Disclaimer: Pokémon is owned by The Pokémon Company, which in turn is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and probably others I forgot. The following fanfiction is me playing around in their sandbox, using characters they envisioned and created, except for the odd character that wasn't. I own nothing of this.

Chapter 10: Rescue

"And that's number seven," Danny said as he stooped, picking up a pokéball from the grass. A moment later, the technology in the capsule recognised that it was the seventh filled capsule with the same trainer ID, and it vanished, appearing in one of the rooms in Professor Birch's lab. "Always wanted one of these."

"You want an exploud," Max corrected, "and whismur is the first step to it. It'll be a while before you have one."

"Says the guy with a dragon-type." An aggressive beat, drums and guitars, came from Danny's hip. "Wonder who… Oh." Danny put the Pokénav to speaker mode as Max walked up. "Hi uncle. What's up?"

"Just wanted to congratulate you with your new whismur. Seven Pokémon already." The Professor whistled, though the Pokénav speakers mangled the sound. "You want to switch it in soon?"

"No." Danny was resolute. "We're days away from the next Center, and I roughed it up pretty badly." It had fought tooth and nail, and Max's ears were still ringing from the Screech it had unleashed at some point. "Just let it heal, I suppose."

"As you wish. Is Max nearby?"

"Of course Professor."

"You're not taking as long as your sister did, right?"

His sister, who had taken about a year and a half to capture seven Pokémon. A laugh bubbled up, escaping before Max took the time to answer. "No, Professor. I just haven't seen wild Pokémon I want recently. Bagon's been a handful, too."

"I can only imagine. Drake and Reginald have both repeatedly shared stories of their dragon-types." The Professor let out a sigh. "I just wish I could see them in a fully natural habitat, but dragons are notoriously territorial, as you know." That they did. "Anyway, good luck, and I'll speak to you in a few days. Bye!"

"Bye!" the boys said, and a click indicated the end of the call; the Pokénav returning to the previous setting, which was the clock. It was close to four in the afternoon, with an overcast sky and a strong breeze coming in from the sea twenty miles west. "Camp?" Danny suggested.

"Camp."

They found a cliff to hide under, rock sheltering them from the breeze. Max and baltoy set up camp, the Pokémon pushing a few pegs deep into the rock and ground to fasten the large cloth, white, but slightly weather-worn, that served as shelter, while Danny collected enough dry material to light a fire.

The weather turned worse as the night progressed and the air became almost palpably charged as the breeze died down. They added two more pieces of cloth to the sides of their shelter, making sure they could at least sleep without being rained on, and Danny, citing general tiredness, went to sleep early, a bit past sundown. Even breathing soon reached Max's ears as he looked out of the shelter.

Duskull and bagon were playing a silent, but amusing to them, game to his right, and grovyle, coming out unsolicited, was doing the same thing as Max was: watching with a small smile on his face. Max knew grovyle had taken a shine to the new addition in the team, though why he could not tell. Nevertheless, he welcomed his starter's willingness to help the young Pokémon, just as he appreciated the grovyle's presence now.

He felt… Antsy. He knew he should go to bed, but something kept him up, kept him thinking. Not all of them were happy thoughts, either. It wasn't just his mind that refused to stop thinking, however. There was something else. It wasn't the incoming thunderstorm: electrike would deal with that as she had done several times previous, redirecting dangerous bolts of lightning a safe distance away.

Just as he was telling himself he should really go to bed, amidst ferocious pitter-patter on the cloth, a bolt of lightning struck reasonably nearby. That was not what caught Max's attention. What did was a soft sound: almost too soft to hear, yet strangely insistent and periodic. It reminded Max of something, prompting him to shake his head to dislodge the feeling of déjà vu.

Then the sound suddenly exploded in his mind; a painful cry, devolving into whimpering. It wasn't a human sound, or human cries. A Pokémon had been hurt nearby.

Sleep vanished in an instant as the keening sound repeated itself, and Max stepped to the edge of the shelter, whistling with his fingers as loud he could. While he was waiting for electrike to show up, he quickly knelt by his pack, taking out a powerful torch. His foot hit something, but he paid it no mind.

"Max? Wuzzat?" Danny, seemingly half-asleep, said. "Wha' doin?"

"There's a hurt Pokémon nearby." Torch, pokéballs, and a yip told him electrike was here. "I heard it." He rose, releasing grovyle as he did, and made to walk out. "Get the first aid kit."

If Danny said anything, it was lost between the falling rain, the cloth, and a crack of thunder. After a moment of listening, Max ran off, grovyle and electrike on his heels, in the opposite direction from where they'd come from earlier that day.

Sidestepping a small hole, he took a moment to slow down and look around. The ground was fairly flat all around him, with few places to hide in sight. Still, no Pokémon was visible. "Electrike, keep the lightning away. Grovyle, help me look for the Pokémon." The high-pitched whimpering was louder now, but weaker. That wasn't good. "You go left. Stay in my sight."

"Gro." The Grass-type sped off, faster than Max could run, and Max resumed his own search, torch aimed at the ground, looking for some sign, some indication of injury: blood, fur, shed skin, anything would do. He saw nothing, except the reflected shine of light in puddles growing as he watched.

A green flash of light, in the corner of his eye. He turned to face it, seeing another green flash surge across the land, towards him, though it died out before even coming close. Was grovyle fighting? Max ran to the light, one hand grasping baltoy's pokéball in case grovyle needed help.

He wasn't fighting. Instead, he was standing over a small figure – a Pokémon – lying face-down. Normally pink, a scorch mark was smoking on the Pokémon's back, and the ground in the direct area was slightly charred. "Lightning strike," Max murmured. It was in the opposite direction of where he'd told electrike to redirect. "Grovyle, take this." He held out the torch, and when it was accepted, he put both his arms under the small Pokémon.

It was light, far lighter than even his pack, but it felt alive. Shuddering, hesitant, shallow breaths ran through the clefairy, but it was alive still. He adjusted his hold, trying not to think of the last time he'd cradled a Pokémon like this. "Lead us to camp," he ordered. He had an idea of where it was, but the darkness and the rain falling against his glasses or into his eyes did a lot to hinder him.

He need not have worried, as a second source of light, Danny's own torch, shone toward them after a minute's run. They followed the light, and when they found Danny, camp was at the edge of visibility, mainly due to the torch's light reflecting off it. Danny took a single look. "Lightning strike?" he asked, even as they started moving again, walking briskly.

"Yes. Charred ground and all."

They'd reached shelter. "C'mon. In you go." Danny waved them in first, and as Max put the clefairy down on the first appropriate thing – his sleeping bag – he heard Danny whistle loudly before coming in. "What you need?"

"Cheri Berry, water, cloth." Those were the most important. He tried to remember what Brock had told him about treating electric strikes in Pokémon, but before he could, a wet cloth was pressed into his left hand.

The moment he touched it to the wound, the clefairy cried out in pain. It started thrashing about on the sleeping bag, and Max's cloth was knocked out of his hand by the unexpected movement. The thrashing turned it over on its back, showing pain-glazed eyes and resulting in an even louder screech of pain as its damaged wings were squished between the ground and itself. Max quickly lifted it, taking care to not touch the wound, and the screeching died down, replaced by whimpering. "Not paralysed, then."

The wound was in need of cleaning, still, but how to do that. He couldn't hold it down, and he needed Danny to grab supplies. They were a few hands short, and grovyle was providing light with the torch. They needed some way to stop it from moving, to keep it locked in pl…. Of course! Max adjusted his grip, quickly tapping a pokéball to release baltoy. "Keep the clefairy still once it's on the sleeping bag," he ordered.

"Tell it to be still?" Danny asked.

"No. It's in shock. It's pure instinct." They were lucky the clefairy hadn't blasted them with an attack yet. "I don't like this either, Danny, but we have to." Without waiting for Danny to object, he put the clefairy down. "Cloth." He held out a hand and got the wash cloth. "Start it, baltoy."

The psychic field made it harder to clean the wound, but the clefairy didn't move a lot, luckily. A look left told Max that baltoy was using a lot of power to keep the Fairy-type contained, and after a minute or two, the field started dimming, though it coincided with Max finishing up the last careful wipe of the wash cloth. The wound, though cleaner, looked worse if anything now that dust and dirt didn't obscure it, but it was smaller than Max had thought.

"Nasty," Danny commented, kneeling to examine the wound. "No bone, though."

Softly flowing blood, unclogged by the removal of the dirt and the addition of water droplets, did start spreading across the wound, but Max paid it no mind as he dove into the medicine they had. "De-frost, no. Potions, no. Burn cream… Can't be used on bleeding wounds. Shit." He dug deeper, but found nothing that was immediately useful. "This is bad."

"Capture it?" Danny suggested. "It's risky, but..."

"It's too risky. There must be something we can do..." He rifled through the medicine laid out on the ground next to the clefairy. A plastic box filled with green caught his eye. "Is that… Heal Powder? Where did we get that?"

"Picked some up in Fortree. I think. When we were out of Cheri Berries," Danny said, even as Max took the box, prying it open. "What are you planning?"

"Get some thin cloth and some water," Max ordered as he dove into his own pack, taking out a bowl and a small spoon. "I'm going to try to make a poultice."

Max knew Heal Powder was able to counter paralysis, poison, and sleep. Brock had told him that, explaining it over mixing the powder into the food of one of his Pokémon after some Team Rocket fight. Bitter, but very effective, he had called it.

Max wasn't sure if it could also be used to treat burns, but he had to try. The clefairy's life depended on it.

The thunderstorm died down, leaving the tent silent as Max mixed lukewarm water – the only kind they had – with powder to create a fairly solid paste that filled about half the bowl. When he was satisfied, he took another small spoon, and spread it out over one layer of cloth, making sure that little paste leaked through the material. Then, he pressed the second layer of cloth on the first, carefully, and he tied up the edges with some adhesive bandages. "Well, here goes."

Clefairy reacted to Max pressing something to its back, stiffening under Max's fingers, but it didn't scream, and when Max retracted his fingers, it relaxed again. It kept shivering every few seconds, which it had done ever since Max had stopped cleaning the wound, but it seemed… calmer. More at ease.

A minute or two passed in utter silence, except for electrike entering, fur brushing against Max's legs as she walked past him to take a good look at clefairy. "It's working."

"How do you know that?"

"It's shivering less, breathing more." Max looked at Danny, unsure how he had figured that out. He hadn't noticed anything. "I counted shivers and breaths."

That made sense. "We did it?"

"You did it," Danny corrected, before suddenly grabbing both of Max's shoulders, hands pressing into the flesh, nearly painfully so. "Don't do that again, Max."

"Do what?" Max asked, unsure what to make of the look on Danny's face. He nearly looked angry, but he wasn't. The height difference didn't help either. "Danny?"

"Go out alone, into a raging thunderstorm, you stupid idiot!" A lance of anger shot through Max, but then Danny hugged him, both arms and all, and he felt… trembling? "Wait next time. We'll think of something. Make it safer."

"I had electrike," Max offered as Danny stepped back, some colour creeping into his cheeks. "She kept me safe."

Danny sat down, and Max saw he was still shaking. "I know. It's just..." He closed his mouth, clearing his throat. "Electrike isn't perfect." That got a bark from the small green Pokémon by Max's feet. "That could have been you."

"But it wasn't!" Max countered as he sat down, gently touching electrike's fur in case it was still statically charged. It wasn't. "I've been in worse, too."

"Legendary-grade danger, multiple times, right?" Danny quoted. "That doesn't make it okay!" The older boy drew his knees up against him, hugging them. "I… I'm sorry."

"For what? Being worried?" Max sat down opposite Danny, electrike jumping into his lap.

"For yelling at you." Danny shot a weird look at Max as the younger boy started chuckling. "What?"

"You're sorry about that?" Max managed to get out just before another round of chuckling burst forth. "Really?"

"Yes!"

The chuckles were gone, though an amused feeling spread through Max's body. "Don't be. You have no idea how often we yelled at each other for whatever reason. Kinda used to it."

"Even Brock?" Danny sounded disbelieving. "Wasn't he the responsible adult one?"

"That just meant he yelled at us more." Max took the torch from grovyle, who'd sat down beside his trainer a moment before. "He would've told me off as well for… this." Max's hand made a circle in the air. "He would have understood, but he wouldn't have liked it."

"Understood what?"

Max waited a few seconds to collect his thoughts, idly scratching electrike's back. "That none of us would run away from a Pokémon in pain," he said at length. "That we'd help them, and, especially for Ash, screw the risks. Of course," he added, "most of that was Team Rocket stealing pikachu, but not all of it was."

The two boys sat in silence after that, watching the clefairy breathe slowly, but fairly evenly. Max checked the paste he'd made, seeing that there was probably enough left for another poultice, but before he could move to start making it, Danny spoke up. "Last time we talked about Legendaries…" his friend began hesitatingly. "You said there was one more. The worst one, you said."

"Yes," Max replied, voice neutral. The last time they'd talked about that, about LaRousse, had been in the cave in Meteor Falls, hours before the raging salamence drove them off the mountain.

"I want to hear about it."

"Are you—"

"Yes." Danny laughed, but it sounded empty. "Already freaked out once tonight. What's one more, y'know?"

"If you insist," Max muttered, before speaking up in a louder voice. "It all began with a tournament at Cameran Palace..."

~~§~~§~~

"And here she is," said Professor Birch as a pink Pokémon hopped onto the desk in his Littleroot laboratory. The clefairy, bandage around her midsection, gave a cheerful wave. "Mostly healed, too. The wound will scar, Nurse Joy thinks, but it's better than the alternative."

"That's great to hear," Max said, feeling relieved. He'd heard the clefairy was doing alright, but now he could see she actually was. "Is it okay to bring her here?"

The clefairy vanished from sight as the Professor returned her. "Sure is. Danny, do you want your whismur too?"

"Yeah." He placed two pokéballs in the digital transporter, preparing to send snorunt and skorupi to his uncle. Moments later, the new whismur and the clefairy arrived, and the latter immediately left her pokéball, only to jump on Max's lap and hug him. "You've got an admirer, Max."

"He did save her life," the Professor said drily. "And while I'm at it, Nurse Joy told me to compliment whoever made those poultices. Without them..." He shrugged, telling Max everything relevant in that gesture, even as the boy felt a blush creep into his face. "And stop blushing. Take some pride in what you did."

That only caused the blush to intensify. "Right. Thanks uncle, we'll talk to you later, when Max's face isn't burning up,," Danny said, leaning across the videophone to end the call. Then, he crouched, tapping the still-hugging Pokémon on her back. She turned around, eyes the same height as Danny's. "Clefairy? You remember we only caught you to get you healed?"

Danny had captured the clefairy in the morning, three poultices and a lot of interrupted sleep later. He'd done it, because Max's pokéballs wouldn't get sent to Littleroot, and putting her in stasis for three days was dangerous. "Fairy."

"Do you want us to bring you back to where we found you? We're south of there."

"Ry-Cle! Fai!" came the reply, and at the last syllable, she turned around, hugging Max.

Max gently lifted her, and she sat down on his right arm. "You want to stay?"

The clefairy nodded, as enthusiastically as she could while perched on Max's arm, and more enthusiastically after he used his other hand to support her. "Fairy," she said, pointing one of her short arms at Max.

"With me?"

"You did save her life," Danny said drily. "No wonder she wants you to be her trainer."

Promise me Max. Promise you'll come back and get me.

Max put several fingers of his left hand to his forehead as the memory, clear as if it had been just the day before, echoed in his head. "Max?"

"Sorry. Memories."

From the corner of his eye, Max saw Danny's expression change. He understood what Max had just heard. Clefairy, for her part, looked at Max with nothing but kindness in her eyes. "Ry?"

"I'll tell you tonight." He managed a smile. "Welcome to the team." As clefairy resumed her hugging, Max looked at Danny. "How do we transfer her?"

"I… I actually don't know," Danny admitted. "It's not a trade… Maybe Nurse Joy knows?"

She did, and a short time later, Max officially had his sixth Pokémon.

~~§~~§~~

A grassy plain, about a short day's walk from Rustboro, was not a safe place to be. Attacks flew to and fro, hitting the ground, vanishing into the air, or hitting other Pokémon, to various effects. A green Pokémon was pelting a grey one with poisonous sludge, while an orange-hatted one threw Shadow Balls at a purple ghost. "Snorunt picked that up fast," Max remarked. The ice-type's were smaller, but more accurate, than the ones his ninjask used. "Wish baltoy was as fast."

"It's getting there. I think." Baltoy's attempts at Shadow Balls were inconsistent, either vanishing as the energy lost its shape, or putting enough force behind them that whismur shot an annoyed look across the field. The Normal-type was not affected by the Shadow Ball, but it did feel some of the kinetic energy behind it. "Still no luck with bagon?"

"No. It should work. Drake said that Dragon Rage was normal flame infused with Dragon-type energy, but he can't seem to produce them at the same time." Right after each other was where the bagon was at right now. It was still faster than most Pokémon could release attacks, and plenty powerful, but it wasn't dragon's fire.

"He is young. Give it time. Besides," Danny said, a smirk appearing on his face, "that Dragon Pulse of his is powerful."

"Don't remind me." Max had fought a double battle against another trainer, the day before. His bagon and ninjask against a houndour and a spoink. Somehow, bagon had managed to use a Dragon Pulse that knocked all three other Pokémon out, and ninjask was still not as fast as he could be. "At least clefairy is immune to that. She'll stop him if he flies into a rage."

"Which he hasn't yet," Danny pointed out. "And clefairy doesn't need that advantage. She'll just scold him, and send him to bed early."

Max had to grin at Danny's description. Clefairy was quickly becoming one of his favourite Pokémon, and her protective personality helped a lot with that. She also wasn't afraid to keep his other Pokémon in line, as the playfully snapping bagon had found out. "Without dessert, too."

"Definitely. And if she could get away with it, she'd do it to us too. After all," Max gleefully said, "she did send you to bed last night."

"I chose to go to bed after she dragged my sleeping bag to me," Danny corrected, sounding slightly offended, and very, very fake. Max rolled his eyes at Danny. "Okay. She did."

"She totally did."

The two went their separate ways for a bit, Max setting bagon up with baltoy for an obstacle course, and Danny walked over to snorunt and duskull. Max didn't catch what he told them, but they went separate ways, snorunt resuming her practice for Ice Beam.

"Got your plan for Roxanne ready?"

Max turned towards Danny, who'd sat down, watching his Pokémon with a practised eye. "I have a plan," he admitted, "but no plan..."

"Survives enemy contact," Danny finished dutifully. "You said that for Flannery and Terry. You still got your badges. I think you're forgetting what Drake told you."

"Don't leave things to chance, but control them? That?" Max asked. He didn't wait for a verbal reply, though he saw an agreeing nod. "But how can I control Roxanne's strategy? That's her decision, not mine."

"You prepare, using your brain." Max rolled his eyes. "Stop that. You're smarter and more experienced than pretty much any kid our age. Most of them wouldn't have dared some of the things you pull. Case in point: Umbra."

"I told you, most gases don't mix with electricity." As Umbra's stunky had experienced at the hand of Max's Electric-type. "Thank Team Rocket for that."

"That's the point, Max," Danny said in response. "You've just seen so much. Nothing is new to you, and it is for others. Even for me." He crossed his arms, daring his friend to disagree.

Max wasn't sure if he agreed, but he gave the point to Danny, unwilling to argue. "Do you think we'll see someone from our class in Ever Grande?"

Their class had had 25 pupils at the start of the year, but only nine of the original group were left by the time Max had left, at the start of March. "Maybe like two? The average for getting eight badges is around a year, and not all of them are doing that anyway."

"Jane fought my Dad for her seventh badge," Max shared, remembering the last phone call he'd had with home, in the Pokémon Center, three days back. "She lost, but she'll be back. It was close, Dad said."

Danny nodded. "Jane always seemed good with Pokémon. Tristan's my second guess."

"No way. He's too stuck on type advantage." Tristan somehow could give you all weaknesses and strengths of any type combination within seconds. "It'll be Keith. He already had his starter Pokémon before leaving school." A staryu, which had been a gift from one of his uncles, Max thought. "You want to go to Petalburg after Rustboro?"

"Yeah," Danny said, sounding wistful. "Just to actually see Mum and Dad again. Travelling is fun..."

"But you still miss them." Max understood that, intimately. He and May both had had nights they barely slept at first, homesick. "It'll be good to see them again."

~~§~~§~~

Crossing into Rustboro was a visible change. There were few houses outside Rustboro's city limits, and once they crossed that imaginary line, the suburbs took over, spacious homes and well-maintained gardens on both sides of the gently downward sloping road. In the distance, they could see the Devon Corporation building, and the lookout tower: the two tallest buildings in the city. The Pokémon Trainer's School and the Rustboro Gym were not far from those two landmarks.

It was fairly late in the afternoon, closing in on dinnertime, and a Sunday to boot, and the streets were appropriately filled with people walking around and playing children. The sun was playing hide and seek with light clouds, and a gentle western wind, straight from the sea, made temperatures perfect. "Hey, Danny? Let's go have dinner in the park."

Danny agreed, and they started following the directions to the park. It wasn't far, and before long, the trees had enveloped them whole, creating the impression that they were in a forest, not in the middle of town. A restaurant was quickly found, and after checking its policy towards Pokémon – generally okay if the Pokémon behaved and weren't too big – they sat down and ordered dinner.

In the distance, across the wooden patio, and across the grassy field that still had a lot of children playing, Max and Danny could see some commotion. There was some sound, but it was indistinct, and they understood only a bit. "What's that over there?" Max asked the teen who brought them their food.

"Dunno. Heard it was some political protest. Not interested in that."

Max and Danny couldn't agree more with that sentiment, and by the time they left, well-fed, whatever had been there had vanished. They stopped by the Gym to register their challenges –Tuesday afternoon, as it turned out – before doing what they had done many, many times before: walk into a Pokémon Center, ask for a room, drop off wounded Pokémon, and then retire to their room, talking more strategies for Roxanne as they did so.

~~§~~§~~

A mile away, in a tidy, yellow-walled, bedroom, a brown-haired young woman sat on her bed, combing her hair after a relaxing shower. Though she was getting ready for bed, her mind was still active. A small part of it expressed doubt, whether what she had planned was enough. However, she shoved this part aside with efficiency borne from experience: those thoughts were common, and it generally didn't matter how well she prepared, as long as a standard was met.

She was far more interested in reliving that late afternoon. Sure, it had been a small protest, but there was energy, and a sense that things had to change. It made her feel alive, and for the first time in a long time, she felt enthusiasm towards something that didn't have something to do with her work or a select few hobbies. She'd met like-minded people: smart people who agreed that the current situation, which caused a lot of casualties every year, most of them under the age of 14, was not safe enough.

Perhaps she should change her lessons for tomorrow. She thought about it, before discarding the idea. Professor Elm was calling in, and changing lesson plans the night before was one way to disaster, or at least discomfort as she tried to avoid showing the children that she was making everything up on the spot. Besides, she had an interview before school, cutting even more time from any rewriting.

She could make a lesson about this later. She added a note in her to-do notebook, and then turned off the lights. A day of teaching and fighting awaited, and Roxanne needed her sleep.

~~§~~§~~§~~§~~

Where once the Pokémon League was the only recourse for those trainers seeking to test their skill, modern society allows for many ways to do just that, though the League is still the predominant favourite, followed at great distance by Pokémon Contests. In the Home Regions, roughly 80 % of all thirteen year olds say that they want to either battle, or participate in Pokémon Contests. Boys lean towards battling predominantly, while girls are more likely to do both, or to participate in Contests. On average, 28 % of all trainers aged thirteen describe themselves as a Pokémon Coordinator. This number is higher in Hoenn, where Coordinating originated, and it is lowest in Johto.

Of trainers seeking to enter a League, roughly 93 % manage to do so at least once during their free scholarship. A smaller group of 58 % enter at least two, while only 7 % enter three Leagues or more. […]

Rare are the trainers who don't participate in either League or Contest. Most often, these trainers stop travelling around after less than two years.

From: Trainers in the Home Regions, Chapter 6: Kinds of Trainers

Author's Note: Ash and company had, and have, a fairly lax attitude towards danger, but for the Hoenn/Battle Frontier era, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew probably takes the cake. Compared to that, running out in a thunderstorm is just another day on the job, as is saving Pokémon.