After doubling back on ourselves and hastening through Goldenrod City with only a brief pause to stock up on supplies we are now en route to Olivine City via Ecruteak City. Johto seems to be littered with cities and I wonder how many of its people become swallowed up by them and lost to their crowded buildings. Despite this overabundance of civilisation, I have spent more nights out in the wilds than I would care to count and too many days putting up with wearing a suit that doesn't fit correctly. All of this with a criminal and a questionable Elite Four member who may or may not be a criminal too. That is to say nothing of the regional Champion and the former Champion of Hoenn who seem to have flexible morals and histories I am not sure could be considered good. I realise I am hypocritical with my judgement and overtly stern as these people only concern me with regards to their connections to Ellie.
After seeing us safely to Goldenrod City, Lance left us there, adamant that Koga would keep us safe from Team Rocket's clutches and unconcerned with what we did or didn't do with Kenji. We brought him into Goldenrod City discreetly, allowing him to change into clothes he had in a backpack hidden in Azalea Town. Looker took the cuffs off only after Kenji asked him with a wide, mocking smile if Looker would be helping him pee if he had to keep them on. Looker insisted we take watches as we slept to keep an eye on the Grunt, little concerned with considering that we should equally keep an eye out for Wild Pokemon too. Looker wanted to hand the Team Rocket Grunt over to a jail in Goldenrod City but Ellie wouldn't hear of it and Koga murmured that Kenji might prove useful.
"Stantler." Ellie's soft, mystified voice draws me back from my thoughts.
Somehow, despite the revelations she has undergone and the troubles we have suffered, she retains her happy outlook. It disturbs me to consider it but I think the combined presence of Lance and Kenji has brightened her further. She walked shyly with Lance, smiling awkwardly when he would smile with her and there was a dip in her mood when he departed from our company. Kenji she continuously sneaks glances to and I see her on the cusp of asking him questions but then she seems to abandon the notion.
The sun has just gone down and our route of long grass is bathed in the muted azure and sapphire tones of dusk. We should be making up camp but Morty insists Ecruteak City isn't far.
Following Ellie's gaze, I spy the wary deer Pokemon grazing in the wild clumps of dark green grass and foliage.
The low, repetitive calls of a Hoothoot sounds out unseen from a cluster of trees. It prompts the Stantler to lift their heads and look about warily but they do not run.
"You really like the dull Pokemon don't you?" Morty teases.
Ellie's Farfetch'd gives a protesting quack and flaps its wings angrily. I see a few Stantler heads swivel in our direction at the noise.
"I like the Pokemon that don't change," Ellie murmurs, "too many things change and then I start to forget them."
I glance over in time to see her raising a hand to her brow and wincing slightly.
"Well we're trying to fix that with Morty's help," Steven says. "Anyway, we need to keep going before we lose the light completely."
Ellie glances up to the exposed sky and nods quickly. She starts to walk but then pauses to glance back to watch the Stantler.
"Do you want one?" I blurt out the question.
I hear the others' footsteps stop and feel their curious eyes upon me.
Ellie turns to me in surprise, in the growing shadows of the incoming night it is hard to decipher her expression. "I...I can't catch Pokemon. Um...I've never battled."
"Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck," Kenji's awkward laugh calls to us. "You are too innocent starshine but ain't you with a Champion? No training from him?"
I see Looker frowning as he tries to push Kenji on. Despite Looker and Steven's protests, Ellie persuaded everyone to agree that Kenji could accompany us to Olivine City as he had offered. Although I stayed silent on the matter, I agree with Looker that it seems idiotic and risky, there is no guarantee Kenji has been honest about his desires to keep helping Ellie but Ellie seems determined to put the Grunt on some sort of pedestal. It worries me that she is viewing him as some sort of hero, he is in the same group that murdered her mother but I suppose, despite her outburst over blood in Azalea Town, that she does not recall that.
"I don't...I don't like the violence of it," Ellie admits, her voice even quieter this time. I suspect she doesn't want Kenji to hear her.
I feel a wave of woe wash over me. She used to idolise me but now she is against Pokemon battling? What would she think of her father being both a Gym Leader and Elite Four member? Then again, her brother was a Champion.
"Are you against battling?" I pry. I'd rather know now her feelings on it.
Her mouth parts in an o and she shakes her head quickly. "Not in general, it's just...I can't do it."
I nod and look over to the Stantler again. They're probably low level, it's hard to say for sure. "Well, I can keep the battle brief if you would like a Stantler."
"You'd catch one for me?" The marvelling surprise and hope in her voice fills me with joy.
I turn to face the Stantler and reach up to fix the knot at my tie as embarrassment creeps up me. "Sure."
I head towards the Stantler carefully, tugging out a Poke Ball and carrying it by my side. I press the release button gently, knowing if I toss it into battle I risk them all bolting.
"Yawn," I give the order softly.
My comatose Komala gives its contagious yawn either in obedience or out of instinct. Either way the move is successful and a Stantler copies the yawn while its herd mates run for the trees.
"Sucker Punch."
In its sleep my Pokemon moves, striking out with its log in its clutches to catch the Stantler off guard with a blow to its jaw.
I watch as the deer Pokemon collapses, dazed from the blow, and starts snoring.
I take a couple of steps forward, pull out a Poke Ball and throw it lightly to the Stantler. It vanishes in a beam of red light and I watch warily as the ball rolls. Its odd but I think this might be the most nervous I've been over catching a Pokemon.
The Poke Ball goes still and I feel a surge of delight. I recall my Komala and step forward to lift up the Poke Ball. I turn and head back to Ellie with it.
"There, now you have a Stantler."
She accepts the ball and tilts her head up to me, exposing her shock. I am overwhelmed when a wide smile illuminates her face and she grabs me in a hug, squeezing my arms against my sides.
"Thank you Mr Larry, thank you!"
I dip my head to conceal my sorrow as she says my name. I realise I ache to hear 'daddy' or 'dad' again.
"How slowly did he throw that ball?" Kenji blurts out rudely. "Where did you come from huh? With your suit and your accent, hyuck-hyuck-hyuck, you don't fit this lot at all."
"Shut up already," Looker scolds him. "You're lucky to be with us!"
"Well now that we've finished with that diversion can we keep going?" Morty remarks impatiently. "It's getting colder and darker by the minute and I don't want to be out here when the Hoothoot start hunting."
I give him an apologetic look and nod.
We start to walk again. Ellie matches pace with me, turning her new Poke Ball over in both hands as she stares at it in a mesmerised awe. Her Farfetch'd walks beside her, giving low quacks of disgruntlement with each step.
"I know Quackers," Ellie says softly, "but the walk will do you good."
I smile, it's almost as if she is holding a conversation with the grumpy Farfetch'd.
"What was that Pokemon you used to battle Lucky with Mr Larry?" Ellie queries.
Lucky? Has she named it so swiftly?
"Komala," I answer, "it's also a Normal Pokemon that doesn't evolve," I add proudly.
Ellie glances up at me and offers a smile. "You get it, don't you?" she quips cheerfully. "That not everything needs to change or be flashy and showy."
I nod. "I do."
"Your Elite battles must be a riot," Morty teases me once more. "Or is that the way of Paldea? Hmm..." He halts and turns round quickly to face me. I flinch as he reaches out one finger to press it lightly against my nose. "What is it with you then? I keep sensing something psychic about you but you're about as psychic as a doorknob. Normal all the way, I mean you had the chance to change your clothes for the wilds but you still went for a suit."
Morty glances up and down with a scornful stare for my suit.
"I'm a salaryman, suits are what I wear best," I explain. I look pointedly ahead to Koga who has stayed so quiet he could be a shadow. "I think I blend in better than a ninja."
"That's just it," Morty murmurs as he reaches up to rub at his messy blond hair, pushing his headband as he does, "you're a Gym Leader and an Elite Four member, you're meant to stand out."
"And I do when I battle," I answer calmly but, to my surprise, there is a firmness in my voice. "I don't need to distract people with smoke and mirrors."
Morty starts to laugh and his hand slaps me on the shoulder lightly. "Hear that Koga? Your smoke and mirrors strategy isn't the way to go."
The ninja glances over his shoulder to us but it's too dark to make out his expression. He says nothing and instead keeps walking.
"Hey I need a toilet break," Kenji pipes up.
"We're almost there," Looker complains.
"Well I need it here, not there," Kenji answers like an argumentative child.
Looker lets out a loud sigh. "I've accompanied you into three bushes already and gotten attacked every time by Weedle."
"I warned you about the Weedle," Morty says cheerfully.
"Well don't follow then or let someone else perv for a change," Kenji answers hotly. Despite his beating from Lance and the threats of jail from Looker his brash, argumentative side has not cooled any.
"I don't watch you!"
"Isn't that the point though?" Kenji continues to taunt the man. "That you do watch me because you think I'll run off even though I'm not under arrest and I offered to come along?"
"I don't...I don't see that! I keep a distance! That-"
Kenji looks my way. I don't know why but for some reason I decide to find out. "I'll go with him," I offer.
"There ya go! I've a new toilet buddy Glancer!"
"It's Looker!"
Kenji gives his twisted laugh as he starts to hurry off to a cluster of bushes.
I follow reluctantly, wary of what Pokemon might be living there and of Kenji's intentions.
He stops by the bushes, staring forward to them but motionless otherwise.
"Paldea man," he murmurs in a low, amused voice, "you've come far haven't you? Hmm but why? You seem so out of place here."
"Why?" I snap the word at him as his remark has me on edge.
He shrugs. "You know, Troy is always very careful to never say where Ellie came from but he seemed so confused to find her in Hoenn and frustrated when she came here, grumbling that it was an odd place to hide when neither she nor her new brother had any connection to it. He had her in Kanto of course, I remember that but I remember too that night I met her that she had such an odd accent, not one I could place then. It's all faded now of course and my memory's ten years rusty but hearing you talk, well there's something sparking in the old memory vault. Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck."
Kenji's laugh makes me nauseous. I look back to the others but in the growing dark of the night they are barely visible.
"What point are you trying to make?" I demand. I won't help him with his suspicions.
He shrugs again. "I'm not sure these days. I'd think you were here for her but the others don't seem to know it, you're all disjointed with them. Suppose my point would be, if you are, and maybe that's why you want her off to Paldea then, that I need to warn you about Troy. You can hop on a boat and forget him but he won't forget her. Ten years of waiting and obsessing, he's insane and he'll not let it end until either she's back with him or he's dropped dead."
"Why are you warning me?" I demand. "You're one of them still, aren't you?"
He gives a solemn nod. "Oh yes, it's in the blood. For me, not Koga, he's strange, I'd think he'd have more to say in all this." He cocks his head up to me and the seriousness I see in his dark stare stuns me for a moment. "I think you know something of the blood ties Paldea man, the strength of them, how they keep you connected even through time and over distance but they can be as much a burden as a blessing hmm? Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck," his laugh comes out soft and miserable. It's almost like a stammer he can't help.
I wonder at what he is saying and speculate that Team Rocket must be a family business for him.
"She couldn't tell us where she came from, Koga and I both asked, but she wasn't being secretive, whatever Troy did, however he took her, it must have been a horror. I think her mind forced it out. She didn't even remember her name. If we'd known where it was, we would've sent her back to her home. I won't betray them any other way you know, just for her. She had such confusion and fear in her, things were just gone from her mind, snatched by his constant abuse with those wretched Drowzee and Hypno."
"Why?" I almost whisper out the word. "Why did he do it?"
Kenji glances over his shoulder to the silhouettes that wait for us. "He swears on those powers of hers, said with her we could get powerful Pokemon, ancient and rare Pokemon, that somehow she could bring them to us. I don't know, he's insane like I said. Just understand, you'll get on that boat and I'll go back to them because it's what I am, a criminal, but things were taken too far for her, she's had her suffering, I don't want a repeat. Call me a hypocrite if you want, I don't care, just keep her safe this time Paldea man."
This time. Does Kenji know then? I won't confirm for him verbally but I think perhaps my guilty silence has done it. This time, can I do it?
"Are you two making a river? Hurry up!" Morty calls us on.
I see him waving and look to Kenji. Seeing his smile I remind myself that he is a teenager, closer to adulthood than Ellie but still young. I recognise the scarring in his eyes and think that he too has been through something. I wonder if it might be part of Ellie's devotion to him not just because he saved her but he is like her, aged and haunted by childhood horrors.
We start walking once more. I feel heavy with despair and my briefcase seems to take on an added weight. I think of the clippings with it, the reminders of my failings. My gaze darts to Ellie and I know I won't live through her loss again.
I address Kenji before Looker can reach us. "You warn me but not her brother, he's a former Champion, shouldn't you tell him your concerns?"
"Do you think he'd listen?" Kenji queries sarcastically. "I think he'd sooner punch me, 'cept he can't stomach it, happy to let that psycho Lance do it all instead."
"Nothing to do with him being a former Champion then?"
Kenji halts and cocks his head in my direction. "You know Troy said something about a business in Hoenn, proof that Ellie's powers were growing and turning into what he said they would. His justification to our boss for his demands to have the resources to chase her."
"What business?" I demand.
There have been too many secrets and unspoken histories, I need to know why Steven is no longer a Champion.
"Hyuck-hyuck-hyuck," Kenji taunts me with his laugh. "Subtle prying. I don't know much, I asked, said it was a waste chasing his delusions, got a good beating for that from him, Troy's a psycho too in case I didn't make it clear. Something about Steven getting taken by one of those gangs in Hoenn, they had the country to a ransom over him but then he escaped or got released somehow or, as Troy would insist, he got found. Thinks Ellie hunted down her brother with her powers."
I wonder at the truth of it as surprise floods me once more. Could Steven have been a hostage in Hoenn? Did Ellie track him down with her psychic senses? Why did he stand down then? Shame? Stress? To protect Ellie? I recall her words in Azalea about how they must always look, it sounded like a phrase between them, was this what she was referring to- how she looked for him?
Looker is upon us and I can see the lights of Ecruteak City up ahead. There is no more time for prying about Steven with Kenji. I think about how stressful things have been for Ellie, her life with Steven should have been good but even all the way in Hoenn she has been denied peace.
