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Woo, this is my first Pokémon fanfic since like. Second grade, when I did not yet know what FanFiction even is. I just love this game. So much.
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It was getting dark outside, but Arven made no move to call the flying taxi. He knew he could fly back to school and sleep in the dorms, but why should he bother? He knew how to camp as well as anyone else, and now that they were in the middle of the Treasure Hunt, he didn't have to worry about missing class too much. Not that he worried about it even when they had full class schedules, either- he'd already been working on his Treasure Hunt, trying to find the legendary Herba Mystica that would save Mabostiff. Right now, he just had to attend a handful of classes he enjoyed, and even if he missed those, what of it?
It wasn't like he'd get grounded or anything.
With a sigh, he took out Mabostiff's pokéball and let him out, the bright flash briefly making him close his eyes. More than anything, every time he took that pokéball out, he hoped that everything had all just been a bad dream, that Mabostiff would have miraculously healed, that his best friend would be okay.
He was always left disappointed, and this time was no exception.
Mabostiff, as had become its new norm, was just laying there, painfully inhaling and exhaling and entirely unable to even stand. It's eyes were glued shut, sleeping fitfully.
Despite knowing he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up, Arven's shoulders fell.
He'd already tried everything he could to help him- he'd gone to every Pokémon Center, tried every potion, fed him every berry he could find. Nothing helped. Nothing even did anything. Instead, with each passing day, Mabostiff just seemed to grow steadily worse as it tortuously succumbed to its wounds. At some point, one of the Nurse Joy's had tried to tell him that there may not be anything he could do, that the kindest thing might be to just let go, but he couldn't do that. He knew that Mabostiff was still fighting, still trying to heal, and he couldn't just give up.
And he couldn't lose his best friend, either.
Sometimes, it felt like Mabostiff was the only thing he had left, and if he lost him, he wouldn't even know what to do with himself.
Reaching down to pet his slumbering Pokémon, Arven felt a cold anger flood throughout his chest.
This was all his damn father's fault. By now, Arven already knew that he didn't mean anything to the man. His research was always more important, always something to take him away for who knew how long while Arven sat home alone trying to figure out how to take care of himself. There was no one to help him cook, no one to help him clean, no one to comfort him after a nightmare or ask how his day was or even just talk to him. There wasn't even anyone there. Sometimes, Arven wished that a herd of Tauros would find their way into his research stations and trample everything until it was too destroyed to save. Maybe, then, his dad would have to at least come home long enough to grab some new notebooks.
He'd had no one.
Until he met Mabostiff, only a Maschiff back then. And for the first time in so long, he'd finally had a companion. There was someone there to bark at his feet while he cooked, someone to undo the messes he cleaned up, someone to comfort him when he woke up screaming and crying and someone for him to talk to when he was lonely, even if they couldn't quite talk back. Finally, there was someone who actually cared about him and someone he could actually care about in return. He loved Mabostiff more than anything else, and he was so certain that they'd be together forever.
Until that damn thing attacked them. He still didn't know what it was, but he knew it had something to do with his father's stupid research. But whatever that terrifying, metallic beast was, it had done something to Mabostiff that no one knew how to heal.
He should have never gone to Area Zero. He knew his father didn't care about him, and he knew that trying to find him in the first place had been a fool's mission. What would he have even done when he found him? Cry about how alone he was, beg his own father to come home and pay attention to him for once? Why would that have worked, when his father had clearly been fine leaving him alone before? He just hadn't even stepped foot home in so long that Arven was starting to get desperate, desperate for him to even acknowledge that his son existed.
Instead, he'd just potentially killed his best friend.
His hand stilled , fingers buried within Mabostiff's thick fur. He wasn't going to let that happen. Mabostiff was going to be fine- he had to be, and Arven was going to find those Herba Mystica and heal him, and everything would go back to the way it was.
All he had to do was defeat the Titans and get them.
It sounded a lot more simple than it really was, especially considering that battling wasn't really his strong-suit. He didn't know if he could do it by himself, especially when Mabostiff couldn't fight alongside him, but to his relief, that new student had agreed to help him.
He couldn't help feeling a little bit conflicted about them. For the most part, he focused on his relief and gratefulness, focused on the fact that Florian was helping him save Mabostiff. But a part of him also couldn't quite stop resenting the fact that his dad was more willing to talk to Florian than his own child. He couldn't help feeling that biting anger and sharp betrayal every time he heard his father's voice coming from Florian's Rotom phone. He wanted to just grab the damn thing and smash it onto the ground. He wondered, if it wasn't inhabited by a living Pokémon, would he have actually done that, despite it not being his phone?
Of course, he knew it wasn't really Florian's fault. He had just moved here, and he wasn't the reason Professor Turo had completely abandoned Arven for his lab (No, that particular honor was reserved for Miraidon). Instead, it seemed like Florian just had a habit of helping everyone who asked, or at least, he was extremely easy to convince. And just like Florian had agreed to help him find the Herba Mystica (and Nemona and Director Clavell and Cassiopeia and whoever else), he'd also apparently agreed to help his dad with something.
Even more than his slight contradictory resentment toward Florian, though, he just resented his father even more. He had time to talk to some random kid who just showed up, but not him, and not only that, he just had to be trying to take away the one specific classmate who was helping him with the Herba Mystica, the one specific classmate he really needed to focus and help him before it was too late to save Mabostiff. He was already worried that Florian would decide to focus more on his battling and taking down Team Star and working with a famous professor than the Titans. All of those things were fun and exciting, and while giant Pokémon aren't entirely bland, they're also not exactly the most exciting thing in the world, especially since they shrink once they no longer have the Herba Mystica. At any time, Florian could just decide to not bother fighting the Titans anymore. Maybe the only reason he was still helping was because he didn't want to condemn Mabostiff to suffering and potential death.
As it was, Arven had felt such a huge spike of fear when Nemona and Cassiopeia had both tried to convince Florian to start with their own quests. He was terrified that Florian was going to head to the West Gate and never turn back to help him fight the Titans, and he wanted to scream at Nemona for messing everything up (even though she had no idea why fighting the Titans was so important to him- especially since he'd just spouted off something about sandwiches so he wouldn't have to explain).
With another sigh, Arven directed his gaze upward, his eyes tracing the scattering of gray clouds that spread across it.
He was tired.
He was tired and resentful and tired of being resentful, but he couldn't help it.
He resented Nemona, and Cassiopeia, and Director Clavell, and Florian, and Miraidon, and his father most of all. He was so full of resentment and anger and fear that he sometimes didn't even know what he was supposed to do with it all. It made him want to scream and cry and beg someone, anyone, to just take it all away and make him feel normal for once.
He was tired of resenting, and he was tired of being afraid.
He was tired of thinking about a father who clearly never cared about him.
He was tired of being that lonely little boy who endlessly waited for a father who would never come home.
And he was tired of resenting himself for the mistakes he'd made in hopelessly trying to pretend that wasn't true.
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