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Day 83

Daniel watched Lazuli and Wilson leave the base camp to go fishing. He was confident that the two could handle themselves now. Any flying pokemon trying to eat Wilson would taste a Thunder Wave from Lazuli while any water pokemon would get hit by Wilson's Absorb if they got too close. Daniel was still worried about them. How could he not? Wilson was his first pokemon and he was basically Lazuli's dad. But they had to split the work if Daniel wanted to improve the base. Right now, it was a fire pit, a lean-to covering a primitive cot, and a pile of firewood covered by a tree. Daniel stored his food in baskets which he placed on his cot when he wasn't sleeping. This usually kept most insects away, but he had to battle the occasional wingull and one slowpoke. Hopefully, a hut will hide his provisions better and a shelf will keep any ground creatures from crawling all over it.

Daniel got to work marking an area for his hut, a flat dirt square about ten feet long on each side. Then he grabbed a stone axe and ventured into the forest to find some lumber. He cut trees to use as posts, one tree could yield multiple posts. He cut the trees into four pieces about three feet long, two were around six feet high, each about two inches in diameter. He returned to camp with the lumber on his shoulder and began building the hut's frame. He thrust the posts into the ground, the short ones in the corners of the square, and the tall pair in the middle of two opposing sides. He made sure to align the structure in a direction that the breeze usually blew. Hopefully, that would make it more comfortable. Daniel began gathering more lumber. He got three long pieces to use as horizontal beams and lashed them to the planted posts with vines.

This doesn't look too stable.

Daniel felled more trees to make more small posts. He thrust them into the ground and lashed them to the low beams. Now there were five posts between each corner post except for the entrance, which only had two posts left of the highest one. Daniel began working on the roof of the hut, adding rafters so that all the weight of the thatching would be spread out. He then added purlins, thin beams perpendicular to the rafters to which the thatching would be lashed. After four hours, the frame of the hut looked complete.

Wow. That didn't take too long. Maybe I'll stay warm and dry now.

When Daniel first arrived on the island, it didn't rain much; when it did, it was a light drizzle. Now it rained more frequently and it poured for a few minutes at a time. Usually, it was heralded by thunder and gray skies. Daniel had been caught in the rain before, but he knew it was only going to get worse. Islands usually had a wet and dry season. Daniel considered himself lucky that the rain had prevented him from cooking only four times. This hut needed to get built.

On to the longest part, the thatch.

Daniel headed into the forest to collect palm fronds. He would slice them off of short palms with a stone knife, really more of a rock that broke in a useful way. He spent hours piling the leaves under the frame, splitting them in half, then lashing them to the hut's frame.

Meanwhile

Wilson balanced a basket full of fish on his head. It distracted him from the fact that he was exposed under the sun. It also blocked his view of the sky. Hopefully, Lazuli would actually scare away any flying pokemon that thought he was an easy snack. The dragon scared him sometimes. They were all forces of nature, even Daniel, but she was dangerous. Wilson hoped that acting like her big brother would keep her from eating him when she grew too big. She slithered beside him as the two headed back to the base. The sand was burning hot, but it didn't seem to bother the dragon. Wilson heard the cries of wingulls in the distance so he started running to the forest. The dragon playfully kept pace, unknowingly arcing electricity across her body.

Dangerous. Wilson thought.

Wilson heard a thud on the sand behind him.

Faster!

Wilson sprinted as fast as his feet could take him. There were two more thuds behind him. He managed to keep the basket of fish balanced on his head... until he tripped on a loose branch.

NO! Stupid fire pile!

The basket spilled its contents on the sand in front of an unlit pyre. It was there to signal any boats if Daniel spotted one. Wilson got up and spit sand out of his mouth. He ignored the spilled basket and made a mad dash for a nearby bush. There he turned to see Lazuli putting the fish back into the basket. Behind her were three paralyzed wingulls in the sand. They twitched a few times before scrambling away as best they could. Lazuli approached with the basket in her mouth. She put it on Wilson's head.

"You were scared!" she said playfully.

"You are scary!" Wilson replied half-jokingly, "Scary and dangerous."

"No. I'm just a little dragon. Daddy say so."

"Daniel's scarier than you. Next to him you're just a baby."

"You need be scary like me and Daddy!"

"Even if I go through the change, I won't be scary like you."

"That's why Daddy told me, protect Wilson!" Lazuli said with a puffed chest

"Oh yeah?" Wilson nodded half-sarcastically. If only both knew how scary Lazuli will be. Maybe then Daniel would have left her in the mountain.

Wilson knew what shook the island and burned the mountaintop crater. The guardian had fought an invader. Everyone else in his colony had hidden themselves, but not Wilson. He watched from the edge of the caldera as two dragons battled, one orange and one blue. They flew high into the sky, leaving earthbound Wilson to ponder the outcome of the battle. But it soon became obvious. His colony was empty when he returned. The other oddish, charred then eaten. The guardian was dead, the invader claimed the island as part of its hunting grounds. Wilson hoped that the invader would never return.

Or we all die. Like my colony.

Day 90

It had taken Daniel a week to finish the thatching for the hut. It rained almost every one of those days, making the dirt muddy and giving Daniel a reason to skip a few foraging trips. With the roof now complete, Daniel moved on to the walls of the hut. They would be made of wattle and daub, or sticks and mud. He would weave sticks between the three-foot posts under the roof and stick mud to them. This would ensure that it would remain dry inside. The roof's eaves would keep the dirt walls from melting in the rain. Wilson was playing with Lazuli as Daniel worked. He kicked a coconut into the forest and Lazuli eagerly retrieved it. They would also play tag, a very acrobatic and vertical tag where Wilson would jump and dance in the underbrush while Lazuli would climb up trees and leap between them.

They didn't move like that before. Who knew playing tag would evolve into a mobility arms race?

Evolve. That's what pokemon did. They changed forms as they got stronger. Were Wilson and Lazuli getting stronger? They didn't do any intense training and the most battle experience they got was chasing off wingulls, slowpokes, and psyducks. But he couldn't ignore how the two moved. Wilson appeared to glide effortlessly across the busy forest floor. His steps were light and precise, defying gravity as he pirouetted and leaped through the air. Lazuli would propel herself to the nearest trunk, using her muscular body to wrap around it. Her scales allowed her to ascend it effortlessly before she coiled up and launched herself to another tree. She sailed gracefully through the air, undulating to adjust her trajectory before landing with exceptional precision on a distant limb. It looked like she was flying.

But that makes sense. When she evolves she'll be able to fly.

Daniel once hoped that Lazuli would be able to fly him off the island when she became a dragonite. He was beginning to think that route would take years. Lazuli had stopped growing at six feet and he had no idea how he could level her up, or even if levels were a real thing in this world. So far Wilson and Lazuli had learned moves found early in their moveset, but some like Thunder Wave came before easier moves like Wrap. Daniel had no idea how to discover new moves. Or even which moves he could discover. Daniel had his hands full of mud when Lazuli nudged him. She had something impossibly spherical gripped in her tail. It was a rusty brown.

"Hm? Is this for me?"

Lazuli nodded and placed the sphere on the ground.

"Hey, this is an apricorn!"

Lazuli just stared as Wilson jogged up from behind.

"It's used to make pokeballs. Devices that shrink you down or turn you into energy or something. Honestly, I have no idea how they work."

Lazuli continued staring. Wilson looked around the nearly finished hut.

"Well... thank you Lazuli! It's a very round and shiny thing. I like it."

Lazuli beamed, then coiled up and jumped into the forest. Wilson followed her. Daniel washed his hands in the pond, which had swelled in size thanks to the rain, then picked up the apricorn. It still had the stem attached and was surprisingly heavy and glossy. Daniel tapped it with his nail, it sounded hollow. Daniel shook it, something rattled inside.

Must be seeds. Now how could I possibly turn this into a pokeball.

In Pokemon Heartgold, you gave these things to Kurt, who using traditional hand tools turned them into actual pokeballs. The only other game they showed up in was Pokemon Legends: Arceus, where they were combined with...

Combined with a tumblestone!

A small, smooth rock that could be found in the field. Daniel fished his out from one of his pockets. He stared at the rock and the sphere.

I have no idea what to do.

So he did what any primitive man would do, he banged rocks together. He placed the tumblestone on a flat rock and got his axe. He then struck the little red stone. It split in two, without any dust or lost shards.

Ok. Now what?

Daniel picked up the two pieces and fit them back together. They stuck together as if they were magnets. Daniel could hold the tumblestone with one hand and it would not separate. He tried prying the two pieces apart. There was a brief flash of light as his hands moved apart.

What?

Daniel fit the pieces together again. No flash. Then he slowly pulled the two halves apart. It was finicky because they attracted each other like magnets, but Daniel managed to hold them about a centimeter apart. In the gap was a small band of light, glowing evenly like a light bulb, and fitting the rough split in the rocks. Daniel let the halves stick back together. The light disappeared.

What does it mean? Can I capture a pokemon with just this rock?

"Wilson! Can you come over here?" Daniel shouted.

Wilson came running up with Lazuli bounding behind him.

"What do you think of this?" Daniel recreated the stone's light.

Wilson tilted his head, curious.

"Try touching it. Please?"

Wilson warily approached the stone in Daniel's hands. The light was alluring, and comforting, like the burrows of his old colony or his spot next to Daniel's cot. Wilson tapped the stone on his forehead. His entire body glowed a soft white before shrinking and flowing like water into the light. The force that pulled the halves together inverted, sending them flying out of Daniels's fingers. Daniel fell back in surprise as the halves jumped out of his hands and the light coalesced back into Wilson.

"Whoa! It was really that simple to capture pokemon? All it takes to break my understanding of physics is a rock?"

Wilson looked completely fine. He wasn't bothered by the experience in the least. He just chalked it up to human weirdness. Like starting fires and cooking food. Lazuli dragged him off to play some more as Daniel picked up the halves of the tumblestone.

Now how am I going to use an apricorn to keep these halves the proper distance apart?

Ideas raced in Daniel's head. What could he use to hold the tumblestone halves properly in place within the apricorn? What kind of locking mechanism could he make with his tools? Could this be a real ticket off the island? All these questions and more competed for space within Daniel's head as he set out into the forest in search of more apricorns and tumblestones.

Thanks for reading! No Azalea this time. I don't know when the right time to bring her back is. I gave you just a taste before I utterly fuck up with her somehow. I really want to move on from the island. When I first started this story, Daniel was supposed to stay an entire year on the island. More than a year has passed since I first published this story, so he's already waited more than enough time. I'm looking forward to writing real human interaction!