. "Not at all."

After situating himself and pulling on his own helmet, Alain turned the ignition and revved the engine. It was relatively quiet, a soft purr. Korrina stored her kickstand and wheeled past him.

"Let's go."

She revved her engine and took off toward the bridge. Alain lowered the plastic eye shield in his helmet, kicked back his kickstand, and zoomed after her.

After crossing the bridge, it was a short ride to Shalour proper. He'd been out here on the rare afternoons off from training, mostly to buy supplies for his Pokémon or just to walk around, but there was never enough time. His Pokémon had seen more of the surrounding area than he had, allowed to roam in the rolling hills and forests west of Shalour to hunt and stretch their legs to their hearts' content. This was the first time Alain would be riding through the city and beyond it to the eastern territories.

Shalour was a coastal city with a local fishing industry mostly to support itself and its surrounding suburbs. The real money came from the mines to the east, and based on Korrina's general direction, Alain surmised that was where they were headed. The stories said there was so much gold under and around Shalour that it had spilled into the bay over the years as fine powder, degraded by sea and salt but never disappearing. It washed up on the shores as fine gold dust, hence the region's name. It was no wonder Korrina had a vested interest in working closely with the already top-notch law enforcement agency stationed here. The gold mines were Shalour's bread and butter. If they were compromised, the entire economy could collapse.

Aside from the requisite financial district with its few skyscrapers and boutique cafés with overpriced lattes and scones, Shalour showed little traditional evidence of its wealth. The city was an old one steeped in tradition and history. The people used their money to live comfortably and bolster the security and police forces that worked to protect them from would-be criminals and feral Pokémon, but otherwise there was not much in the way of opulence or ostentation from the outside looking in. Maybe they were satisfied with what they had? Or they were naturally discreet? Alain wondered. No one is immune to temptation and greed, and yet in Shalour, there seemed to be little proclivity for it despite the literal gold mind its people sat on. Curious. He asked Korrina as much as they rode past city blocks crammed with the local morning markets, meat and fish and fruits and vegetables and baked goods.

"Not everyone runs on greed and lust, you know," Korrina said.

"I didn't mean it like that. It's just weird. C'mon, you have to admit that a city as rich as Shalour doesn't really look the part."

She rounded a corner, and they were heading toward the outskirts of the city to the northeast. "Maybe it's because the people learned their lesson a long time ago."

They slowed as they approached the edge of the city, where the paved roads gave way to animal trails and the vegetation became thicker. Alain could see the slope of the mines in the distance, and beyond them to the north lay more forest, which he knew from his conversations with Gurkinn was the site of a prime fishing spot, the convergence of an arctic current that originated north in Sinnoh and the warmer currents that dumped out into the Shalour Bay from the far south near the Orange Islands.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alain said as they rode through the unpaved wilderness in single file.

"Just what it sounds like. Generations ago, people got so out of control with their greed, spending money on stuff they didn't need and cleaning out the mines faster than the workers could haul up more gold. One thing led to another, and the workers ended up going on a massive strike. Suddenly, there went the city's livelihood."

"So what happened?"

"The Gym Leader at the time found a creative solution to teach people a lesson. People who'd just been reaping the benefits of the mines learned how to hold a pickaxe, see what it was like to extract all that wealth they took for granted. In the end, some of the mines were closed down and the workers who used to mine them relocated to the fishing industry, which was really small back then. Now, we only operate one mine at a time and extract just enough to support the city at a comfortable level. The rest of the labor goes to the fishing industry."

Alain watched her back as they rode over a narrow animal path in the forest, surrounded by thick trees that blocked the sun. "So the Gym Leader invoked martial law and forced people to do what he wanted."

"Think what you want. His solution worked, as you can see from the way Shalour is now. People are wealthy, but most of them don't flaunt it. They have respect for the people whose shoulders they stand on."

The woods were beginning to thin as they came upon the mines, which were a series of tunnels and caves in the hills that had been cleared of trees. A crowd of uniformed police officers was gathered near the mouth of the northernmost mine, and that was where Korrina turned her bike. When they were close enough but still out of earshot, she parked her bike and removed her helmet. Alain did the same.

"I still don't get it," Alain said. "Gym Leaders are strong, I get that, but in the end they're just one person. How'd he get everyone to cooperate?"

When she pursed her lips, the scar on her lip wrinkled, drawing his eye. "Because the people respected him. He was the same Gym Leader who discovered Mega Evolution. They trusted him and his intentions for Shalour. Why do you think Mega Evolution's still so shrouded in mystery? He didn't sell the secrets or abandon this place."

She set down her helmet on the seat of her bike and walked toward the crowd of police officers, not waiting for Alain.

"So he was your ancestor," Alain said aloud to himself. "Hella big shoes to fill."

And he thought he had issues with his family.

Korrina was already talking to the police officers when Alain caught up to her.

"We tried investigating ourselves, but our Pokémon are too afraid of whatever's in there," the officer in charge, a man named Farron, explained to Korrina. He had a Litleo at his side that was busy licking its paw. "I sent Mack and Shiri home. We only just discovered this mine as the problem area before dawn, and they'd been at it all night with some wild Trevenant that wandered too close to the city limits line. No worries, of course, the situation's been dealt with."

"I appreciate the thought, Sherriff," Korrina said. "That's why I've come personally to deal with what's happening here while they get some rest."

"On that note," Alain interrupted with a smile, "what is going on here?"

Farron, a black man in his fifties with laugh wrinkles around his eyes and a steady, even gaze meant to calm while he assessed, turned to Alain. "Friend of yours?"

"Alain's with me. He's okay."

I'm okay, am I? Maybe she was going soft on him.

"Right, if you say so. Anyway, I was just getting to that part. Trouble is, we don't exactly know what's happening in there," Farron explained. "We know there was a mining shift on last night, just a few guys, I got the roster here." He handed a piece of paper to Korrina, who glanced at the list of names. "The shift manager told me everyone but one guy, Garza, clocked out this morning. I think Garza might still be in there somewhere. My officers and I went in, and suddenly Litleo and the others turned tail and ran. Whatever spooked them caused a rockslide in the mines. We barely got out of there with our lives, and now we've got no way to get back inside without help. And then there was the smell."

"Smell?" Korrina asked.

"Yeah, like shit drowned in vinegar and lit on fire. Pardon my language."

"No pardon necessary. I get the picture."

Alain frowned. "Do the mines usually smell like that? Or is this new?"

Farron eyed him, but it was impossible to get a reading on the old cop. The man was a pro. He'd probably still look like that if Yveltal itself descended on Shalour now and tried to wipe out everyone in the city. "No, it's new all right. Never smelled anything like it. It was worse than death."

Korrina shot Alain a significant look, but he avoided her gaze. "Anything you'd like to add, Alain?"

He shook his head. "Not really, no."

"Anyway," Farron went on, "I pulled my guys out until you could get here. I did what I could, but I can't risk all my officers when we don't even know what we're up against, especially not with the mine so unstable. We'll be here to back you up, but frankly, I don't know how much use we'll be so long as our Pokémon are too spooked to get in there."

"No, it's okay, Sherriff. Alain and I can handle it from here. Just please stand by with the EMTs. If Garza's in there, we'll get him out. And we'll get to the bottom of whatever's going on in there," Korrina assured him, all business.

There's that 'we' again, Alain noted.

"You got it," Farron said. "We'll follow your lead. Take this."

He handed her a two-way radio, which she clipped to the front pocket of her pants.

Korrina nodded. "Ten-four, Sherriff. We'll be back with Garza before you know it."

She jerked her head toward the mine entrance, and Alain fell into step beside her.

"Ten-four? Seriously?" he teased.

"Listen, Titan, I'm already missing my chance to hand you your ass today, so the least you can do is not piss me off."

She walked briskly, and from his view of her profile, he noted the worry lines around her eyes and mouth, the way her fists were balled—something she never did. They stopped at the entrance to the mine, and he put a hand on her shoulder, hoping she wouldn't get the wrong idea and knee him in the balls before he could get a word out.

"Hey, look at me," he said softly.

Korrina shot him a look, but her usual stubborn venom was nothing but a shell of its former self. There was real fear in her eyes, but not for herself.

"We'll get that guy out," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Whatever's going on in there, it can't be a match for both of us."

"Forgive me for not swooning when my daily view of you is on your ass and out of breath."

He did her a favor and laughed, eyes closed and a flash of teeth and everything, and it was a shame, too, because he totally missed the look in her eyes at the sight of him smiling.

"Sure, I'll give you that," he said. "But it's not just me in there with you." He brushed his free hand over the three Pokéballs at his belt. "We'll get him out, I promise."

Korrina steeled her expression and turned back to the mine's entrance. It was completely washed out in inky blackness save for the wan lights nailed into the ceiling that did little to penetrate it. "Don't make promises unless you really mean them."

She took off ahead of him, and he stared at her back for a moment.

What did I say this time?

Bewildered but with no real way to solve the problem now, Alain jogged after her. The lighting in here was shitty, and he was no Reaper who could see perfectly in the dark. But he had the next best thing.

The flash of light stopped Korrina in her tracks, and Heliolisk shivered once it materialized, its tongue darting out to taste the darkness. It looked between Korrina and Alain before waddling toward the latter.

"Hey there," Alain said. "How about some light, huh?"

Heliolisk puffed out its frilled black collar, which began to spark with static electricity. Like a revving generator, Heliolisk began to pump invisible static shocks over its collar into the air that bounced off the walls, coiled around the dull overhead lights, and returned to it in the course of nanoseconds. It began to emanate a low hum, and soon the yellow lizard was glowing like a light bulb far brighter than the dingy mine lights. Suddenly, Alain and Korrina could see twenty feet in both directions.

"Huh," Korrina said. "Usefully little guy."

"Girl, actually," Alain corrected.

"The first time I saw you with Heliolisk, I thought it was the last Pokémon I'd ever imagine you with," she admitted.

Alain patted the short lizard's head. At this angle, Heliolisk's mouth shape looked like a wide, derpy grin. "Heliolisk's a Dragon descendant. She's my best Pokémon when we're talking sheer guts."

"Ah, well that explains everything."

She kept on, and Alain resisted the urge to sigh. Someday, somehow, he would figure out just what Korrina's deal was. But right now, they had a trapped mineworker to save. They continued deeper into the mine, Heliolisk lighting the way, for another fifteen minutes in total silence. The incline was palpable, and the air down here was stale and old. They came to a few forks in the main shaft, and Farron relayed the appropriate paths to take via the radio. Eventually, they came upon the sight of the cave-in Farron had mentioned.

"Wow," Alain said. "Tyrantrum could get us through, but he's not gonna fit in this mine shaft."

"Not a problem."

Korrina tossed out a Pokéball from her belt, and in a flash of light her Pangoro appeared, a black and white goliath of a cream puff. Pangoro, at ease in the dark cave, lumbered on thick, ungainly feet until it located Korrina and nudged her in the chest with its stout muzzle.

"Aw, hello big guy." She smiled and scratched Pangoro behind its ears, which earned her a pleasant grumble. "How would you like to break some shit, hm? Doesn't that sound fun?"

Alain got a chill listening to her coo to Pangoro like a mother whispers to her child. But Pangoro understood her meaning well enough and stood up on its hind legs. Its head almost touched the ten-foot ceiling.

"You might wanna stand back," Korrina advised Alain, holding out her arm and forcing him to step back whether he liked it or not.

"Yes, ma'am."

She ignored his cheek. "Hammer Arm."

Pangoro snarled and, as though transformed, balanced on the balls of its hind legs and charged at the site of the fallen rocks blocking the path. With all the grace and precision of any true Fighter, it wound up its right arm, which began to glow with a soft, white light, and punched the rocks with all its might.

The blast was instantaneous and earth shattering. Dust filled the air and got into Alain's lungs, sending him into a coughing fit as he covered his nose and mouth. The cave shook as though somewhere deep in the bowels of the mine, an earthquake rumbled to life. But when the dust settled and Alain opened his eyes, the path was clear. The rocks that had blocked it had been smashed to rubble and spread out over several yards in front, clearing the way for them to continue on. Now that the way was clear, the smell Farron had warned them about was free to wander.

"Oh my god." Korrina covered her mouth and nose and turned away from the path ahead. "What the hell is that?"

Alain smelled it, too, and blinked as his eyes began to water. "That's the smell of shit drowned in vinegar and lit on fire."

Korrina shook her head. "What could it be? You think that's a Pokémon?"

I think it's a hell of a lot more than one.

Alain said nothing, and Heliolisk hissed beside him as it tasted the air with its tongue, eyes narrowed. "C'mon, let's just go."

Korrina updated Farron that they had smashed through the cave-in site and were continuing deeper into the mine. She then followed Alain and Heliolisk as they wandered deeper into the mine, recalling Pangoro to spare it the fetid stench. The lights were out down here, possibly having lost power during the cave in—or due to whatever had caused it. Alain had an inkling, but he didn't want to say anything until he knew how bad it was.

The space was bigger down here, the ceiling a couple feet higher than it had been before and the cavern more spacious. The deeper they traveled, Alain started to notice something glistening out of the corners of his eyes.

"That's the gold," Korrina said. "The mine's teeming with it."

He stopped to admire a particularly fat vein, marveling at its dull sheen. "Wonder if your ancestor every set foot down here before he decided to curb Shalour's greed."

"He worked the mines himself," she said, not missing a beat. "He and his Lucario. Do you have something to say to me?"

He shrugged and wiped his eyes, watery from the overexposure to the rancid smell down here. "Not really. Just that you seem to have a lot in common with him."

Korrina searched his eyes for the lie he knew she suspected was there—Titans lie, after all—but she wouldn't find it. He wasn't mocking her, and he held her gaze daring her to say otherwise. She looked away.

"Lucario was the first Pokémon to ever Mega Evolve. It's tradition in my family that all Bellators train Lucario. Aside from that, I'm nothing like my ancestor."

Alain was taken aback by the force behind her tone, almost bitter, but she pressed onward before he could ask her about it or even really process it. Yet again, he thought about how little he really knew about Korrina. Something had happened to her, and it had changed her. He was here to better himself, for Charizard and for the people he cared about, but now he was curious. What was she hiding?

"Oh god." Korrina stopped all of a sudden. "I dunno how much more I can take. This smell is so gross."

Alain was about to respond when he stepped in something squishy. It was deep, and he felt the goop submerge his foot and leak into his shoe. "Aw, sick."

"What is it?"

Korrina moved to join him, but she squelched, too, and stopped short. "Ew, what is that?"

Something groaned deeper in the cave, a reverberating, wet sound that chilled the bone.

"Alain," Korrina said. "What was that?"

Heliolisk, who'd hung back a bit, began to hiss. Its collar rattled and sparked with the beginnings of a Thunderbolt, spooked. Alain peered at his feet and saw the very thing he was afraid he might find down here.

"Goomy," he whispered back.

The little slug Dragons, a cousin of the putrid Grimer and Muk, blended together in a semisolid pool at their feet, their eyes floating amorphous in the sea of pale purple. They were more liquid than solid in this form, unable to do much but float in shallow, tepid swamp water. But this was no swamp. What the hell were they doing in here?

A few lumps rose in the lake of Goomy—Sliggoo, their more advanced, evolved form that could achieve corporeal form and move about relatively freely. They were blind, relying on their sensitive feelers to communicate and see, but they located Alain and Korrina through their lesser brethren easily enough and stared at them with hollow, milky eyes.

"Alain!" Korrina hissed.

"It's okay," he whispered. "Goomy and Sliggoo are weak Dragons. We can get past them pretty easy, just follow my lead."

"Are you fucking kidding me? Look at how many there are! What are they even doing down here? And why are we whispering?"

Alain waved at Heliolisk, and the nimble lizard leaped onto his back, securing itself by his shoulders with its head over his.

"Because they have sensitive hearing," Alain explained in hushed tones. "We don't wanna spook them, okay?"

"This cannot be happening. Slime Dragons, really? Did it really have to be slime Dragons?"

"Just follow my lead and stay quiet."

He grabbed her hand before she could protest and squeezed it to emphasize his meaning. Then with his free hand, he tapped into a part of himself he hadn't visited in many, many years. Taking a deep breath, he held out his hand, palm flat, and pointed it at the sea of Goomy before him.

"Move," he commanded.

Korrina's mouth dropped, aghast, as she watched the sluggish Goomy begin to part and crawl out of Alain's immediate path, leaving only a layer of sticky goo in their wake. Alain stepped forward, pulling Korrina along behind him, and kept his hand forward. He eyed the Sliggoo positioned ahead of him and wove a careful path between them, not too close. If they sensed any hesitation, any hostility on his part, it could turn out very badly.

"How are you doing that?" Korrina said, her hand clammy in his.

"I can control Dragons and their descendants," he said, only half hearing her as he concentrated on willing the Goomy to do his bidding. "Never thought I'd use it again after I left the Apep Dynasty, but here we are."

"You're brainwashing them?"

"Just keep it down, I'm trying to concentrate here!"

Goomy were nothing special, popularly looked down upon as the weakest Dragons to ever walk the earth, but what they lacked in individual prowess they more than made up for in numbers. They reproduced like crazy and used their unique bodies to defend their older evolutions, sometimes amalgamating into giant waves of goop and drowning their enemies, sacrificing countless of their numbers just so their evolved leaders could survive. Normally, Alain could have controlled a Goomy in his sleep, but with so many around and those Sliggoo to deter on top of them, he was pouring all his concentration into making that path open up for them safely. Heliolisk sensed his emotional exertion and sparked, worried.

"Look, over there!" Korrina tugged on his hand and pointed to their right. "I think that's Garza!"

Sure enough, buried up to his chin in Goomy goop, a middle-aged man in a green uniform and a yellow hardhat was passed out on the ground. Alain swore under his breath, counting the Sliggoo that stood between Garza and them. They twitched their antennae, sniffing him out. They knew what he was. Dragons always knew. The question was, what would they do?

"C'mon, clear a path to him," Korrina whispered. "We have to get him out of here!"

"Yeah, I know, I know."

He could do this, come on, dude, that guy's life was hanging in the balance. Suck it up. A few Sliggoo were child's play, really, come on. Heliolisk alone could take them. It would totally be okay.

"Move aside," Alain ordered the Goomy blobs in between Garza and them.

They parted slowly, but their movements buffeted the Sliggoo, the nearest of whom began to slither toward Alain and Korrina.

"Alain, you're shaking," Korrina said, closing her other hand over his.

He didn't reply as he calculated the rough distance between the Sliggoo and Garza and himself. He could make it if they kept moving, if he didn't lose focus. The closest Sliggoo wandered just next to Korrina, and Alain whirled, hand outstretched, and locked eyes with the blind slug.

"Stop," he said, deathly quiet but with enough force to penetrate the slug's slimy head.

Sliggoo let its mouth hang open, dripping mucous, but it didn't move any closer.

"There has to be a better way to do this," Korrina said. "Can't you bring Garza to the shore?"

Alain blinked. That might just work. "...I'll try. Stay quiet." He continued to focus on the Sliggoo that had confronted them. "Move him there."

He dragged his hand slowly toward Garza, then back the way they'd come. The sea of Goomy began to jiggle and slosh, and the Sliggoo made odd quacking sounds, wet and smacking like they'd filled their mouths with peanut butter and were trying to swallow.

"That's it," Alain said. "Move him that way."

It was a bit like looking through a kaleidoscope and trying to focus on all the images at once. Controlling Dragons depended on the Titan's blood purity, his level of control. Some were just better at it than others. Alain had been decent when he was a kid still under the Apep Dynasty's tutelage, but he was nothing like the great Dragon Masters—Lance of Blackthorn, Drayden of Opelucid, and Kalos's own Drasna, an elite Titan of the Apep Dynasty that even Champion Diantha respected.

Well, now wasn't the time to question his abilities or where they came from. He had to help Garza and get Korrina and himself out of here before something really bad happened.

Maybe Astrid was right. Jack thinned your Dragonsblood and you're never gonna get outta here before something a lot bigger shows up.

Alain bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, willing away the voice of guilt in his head. He had to do this, he had to get Korrina out of here. Heliolisk clucked over his head, its small claws digging into his shoulders as it nervously scanned the cavern.

"A little more, guys," Alain cheered on the Goomy and Sliggoo doing his bidding.

Garza's body was almost at the edge of the lake, while Alain and Korrina remained still in the middle of it. It was really getting hard to breathe through the stench down here, and Alain was wiping his eyes every couple of minutes now.

"You did it!" Korrina said once Garza was back on the mine floor clear of the Goomy.

Alain let his hand fall, and the slime washed over his feet almost up to the knee. Heliolisk croaked as its tail submerged in the slime. Faceless Goomy blinked up at Alain, undulating together like ocean waves.

Korrina tugged on his hand. "Let's get out of here. We'll have to figure out some way to deal with the Goomy later. Garza needs medical attention."

"Yeah, okay."

He was a little out of breath. It had been a long time since he'd coerced Dragons to do his bidding against their will, a feeling he was not keen on reliving if he could help it. At least Garza was out of the muck. Now to get out of here. He put out his hand again and took a steadying breath, ready to command the Goomy and Sliggoo to stand aside and let him pass.

Something rumbled from deeper in the cavern, wet and rattling like breathing through a stuffy nose. Korrina slid one of her hands up his arm.

"What was that?" she said.

Something sloshed behind them, and the Goomy began to gurgle, releasing more noxious fumes that seared Alain's sinuses. The wet growling grew louder.

"Oh fuck," Alain hissed.

"What? You can't just say that in a situation like this!"

Alain looked behind them, eyes wide as he came face to face with the very thing he really did not want to deal with in an enclosed, dark mine prone to cave-ins.

"Korrina," he said. "Please don't freak out."

Sloshing through the sea of Goomy, a slimy behemoth lumbered toward them. Its long neck was hunched, suppressing its full height, which Alain knew from experience to be upwards of Tyrantrum's size. Lavender mucous dripped from its chin and neck as its mouth hung open, exposing a pale green tongue. Unlike its pre-evolutions, this creature—Goodra, the slug Dragon—was not blind. It narrowed its green eyes at Alain and Korrina, engorged antennae twitching, and raised its clubby fists.

Korrina whirled, eyes wide, and swore. "Oh shit!" She fumbled for a Pokéball at her belt.

Goodra roared, angry at what it could only guess were two intruders trying to harm its brood. The Sliggoo echoed its call, and the Goomy sea began to churn.

"Uh, time to leave!"

Alain yanked Korrina through the slime back toward Garza, but Goodra was not about to let them get away without paying for their intrusion. It opened its toothless mouth and generated a wicked red light, which Alain instantly recognized as a Dragon Pulse attack. 'Oh shit' didn't even begin to cover how royally screwed they were.

A flash of bright light, then Korrina shouting. "Aura Sphere!"

Korrina's Lucario moved like death on dark wings as it glowed blue and converted its physical attack power into a concentrated ball of energy that it hurled at Goodra's head fearlessly. Goodra fired the Dragon Pulse, and the two attacks collided in a scintillating racket of light and sound. The aftershock thrust Alain and Korrina forward, where they fell face-first into the Goomy goop.

Alain scrambled to right himself and get the slime out of his eyes and nose and mouth, gasping for breath. Heliolisk shrieked, equally slimed, and took off running over the Goomy, fast and light enough to run over them like a Surskit on water and Thunderbolting the Sliggoo that got in its way. It cleared a path to Garza, and Alain hastily grabbed Korrina's hand.

"Move!" he shouted at her.

Korrina's hand was slippery in his as he dragged her along. Lucario had done its job stalling Goodra. The slug Dragon was dazed, and Lucario trudged through the Goomy sea alongside Alain and Korrina. They were nearly at the edge.

Goodra roared, sticky and garbled, and all of the sudden the ground under their feet began to move. The Goomy churned and began to gather in a wave of sludge, while the Sliggoo prepared to power up Dragonbreaths that would surely peel the skin off Alain's and Korrina's backs if they didn't get the hell out of there.

"Korrina!"

She was way ahead of him and slapped her hands over his ears without warning. "Metal Sound!"

Lucario, slimy but always ready to fight, clapped its paws together and released a grating chime that Alain felt down to his bones. He staggered, Korrina's weight on his back dragging him to his knees, and a wave of nausea flooded his head and threatened to bring up that disgusting chocolate granola bar he'd had for breakfast. But the feeling passed, and Korrina's hands fell from his ears.

"Shit, Korrina!"

She rolled off him, dazed. Behind him, the Sliggoo and Goodra were equally dazed from Lucario's attack. The jackal landed next to Alain and Korrina, shedding a layer of goo and eyeing Alain with no small degree of disdain.

"Hey, get him," he said, indicating Garza. "I've got Korrina, but we have to hurry!"

Heliolisk shrieked again and fired off another Thunderbolt at the gathering Goomy as they crept closer to Alain, dissipating them for now. Alain slung Korrina's arm over his shoulder and got to his feet, supporting her weight. Her head lolled against his cheek. Lucario, thankfully, had the sense to recognize a dire situation and wrapped Garza's limp arms over its shoulders to drag him out.

"Okay, let's go!" Alain said, taking off toward the exit.

Goodra roared behind him, but he didn't look back, concentrating only on getting the fuck out of here without getting Korrina or himself killed. It was an uphill run, and Lucario was much faster and fitter than him. Heliolisk brought up the rear.

"Eerie Impulse!" Alain barked.

Heliolisk screeched, its collar trembling with static electricity, and released a low-voltage shock that swept over the army of Goomy, Sliggoo, and the rampaging Goodra. The sea of Goomy exploded, its tidal wave thwarted once again, and Goodra lurched, roaring in pain as the attack momentarily crippled it.

Gotta get out of here, gotta get into the open!

He passed the site of the cave-in that had thwarted Farron's progress, and he suddenly remembered the radio Farron had given Korrina.

"Hey, Korrina! Can you hear me? You gotta wake up!"

She groaned, her cheek jostling his, and blinked, bleary-eyed. "What... Wha's goin' on...?"

"Hey, stay with me, this is important!"

Alain hiked her up against his hip, one arm around her waist and dragging her feet. She began to move them on her own a little, keeping up with him.

"Alain?"

"You with me?"

She blinked as he huffed and puffed, doing his best to keep up with Lucario ahead of them. Something gooey sloshed at his heels, but he dared not look back.

"Ugh, my head," she groaned.

"Yeah, remind me to give you shit about that suicide move later. Can you run?"

She shook out her head, taking back more of her weight as they half limped, half jogged to higher ground. It was dark as shit in here with Heliolisk concentrating on frying the Goomy that were slowly catching up to them instead of lighting the cavern.

''I'm okay, I can run."

She tested her feet, gritted her teeth, and fell into step with Alain.

Goddamn, he thought. Metal Sound could stun a fully-evolved Pokémon, he'd seen Charizard fall victim to it before. And here she was grinning and bearing it like a champ.

And outrunning him.

Goodra roared again, and a flash of red light was their only warning as it slammed into the wall, blind in its Outrage.

"Run faster!" Korrina called back to him from just ahead.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing!"

They were nearly back at the entrance, and Korrina radioed Farron.

"Get out of there!" she shouted into the walkie-talkie. "Code Redder than a Darmanitan's asshole! Get everyone out!"

Well, at least she knew how to make an impression. Goodra slammed into a wall and caused another cave-in, and Heliolisk had to Headbutt Alain out of the path of some falling rocks, after which it shrieked angrily, as though the cave had personally offended it. Alain got back on his feet and kept going, recalling Heliolisk for its own safety. The entrance was just ahead, just a little more!

"We have to lose them!" Korrina called back to Alain.

"How? They belong in a swamp! So unless you got one hidden in those leather pants, we're shit outta luck!"

"Oh my god, if we weren't running for our lives I'd smack you right here!"

Sunlight seared Alain's vision as he burst out of the mine entrance just as the tidal wave of Goomy tripped him up and sent him falling flat on his face, drenching him in slime anew. Korrina fell, too, but swift-footed Lucario managed to avoid the tidal wave and sprinted to safety with Garza.

Coughing, Alain struggled to his hands and feet where he came face to face with a Sliggoo ready to Dragonbreath him into the next dimension. He narrowed his eyes and projected all his anger at being knocked down—he was supposed to have a day off from falling on his ass!—and screamed at it.

"Back off!"

Sliggoo swallowed its Dragonbreath attack, wide-eyed and sweating mucous and unsure what to do. Alain ignored it and got to his feet. Korrina was also on her feet and dripping slime, but there was no time to check on her. Goodra burst through the mine entrance, collapsing the roof and finally stretching to its full height of nearly fifteen feet at the antennae. It glowed red with Outrage. Farron and his officers and the EMTs were standing by, but they all dropped what they were doing to gape in terror at the monster that had secretly been hiding out in the mine, unbeknownst to them all.

"To the north!" Korrina shouted. "It's all swampland! We can lead it there!"

Alain wasted no time. He threw one of his Pokéballs, and Tyrantrum coalesced in a flash of bright light. The red dinosaur growled at the sticky goop it had landed in, but Alain ran to its side and scrambled up onto its back. Korrina was right behind him.

"Give me your hand!" he said.

"What? You're gonna ride that thing?!"

He suppressed a curse and grabbed her hand, yanking her up onto Tyrantrum's back behind him. Goodra caught sight of its fellow Dragon and bellowed. Tyrantrum, never one to pass up an opportunity to beat the ever living shit out of something and take all the credit, happily answered Goodra's challenge and opened its oversized jaw in a roar that could make nightmares piss themselves.

"Follow me!" Alain called out to Goodra and its horde of Goomy and Sliggoo.

Tyrantrum turned and started picking up speed in a run—thump, thump, thump—over the forested wetlands on the peninsula northeast of Shalour. The Goomy once more fused into a huge wave, and this time they ferried their Sliggoo cousins as well as Goodra itself, as though the slug Dragon were surfing in for the kill.

"Do you even have a plan?!" Korrina shouted.

She was seated behind Alain with her hands around his waist while he fisted Tyrantrum's mane feathers and sorely wished he had his Brigandine leg bracers because he was going to feel this in the morning.

"I haven't gotten that far!"

"You idiot!"

She moved around behind him and threw another Pokéball. Hawlucha emerged in mid-flight, squawking in surprise at its surroundings. When it caught sight of Goodra rampaging behind it, it swooped out of the way.

"Flying Press!" Korrina yelled.

Hawlucha looped behind Goodra and began to glow white with power. In a blur of red, white, and green, the scrappy hawk hurtled toward Goodra and bravely struck it from above with hardened wings and talons alike. Goodra roared in pain, and it only became more enraged, never slowing.

Tyrantrum was bulldozing its way through the swampy wetlands, felling trees and uprooting the natural habitat, and there seemed to be no end to Goodra's fury. Dragons, man, they had such terrible tempers. Someone had said that to Alain when he was just a kid, and he had no idea why the memory came back to him now, but he couldn't remember the face or the name.

"That's it," Alain said more to himself than to Korrina.

"What?" She'd heard him. "Hawlucha! Make another loop!"

"No, stop!" Alain said. "We have to calm Goodra down, that's our only shot!"

"Well I'm super open to suggestions!"

They were running out of swamp to rampage through, and through the breaks in the trees Alain could make out the sea to the north. Flocks of Wingull took flight to escape the stampede, driven from their homes, and Wooper and Quagsire leaped out of the way into the muddy waters of the swamp in fear of Tyrantrum as it barreled past.

"On my signal, get ready to jump," Alain said.

"Jump? Are you crazy?!"

"Jump!"

He yanked her by the arm and they leaped from Tyrantrum's back, where they landed in the muddy morass. In seconds, the wave of Goomy sloshed over them and coated them in slime yet again. Tyrantrum skidded, its beady eyes searching for Alain.

"Head Smash!" Alain shouted.

Tyrantrum slashed the swampy ground with one foot, revving up like a Tauros, then lowered its head and charged at the Outraged Goodra. The two Dragons collided in an apocalyptic explosion of raw power and anger, and Alain, Korrina, and the Goomy and Sliggoo were repelled backwards. A thin tree broke Korrina's fall, and she broke Alain's. They landed together in a heap in the foul swamp sludge and Goomy goop, hurting all over.

Tyrantrum shook out its head, the reckless attack not enough to faze the obdurate Dragon, and snarled. Goodra, buffeted back a few yards, lost its Outrage glow, finally assuaged and a little disoriented. Alain got to his feet—this was his only chance.

"Alain!"

He showed Korrina his hand, a silent entreaty to stay back as he trudged through the muck toward Goodra. He then held up his other hand, slick with mucous and mud, toward Goodra and hoped beyond hope that this would work, that after everything he'd been through, those years spent in virtual indentured servitude to a family he'd never believed in will have done something that could help him just a little right now in his moment of need.

"Goodra," he said, barely recognizing his hoarse voice.

The lavender slug Dragon teetered on its hind legs, eyes swiveling and antennae twitching as it slowly reoriented itself. Green eyes, filmy and a little sleepy, sent a static shock down Alain's spine when they made eye contact—it could smell him. It knew what he was. Goodra, the slug Dragon with a power that could rival even Dragonite and Salamence and Garchomp, among the strongest of their bloodlines, focused all its fury and attention on Alain now.

"Goodra," he said again. "Take your brood, live here in peace."

There was a hierarchy among Titans. There were those that could exert control, and those that could not. The latter were the fortynblods, the diluted who could hardly coerce Dragon descendants, let alone true Dragons. Alain was somewhere in between, not the best but not the worst. Average, for one with the Old Blood in his veins. Maybe it was a little consolation, and it had nothing to do with him personally, but a rumor he'd heard some months ago came back to him now. A story about a fortynblod, a vander who'd grown up away from the influence of other Titans, had been the one to bring down Lance the Dragon Master, the golden child of the Taki Dynasty in Blackthorn. That she, in all her inferiority and lack of inheritance, had bested the Champion of Kanto and Johto at his own game by turning his control against him and sending him to the bottom of the sea along with his sea monster. Just a story, of course. But stories had a way of emboldening the small and the meek, the ones with an eye for change who just needed a little push, a little encouragement that yes, they can, and if they just tried hard enough, they might just get there. They might just do it.

Goodra's eyes dilated as it focused on Alain, its horde of Goomy swirling around it like a miniature ocean, and it let its mouth hand open, dripping mucous and daring him to challenge it. As if he'd dare. As if he could.

"Go," Alain said with confidence he wasn't sure he felt, but that he clung to because sometimes you just have to hold onto something, anything at all to stop that falling sensation before you hit the bottom. "Live in peace. You won't be disturbed here."

There was a moment then, something Alain would never forget, something he would never be able to explain to Korrina or anyone else, when Goodra heard him. It heard him, listened, as Gurkinn had implored him to listen on his first day at the Tower of Mastery. Listen, and you'll understand. For a moment, covered in slime and exhausted and scared half to death and trusting a power as old as time that he'd shunned in shame all his life up until this very moment, he heard Goodra, too.

The slug Draon blinked and closed its mouth, its long antennae drooping like ears, and it turned away from Alain. Extending its long neck, it sniffed the air and sloshed through the swampy water east, thick tail drawing a path in the muddy water behind it. One by one, the Sliggoo slithered after it, soundless, and finally the sea of Goomy moved as one entity, squelching along over mud and mulch in pursuit of their leader and protector.

Alain watched them go, not even daring to breathe for fear he might break the spell. Tyrantrum sloshed toward him and lowered its massive head to his eye level, bumping him affectionately. The love tap knocked Alain over and plunged him into the muddy swamp on his ass. What else is new?

More sloshing behind him, and Korrina appeared at his side. She watched as Goodra and the other slug Dragons slowly faded among the thick trees, then turned to Alain.

"Okay. I don't know how you did that and honestly, I don't think I wanna know. But you did it." She paused and averted her gaze. "So...thanks."

"Hey, I'd be Goomy chow if it wasn't for you and Lucario, so back at you."

The moments of silence that passed then were almost peaceful, the first comfortable silence they'd ever shared, now that he thought about it.

"They must have been displaced," he said, feeling the need to explain on the Dragons' behalf. "People keep spreading out, and they must have left to look for somewhere they could live undisturbed."

"When you put it that way, I'm almost sorry we had to drag them out of the mines. But they'll be okay up here. I'll make sure of it. No one will develop this land."

She was covered in slime and mud. It was in her hair, all over her face, her clothes, and she reeked of bog as badly as he did. But those brilliant, green eyes blazed in the midday sun that peeked through the canopy, and she was almost smiling. Almost.

He held out his hand to her. "Help me up?"

Korrina narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Hey, c'mon, I did carry you out of the mine. I practically saved your life."

She studied him a moment, his lopsided grin that he didn't really mean. He got the eerie feeling that she saw right through him. "Yeah, you did save my life in there."

He blinked up at her, unsure what to say. When she offered him her hand, he saw no other choice but to take it.

And then he pulled her down into the mud with him.

"Alain, you jackass!" Korrina screeched.

Alain burst out laughing. "That's the second time you fell for that!"

"Fuck you!"

He couldn't stop laughing, clutching his stomach, but he shut up real quick when she gathered up a handful of swamp mud and shoved it in his face.

"Ugh, what the hell!" he swore, wiping the grime from his mouth and eyes.

"You look better like that."

His eyes flashed with something primal, and she saw it very clearly. Korrina began to scramble away, but he was on a mission now. Ooooh, she'd really done it now. He scooped up two handfuls of bog runoff and hurled them at her. One sailed over her head, but the other hit her square in the chest.

"Oh my god!" she said, indignant.

He collapsed with laughter again, and Korrina struggled to her feet, armed with more mud in her hands.

"Okay, you asked for it, Titan."

Hawlucha squawked from a safe perch on a low branch, and Tyrantrum watched with disinterest, looking around for something it could eat. Unfortunately, there was nothing. It briefly considered Hawlucha, but the little bird looked bony and too much of a nuisance to catch. Fuck it.

By the time Farron and his officers found them, Alain and Korrina were in the throes of a full-on mud war, no mercy and no sidelines. Farron got the hint real quick and waved off his men once he assessed that the situation was under control, no one was hurt, the Dragons had dispersed.

Korrina had some seriously wizard-level accuracy, and she landed a direct hit on Alain right in the kisser with enough force to knock him down on his back. He wiped the gunk from his eyes and sat up, and he got an eyeful of Korrina seizing with laughter as she pointed at him.

"You look so gross right now!"

She was clutching her sides, unable to control the laughter, and tears streamed down her dirty cheeks as she gazed down at him. Alain held her gaze, momentarily stunned—he'd never seen her laugh like this before—and smiled. Really smiled. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd just let go, lived without worrying about anything but the moment. They held that moment, just the two of them, dancing green and sparkling blue, for what seemed like eons. Until Hawlucha clucked and Korrina got a mischievous glint in her eyes that did something achingly electrifying to the pit of his stomach and why wasn't she looking at him anymore, exactly?

Korrina lopped a gunk shot at Hawlucha, catching the feathered Fighter by surprise and earning herself a startled squawk. Then she burst out laughing all over again and lost her balance, falling backwards into the mud.

Farron had to haul them out of there by the arms. They were having too much fun to keep track of the time or Tyrantrum beginning to tear up the entire swamp in search of some slow Quagsire to chow down on.

---

As far as Malva was concerned, Lumiose City's only redeeming quality was its sheer size and population density that lent itself toward anonymity to those who sought it. You could really get lost in this place among the crowds of shoppers, the café-goers, the businessmen and women rushing to their next meeting across town. The cobblestone streets were hardly visible under all the feet, and the shining glass skyscrapers were as invisible to the bustling crowds too absorbed in their own lives as the boutique shops they rushed past, red and yellow and blue walls, hand painted, carved wooden signs, the smells of coffee and baking bread and sewer runoff stewing just beneath it. And if you knew where to go, you could escape that sea of people constantly on the move to a place where everything was still and quiet, the lights were dim, and the welcome was as warm as she would ever get.

It was raining today, just like it had been that first night when she'd wandered into this particular restaurant years ago, disheveled and soaking wet and too pissed off to care. She hadn't even looked at the time—ten thirty at night, by the way—that first night when she stormed in here just to get out of the rain and sit down somewhere quiet with a bottle of red wine to fuel the wild fire of her fury.

Laevus, her dear brother, had sold her out to Lysandre just so he could undermine a rival scientist and get a promotion. A promotion! And he'd thrown his own sister under the bus, the only person in the world who could stand to be around him for more than five minutes, who could ignore the curdled milk smell of him from practically eating his weight in cottage cheese on a daily basis, who could rest assured that he would not backstab her for personal gain because she was his fucking family and damn if she'd made a point all her life to look out for him when their parents would have sooner rented out his room to a stranger, forgetting he was even there, their own son. All for a fucking promotion he would've gotten sooner or later anyway because he was a genius, she was the first to say it, but sadly he needed coddling, needed someone to hold his dick while he bumbled about his sterile lab always on the verge of something and never quite getting there, and there's probably a metaphor in there somewhere but fucking shit on a stick she was so mad at him. A part of her wanted to unleash Mega Houndoom and burn this fine establishment down—wherever the hell this was—but the wine. The wine, honey. Priorities.

It didn't look as shabby as the bars she haunted with her Team Flare associates. The booths were a supple brown leather, the carpets a burning carmine that simmered on low heat under the dim lighting. Black and white photographs of old Lumiose, before the skyscrapers and the suits and blaring billboards, decorated the walls. Some decorator knew what they were doing in here. The bar was dark mahogany and looked like it had been here for a hundred years. The wood shone with age and countless polishing jobs, the cricks and cracks smoothed over as though filled with wax. And the selection of drinks, everything from beers on tap to fine wines to whiskeys and bourbons and scotch in those crystal decanters that didn't say 'hide the label' so much as 'you don't want to know how much you're paying for this', made for a nice backdrop for the night she hadn't planned but was quickly getting very comfortable with.

She was going to kill her brother. No, okay, she wasn't going to kill him, but she was going to hurt him in a way he'd never forget. After her three-month suspension and ranger duty was up. Fucking Lysandre. She was his best agent, his best, and he knew it. She was loyal, she worked hard, and she never asked questions. That is, she never got caught asking questions. She was Lysandre's right hand. That fucking skuff would be dead without her, she knew it. Who cared if he claimed to be descended from some ancient king no one even remembered? He was a skuff, plain and simple, a thin-blooded disappointment to his parents. Maybe that was why Malva had found it so easy to work for him, to believe in his drive. Laevus was a skuff, too, and look what he'd made for himself? Look what he'd done with Malva watching his back and picking him up and patching his ego back together? And look what that lard ass did the second he weighed her future against his?

"Ma'am, sorry to tell you this, but we're closing up soon and the kitchen already called in last orders about half an hour ago," the bartender said when he saw Malva slip into one of the polished wooden chairs, dripping wet.

She removed her jacket and slung it over the chain next to her, revealing her sleeveless black blouse that hugged her curves and showed a little midriff when she moved. Red pants ended just above her ankles, and black stilettos did the rest. She removed her sunglasses and set them on the bar, fixing her lurid gaze on the bartender, a young man still outgrowing his baby fat. He actually shivered when she turned her glare on him.

"I'm not hungry," Malva said. "But I'll take a bottle of whatever Cabernet you have handy."

The bartender shifted in his starchy black and white uniform. "The whole bottle?"

"What're you, my fucking sponsor?" She unclipped the seal on her clutch and wagged a credit card at him. "The bottle. Now."

"Um, okay, but I need to see some ID."

Malva blinked, almost not believing him. Twenty-seven and she needed a fucking ID to have a pity party? She considered the consequences of cupping her hands around this kid's butter face and letting her heat fill his cheeks, sear through skin and muscle all the way to the bone. No, too messy. She was having a shitty enough day, and the last thing she needed was local law enforcement sniffing around. With the luck she was having lately, Lysandre might find some way to blame her for drawing attention to herself and, by extension, Team Flare.

The bartender mistook her pensive hesitation for panic and took a step forward. "Ma'am, your ID please?"

"Call me ma'am one more time and I'll shove my foot so far up your ass it'll be the only thing you say ever again."

The bartender gaped at her, white as a sheet, and sputtered. Malva had the ridiculous thought that he looked a lot like a Feebass she'd seen as a child in a tank at the fish market, wide-eyed and glugging and too dimwitted to know when to look the other way because that's Trouble you're gawking at, honey, and believe me, you do not want to sniff up that tree.

"Artie, is there a problem here?"

A tall man, blond and blue-eyed and so debonair he practically reeked of it appeared behind the bartender and put a slender hand on his shoulder. He was dressed in a food-stained white apron over a navy collared shirt and slacks.

"N-no, sir, I was just asking this lady for her ID. She ordered a bottle of the Cabernet," Artie the bartender stammered.

Malva's gaze flickered from Artie to the newcomer—clearly his boss if the way the kid was about to shit his pants was any indication. She locked eyes with the Boss and something unfamiliar, but not entirely unpleasant, buzzed down her spine, cold but not painful. He smiled, and it was a dashing smile which kind of pissed Malva off even more, and patted Artie's shoulder.

"Please excuse my bartender, ma'am," Boss man said.

Artie paled even more and took a few steps back. Malva had to bite her tongue to keep from giggling.

"He's new, and he hasn't quite gotten the hang of spotting teenagers among the guests."

Is that a compliment or did he just call me old?

"Artie, why don't you take table five's check and then head home for the night? I'll close up and handle the bar."

Artie nodded like it was the last thing he would ever do. "Sure thing!" He scuttled out of the bar like a Bug and hurried to table five deeper in the back of the restaurant.

"Now then," Boss man said, leaning over the bar and lacing his fingers together. "I won't ask for your ID, but I would ask for your name, if you don't mind sharing?"

Malva rested her chin on her palm and leaned into her elbow. "And if I do mind?"

"Then it will be a horribly embarrassing evening for me as I try to guess it."

Malva held his gaze, daring him, and after a few moments, he pulled away. Showing her his back, he selected a bottle from the rack, uncorked it, and set two glasses on the bar in between them.

"I never said I wanted company," Malva said.

"You also said you wanted the Cabernet, but I'm doing you a favor with this Pinot. Trust me...Kara."

Malva frowned. "Kara?"

"No? What about Laura? No, that's not right either. Camilla?"

"You have got to be shitting me."

He finished pouring their glasses and passed one to Malva. She sniffed it—bold, dark, and earthy—and took a sip.

"Well?" he asked.

Like you don't know.

"It's nice," she admitted. He knew what he was doing, she'd give him that.

Boss man smiled—not smirked, but really smiled, and goddamnit he had a nice smile—and raised his glass to hers.

"Cheers. I'm very glad to meet you...?"

"...Malva," she relented.

"Malva," he repeated, really tasting the name like he tasted that Pinot, nice and slow and savory. "Now I feel even sillier for my guesses."

She let him stew on that, not giving an inch, and he nodded, relenting.

"I won't subject you to further guessing games, so please call me Siebold."

Siebold hung his wine glass as though the effort was almost too much for his delicate constitution and watched her through those sleepy, blue eyes that seemed to see all of her all at once. The fury was still there under the surface, and she would nurse it for the three months of suspension ahead. But three months was a long time to plan, to plot a fitting consequence for her brother's selfishness. Maybe one night's procrastination wouldn't hurt.

She clinked her wine glass against Siebold's, the chime light and pure. "Siebold," she said by way of greeting.

They shared a drink, and then Siebold stood upright again. "Now, what can I get you for dinner?"

She waved him off. "I'm not here to eat. And by the way, if you're going to have that glass, feel free to take it off my tab."

He studied her a moment. "You're soaked from the rain, it's almost eleven on a Wednesday, and you show up here in my restaurant alone and broody like you're plotting the downfall of a nation. I think dinner and wine is the least I can do for you, Malva."

Something clicked, warning bells, and Malva put her hands on the bar. "Hold up there, Romeo. I'm not here to be wined and dined. I came to be alone, so cut the bullshit."

Siebold chuckled. "Romeo committed suicide. Believe me, I have every intention of walking out of here alive tonight." His sleepy blue eyes glowed in the dim lighting, and just looking at him made her sleepy, too. "But this is my restaurant, and I'll consider it a personal failure if you come and go with an empty stomach. Besides, that Pinot's no better than piss without some garlic parsley escargot to accompany it."

He gently nudged the credit card still in her hand and pushed it back toward her. "Please, I insist. Think of it as indulging my sins, not yours."

Buddy, you have no idea.

It didn't look like he was going to leave her alone, and she was already comfortably situated with a bottle of wine that was better than any she'd ever had. Whatever, who was she to say no to a free meal? After the shit day she'd had, maybe it would do her some good.

It ended up doing her good and a hell of a lot more. Siebold was an excellent chef, had been training since he was a kid with his mother, who ran this place before him with his father heading up the business side. Now it was just him, his parents having retired to Santalune to run a smaller café just the way they wanted to away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. He told her these things, and as the hours blended together with his heartbreakingly delicious food and the wine continued to flow, Malva found that she was happy to listen. When was the last time she'd had a normal conversation with a real human being that didn't involve mission protocols?

"And what about you?" Siebold asked after taking another sip of his wine. He'd lost the apron and rolled up his navy shirtsleeves. He had slender fingers, like a surgeon's, with a few knife scars from years in the kitchen. "I can't believe you're a consultant for Team Flare. That seems too boring for you."

Team Flare was, on the surface, a conglomerate business that dabbled in just about everything from management consulting to Pokémon research to even non-profit environmental projects. No one outside of the inner circle knew Team Flare's true purpose, and as pissed as Malva was at both Laevus and Lysandre, she would never betray the organization. It wouldn't suit her to throw away a source of power not yet fully reaped.

"Well, believe it. Sorry I'm not the exciting international spy you seem to hope will walk in here one night."

"No, you're mistaken. I'm sure your work is very interesting, and it doesn't matter what I think as long as you enjoy it. Besides, if an international femme fatale walked in here now, then we'd be interrupted and I'd have the unpleasant job of escorting her off the premises."

Malva half laughed, half snorted. "Yeah, right. What would you do, charm her out the door?"

"Oh come on, now, I can be persuasive when I want to be. I convinced you to try my cooking, didn't I?"

Malva raised her glass to him then downed the last two sips of her wine. "Only because I let you."

He said nothing to that, and Malva finished off a last bit of food.

"Well, Siebold, thanks for dinner, but a girl needs her beauty sleep and all that shit. So I'll be off—"

Malva nearly slipped out of her chair, and Siebold caught her arm just before she could fall. She laughed.

"Oops."

"Let me get you a cab," he said, slipping out of his chair.

He stumbled, and this time it was Malva who had to catch him. She laughed again.

"You might need it more than me," she teased.

"Ah, I think you're right." He steadied himself on the bar. "I almost regret sending Artie home. Now I'll have to close up and try to stay on my feet."

"Oh, fuck it. You can clean up tomorrow."

"Hung over? Yes, excellent idea."

She bit her lip. Do I or don't I? "I could help you. Two hang overs're better than one."

He stared at her, and that little part of her that remained sober screamed in agony. You idiot.

She pushed off the bar, a little wobbly, and steadied herself on the back of a chair. "Wow, I can't believe I just said that."

The anger she'd stormed in here with was slowly returning, stoked by her embarrassment and the alcohol loosening her otherwise tightlipped tongue.

"No, that's, I mean I want— Malva, wait."

Siebold reached for her, and reacting on instinct, Malva grabbed his wrist hard. The anger and the alcohol and the general shitty day she'd been having until he helped her unwind poured out without really meaning to, and she channeled heat through her palm into his wrist, hot enough to boil blood and bubble the skin. Siebold gasped, and his wrist smoked where she'd grabbed him. But that wasn't smoke she was seeing.

"What the..."

Malva released him, and her fingers were coated in condensation. Steam rose from Siebold's wrist where she'd grabbed him, but the skin was intact, a little pink from the heat, but otherwise totally unaffected by her fiery touch.

In the few tense seconds that passed, a few things became very clear to Malva. One, she was no longer drunk. Two, Siebold was, without a doubt, a Tamer, a Syreni with an affinity for water. Three, he was a fucking strong Syreni to have been able to negate her fire touch without really thinking about it, maybe the strongest she'd ever encountered. And four, she was this close to either turning around and bolting out the door or throwing him over his bar and climbing on top of him.

Turns out, he thought through it all faster and pulled her to him, deciding for her. They crashed together, fell toward the plush leather couches in the lobby and missed them completely as they tangled together on the carmine carpet, and yeah he was a good kisser, how could he not be with that dashing smile and those sleepy eyes and those surgeon's hands that could cook up masterpieces in his kitchen? And now she got it, got that weird sensation of being surrounded, like the tide washing over her that she'd felt the moment he'd walked into her line of sight. It was him, all of it, flooding her senses like the sea, palms exploring—under her shirt, over her belly, in her hair, waves crashing against her with every touch.

Clothes became an afterthought, discarded and forgotten, and Malva's red-painted nails fisted his wavy blond hair, dragged over his strong back and trailed steam in their wake and fuck she loved that feeling, burning and drowning at the same time, like dying and being reborn and over and over and over again, and he could hold his breath for hours but she couldn't and she needed to give him something else to do with that clever mouth or he'd suffocate her and—

"Excuse me, Miss? Are you going in? Let me get the door for you."

A middle-aged man and his wife were peering at Malva standing there in the rain, getting soaked, and the man held the door open for her. She must have looked a sight to them, standing out here in the pouring rain alone, not bothering to cover up, just staring through the window and seeing a scene that had played out years ago, so lost in the memories.

The rain hit her cheeks, slid down under the neck of her jacket and beneath her shirt, steaming as it evaporated on her skin. But it wasn't the same. No matter how long she stood in the rain and remembered, it wasn't the same.

"No," Malva said, red eyes peering through the glass at the carmine carpet, those same leather couches that had been here all these years, a different bartender—a woman this time, no sign of Artie—searching for a face that wasn't there. "Go ahead."

She stepped out of the way, and the couple entered the restaurant. She stood there a moment longer, wondering what the hell she was doing standing here like an idiot because if he saw her now, if he came out of the kitchen to grab more Merlot for his filet mignon and happened to look out the window and see her standing there, she'd be undone. She'd never leave, never finish what she'd started, and even though Laevus was a chauvinistic little leech, he was her brother and he was, as she'd always said, a genius, and he was going to succeed in this. It was only a matter of time, and that was where Malva came in. She would not turn her back on him like their parents had all his life. She would not abandon him.

Siebold would have to wait, if he was even still waiting for her. Five years and only two or three visits a year had a way of warping memories, making them fade and change into something else. She could wait. She didn't need carnal gratification, not for herself and certainly not to climb the ladder in Team Flare, but why shatter Laevus's misogynistic fantasies with the hard truth? He couldn't take it, couldn't stand that she was better than that, better than him, and not because she was born that way (because no one is born better than anyone else, not even Malva with her burning fingers, and there is always going to be someone better out there, someone who won't burn no matter what), but because she'd made it so, both for herself and for him. There was only one man whose touch she craved, but she could wait, and so could he. Family came first.

Malva turned away from the glass window looking into Le Chalet, Siebold's family restaurant on the west side away from the downtown bustle where she'd left a piece of herself to hide away, a part that would be there when she came back because otherwise, what the hell was the point of all this? She pulled up her hood to shield her bright, magenta hair from the rain, and disappeared into the grey misty city. She was running late for a meeting with a certain personal lab assistant with some important information concerning a young woman from Vaniville Town who was more than what she seemed.

The door to La Chalet opened, and a tall, blond man with simmering blue eyes in a smeared apron jogged outside into the rain. He looked down the street both ways, searching through the gloom. The rain soaked his hair and his apron through, but he barely felt the chill as he breathed deeply. Greys and blues and purples, all washed out into the flooded storm drains and blending into a watercolor smear. No bright flash of magenta, no hot whisper on the back of his neck, though he was sure he'd felt something just a moment ago, a familiar heat he longed for in those sleepless nights, wondering when she'd be back, if she'd be back.

Siebold caught the rain in his palm, his skin absorbing the moisture, soft and supple. He closed his fingers in a fist, trapping the water like he could never trap a flickering flame, bright and hot and beautiful but never captured, never controlled, and always just out of reach.

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Thank you to all the reviewers! Calem and Serena are back in the next chapter, I promise.