"Of all the things….helicopters? Out here?"
Hisoka held his head. He looked haggard.
Aiden felt bad for his friend. As Hisoka told it, he hadn't slept since graduation - and not well before then either, if memory served. Plus there had been some strenuous and stressful events since. All of them showed on the guy's face.
"You're sure that's what you heard?" Tori raised her eyebrows, taking in Hisoka's exhaustion.
"I heard them too." Levi volunteered.
Tori breathed a sigh of relief.
"They could have been rescue 'copters or something. Unfortunately, if they're moving at night, I'd bet it's Pokémon poachers." Aiden raised his hand over his eyes and looked out among the peaks. Today's camp was at an even higher elevation than yesterday's. "Which way were they going?"
Hisoka shrugged.
"I just heard them above. Hard to tell with the echo off the mountains."
There wasn't much the group could do about poachers in helicopters anyway, Aiden told himself. He was having enough trouble with the local wildlife. Absent-mindedly, he touched the Pokéball clipped to his waist. Cubone rested inside. Like Arden said, he had work to do.
"Onward and upward, my friends!" Oak called out. He stood a few meters off, at the head of a northward path, waving with his whole arm.
The conversation lulled as everyone mobilized, settling packs on shoulders and scattering any remaining signs of their camp. The group did their best to follow Aiden's rule of 'leave no trace'. He appreciated it.
The first leg of the trail was wide and flat, lending itself to a casual stroll. Meowth rode atop Tori's backpack, taking advantage of her even gait. She walked with Oak and Levi up front, nodding at each of them as they spoke. He couldn't hear what they discussed from his position.
Aiden felt responsible for watching the rear, so he hung back furthest. The order let him keep an eye on Hisoka, who was exactly the kind of fatigued Oak had warned the group about. They offered him extra coffee in the morning, took breaks throughout the day, and made sure he was comfortable before bed, but there wasn't much else to do. So Aiden watched his friend's steps.
Over time, Beau drifted to the back of the group and struck up a conversation.
"We'll be pushing into Clefairy territory later today!" They sounded excited about the prospect.
"How will you be able to tell?" Aiden asked.
Beau pointed up. Aiden tilted his head back, checking the sky.
"We're getting closer to a full moon. The Clefairy will become more active as it nears. Also, those shrubs." They pointed up the side of a rock face. Sprouting from it were a few determined branches dotted with deep green leaves.
"Do Clefairy eat the leaves?"
"Actually, they eat a lichen that usually grows underneath. There's none under these plants."
Aiden nodded appreciatively. It was a good catch, something a trained trail guardian might notice. He racked his brain for a reply.
"It's safe for people to eat most lichens. Not, um, all of them though. But up here in the mountains. These are fine."
Beau chuckled. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind in case I need a snack."
He tried to resist the urge to ruin the joke with a disclaimer, but the stickler in Aiden won out.
"...but please still check with me before you put stuff that you find in your mouth."
Beau laughed more. They gave Aiden a thumbs-up.
"Yes. Of course."
Aiden and Beau kept up their conversation until the trail started to narrow. The terrain was becoming more difficult. Glancing ahead, Aiden saw the others fall into a single-file line with Oak at the lead.
The scramble was exhausting. At the first plateau they encountered, the group unanimously decided to take a short rest.
A few moments later, Aiden wondered if they were cursed.
Oak, Levi, and Beau had congregated, no doubt to discuss the very exciting lichen observations, near a rock face several meters from where the path opened up. Tori and her Meowth stood near the opposite ledge taking in the view. Aiden and Hisoka sat near her, sipping canteens.
Between the two groups, the rocky ground erupted.
A boulder shot towards the sky, and another right behind it. A chain of boulders.
Following its earlier orders, Meowth twisted out of Tori's arms and bolted towards Samuel Oak.
It had seen a very scary Pokémon.
Aiden was on his feet. The ground was shaking, unstable. He grabbed Tori's wrist with one hand and Hisoka's in the other, hauling his friend to his feet.
Making a snap decision, he pulled them towards the trail they'd just arrived by.
"Meowth!" Tori yelled, her voice full of fear.
"It ran to Oak. It'll be safe with him." Aiden reassured her. He hoped desperately that was true.
He shoved his friends into a divot in the rock wall beside the trail.
"Hold tight."
He turned away, but felt a tug on his shirt.
A rock fell in the space he would have been.
Aiden looked up before he took his next steps. He climbed over the rubble to peer around the corner. The ground shook again, he could see, because the Onix was diving back into the rock down below.
The plateau they had been standing on not two minutes ago was gone; a deep, freshly-cut crag in its place. Aiden feared the worst.
"Ho! Aiden!"
A familiar figure waving at a distance.
Across the sheer drop, separated now by hundreds of meters, Oak and the grad students stood in the mouth of a shallow stone cave.
The Onix, it seemed, had just been passing through.
Tori and Hisoka picked their way around the corner behind him. They must have felt the quaking taper off as the Pokémon departed.
"Professor!" Tori cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled to get his attention. Her concern carried across the ravine.
"I've got it, Tori! I've got your Meowth!" To underscore his message, Oak held the little Pokémon up by its armpits. It was hard to tell at their distance, but Meowth seemed fine.
Aiden felt Tori collapse against his back. She threw an arm around him to hold herself up and took a few deep breaths into his pack. Her relief was a balm to his shock. He put his hand over hers on his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"Bulbasaur, c'mon out."
Aiden and Tori turned to watch what Hisoka would do.
"How long can your vines reach, bud? Can you reach Oak?"
Bulbasaur looked up at Hisoka then out across the divide. It stretched one vine straight across it, then the other, then both at the same time, toeing the edge of the cliff.
Its vines extended only a fraction of the distance.
"It was a good try, bud, thanks." Hisoka sighed and returned it to its ball.
Aiden thought through each Pokémon the group had with them. None seemed up to the task of bridging the gap.
He cupped his hands and yelled to Oak, "What should we do?"
Oak held up his map. Aiden shrugged off his pack and pulled out his own map and a pencil. The map Oak had brought on the trip showed updated trails and hazards. Aiden had copied over some of the information, but it was a lot to reproduce.
When he had everything in-hand, he waved the map at Oak.
"Three kilometers back!" Oak was yelling and tapping a point on the map impossible to make out. "At the switchback, there's an incline we didn't take. It meets up with this trail-" He pointed to his feet. "-further north!"
Aiden peered down at his own map, looking for the route Oak outlined. He felt the presence of his friends peeking over his shoulder, so he pointed out the first juncture, back the way they came.
"He says go here, where these peaks met. We're going to follow this path," Aiden explained in a quieter voice, tracing it in pencil as he went. As he dragged the line north, connecting peaks like dots, his stomach sank. They would be separated from the other group for more than just the afternoon.
"Where does he say to group up?" Tori asked, eyes darting around the page. The southernmost mountains were best defined, but the further north the one referenced, the less accurate the art became, until mountains were just narrow blue triangles.
Oak was waving again. "There is a river, two days north! We'll meet you on the southern bank."
Aiden called back an affirmative, but when he checked his map, he saw no such river.
"I don't have it! No river!"
"ICEMELT. It changes over time!"
Aiden turned to gauge his friends' reactions. They shrugged at him. What could they do? He turned to look out again over the crevasse where others waited for a sign to proceed.
"Roger! South bank of the river! You camp, we'll find you!"
Oak and his crew would certainly arrive ahead of them and might risk wandering past their trail mouth.
Tori and Hisoka seemed relieved by the plan, but Aiden was troubled by it. As the three did an about-face on the trail and set off south, he spoke up.
"The safest thing to do would be to head back. That's a confirmed route. This plan makes me nervous."
His suggestion was met with silence.
Every second of it that ticked by made Aiden more certain he would be overruled.
"Meowth…" was all Tori said.
And how could he argue with that?
"Ok."
"Ok?" Hisoka seemed less committed. He might have been counting on Aiden to hold his position.
"I just… felt obligated to make the suggestion. As the guardian. So let it be known I said we should turn back."
"I mean should we turn back?"
"Thanks, Aiden. I can not just leave Meowth."
Aiden turned to look back at Oak. The three were already off, down the trail and out of earshot. The time to alter plans had passed anyway.
"Nah. Let's go. Just stay vigilant."
This time, Aiden took the lead.
