Chapter 40
Integrity
Covertly studying Quil in the morning was made easy by the Quilava's bleary-eyed demeanor as the pair set out eastward. He was out of it. Evidently, Quil had gotten much less sleep than Wartortle had, which was saying something. The flashes of light and concerns Wartortle had for his friend had not allowed him an easy drop into slumber the previous night.
Quil had definitely mellowed. The manic energy was gone. He appeared to be more at peace with the world, but that could be attributed to any of multiple causes. Meeting multiple Legendary Pokémon the previous day. Finishing his Pilgrimage. Surviving a nearby volcanic eruption. The calm acceptance of life's unpredictability, arising from all of the above. Even with all that had happened the previous day, Wartortle thought the Fire boost was the chief impetus of Quil's contentment. And that set Wartortle ill at ease.
He finally broached the topic. "One day we'll have to take Moltres' talisman, either through persuasion or by force. One day we're going to reverse the Fire boost. You're aware of that right?"
"Yeah, I know," Quil mumbled. "Please don't remind me, I want to enjoy this. It's going to be awful losing this power. Although, I've already cheated my way into growing stronger in battle by traveling with you. It's not fair to cheat more with this boost."
"If Moltres landed on that scraggly patch over there, right now, you'd have no qualms about battling her with me?"
Quil looked at him with confusion, his eyes slightly squinted from too little sleep. "No, I wouldn't. We'd definitely lose, but I'd fight with you." A few seconds went by. "Oh! Oh, no, Wartortle I'm not crazy. The boost didn't roast my brain. I'm still with you. We have to end all the boosts, even Fire."
"Right. Good." Wartortle failed to keep his tone clear of all suspicion, but Quil did not appear to notice it in his state.
"While I know what we're trying to do," Quil continued, "and I said I believe in your plan, this is going to be really hard. We've come all this way without making any difference. Flames still got boosted. Victini's still doing Victini things. The Resistance is probably still drowning in requests for help."
"We've gained some very useful information," Wartortle said. "We're on our way to cleaning up this mess, thanks to what we know now."
Quil let out a small sigh. "Yeah, that's true. We'll succeed in the end. Things can't get any worse, right? All three of the Legendary Birds have one of those rocks. Everything is the worst it's ever been. That means no matter what happens next, it'll be an improvement. What we do next can only make things better."
"Hope finds a way," Wartortle agreed, with a springier step.
Quil let out a quiet guffaw of laughter. "Is that an expression where you come from? Ick, that's got to be the worst one I've heard from you."
"You know you like it. It's right up your alley."
"It's 'right up my alley'? What? Who invents these sayings? An elite team of Magikarp?"
Wartortle laughed as he sidled through a wide cleft in a rock that was in his way. Quil chose to scramble atop and leap down the other side. After landing, he added, "Hope finds a way. I do like it, actually."
The terrain they traversed had a distinct odor for which Wartortle could not find the right words. Not burnt, not earthy, and not dry, though all three elements contributed. He'd never seen, let alone traveled through a region quite like it. Diminutive trees broke the horizon ahead here and there, but scruffy shrubs dominated the orange soil. Since the plants were clearly adapted for a low amount of rainfall, and the dirt was dry as a parched throat, he knew it to be some variety of desert. The strangest component of the landscape was the abundance of large rocks embedded in the terrain. Most were cracked and fractured. Wartortle wondered if erosion via wind had broken them, or the repeated use of a common move by some Pokémon species native to the area.
Wartortle was tempted at multiple times to suggest bearing northward and continuing their journey on the beach, until he noticed the coastline would make a poor guide. It was not the smooth, circular edge of the island that he'd foolishly pictured in his mind. The coastline had inlets, horns, deviations. The inconsistency would be detrimental to following a straight course to the east. Lagoons, dunes, and other barriers would also slow them down. And, Wartortle had a feeling Quil would be averse to the idea of walking close enough to the sea to even hear waves crashing. So they kept to the desert. The ocean was always on their left, even if it was not always visible at a mile away, give or take. As the sun kept them on a straight course, Wartortle was able to see exactly how much the coastline meandered into and away from the desert.
No doubt seeing him following the beach with his eyes, Quil said, "You wish we were walking on the beach, huh?"
At Wartortle's nod, he said, "Back in Weird Wood when you prepared all the water obstacles for me, I had a sad thought. Because I'm a Flame and my partner's a Drip, we're-"
"A Drip? Is that the same as a Wet?"
"Oh!" Quil's head sagged with what appeared to be shame, or embarrassment. "Sorry. That word is...a not-very-nice way of saying Wet. Flames use it a lot, since we tend to, erm, not like Wets very much. I'm sorry, really sorry."
"Interesting. No problem, I don't mind. You were saying?"
"Right. Um, because we're such different Types, we'll never both be happy in the same place."
Wartortle stopped in surprise for a second. "Really? I once had that same thought! In Blindhollow, when we took cover from the rain on those steps by the Prison. Well, you took cover while I soaked it up."
"I remember," Quil replied with a small chuckle. "We're doomed to disagree on what's comfortable. This desert isn't too hot for you, is it? I'll happily go closer to the ocean if it is."
"The heat is fine, thanks though. The eruption and, er, 'boost storm', was the only time it's been too hot for me to handle. Compared to that, this is almost nothing."
"Sorry you had to go through that. Looked miserable." Quil returned his sights to the way ahead. "I wish we knew how big this region is."
Following such thoughts, Wartortle wished he could put a name to the desert. He disliked flying blind. Moltres had used no proper nouns in her directions. For once, Quil had no information on where they were or where they were going, as such knowledge was irrelevant to the Pilgrimage. For all either of them knew, they could be skirting a settlement of local Pokémon at any moment without even realizing. Three times they crossed worn paths leading to parts unknown. Three times, they stopped to glance both ways with curiosity, then pressed on to the east. None of the paths pointed in the direction they needed to go, and to go with all haste. They imagined where the paths might lead in their sporadic chats.
Regardless of his geographical knowledge of the region, Quil's skill in foraging for food was nevertheless undiminished. Wartortle was far from useless, having become much more of an 'outdoorsmon' over the past weeks, but Quil had a special knack. Through Quil, Wartortle found that the plant life was not at all bereft of bounty. Wartortle recognized none of the fruits they chanced upon, but that did not stop him from trying all of them. At one point he picked a sky blue berry covered in dark speckles. The pattern reminded him of something, so he stashed it in one of the pack's pouches for later. The provisions in the pack on Quil's back were not yet depleted, being saved in case of emergency.
Every battle that developed on the journey, save for one, was uncomfortably awkward for Wartortle to watch. He watched due to the simple fact that every battle was always over before he could use any of his moves. He was neither needed, nor able to help.
A four-legged orange Pokémon leaped out of the soil when Quil crossed a portion of bare dirt. At least half of its body weight had to be in its massive jaws. Wartortle asked Quil later what species it was, but Quil only knew it was somehow related to the Flygon line. It scuttled toward Quil on its stump-like legs, opening its cavernous mouth.
"Quil, offensive attitude, those jaws-" Wartortle cut himself off, diving over the nearest rock for cover as Quil used his Ember on the wild Pokémon from two feet away.
Heat flowed around the sides of Wartortle's rock as a flickering light flashed on the nearby vegetation. The sound of fire crackling. Wartortle peered around the rock, noting the black flecks imprinted on the other side of the rock face.
In front of Quil, all plant life had been burned to cinders for some thirty feet. The soil was black, fire smoldering in a couple of spots. On the sides of the burnt strip, all plant life had been blackened or shriveled in some fashion by the extreme heat. One tree, which had previously had pale green leaves, now presented lovely foliage of radiant yellows and oranges. Fire. Wartortle rushed up to douse the flames with his water.
The wild Pokémon lying at the end of the black strip was covered in so much soot that Wartortle might have mistaken it for a deformed Umbreon, had he not seen it before the Ember attack. It lay motionless on its belly with all four legs splayed out.
"Sorry," Quil said in an awkward voice after approaching it. He glanced at Wartortle for assistance, who returned the equivalent of a shrug as he quenched the fire on a burning twig.
"Maybe you should offer the next Pokémon a chance to surrender," suggested Wartortle as Quil gave a bow.
From that battle on, Wartortle was a spectator. Every battle, Quil used Ember as Wartortle ran for cover or jumped behind Quil when no cover could be seen. Every battle, a single technique was sufficient to render the opponent or opponents unconscious or close to it. Tactics were out of the question. Positioning was unimportant. Only Quil's Ember mattered. Even against Pokémon that Wartortle knew for a fact to be resistant to Fire-type moves stood no chance despite the gleam of eagerness he saw in their eyes.
Once or twice, Pokémon they encountered turned tail and fled upon seeing the fire erupting from Quil's forehead and rear. "Flame!" gasped one Sandshrew before retreating into its burrow. Quil initially rebelled against the idea of verbally extending an invitation to surrender, but he soon took up the practice out of remorse. Watching his friend's transformation from enthusiasm to humility reminded Wartortle of the Electrike's explanation in Blind Prairie, if not the Electrike's attitude and behavior. Truly, Fire-types could not fit in the wild any longer. Perhaps in an environment with a high density of Electric-types, Ice-types, and Fire-types, a mockery of the natural order might be maintained, but in this arid land, Fire was king.
Finally, the pair encountered a wild Fire-type. A moment that, when it arrived, Wartortle realized he'd been greatly anticipating. Quil's expression switched in an eye-blink from bored to ravenous. Finally, a challenge!
The Emboar, five feet tall, grinned down at the pair from behind its flaming collar. Its lips stretched around the ivory tusks that matched the bulky claws on its fingers and toes. Smoke puffed out of its snout as it snorted and widened its stance, clenching its claws.
Wartortle dashed past some shrubs to the side to avoid the cross-fire between Quil and their opponent as Quil drew in breath for his Ember. The Emboar bellowed as it smacked the yellow design on its great belly, then lumbered toward Quil for a close-ranged technique. With every heavy footfall, flame spewed radially from the front of its belly until that point had become the apex of a fiery cone. The Emboar's arms and legs were small breaks in a white-hot shroud of fire by the time it had almost reached Quil.
The dazzling embers shot out of Quil's mouth to pelt the charging juggernaut's shield of streaming flames. The cacophany of detonations immediately whipped up a storm of fire that engulfed both Pokémon. Wartortle dropped to his belly and covered his face with his hands as burning wind streamed over him. For a moment, the world was as hot as it had been during the eruption. He imagined the fur of his ears to be sizzling to ash.
When he uncovered his face to squint up at the combatants, he saw that they'd been blasted apart from the collision of the attacks. The point of impact looked like the site of an Electrode's Explosion move, but amplified ten times. Around the crater, all was blackened or aflame. Quil's fires were out; he was unconscious. The Emboar was covered in soot, but regaining its feet.
Wartortle readied a Water Gun, his strongest tool against a Fire-type. As his water streamed into the Emboar's bulk, flames wreathed its form once again even as it voiced its pain. This time the fires burned small and hot, as opposed to forming a wall of gushing flames. It crouched and heaved itself into the air. Despite his knowledge that a Pokémon's physical limits generally increased through evolution, he was shocked at the height the huge Emboar managed to achieve.
The fire surrounding the Emboar redoubled in size, transforming it into a veritable meteor. A meteor descending onto Wartortle from above. He used his Withdraw in response, bracing as the heat crashed against him.
When he was awoken by Quil prodding his arm with his snout, Wartortle's first thought was of gratefulness. Every recent battle had been a decisive victory. Losing at last felt right, as if by being defeated they had balanced some cosmic scale. If not for the boost, traversing the region would have been extremely difficult if not impossible, as the foes they faced were very tough indeed. Wartortle felt guilty for their easy passage even though he was actively working to reverse the boost.
He coughed, dislodging black residue from the surface of his shell, as he looked up at Quil. His friend looked as sore and tired as he felt. They agreed to rest for half an hour or so. Wartortle blinked as he saw that the area he lay in was perfectly peaceful and whole. No signs of a battle. He recognized a nearby rock shaded by a particularly tall tree. The Emboar had probably picked them up and thrown them out of its territory in the direction whence they'd come.
When he checked the pack for signs of damage, he couldn't hold back a shout. What remained was intact, if warm, but the Special Band and sole Cheri Berry were absent. The Emboar had searched the backpack and taken a trophy of its victory against not only a Water-type, but a boosted Fire-type as well. Wartortle could picture the Emboar chortling as it tied the orange and gold cloth around its arm, berry juice sizzling as it ran down its chin into the fiery collar. The colors did match its body perfectly, he supposed. Perhaps that was why it had taken the item.
"We should be glad it didn't take any more," Quil said, ever the optimist. "It must have been taking pity on us. Or it feels it doesn't need what we have."
"The Emboar was probably unaware of how valuable our items are," said Wartortle, "or it might have taken the whole backpack."
"Yeah," Quil agreed. "Well, traveling with items comes with drawbacks. We always knew about the hassle of carrying the pack, securing it, protecting it. Now we can add on the possibility of being robbed whenever we lose a battle."
Wartortle grimaced. "After we lose a battle, even if we aren't completely knocked out, we'd be helpless if the occasional wild Pokémon chooses to dig around in the pouches a little. Or a lot."
"Bringing all of this will be worth it," Quil said, wiggling to give the pack a little shake. "Every advantage counts!" Wartortle flashed him an appreciative smile as he flopped back down to rest.
In the middle of the day after the pair had left Iyrodenin, Quil's ears perked up and he twisted around. Wartortle joined him in looking for a disturbance when he heard the noise too. Rushing wind. Coming from above!
"Found you!"
A Fearow pulled out of a dive above their heads, swooping low to the ground. It bled speed by pointing itself upward. At the peak of its ascent, it spun to face them and began flapping to hover in place. Quil hesitated in preparing a fiery assault, so Wartortle refrained from running for cover. The Fearow's beady gaze from above its elongated, fearsome beak was not an aggressive one. The beats of its long brown and tan wings brought it closer toward the pair.
"Kyah, I finally found you!" she said in exultation with a voice much like that of Keer the Mandibuzz. "I've done well!"
Who was this Pokémon? Why would anyone be looking for them? Perhaps she was affiliated with some influential boosted Pokémon, one that felt threatened by the activities of the Resistance. Wartortle had predicted a long time ago that they might be targeted by anti-Resistance Pokémon. Did the Fearow think she could fight them alone and be successful? Or if she was here solely for reconnaissance, why had she revealed her presence?
"Keep your distance please," said Quil. "Why have you been looking for us?"
"I come from Cavetown and the great Resistance. I was sent to find you. And now I have succeeded in my mission!"
"You certainly have," Wartortle agreed as he exchanged a perplexed look with Quil.
"I feared you had walked west of the volcano, deeper into those mountains. Kyah, I am glad you did not. This warmer air is better. We have all seen enough of the snowy mountains!" She landed on the soil and folded her wings. Wartortle focused on the red comb running the length of the Flying-type's forehead so that he didn't have to look down the long beak to those fierce eyes.
Quil said, "Yep, we're heading east. You must have heard we were going to the volcano up north, but once you flew there, did you start searching around randomly? I can't believe you found us!"
The Fearow's plumage appeared to swell as she puffed out her chest. "The mission was not that hard, kind Quil. I flew very high, and my eyes miss nothing. Ah, my name is Row, as in Fearow." She flapped into the air and thwacked at Quil then Wartortle with a wing.
"You sound like you've heard of us?" Wartortle queried.
"Heard of you?" She began to squawk with laughter before making a visible effort to compose herself. "I apologize, Wartortle, Quil. I have heard of you. Much! You are the founders of the great Resistance! The founders! All we do is because of you."
"I suppose it is. Yes. So, er, why were you sent to us?" Wartortle asked as Quil momentarily lost his voice.
"Since you have been gone long enough to have reached the volcano, wise Hayzin suggested we send someone to find you. If you had not succeeded in finding Moltres, I was to greatly encourage you to return to the Resistance to lend your great experience. If you had succeeded, and I say I always believed you would, I was to ask you how the Resistance should proceed." She tilted her beak aside to fix them with one eye. "Have you found Moltres of the Legendary Birds?"
"Yeah!" Quil said as Wartortle nodded.
Row's eye blinked. "Yes? You mean you have?" They both nodded. "Kyah, really? No, really? I...believed in you, I did, but I did not believe...that is-"
Wartortle stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he gently cut her off. "It's alright. Not even Quil believed until we saw her for ourselves. The eruption you saw yesterday occurred when she was boosted." He glanced behind him to the distant silhouette of Iyrodenin. "It's somewhat complicated."
Row glanced back and forth between them, as if contemplating whether they could be playing a prank on her.
"That was nice of Hayzin and the rest," Quil said. "And thanks for flying all this way! The Resistance must be big now, huh? Are the missions going well? Lots of requests satisfied?"
"Yes, yes, and...yes," said Row. "The Team Base, it is a beautiful, inspiring place. The walls have great hollows now for Flyers like me to sleep. Just like the hollows of old trees. The request board is always full, but the teams usually find great success. I have only been on one mission myself; a Freezer had built a dam of ice in the Karp river. We are doing great work, kyah!"
"Hayzin's wondering how the Resistance should proceed," Wartortle said, mostly to himself. He crossed his arms.
"Yes," Row affirmed. Quil, being used to Wartortle's periods of reflection, gave him his peace.
"One minute, please excuse me, I need to think," Wartortle said as he stepped away and began to pace. The Resistance was occupied, and doing great work by the sound of it. Yet the work that he and Quil intended to accomplish was ultimately far more important. Nothing could possibly be more important. Wartortle's plans had been laid, and they did not include any assistance from outside forces. Could the Resistance help? Should the Resistance help? Perhaps part of it could. His head bobbed in agreement with his thoughts. Perhaps in a few days, more or less, though travel time needed to be accounted for. Would it be a waste? How exactly could they contribute, and who exactly would want to?
Ideas whirled through his mind. When he nodded to himself for the final time, he returned to Row and Quil, who halted their conversation.
"Sorry, that was a fair bit longer than a minute, I know. Quil, what do you think of this?"
Wartortle and Quil watched as Row the Fearow flapped away to the south. Despite double-checking and triple-checking his scheme, as well as receiving Quil's input, he worried that his ambition had gotten the better of him. That his expectations were too high. Quite possibly his request would be wasting the Resistance's time and effort, resources that were already being very well spent according to Row's report. By extension, he would be prolonging the suffering of the Pokémon who had requested aid at Cavetown.
"I will do as you say, great Wartortle," Row had said, but Wartortle had missed neither the reluctance in her tone, nor the tentative manner in which she'd unfurled her wings to take off.
"Stop worrying," said Quil as they continued ever eastward. "I know it was a big decision, but we both know it was a great idea. The best idea!"
He grunted in acknowledgment of Quil's words, sounding exactly like Bein. The Cubone's image flashed in his mind but the humor was lost on him at the moment.
A few words from me, and the lives of countless Pokémon on this island have been changed forever. How did I end up here, at the top? I'm the man who treated all this like a game. I'm the guy who allowed and encouraged Tristan to come here.
And again, by the humbling weight of responsibility pressing down on his shell, the reasons he did not deserve his position filled his thoughts. He deserved instead to be the enemy of all Pokémon. As a human on that night, he'd toyed with the fate of all the Pokémon on Preserve Alpha. Now, as a Wartortle and a leader of the Resistance, he realized he still held their fate in his hands. Often he was proud of who he was. His appetite for achievement. His competence. At the moment, he was disgusted.
He would atone. He would atone for who he'd become and what he'd done in those memory blanks.
Wartortle continued to forge a path through the desert with Quil, eying the sea every now and then when it was visible. His thoughts of that night at the lab continued to absorb his attention. The interruptions of the one-sided battles passed swiftly enough that his train of thought was never lost. After ruminating on the the events of his past for hours, he noticed a frown on his face increasingly often. There were conflicts between what Victini had said, and what he knew as fact from his memories and logical leaps. By their third day in the rocky and shrub-covered desert, Wartortle was sure: Victini's story did not add up.
Since Ralia the Gardevoir's intervention, Wartortle's memory of the fateful night was not a perfect void. He had always been able to recall feelings, tiny snippets, and pieces of images. His memory had been coherent enough for him to recall a breakthrough, rushing to the lab, ruckus, and then the uniquely stable memory of choosing to become a Pokémon. Some of those broken memories disagreed with what Victini had said.
According to Victini, both of them had rushed to the laboratory and spent the night reviewing the results. When all appeared to be in order, they had wildly celebrated. Cue the bet between them being made. While Wartortle dimly recalled returning to the lab in a hurry, he also recalled feeling disappointed about something. Why would there have been any disappointment to be had, according to Victini? And had he really lost a full night of reviewing the most important results of his lifetime? The sense he got from his own memories was that the time he'd spent before choosing to become a Pokémon was not too long. Not longer than four or five hours.
Wartortle recalled Ralia's warning pertaining to the organic nature of memories. Recollection always appeared to be inflexible as steel, but in reality was flimsy and capricious. What Victini had said could already have caused him to recall events incorrectly, or to remember something that had never actually happened. Nevertheless, Wartortle was sure that there was a disparity between his scattered recollections and the story Victini had fed him. Then again, his certainty only existed because of the faith he had in his memories: an untrustworthy source.
And the people he saw. Not all of them were wearing lab coats. The lab had had a strict dress code policy. The traditional white lab coat was to be worn by all lab personnel at all times while on site. White: easy to spot stains, and symbolic of the purity of the scientific method. Granted, the coats may have been shed due to the excitement of the breakthrough, but he thought he recalled darker uniforms never seen in the facility. Military uniforms, perhaps, or the uniform of some organization not known to him. Certainly professional, and not in the fashion of laboratories. Why would people be in the lab in the middle of the night who weren't lab personnel?
And where was the confetti and champagne? Where was the boundless joy, of which Wartortle should have at least recalled fragments? The joy of seeing the fruition of his most ambitious project? One of the most ambitious endeavors in human history? Glimmers of happiness could be found between the holes of his memory, but the disappointment and suggestions of different emotions conflicted with Victini's story. It was possible that Victini had left out irrelevant parts of the story, as any good storyteller did. Wartortle could have been upset about something else, certainly.
But one major discrepancy remained. He knew he was only fixated on this point to set his conscience at ease. To settle his cognitive dissonance. To reassure himself that he was a good person. Yet he also believed it to be true. Wartortle had not been that arrogant. The Brayden of Victini's version of events was arrogant beyond reason. That Brayden had chosen to become the relatively unremarkable Squirtle, supposedly only to give Victini an advantage in their bet. He'd chosen to give up his memories for the same cocky reason. And he'd given his rival a head start.
Wartortle had never been arrogant. Or, more accurately, he didn't think he'd ever been arrogant. One's perception of oneself and who one actually was never fully agreed, for anyone. After Stolt's tour at Karprest and his resulting revelations, Wartortle could not forget that lesson. Although, from his memories of earlier years that were intact, he could never recall feeling that others considered him an arrogant individual. Wartortle had both stumbled upon good fortune and made it for himself, and he had certain acquaintances and associates he knew to be jealous of that. However, he'd never flaunted his success, and they'd never considered him arrogant. To the best of his knowledge. Perhaps one or two of them had, and Wartortle only believed that he was a down-to-earth individual.
Being responsible for technology that allowed humanity's ascension to immortality would have been a hefty boost to his ego. The celebrations might have gotten to his head. He might have gone overboard during the bet. It was entirely within the realm of possibility. Everything that Victini had said was.
Wartortle refused to believe it.
The 'truth' that Victini had divulged was crooked. Why had he done so? What was his purpose? Probably, it had been done to somehow disadvantage Wartortle. Regardless of their dealings in the past, the present situation on Preserve Alpha had them at odds with one another. One of Victini's goals would be to stop all opposition. Lying made sense from his perspective. There had to be more to it though. The lies were believable enough that Wartortle was unsure if they were lies at all. Why had Victini so elegantly twisted the truth? How had all of the events involving the boosts occurred, if not for the reasons outlined by Victini's story? Yet again, Wartortle wished his memory were whole and that he could know the truth.
Whether Victini had been honest, a little misleading, or thoroughly deceitful did not change the here and the now. The Legendary still needed to be stopped, and Wartortle and Quil were still going to stop him.
The trees grew infrequent on the third day. Then the shrubs. The soil lost its rich orange coloration, taking on an ochre color reminiscent of the sun. When they bedded down for the night, they slept on sand.
As far as the eye could see, the terrain ahead was a featureless desert of rolling sand dunes.