March 8th, First Year

Akari tuned the rest of the conversation out as the group made their way down Aspiration Hill, trailing along at the back of the group as she had been for the entirety of their journey to the Obsidian Fieldlands.

She palmed her single pokéball, feeling the rough apricorn wood scrape against the flesh of her hand as she rolled it back and forth between her hands. That seemed to help her focus but at the same time, it scratched a little itch so that she could focus on anything else but the chill of winter.

She hadn't released Oshawott since she'd passed her trial. It hadn't tried to leave its pokéball either. Akari had asked the professor whether that was a bad thing (she was sure that it was a bad thing) and he didn't give her a straight answer. After all, the professor knew next to nothing about the trio of pokémon that he'd brought along from his venture.

Her relationship with Oshawott was terse like she was walking on eggshells. She had considered swapping him out for another pokémon that wouldn't associate her with the trial and nearly being electrocuted. Maybe a Bidoof or a Starly, like Yuki's?

Rei's Pikachu was usually a little devious and mischievous, stealing his hat or making a nest out of his clothes in the strangest places. It would sometimes shock him when Rei wouldn't feed him potato mochi under the table at The Wallflower. Jaku's Cyndaquil was always outside of its pokéball and from what she'd seen, it liked just hanging around. She wished Oshawott was like that.

She made to grab and release Oshawott's pokéball but she stopped with her fingers on the metal latch. The familiar wave of nausea came rolling in and almost immediately, she latched the pokéball back onto her back and stuck her hands in the pockets of her uniform trousers.

When she looked at Oshawott, she saw something else. Someone else. When she battled with him and gave him instructions, it would look at her like she was stupid and do the move anyway. Always with sass. Always impatient. It looked at her the way everybody else in the village did. It was nauseatingly familiar to the point where Akari couldn't touch Oshawott without feeling like she was going to throw up. She let the idea rest and hurried to catch up with the group as they rounded a hill ahead of her.

"…Wait really? You're being serious?" Jaku chuckled.

"Yes I am! Hey! Don't laugh! Rei, back me up here!"

"No way, dude," Rei snarked. "Don't lump me in with you. I still can't believe you managed to sneak it out of the Galaxy Headquarters. The commander never found out, right?"

"No way!" Then Yuki shuddered. "I don't even want to know what he'd do if he found out."

"Found out what?" Akari asked, catching up with the rest of the group.

"Oh good! You're done having a thinking session. I was wondering when you'd come and join us," Yuki grinned. "We were just talking about the time I may have accidentally possibly taken one of the commander's kimonos and sold it for money."

"…Yuki, what the actual fuck."

They were to journey to the start of the stream along the Horseshoe Plains and follow it southward. Rei and Yuki had been in the lead and to Akari, it seemed like them and Jaku had nothing better to do but chat. Even the Diamond Clan members were talking leisurely. It was better than the tense atmosphere of Jubilife but it was still very cold and the ground was very slippery.

The skies had started off clear when they had left and so far, things had been calm. They soon came to a flat clearing covered by a wide oak tree where the thick snow hadn't managed to reach yet. Since the Galaxy Scouts were substantially younger, the Diamond Clan members were the ones who'd called for a break.

Rei declared that he wanted to do a bit of '"research" and headed off into the brush with Yuki at his heels. The two boys came back with extra pokéballs at their belt and drenched clothes to show for their efforts.

Jaku had done the same on her own and had returned with a ragged-looking Eevee tucked into the lining of her tunic. The little creature barely raised its head, eyes shut as it slept soundly.

Akari had no urge to catch more burdens. She stared at the ball that held Oshawott. A burden. That was all she thought it to be. She never asked to be given the creature and she got the feeling that it did not want her. But she couldn't release it. Not without gaining another addition to her team first.

"Look what I caught!" Rei took two balls from his belt and tossed them into the air revealing a large Starly and a Buizel.

"Copycat!" Yuki huffed, his own Starly nibbling on a strand of his hair.

Jaku munched on a rice cake, splitting half of it with her new Eevee. "I'd say congrats on the two additions, but a Buizel? It's like you're trying to actively mock me for my blunder."

"I could name him Blunder for you."

The Buizel squeaked with indignation and shot a beam of water at Rei, drenching the sleeves of his coat.

"Yeah, I'd take that as a no if I were you. Here, Dusk and I will help dry you off." Jaku then looked toward her, opening a new rice cake. "Hey Akari. I never did ask but how's Oshawott doing? I haven't seen the little guy since you picked him from the professor's room. Is he alright?"

Akari started forward. "Yes. Yes, Oshawott is fine. He's just… he's resting in his ball."

"You still call him Oshawott?" Rei mumbled around a mouth of food. "Aren't you gonna give it a name or something?"

"A name?"

"Yeah, a name." Jaku held up her Cyndaquil. "I named this chunky guy 'Dusk'." She squinted at her Eevee who was hastily devouring the extra rice cake placed before it. With a mrrp it turned back to Jaku, a low purr rising in its throat. "You. You look like a 'Peanut' to me."

"You mean apricorn," Rei retorted.

"I said what I said. Henceforth, you shall be called 'Peanut'." The little Eevee purred louder as Jaku placed it back within the warm folds of her tunic. "I give all my buddies nicknames. I think I remember a few of them from the past."

"Really? Are they all as ridiculous sounding as 'Peanut'?" Akari snarked.

Jaku blinked and sent her a coy grin. "Maybe. I think I named one of them 'Heavy'? I've got a few; Fuzz, Stone, Sand, Spark-"

"So you're just terrible at naming things?"

"I am the very best at being terrible, yes."

After their long rest stop, they turned and began to follow the river southward. The sun began to dip low into the sky and Rei had called for the need to make camp and rest before it got too dark. So after Rei, Yuki, and Jaku were done chatting and they'd eaten their rations of berries and in Jaku's case, mystery meat, they each set up their tents. The Diamond Clan members were taking the first nightwatch shift.

She was thankful that she'd had the mind to set up her tent a ways away from everybody else as she kept tossing and turning, ruffling the walls of the tent as she moved. Akari tried counting Bidoofs. Didn't work. Tried counting the stars above. Didn't work. Tried distracting her mind by trying to find her memories again. Didn't. Work.

Eventually, she got up and wandered toward the stream where a jagged rock obscured a part of the riverbed. She splashed her face with the ice-cold water and stared at her reflection in the exposed river water. Emotionless eyes, black hair, pale skin, and shaky calloused hands. She splashed at her reflection and watched the fractured image ripple away, her teeth chattering as the chill set in.

She turned her attention toward the large rift hanging over Mt. Coronet. It mirrored the same rift that her and Jaku had fallen through, appearing only for a moment after dropping them off in the sand. Even though it was night, the rift glittered like a second sun as streaks of what looked like lightning fell from the epicenter.

Nobody, not a single soul, had mentioned it thus far. Rei and Jaku had been joking the entire time as if the Obsidian Fieldlands hadn't been deemed as dangerous. Rei, who'd been so nervous at the prospect of venturing beyond the hill again, was awfully relaxed the entire time.

Maybe it was Jaku's fault. The older woman didn't seem to understand how dangerous it was being out here. And wasn't she supposed to be guarding them along with her clan?

What unnerved her most was the fact that they hadn't come across anyone else while they were out there. No glimpses of other teams across the fieldlands. No smoke trails from campfires or Diamond Clan members from the Sandgem Encampment foraging. Nothing. Nothing that would suggest that they weren't the only ones around for miles.

Akari paused. There was blood pooling on the ice.

She hadn't noticed the stench in her turbulent thoughts but now, it was all she could smell; a sickly-sweet stench that hit the back of her throat and made her want to vomit. She spotted blood and flecks of skin dotting the river rocks to her far right, hidden neatly by the same shadow that she herself was hiding under.

She didn't want to look. She really didn't want to look. She hoped it was a pokémon-

It wasn't a pokémon.

Akari gagged violently, clutching at her belly as she scooted away from the mutilated carcass. The man's legs had been ripped apart, the flesh torn so messily and yet so cleanly that she could see the bone poking out. Cloth mingled with flesh, pooling in chunks at the bottom where the skin melted into the rocks. One of the arms was missing, twisted up and out of its socket, and part of his spine had been pulled out through his back. His torso-

Akari stumbled as a wave of nausea hit her and she reeled over, vomiting on the riverbed and into the river. Her eyes burned. One wave and then another rocked through her, and she forced her eyes shut as yet another wave started. Her stomach clenched so violently that she was soon on her knees, forehead almost touching the rocks. Soon, there was nothing but bile coming back up.

His ribs had been pried open, flayed at the edges with clean holes bored through the middle, exposing organs that were completely missing. The intestines were strewn about the body as though attempting to hide the carnage. The only part that hadn't been touched was the man's face and his eyes stared at the sky, milky and rotten with horror, jaws parted in a long-silenced scream.

Something grabbed onto her shoulder and swiftly pulled her away. She made to scream but was silenced by a voice, soft and stern, washing over her ear. "Don't yell. Whatever it was that did that is probably still nearby. I need you to stay quiet and stay still."

Akari recognized the voice of one of the Diamond Clan members. The man behind her was pointedly looking away from the corpse, his eyes glittering in the dark. Rei moved into her vision and obscured her view of the corpse, looking as white as a sheet and deeply disturbed. The two quickly and quietly moved her back toward the camp where Jaku and the other clan members were waiting.

As soon as they'd reached the camp, Akari ripped away from the man and sobbed, hugging her knees to her chest. She hadn't asked for this! She hadn't asked to be put in this mortal danger! She shut her eyes tightly and wished, with all of her heart, to not be there. To wake up in some comfy bed in some house that she recognized, or hell, even wake up back in the medical wing in Jubilife.

"Attach this to your Starly's foot and send it to Hideyoshi at the fieldlands encampment. We need to get to the Sandgem Encampment. They're one of us. We'll be safe there."

"He wasn't wearing a Galaxy uniform," Yuki whispered, his voice quivering.

"He wasn't wearing a Diamond Clan tunic either. Pearl Clan?" Rei rasped.

"No. I think it was a foreigner. Let's pack up and move. Sandgem isn't far from here; if we leave now, we'll get there just after dawn.

Akari heard a soft sigh and the crunch of footsteps in the snow. Then a gloved hand came down on her shoulder and gave her a little shake. "Oi, Akari, can you walk? We need to get back to safety, pronto."

"I c-can't feel my legs," she whimpered.

"Akari," Rei called on her other side. "We need to go. Now. Could you two please get her onto her feet."

"Of course."

"Right away."

Two of the clan men hoisted her to her feet and carefully stood her up, guided by Rei as they left the safety of the outcrop. Something snapped in the undergrowth. From the front of the group, Jaku froze like a Stantler and stared into the darkness of the woods, eyes wide. She drew her saber.

"Jaku? What's going on?" Rei whispered. Tot emerged from Rei's tunic, ears flattened against its head as it squirmed about.

"Something's watching us," the older ranger whispered. Cyndaquil and Eevee were staring too. "Rei, Akari, get behind me." She turned to the two Diamond Clan men. "Can you two back me up here?"

"I see it," the first man muttered, drawing his saber. "Ready on your left. Soto. Get these kids to safety. Take them to Sandgem."

"Understood. Come on you three."

"I have Tot-" Rei started, but he was cut off as both of the men gave them careful once-overs.

"This won't be a battle," Jaku hissed. "Alpha Luxray, straight ahead. You think it's that lesser lord you were talking about earlier?"

"Most likely. That or a starving one," the man replied curtly. "Let's go."

"We both have pokémon," Rei hissed. "I'm not running away."

Rei's protest was met by Soto grabbing him by the scruff of his tunic and dragging him along with Yuki down by the river. Akari had no choice but to follow but she didn't take her eyes off of the two rangers.

There was a long pause.

Snow crunched and branches snapped as the two rangers surged forward. The Luxray gave a deafening roar and charged, a spark of lightning setting fire to the trees as they came together. Its silhouette wavered in the light of the growing flames, the massive beast making the two rangers look like Wurmples in comparison.

Akari froze.

"Akari!" Rei ripped her away from her stupor and dragged her along the bank, Tot sprinting along at her other side with conflicted whimpers as Soto bordered their right where the wildfire was spreading at a breakneck pace.

"Rei!"

"Don't turn around!"

They kept running. The sounds of yelling and roaring flames grew quieter and quieter until the two began to slow. Akari could feel the snot pouring from her nose and tears trailing down her cheeks as the adrenaline finally wore off. Whenever she could, she glanced back the way they came. All she saw were smudges of scarlet, gold, and black.

When Soto had finally called for them to stop and collect themselves, Akari collapsed into the snow and bawled, knowing damn well that her crying could attract predators but not caring. Rei and Yuki settled in beside her, both of them staring wide-eyed as the forest burned behind them.

"You arrived faster than I thought you would. Soto and Jaku went to fight off the Luxray. Here are the children."

"They're okay?"

"No scratches. Help me get them back to the encampment."

Rei and Akari were quickly surrounded, gentle and warm hands pulling her up to stand as the three were herded away from the forest. Akari shut her eyes and covered her ears, her tears freezing to her cheeks as she wiped at her eyes.