Aftershock
Chapter 3: Challenge
"Try, Ytarrik, keep trying!"
Ruki's Cyndaquil, Angin, let out a startled, entertained squeal, to the extreme annoyance of Ytarrik. A bipedal, tan creature with an elongated snout and a navy back, she was currently being pulled shakily from the ground, levitating no more than half an inch in the air before falling back down, and then repeating. From the waves of effort emanating from Ytarrik's mind, it was a great task for him to lift her weight to even such a height, and he was only grudgingly doing so to please Amaren and Ruki's insistences.
"Look at it the bright way, Zyt," Amaren said sardonically, pleasure at his labour most evidently showing in his face, "you'll soon become a master at telekinesis, eh?"
[Shut up, Ytarrik retorted, his greatest attempt failing yet again. The customary wobbling in Angin's stability on the ground faded, as the Abra turned to send Amaren an icy stare/thought. [If you call me by that name once again, he hissed. [I'll show you the true extents of my telekinesis.
An unimaginably enormous section of the city, encompassing perhaps one-fourth all its mass, had been dedicated solely to training, and a wide variety of facilities were huddled in this space, everything from minor emulations of wild conditions (fields of grass; tiny, controlled stands of trees; the occasional snow chamber, among many such plots) to the centerpiece of Saffron's display, the Psychic-type Pokèmon Gym, whose displays of telekinesis and elemental control psychics traveled to see from the region over. The latter was the ultimate objective of Amaren and Ruki in the city, and it was to this that they worked their way through the complex of trainer's aids.
Nothing, however, according to conventional wisdom passed down to Ruki, could compare to the wild – and this thought presently passed over both their minds, once the initial amusement at Ytarrik's training had faded. They instantaneously discussed this within their minds, taking the Abra as their medium, and pulled away from the training grounds where they were currently idling, no more than fallen leaves to the wind of their hearts' whim.
As Amaren had noted a universe ago, Saffron City lay at the very crossroads of the four major cities of Kanto. It lay in a valley of a plain, surrounded on all sides by forest, though its routes leading in all four cardinal points cut cleanly through the woods, wherever they required way; so that the ring of forest all around Saffron's stretch of grassland was divided into quarters. It seemed, from the air, as though the city had formed a crater for itself within the reaches of a vast stand of ancient trees – exactly the truth, as Ruki assured Amaren. "Not that it formed an actual crater, of course!" she did not forget to add with a slight laugh. "The city was once a woodland village just like your own, but being at the very middle of all that travel through the main landmass of Kanto, it grew and grew and cut a clean hole for itself in the forest."
When Amaren would ask where she had learned all of this, the girl would reply with something faintly scathing towards the extravagant depths of compulsory education. "You're supposed to know these things too, you know, Amaren," she would direct with a joking grin, "they wouldn't let you pass without a thorough understanding of the exact eating habits of every human being who lived to see history."
They set a course towards the northeastern quadrant of forest, and Amaren could not help but notice a gradual drop in the tilt between his own cluelessness and Ruki's consequent domination in their conversations. It had begun from the moment of their first encounter; and while Amaren knew from common sense that such a transition would be inevitable, he was surprised to see it moving along at such a visible pace. Perhaps he would soon become the elder brother, guiding his sibling through the treacheries of the world.
His meanders and his fantasies gradually petered to a fresh alertness, as the dreamy gold of the sunlit field gave way to a cool viridian, and they entered the forest main. Here, though the gentle light of the dappled canopy still seemed to sooth any potential viciousness under its halls, there was an air of pleasant tension, one which signaled to them the abundance of more warlike challengers to any capable fighter.
They took a few tentative steps deeper into the stretches. Within a moment more minute than human instinct, a blur of dark tan shot out of the restless leaves directly for Amaren – but not every member of their party was human.
Instinctually, Ytarrik teleported inches before the unseen offender, giving a massive surge of effort; and the attacking Pidgey's path was deflected within moments of reaching the startled trainer. Unexpectedly, once Amaren had regained his senses, the Abra was not exhausted in the least from his sudden trial.
[The more Psychics stimulate their abilities, the easier it is for them to access them, he said, satisfaction showing clearly in his thought. [Which means… The subsequent rush of thought was sufficient to finish his sentence. Rising back into the air, he zoomed forward to meet the challenge of the returning wild Pokèmon, loose pieces of dirt flying from the ground beneath him.
The Pidgey darted once again towards him, beak raised, but it was stopped entirely this time, frozen to hover in midair. Ytarrik backed away from its petrified form, but great loads of sticks and rocks began rising from all around him, poised to shoot themselves at his enemy. The Pidgey struggled to break loose of its bind, pushing forward with all its might, and was released – only to meet an inescapable barrage of painful forest matter. With a crow of defeat, it staggered away.
Silence reigned again, for a moment.
"It's not legal to attack a wild Pokèmon if it's trying to escape, you know," Ruki said conversationally.
"Really?" Amaren and Ytarrik said together, though the Abra was evidently more surprised.
"Yeah, of course. And if it's mortally wounded, it's the trainer's responsibility to take it to a Center."
With a mental shrug, Ytarrik raged off into the forest, the humans attempting to trail behind him, Ruki releasing Angin once again. The companions lumbered heavily through the trees, Ytarrik at their front, the Cyndaquil running playfully beside them, and they feared no wild attacker, challenging each with equal confidence. A sudden stroke of inspiration on the part of the Abra led to the growth of a new move, according to the information stored in the back display of their trainer cards:
[Well, I just send a quick, sudden burst of thought telepathically into their minds, he explained with hidden pride. [They can't even stand that much, the suckers. WHOOOO!
His exclamation would invariably be punctuated with a public rendition of his new Confusion, sending everything around him into dazed, painful spirals of dizziness. And then, as always, he would rush a few miles forward, most irritating to all things, animate or inanimate, in his path.
This was not to say, however, that Angin encountered progress any lesser. Being inarticulate to both trainers, she was merely less taken to announcing thus with quite Ytarrik's vigour. And yet, as the tiny flames bursting to life on her back grew with each flare of their power, it was unmistakable that Ruki had been fundamentally correct in her estimation of the worth of wild training. A certain satisfaction lay within the grind of wills, lingering around the individual defeat of yet another Pokèmon and capitalizing on the visible progress as yet another flaw in the Abra and Cyndaquil's technique was smoothened; and while Amaren and Ruki could but follow their charges on their rampage, attempting unnecessarily to call out orders, the sheer adrenaline seeped into their spirit as well.
When both Pokèmon had run to their heart's content, they rested, winded, under the shade of a lone oak in the center of a clearing in the woods, reaching for the provisions they had only just remembered to pack. Amaren and Ruki reached for their grand pack of grilled berry sandwiches, marveling at the versatility of a single species of fruit, and Angin dove into her soft cakes of Cheri; but Ytarrik retired to a quiet corner of the clearing, hovering still in midair and refusing to talk to anyone else.
"I think he's sleeping," wondered Ruki between mouthfuls of the best processed Oran in all of Saffron, according to the extravagant advertisement hanging outside the food corner they had acquired it from.
"And that's news…" replied Amaren. "How do you know, though? His eyes are always closed"; to a collective laugh by all the breakfasters.
It seemed that this was precisely what the Abra did not wish to hear. It was difficult to estimate closely, however; he was not even so alert to everything around him as to explain his dissatisfaction at the great lengths with which he tended to do.
"But really": Ruki, on a serious note, "Ytarrik has feelings too, you know. I think we should be nice to him for a change." And Angin, anxious to follow the example of her trainer, indicated her agreement fervently.
To the infinite surprise of all involved, including the human, Amaren suddenly seemed to recall some earlier conviction, and ceased his casual insult against Ytarrik.
They started back early, as soon as they saw the center of diffused light above them move into the western half of the sky. Little did they fear from this mesh of challenges which this forest provided, as though for their entertainment, but it was not prudent to remain overnight in a forest, no matter what their disposition towards it.
They readied to move out of their temporary camp when Ytarrik suddenly cried, [Wait! Angin tensed, her fur rising to its full volume, and Amaren and Ruki retired to the center of the clearing. Out of the darker assemblies of grass and twig shone two alert yellow eyes. The wait, the infinite pause in action…
An unusually large, fierce Mightyena sprang out from the first shades of darkness around the clearing, diving for the waiting Abra, who dodged out of the way and returned a Confusion in its direction. To little effect, however; Dark had eternally been the oppressor of Psychics.
A pair of fearsome jaws, black with a substance incapable of reflection, slammed down on the Abra, and he had scarce little time to teleport out before the jagged surface could touch him. Human and Pokèmon watched, alike immobile, as the Psychic fought a losing duel with the Dark – stumbling backward at each of its attacks, attempting feebly to force a single thorn between the Mightyena's natural aura, negating all psychic influence.
Each of the watchers shook themselves from her reverie, but it was too late: with a final slam of jaws, the perpetrator closed its bite around the defender's form, and Ytarrik fell in a crumpled heap, who Amaren hastily recalled.
As the Mightyena's sinister influence fell over the tiny, defiant figure of Angin, and Ruki behind her, a vision suddenly overtook Amaren, as from a memory of a memory –
The raving Mightyena, charging for the elder fighter's forlorn figure –
And conviction hardened his resolve. History would not repeat, not this once.
At the girl's order, the Cyndaquil shot forward, desperately searching for an opening in the great wolf's armor, armed with lesser than an iron blade. Another, advancing Bite – but that was all he would allow, as far as he would let the monster approach Ruki's unprotected form. A single, vagabond thought joined forces with his own, and dark russet eyes flared to crimson – amber – gold…
Amaren stood forward to the extents of his length, a figure tall, dark, terrible in its wrath; and, as if responding to a force other than his own, his hands raised in the air, holding invisible staffs – and the very earth rose in his anger and desperation, serving his purposes long enough to buffet the perpetrator severely. Whimpering, it turned to flee.
As the failing presence of Ytarrik drained from Amaren's mind, Ruki hurried forward to support his near-limp body, returning Angin to her storage device; and the two soldiers staggered out of the battlefield together.