Chapter Thirty-Three:
Destinations

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. The only "ownership" I can claim are the personalities and my interpretation of how Pokémon look in a more realistic light, but other than that...yeah, I don't own anything on them. XD I do, however, own my original characters and writings, unless otherwise stated. In an exceptional case, a few special OCs belong to their respective owners, I'm merely borrowing them for the story that's to unfold. I'll point them out when their time to show up comes. :3

Note: I can't really say much, other than work was—and still is—insanely wibbly-wobbly in terms of scheduling. Massive projects and deadlines, continuous training, and much internal work drama/hilarity galore. It doesn't help at all that I am now the boss of my shop, as my old one recently retired in the last few months, which means more responsibility and later hours. I'm sure most of you realize where that leads to. Less creative time and more "I'm tired as fuck and braindead right now after work and family caretaking" moments.

I did want to finish this for y'all, however! I'm not entirely too happy with the wording for the chapter, but I've struggled for too long and finally wrangled it into a semblance of something worthwhile. I'm sure if I ever did a rewrite, I'll keep this chapter in mind. Until then, onward ho, my lovelies!

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 "You're gonna come with us."
"Excuse me?"
"You like ships. You don't seem to be lookin' at the destinations. What you care about is the ships, and mine's the nicest."
"She don't look like much."
"Oh, she'll fool ya. You ever sailed in a Firefly?"
-Kaylee and Shepherd Book, "Firefly"

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The Ilex Forest had always been something of a background median to her. She was aware of its imposing, dark presence that pressed in close from the west, but never truly paid it any real mind. It was an obstacle for later, a challenge untaken until she was ready to move forward. Now that she had her focus narrowed in on it, it was only then that it really began to sink in that she needed to go through the forest.

The trees were ancient in comparison to the forests to the north she had hunted in the last full moon. The forest to the north looked like a child's playground in comparison. The trees of the Ilex Forest were gargantuan in size, dwarfing any buildings she's seen so far, even the pagoda back in Violet City. And the treetops were clustered so tightly together, the ground-level seemed perpetually cloaked in darkness, a perpetually constant nighttime that had taken up permanent residence within the confines of the forest. She could taste the oldness within the very air itself as she and her pokémon drew closer. Riptide was withdrawn for the most part, faithfully following beside her. Bullet grew noticeably antsy with every step that heralded them nearer. Even within Azalea City proper, they could always see the forest, a quietly looming presence that reminded all who cared to look that it was there, and it wasn't going anywhere. It was an encroaching beast on the verge of reclaiming them. It only had to wait.

"Do we really have to go through the forest? Can't we backtrack to Violet City and head to Ecruteak City instead? We'd get to Goldenrod that way too," he said, blue eyes never leaving the sight of the ancient trees.

"We'd lose weeks' worth of progress by backtracking all the way to Violet City," Lupin replied. She didn't falter in her step as she led the way to Ilex Forest. "If you want to travel in your pokéball, just say the word, Bullet. I won't force you to stick around the place if you don't want to."

Bullet shook his head, claws clicking along the sidewalk. "No, no, no! I don't want to leave you alone, I don't! It's just…" He glanced quickly at her, then back at the forest. "It's so creepy. I mean, look at it. It's dark."

"You can see in the dark." Riptide grumbled back.

"So? Just because I can doesn't mean I want to. It's not always that great to know that there's things in there that want to hurt us and being able to see them too."

"Would it really make a difference if we were in the forest or on a route trail? We'll come across pokémon that want to hurt us regardless. The forest isn't any different."

"I know, it's…just hard to explain, okay?"

"Poor, sheltered little Growlithe. You've never had to deal with things like the true ferals have, have you?" Riptide goaded with a mockingly syrupy drawl to his tone. The puppy pokémon growled, words already lined up to fire back at the Croconaw.

"Oi," Lupin cut in with a warning tone. Riptide clacked his jaws, but said nothing further. Bullet was almost glad. At least focusing on the Croconaw's sarcastic and cutting words kept him preoccupied and his attention drawn away from Ilex Forest. The rest of the way was relatively quiet. The main path that led further into the forest was a prim mounted sign stuck between two giant tree trunks, announcing Ilex Forest proper. Another sign was nailed to the forest's posts, this one giving a brief history of Ilex Forest. It went on to detail the importance of the forest as a protected pokémon environment and to the charcoal industry as a whole that fueled Azalea's economy, warnings of the kinds of pokémon that are expected to be encountered within, and to respect the forest above all else.

Lupin got to the last line and squinted at it, reading it twice over. Riptide waited impatiently beside her.

"What does it say?" He finally asked.

"It's…just information on Ilex Forest, but this last line. 'Respect the forest or risk angering the Guardian, Celebi. I don't remember reading about that pokémon before..."

"Celebi?" Riptide repeated incredulously, his tone firm yet edgy. Bullet sucked in a breath and shot his gaze up high toward the heavens where the forest's canopy dwelled above them. Lupin pulled out her pokédex and inputted the search parameters for the name, but little information came up. The text wasn't even helpful and there was no picture, either. Dejected, Lupin put the machine away again.

"I guess we'll just try not to piss off anyone or anything too much while we're here. It's gonna be a long trek through, so let's try to make the best of it."

She didn't even make it three steps before she heard the call behind her. She had been aware of the footsteps following her; she had only been hoping to avoid a battle, just for today. It'd delay her and her team from the much needed traveling they'd need to undertake for the day. She turned, a sigh and a resignation that a battle was going to happen, no matter what—and then she stopped short of herself with a noise of surprise stuck in her throat.

Shirubā was there, his shockingly vibrant red hair standing out against his pale face. His sensible hiking attire was a little worse for the wear and was probably due for a changeover one of these days soon enough. Shirubā either didn't notice or care about the state of his clothes. His focus wasn't on his attire at all, but was instead solely locked on Lupin. A Bayleef stood beside him, heathy and lively looking, if the state of her bright green hide and full, thick leaf atop her head was any indication. Rust-coloured eyes glimmered with the prospect of heeding the call of a battle, and they were fixated on Riptide. Shirubā narrowed his eyes as he ventured closer to Lupin. He was taller, but that did little to deter Lupin from squaring her shoulders back and straightening a little more on the spot.

Young-ass kid probably thinks I'm his age, with how short and young-looking I am. Does he even realize I'm an adult? He barely looks like he made it out of school himself!

Her thoughts unheard aside, she focused more on Shirubā himself. He didn't look any worse for the wear, unlike his attire. If anything, he appeared determined and focused, although she could care less for the way he stared at her. It was like she was a bug-type pokémon that he very much intended to squish beneath his feet, but he wasn't sure if it'd be enough to keep her down.

Shirubā stopped just short of her, his Bayleef doing much the same. She dipped her head toward Riptide. He did her the same courtesy. Bullet glanced between the two and settled on the Croconaw after a time.

"You two know each other?" He remarked at last.

"You could say that," Riptide answered coolly. "We were at Professor Elm's lab together for a time, before he stole her."

Riptide jerked his snout toward Shirubā, clacking his jaws noisily. "He's a worse criminal than you are. At least you stole to survive. He stole just because he wanted something and didn't want to wait like everyone else."

A hiss built up in Riptide's chest, bubbling up into his throat and spilling out from his slightly parted maw. Shiruba glanced at him for only a moment, his gaze breaking off from Lupin's.

"Keep your little monster under control," he snapped, returning his gaze back on the werewolf.

"What do you want? I kind of have a schedule to keep, so if you don't mind…"

She half-turned back toward the forest, clearly intent on leaving. Shirubā barked at her, "As a matter of fact, I do mind! I heard about what happened at the Slowpoke Well. That was you, wasn't it?"

Lupin narrowed her eyes and turned back toward him. "And how, exactly, would you even be able to prove if I was there?"

"I have my sources. But it was you, I know it was. If the stupid Mareep-like masses could put two and two together, they'd actually be able to figure out that the only trainer around here with a Croconaw and a Growlithe wandering around was their town's so-called savior, and then you'd be a lot more swamped with 'admirers'. The police were doing you a thinly-veiled courtesy with keeping you anonymous for the time being."

The only thing that was 'thinly-veiled' was his sneer and it was poorly done at that. Okay, kid, enough's enough. I'm done playing this game with you.

"I'm sorry, did I happen to do something that offended your apparently fragile and childish ego? Because the last I checked, I have never met you before our first battle back on the outskirts of Cherrygrove, so I'm a little confused as to where this animosity is coming from. Did I accidentally run over your…whatever, pokémon, in another lifetime that I'm just having trouble remembering about?"

Bullet snorted and Riptide choked back a laugh. Lupin fought to keep from smiling after the irony of her statement hit her full force after she'd said it. Shirubā scowled, looking even more irate than moments before.

"I've seen you hanging around Professor Elm's lab, shortly after your so-called 'accident'. Faking amnesia to con your way into getting a pokémon? What a laugh. What, were you so weak and pathetic that you had to come up with some copout mental problem to score yourself some sympathy points with the old man?"

The Growlithe at her side lurched forward a step, his hackles bristling and a snarl pulling his snout. Lupin sharply whistled, stopping him from stepping any closer. Bullet's ears pulled back against his head and he hesitated, as though contemplating ignoring her, but in the end he shuffled back a few steps until he was beside her again. Riptide hadn't moved, but he hadn't needed to. He had ballooned his body to an impressive display of a spiny, unwelcoming ball of scales and teeth, crimson eyes glowering at the young man. The Bayleef at his side tried to hold his gaze, but dropped it after only a minute, looking rather abashed. Her trainer didn't notice her, but he smirked at Lupin when she said nothing.

"So you were faking it," he taunted.

"Why would I fake something that I'm still struggling with? If I had wanted to 'score' myself something from the professor, then I probably would have hightailed it home by now with my prize in tow. And since I'm still on the road, and going from town to town asking people 'do you know me, have I lived here, can you help me', then that would probably negate the entirety of your argument now, wouldn't it?"

His smile only faltered once. He shrugged.

"Whatever. Continue with your little charade, not like I give a shit." His gaze hardened, and his smile dropped at last. It was replaced by a hard, thin line. "Tell me something. Is it true Team Rocket really returned?"

Lupin kept quiet, deciding on whether or not to answer him. Shirubā's red eyes raked over her, and she could almost see a desperate gleam in them, a hungry yearning to actually know. He clenched his jaw when she didn't answer right away, the muscles in his neck pulling taut and corded.

"Well?!"

She nodded. Not much point in denying it at this point, was there? It wasn't like she had been sworn to secrecy by the police to not say anything. "It really was Team Rocket at the Slowpoke Well. They were cutting off the tails of Slowpokes and selling them on the black market. I had to take them out."

Shirubā scoffed. "You beat them? Quit lying, like you are about your so-called 'condition'."

"You think I'm lying? Fine, that's up to you, but it's what happened. Otherwise, how else would you have gotten your 'information' from you 'source' about Team Rocket in the first place?"

It could have been the news, for all she knew, but she wouldn't know. She'd been too busy, too preoccupied, with things other than turning on a television, tuning into the news, and sitting on her ass for a whole day watching it. Shirubā, however, seemed to finally take her words into serious consideration the second time around on her insistence. He dropped his gaze, his hand resting on the pokéballs at his waist. His Bayleef shifted on her feet, moving her long neck a little closer to him as she waited expectantly.

"So you're really not joking," he mused. His hand balled into a fist at his side and he snapped his head back up to glare at her, almost like she had just insulted him. "Then why don't we see how good you really are!"

A brilliant flash of light briefly caught the werewolf off guard. Shirubā hadn't sent out his Bayleef first. Instead, a morphing ball of something coalesced first before her. It didn't take a true shape, not at first, but it slowly dawned on Lupin that the ball of something was the pokémon. And it only took her another moment to fully recognize it: a Gastly.

Lupin quickly backed up to give her opponent's pokémon and her own ample room. The gaseous-looking pokémon floated freely as it smiled with a mouth full of needle-like teeth. They were all sticking out and that horrible mouth curved into a crescent like an angler fish's grin. Its wide, eerie eyes narrowed with malicious glee.

"Oh, what fun we're going to have! Hurry up, send out your first victim, I'll be sure to make it quick for them," the Gastly taunted as it floated a little higher above her. Riptide stepped forward without a word, his long tail dragging on the ground behind him. The Gastly lowered, and expanded its grin even wider across its blob of a vague body while it tittered delightedly. "I lied. I won't make it easy on you. I don't like playing nice. So sorry."

"Nightmare, use mean look!"

The Gastly's entire face morphed from the slightly terrifyingly goofy façade it had held since it emerged to an all piece of floating nightmare. The fangs seemed to elongate and grow like jagged spears, the mouth that held them expanded and grew, and its eyes took on a terrifying pale red light all of their own that was all aimed at Riptide. Even Lupin felt a chill rush down her like a river of ice water had injected itself into her spine. Bullet yelped beside her and buried his face against her leg. Riptide remained unmoved, standing stock still where he was as the Gastly followed through with its order.

Shirubā looked pleased as he assessed Riptide's frozen face. "Get in there and use lick attack!"

"Rip, get outta the way and blast it with a water gun!"

Whatever spell that had held the Croconaw broke and he dove into action. Nightmare the Gastly careened forward rapidly with a gaping maw, lolling tongue, and a hysterical shrieking laugh, hell bent on swiping it along Riptide's face. Nightmare missed as Riptide dove out of the way at the last second. Nightmare ended up catching only spiny osteoderms on the Croconaw's backside before pulling up with a cringe.

"Hey, that hurt! Hold still so I can paralyze you," the Gastly cried out indignantly. Riptide graced him with a response that turned the impish giggles from the ghost-type into an outright cry of surprise as a spiraling torrent of water slammed into the ghost's side. As the Gastly was spiraling away with a panicked wail, Lupin shouted, "Ice fang and quick!"

Riptide lurched forward, first rushing on all fours before he quickly pushed himself to his hind legs. Frost accumulated rapidly along his snout until jagged icicles formed over his conical fangs and he closed the distance rapidly between himself and Nightmare. Shirubā had a warning lined up on his lips too late. Riptide's jaws found their mark and he crushed down with powerfully unrelenting force on his victim and set to throttling the Gastly soundly. He whipped his short powerful neck back and forth rapidly, as though he was determined to rip chunks out of the ghostly apparition that was his opponent. It wasn't until the ghost had gone limp and the ethereal essence that surrounded Nightmare diminished to a feeble spark that Shirubā recalled the Gastly to the safe confines of its pokéball. The young man scowled, glanced at his Bayleef and jerked his head toward the makeshift battleground.

"Your turn, Willow."

She dipped her head into a nod and daintily stepped forward, looking at Riptide warily.

The Croconaw wiped away the last bits of icicles dangling from his jaws, crimson eyes narrowing. The leaf above her head swayed, as though with a will of its own.

"Sorry about this," she said, moments before Shirubā shouted, "Razor leaf! Cut that useless sack of scales to ribbons!"

Willow complied with a whip of her neck, the leaf adorning her head flailing in time to her sways. Riptide moved in the way at that moment, and blocked the actual attack's release. Lupin gulped down a yelp as Riptide dove out of the way and a barrage of razor-sharp leaves hurtled past, just barely missing her and Bullet.

"Ice fang again; take her out, Rip!"

Riptide hurtled forward, gaining ground on Willow. The Bayleef clacked her beak sharply in astonishment, scrambling to put distance between herself and the encroaching Croconaw. He snapped at her once and missed, snapped a second time and grabbed hold of her neck. Willow squealed and flailed, kicking with her forelimbs at Riptide uselessly. Ice grew in rapid succession along his jaws and speared themselves against her neck. Blood spurted, but it was a green ooze rather than the bright red Lupin had been expecting. It dribbled down from the wounds as Willow struggled a little longer before going limp. Shirubā recalled her quickly, growing redder in the face as he threw his last remaining pokéball onto the battlefield.

"Delta, use supersonic!" Shirubā screeched. Before the light even finished forming, Lupin could recognize the telltale membranous wings and huge ears that marked a Zubat's appearance. The fluttering little bat followed up on its master's command as soon as it came into being, releasing a piercing screech that was painful to withstand. Lupin had to clap her hands over her skull, her ears pressing tightly to her head. Bullet yowled and did much the same to his, eyes squeezed firmly shut.

Riptide suffered just as much and quickly; he flopped over on the ground and held on for dear life as low-throated groans poured out of his maw.

"Rip?" Lupin slowly lowered her hands, looking at the big jaw pokémon as he tried to get to his paws and was failing terrifically. His jaws clacked noisily as he hit the ground again and again.

"That supersonic attack confused him pretty badly," Bullet said with a scowl, peeping an eye open carefully. He slowly pushed himself up to his paws and looked up at Lupin. "Send me in. He'll just end up hurting himself before he can refocus and attack again."

Lupin hesitated, thinking on it, then nodded. "Rip, get back here. Bullet, take his place."

Bullet bounded forward and gave Riptide a gentle head butt, herding him toward Lupin. The werewolf dragged him back the rest of the way as Bullet settled back on the playing field. The Zubat hovered close by its trainer, ears trained on the Growlithe.

"Supersonic," Shirubā ordered sharply.

"Ember! Knock it off course!"

The screeching attack came again, but it was short-lived as Bullet hawked a quick bright glob of fire at the fluttering bat pokémon. Smoke wafted off of Delta, but it was still in the fight. "Bite attack!"

"Flame wheel!"

Bullet's fur coat caught flame and he was hurtling forward with reckless abandon as it did. The Zubat pulled back too late and was hit face first with the fiery canine in full force. Another crescendo of screams permeated the air, along with another beam of light recalling the injured party. Shirubā clenched his jaw and glowered at Lupin and her pokémon. "Useless. You only won this time around because my pokémon were weak."

He clipped the pokéball to his belt, his face still screwed up into that ugly scowl. When he regarded the werewolf again, his eyes were ablaze with a dark, fevered light. "I hate the weak; pokémon or trainers, it doesn't matter. I'm going to get stronger and I'll wipe out weaklings like you. And that goes for Team Rocket as well. They act big and tough like they're hotshots, but get them alone and they're just as weak as the rest you people."

The redhead sneered, shouldering the pack he had more securely on his back. "So stay the hell out of my way. You'll only serve as a distraction."

"Uh…yeah. Did you happen to forget the part where you stole a research pokémon from a highly respected professor of this region? I don't think so, buddy. This whole imaginary rivalry you've built up in your head against me was cute and all at first, but now I'm taking you in to the police station. You're going to answer for what you did."

The heavy beating of wings was her only warning of something big coming their way. It was as sudden as a crack of misplaced thunder, coming down upon them like a bolt out of the blue. When she craned her neck back to peer into the wild blue yonder, she was more than surprised when a large and imposing something was blocking out the remaining view of the sky above.

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"You let him get away."

He got away again. Again! She was getting sick of watching Shirubā disappear like the sleazy Raticate he really was. He talked a big game, but he rubbed her the wrong way and made her skin crawl. Even for someone who was comparably a child to her, he was nothing but trouble.

"Am I supposed to apologize?"

The feral grin that imposed itself in her general direction was not warm or kind. It was a warning that was coupled within the question that highly suggested she probably should consider her words before answering, if at all.

Lupin promptly threw caution to the wind.

"Oh for fuck's sake—yes. Yes, you should have. He stole one of those pokémon—"

"Was it one of ours from the valley?"

The Charizard that towered over them was the same scarred beast that had saved them from the poachers' Aerodactyl, Twitch. It was the first time any of them had heard him speak. And when he did, it was as though the very bones of the earth was rumbling together, quivering in fear or awe at the deep, sonorous tone he spoke in. Conversely, he was also quiet when he spoke, like the whispers of dead leaves skittering across the road—it raked up along one's spine in chills and it forced one to actually listen. His icy stare didn't help very much, either. He watched them all, with unblinking pale blue eyes and with a single-minded focus as he watched their every move—from the faintest twitch to the very way they each breathed. He was studying them with an intensity that made even Riptide uncomfortable. Lupin decided she would refuse to give the Charizard the satisfaction of squirming under his inscrutable gaze.

"No," she said at last. "No, it belonged to the professor of this region."

"Then I don't care," the Charizard huffed another pale wisp of smoke past his flared nostrils, his gaze turning lidded and lazy, but that sharpness was still there, thinly veiled beneath a veneer of mock-relaxation. He straightened slightly and reached with curved talons nearly the size of her hands to a small leather pouch that dangled from his thick wrist. With surprising dexterity, he loosened the bundle and presented it to her, captured behind pillars of thick bone and leathery flesh. She could smell the smoke and ash and flame that coated his rusty red-orange hide and a lifetime of hardship littered his body. His pale slick scars, from the most obvious ones to the tinier scores decorating his giant paws, were testimony enough.

"Liza has requested this be given to you. She would have come herself, but I obliged to do it, if only to stretch my wings and get away from the valley for a time."

That caught the werewolf's attention. She snapped her eyes up to meet the Charizard's in surprise, her hand outstretched, fingers just barely grazing the pouch.

"I'm sorry, but…'get away from the valley'? Isn't that your home?"

A darker gush of pungent smoke hissed out from the Charizard's nostrils this time, and his eyes narrowed to mirror Lupin's. She couldn't get an exact bead on where his thoughts were traveling, but there was a spark of something in them. She was still trying to discern if it was good or bad when he began speaking again.

"The Charicific Valley is home to any Charizard who so wishes it to be," he answered with a silken growl. "But even those who have a love for their home can tire of its routine and wish for changes to disrupt familiarity and complacency from time to time. Is that why you became a trainer? To travel and rile up the humdrum moments of your own life?"

"That's…not entirely why I left—although if I can't really say I have a home right now."

Those pale blue eyes widened ever so slightly in mild interest and the Charizard leaned his head down along his snaking neck. A deep rumble began building in his broad chest, softly at first, with a hint of curiosity tinging it. The pupils grew a little larger, from a thin slit to a sliver of an oval as he studied her more intently.

"A curious way to put things. What would be home for you, if you had to describe one?"

"I…" At first, the words had almost spilled out of her; she nearly fell back on her old remarks of her condition, but then the thought of how people looked at her, how they treated her since learning about it came to mind. She closed her mouth and gave a listless shrug in response. For now, it was best to keep things under wraps. "I can't really say. Nothing's ever felt like it quite yet. Being on the road feels…it feels close enough to it, though."

The Charizard waited, suddenly and eerily ensconced in utter silence, he practically dripped with it. It grew to the point where the overwhelming quietness had become a deafening roar to Lupin's ears. Even the forest had fallen to an utter hush with the looming presence of the Charizard lurking so close to the ancient forest. It was as though it knew to respect the great draconic beast rather than to invite his wrath by uttering anything out of place.

After an eternity had passed, the great beast lifted his heavy skull away from her, tipping his head in a nod as though satisfied with her answer. Lupin carefully took the pouch that still sat in the massive paw of the Charizard. Carefully, he retracted his arm away, and she busied herself with opening the pouch. Inside was an envelope, the flap folded within itself instead of glued down. On the front was Lupin's name hastily scrawled in quick little scratches; simple and sweet and to the point.

She tore the letter open and scanned through it, ignoring the feeling of Riptide's hard stare and Bullet's openly curious ones. She could also feel the Charizard's gaze still boring down on her, like the waves of heat that were shimmering off of him. It didn't bother her any—if anything, she barely noticed, but the fact that she noticed at all was enough.

She focused on the letter instead, reading through the words piece by piece. When she wordlessly began putting it away after finishing, Riptide perked.

"What does it say?"

"Just a thank you for helping the Charizard out against the poachers, and her contact information if I ever wanted to come back," she muttered sourly, before turning the pouch over upside down and shaking it over her open palm. A pokéball came tumbling out in response, plain and innocuous, its finish gleaming in the afternoon sun. She held the minimized object up, pinched between her thumb and index finger as she thrust it up toward the Charizard accusingly. "What the hell is this?"

The Charizard curled back his lips in a grotesque parody of a smile, exposing his curved dagger-like fangs to the open air while his eyes narrowed in thinly veiled amusement.

"I believe it's called a pokéball."

Lupin scowled. Bullet huffed through his snout indignantly with a mild glower, but when the Charizard turned his icy gaze toward the Growlithe, Bullet quickly sidestepped to hide behind Lupin. Riptide kept up a long and low hiss, deep from his chest and throat without pause. The Charizard's eyes narrowed, but the rumble within his own chest remained steady in pitch.

"Why is Liza making you come with me?"

The growl intensified enough to make her skin break out in unexpected gooseflesh, a wave of shivers rolling across her body at the noise. A more primitive instinct, having been curled up and tensed at the back of her mind, awoke in a hurry and told her to stay on her toes around such a large opponent. It was that same little voice that had warned her against the Ariados queen, against Slate the Onix. It was also the same little voice that goaded her to continue onwards, but at a more cautious pace. Her tail instantly broke out into a puffy mess beneath her coat and her ears pressed tighter against her skull underneath her hat. The Charizard bared his fangs again, but the forced smile wasn't present this time.

"My home is where I choose it to be. Whether it is within the borders of the Charicific Valley, or traveling upon the open roads and skies, it is up to me and me alone. Our 'caretaker' has no say in where I am to go, either. I chose to leave, just as I chose to settle in the valley in the first place, years ago."

"And why the hell would I take you? You—"

Lupin cut herself short, her words swept away like she'd nearly swallowed her tongue when the Charizard thrust his huge skull into her face, the heat and acrid smoke billowing in her face. Bullet barked in alarm while Riptide's hiss upgraded itself to a snappish howl.

"You, little flame walker, haven't the vaguest clue as to what you're doing. You're adrift like an errant ember on the winds, at the mercy of the air's currents and helpless to alter your course without guidance. Your little water dweller and loyal pup aren't foundation enough to keep you afloat should that wind fail you and without the knowledge to right yourself, you'll plummet and never get back up again. You might turn into a glorious little blaze when you land, or you might gutter out. Who knows? You certainly don't."

The length of the Charizard's skull, even without his imposing horns, was about as long as Lupin's torso. He could snap his jaws around her torso and crush her in half if he had wanted. His intense gaze reminded her of Duke's and once again, she felt that chill creep up her backside, a million tiny icy hands pitter-pattering up and down the length of her body and was worming its way into her core. This was an opponent not to be messed with, she suddenly decided. Just like Duke.

She could practically sense Riptide's venomous glare squarely focused on the Charizard that was too close to her for his comfort. She could feel Bullet pressing tightly against her despite the plain and fearful shaking that wracked his body. She was suddenly glad that they had never met Duke.

"I choose to go where I wish and it is by no one's admission but my own," he repeated with care articulating his words. "And I chose to come because you are a rather curious little ember bobbing about in the air. A fellow flame walker with a heart fire…who is not a pokémon. Of all the oddities in the world I've encountered, there hasn't been any of your ilk running about, and I have been around for quite some time."

Despite the invasion of her personal space, Lupin tried not to let it get to her. She stared down the Charizard with a look that showed she wasn't going to be easily intimidated by him. She could refrain from unwisely spewing out something that could land her getting ripped to shreds. For now.

After a moment, she finally said as coolly as she could manage, "You're deciding to leave the Charicific Valley mainly because you're bored and I was convenient and apparently 'interesting' enough to tag along with."

The timbre of the growling changed pitch, soft little coughs interjecting themselves at even intervals and his leather lips pulled back into his toothy smile.

"Call me Bōkun. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, little flame walker."

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