Chapter 9: On the Same Wavelength
It was another balmy afternoon in Tromba, with blue cloudless skies above, and sunlight beaming down on the tropical island and its little town by the sea. A quaint backdrop to the sight of a young Lugia darting about a courtyard in between the roofed corridors of Mosca's Dojo...
"A-Ack!"
… who was trying his hardest to dodge clumps of burning cinders being spat out at him by a strafing Growlithe.
"What, you expected me to just bark and roll over for you today?"
As the days passed after the pirate raid on Bluewhorl, things settled little by little into some sense of equilibrium. Bandages were removed, aches and pains faded away, and Pokémon became healthy again. Even if the repairs to the damaged and obliterated shacks and tents in town didn't keep pace, the residents of Bluewhorl went back to their livelihoods. As for Pleo, he too returned to his routine of daily training, resuming his sessions in Mosca's Dojo under Team Traveler's guidance as if the raid never happened...
"Come on, Protector!"
"Yeah! Kick that pirate's butt!"
"You should try to fly! Do a barrel roll!"
... except his routine back then didn't involve Nida's three older siblings cheering him on. Or being on the battlefield at the far end of the Dojo that had been deliberately built away from any nearby shacks. Or getting burning hot embers being blown at him. Or sparring with a former pirate the team had dubbed 'Elty' (or 'Eltenios' as the Growlithe occasionally insisted) who was blowing said embers at him. They also most certainly didn't involve said Growlithe running circles around the young Protector of Tromba Island. Perhaps it wasn't such a normal routine, Pleo thought as he whirled around after Elty and spat up a glowing ball from his mouth.
"Just because you're sparring alone now doesn't mean that I'm going to be going any easier!" the Growlithe barked. The orange dog sidestepped the glowing ball, which sailed on until it struck an barely-visible barrier of light being held in place by a Golduck.
The ball imploded with a flash of light and the barrier dissipated, the Golduck muttered something under her breath about "Mosca oughta help him with his accuracy." The creature then swiftly switched places with a Staryu, who formed a barrier to replace the one that Pleo had broken.
As the young sea guardian and his sparring partner continued their fray, a certain Druddigon and Nidoran cast wary glances at the Hawlucha overseeing this match. The two noting and growing a bit concerned at the raptor's visible nonchalance towards the events on the field.
"Erm… Mosca? Are you sure this is a good idea?" Crom asked as he gave a subconscious beat to his wings. Pleo did seem like he was taking a harsher beating on the field than was healthy for the young Lugia.
"Now, now, one-on-one sparring is an important skill to develop," the Dojo Maestra replied to the young Druddigon.
"Yeah, but against Elty?" Nida protested. The Nidoran hopped up and down and waved her arms to try and grab the Dojo leader's attention.
"Oh?"
"Kiran's off running an errand! I'm just saying, I'd be more comfortable if we were in there to help smack him around again," Nida piped. Which for a short moment caused the Growlithe on the field to stop and wheel around towards the direction of his spectating teammates.
"Oi! Just because your leader's making me serve as a punching bag here doesn't mean I'm not on your team, you know!" he growled indignantly. "Why, I'm even wearing your same dippy blue scarf now!"
"Oh trust me, this old bird can keep him in check if it comes to that," Mosca quietly reassured. "No Pokémon walks away unfazed from Mosca's Plancha Voladora!"
"And we're here, too!" a purple spike ball proudly declared, puffing his spikes out.
"Yeah, if we have to, we'll make that mutt see stars!" another blue Nidoran added.
"Dorin? Ani? Don't you have work right now?" Nida grumbled, frowning and flattening out her ears.
"We're all en recreo!" another male Nidoran cheered.
The chatter among the Nidoran was quickly interrupted by a cry from Pleo on the other end of the field, as he once again cast a glowing ball from the back of his throat.
"Hah!"
Only for the Growlithe to weave around the orb again, if narrowly enough for the ball to graze his pelt. It was an experience that couldn't help but frustrate Pleo. Elty hadn't been this slippery when in earlier fights with Nida and Crom's help, so why was he suddenly so much better at avoiding things when it was just against himself?
"H-Hey! Stop moving around like that!" Pleo squawked.
"For you to land a free hit? As if!" Elty taunted, taking a moment to wave his tail at Pleo's face.
"You want a piece of this? Chodź i weź to!"
"Alright, fine then!" Pleo snapped as he took off running for his sparring partner. The Growlithe rolled his eyes and exhaled another red-hot clump of cinders at the approaching bird, only to be stunned to see the bird rise above the glint of fire into the air.
Which was quickly followed by Pleo beginning to wobble and then come tumbling down with a crash… on top of the little orange dog.
Nida and Crom winced as the sound of a loud yelp reverberated across the battlefield. Pleo for his part seemed to have his wind sucked out of him; he caught his breath from on top of his mostly-obscured opponent as Nida's siblings chattered excitedly.
"Nice one!"
"Yeah, you flattened him!"
"Ooh! Why that's just like mi Plancha Voladora! Well done, Pleo!" Mosca cheered. The Dojo's Maestra was pleasantly surprised. Why the Protector seemed to have a shared fancy for how to pin annoying opponents! … if with some rather visible weaknesses in his form.
"Try and put more oomph into it next time, though!" she called out.
"Uhm… But-" Pleo stammered sheepishly. "I meant to fly down and do that glowing ball thing, tho-"
Before Pleo could finish explaining what his awkward tackle was meant to be, his ears were suddenly filled with a harsh, snarling roar from beneath him.
"GET OFF OF ME!" the Growlithe bellowed. The ear-splitting racket making Pleo flinch and calmly and quietly get off of his opponent.
"A-Aaah!"
Oh, who was he kidding? Pleo couldn't think of many things at that moment other than that he desperately wanted to be anywhere but where that dreadful-sounding voice was coming from. He broke away, running as fast as his legs could carry him… Straight into an unseen wall.
"Gwark!"
Pleo recoiled and rubbed his head to find that he had struck one of the barriers maintained by the Pokémon manning the fringes of the battlefield. Its owner, a Glaceon, immediately responded with "I'm so sorry, Protector!" and a litany of profuse apologies before he abruptly recoiled and jumped back.
Before Pleo could ask what was wrong, he was cut off by a burning pain along his back. He looked behind himself and saw that a large blotch of his feathers along his spine had been singed. As Pleo flailed around, beating out cinders that stubbornly clung to life, he indignantly called out to their maker.
"Aagh! H-Hey! You can't just breathe fire on me like that! You roared in my ears!"
"Sure I can," Elty retorted, scoffing at the young Lugia. "I scared you off. You let your guard down. I burned you. Simple as that."
"What?!" Pleo shouted, growing rather cross with this sparrer who seemed to take every chance to attack him while he was down. Frustrations which the extra Nidoran on the side were keen to echo.
"Boo!" the purple Nidoran known as 'Dorin' hissed, fanning his barbs out.
The faint sound of a pebble glancing off the backside of one of the barriers reverberated, followed closely by a growling "Way to be cheap!" from the blue Nidoran called 'Ani'.
"Pleo! You need to play at his own game!" Crom called out from the side and over the voices of the Nidoran. Pleo stopped on the field to tilt his head towards the Druddigon, what did Crom mean by 'playing at his own game'?
"Huh-? Hey-YEOW!"
Pleo saw Elty coming with teeth bared from the corner of his vision, and reflexively tried to pull his wing away from him. But alas, he was not fast enough to prevent Elty from clamping his jaws down onto a mouthful of his wing.
"Hey! I was explaining something to him!" Crom fumed, before Elty unclamped his jaw to respond… and spit out a few feathers from his mouth.
"Not my problem!"
"There!" Nida cried. "While his guard's down, Pleo!"
"While my-?"
As soon as Elty began, he found himself sailing headlong towards one of the sidelines on a stiff, unrelenting gust of wind which took him off of his feet. He bonked his head on a translucent panel erected by a Gloom and fell to the ground with a yelp.
"A-agh! What was-?!" the Growlithe cried out. His yelps were then answered by a voice that, while tired and fatigued, sounded rather frustrated.
"Stop being mean!"
Elty heard some Pokémon from behind him moving away. As he stumbled to his feet, he immediately understood why when he saw a quickly moving glowing ball headed directly for him.
"Aw kurczę-"
In the blink of an eye, the ball struck the hapless Growlithe, flinging him through the vacated gap where the Gloom and her partner had been. The hapless dog sailed across a roofed walkway and into the wall of a hut with a thud. Gravity then took over and dropped Elty to the ground along his flank, leaving him to moan stunned for a moment...
"O-ow…"
… as the audience of Nidoran on the sidelines continued to trade commentary.
"Ooh, harsh."
"That's gonna leave a mark."
"I think that we've gone far enough and damaged enough property for one day to declare a victor," Mosca hastily interjected. Between the winded and scowling Lugia on the field, the Growlithe groaning next to the Dojo hut, and the visible dent hut's wall, it was hard to argue with the Hawlucha.
Or at least it was until Elty took a moment for the Maestra's words to register.
"H-Huh?!" the Growlithe exclaimed, springing to his feet swiftly but uneasily. "But I'm still able to-!"
"As cathartic as it is to watch you get blown around the room, Elty... you can't exactly carry out your community service if you're passed out for half the day," Nida chided. If nothing else, she had to quietly concede that the former pirate was candid about something. Even when it wasn't sensible, he really didn't ever give up.
"Besides, if you're conscious, you'll be able to work on getting a little less tubby!" Crom added.
"Grr… I could've turned things around though!" the Growlithe fumed, flattening out his ears as made his way back towards Pleo onto the battlefield. "And it's fur, not fat!"
"Enough. The match is over," Mosca scolded. "Shake claws and then let's get you both healed up."
Pleo didn't really want to shake with Elty, and judging from the glare the Growlithe had on his face as the two walked to each other, it seemed like Elty didn't particularly want to either. But this was just sparring, and if it was right to give one to Gwenith after a heated fight… maybe it was right to give Elty one too, he guessed.
After the two gave each other a begrudging shake, they made their way back towards Mosca and their waiting teammates. The Pokémon that kept the barriers up around the battlefield headed off for a break from work and Nida's siblings darted off for the exit back to their work with a shared refrain of "Whelp, show's over." Mosca quickly summoned Pleo over to her side where she had set out a bowl of water for him to drink from as she inspected him for wounds. Elty went towards another bowl laid out a short distance away and began to lap up its contents when he noticed a blue spike ball approaching him with an Oran Berry.
"Oi. What do you think you're doing?" he growled.
"Um... Hello? Treating the wounds you picked up?" Nida replied, dropping her Oran Berry by her paws and nudging it forward to emphasize her intentions.
"Look, I might not be a smart Pokémon, but I'm pretty sure that a poisonous little spike ball like you is the last thing that I need around my wounds!"
"Do you want to be miserable and wait your turn for healing?" Nida grumbled, the Nidoran rolling her eyes a bit at her new teammate's intransigence.
"It's alright, Nida," Crom offered. "I actually need some first aid practice myself!"
"See? Someone more qualified is here already!" Elty declared, taking the opportunity to stick his tongue out. Nida looked at Elty, then over at Crom, and then back to Elty. She supposed Crom might have gotten better at healing since the last time that Kiran had him care for someone on the team, but...
"Um… Crom..."
"I think I've seen Kiran do this enough times to know how it works now," Crom replied with a cheery grin.
"Ow!"
Aha, Mosca must have found some wounds to use that Oran Berry from the team bag on after all. The clamor of Pleo's cries out from a little ways down the hall couldn't help but make Nida turn her head towards the sound. She caught sight of Pleo just in time to wince and shift his wings a bit from the aftereffects of the berry's juice, and to see Mosca set the blue fruit's pulp before him.
"You heard him," Elty barked. "Go and talk with the feather duster or something."
"Whatever, it's your body, Elty," Nida sighed. She hopped off over to Pleo's side just as he started to pick at the leftover Oran pulp and Mosca went over to inspect the damage from Elty's rough landing.
"Hey, the Oran Berry wasn't too hard on you, was it?" the Nidoran asked.
"It feels much better when it's going into my tummy than onto me."
"Heh, they're weird like that, yeah," Nida replied, before she was abruptly interrupted by a certain Growlithe's voice crying out.
"Gah! What are you doing to me?!"
"I'm trying to find your wounds!" a young Druddigon-turned-impromptu-healer reassured. Sounded like Crom hadn't improved that much from last time based off of that start.
"Is Elty okay?" Pleo asked, his earlier frustrations with the Growlithe subsiding a bit as he flinched at the sound of the dog's yelps.
"Eh, he asked for it. I'm sure that he'll be happy enough with his choice of a healer."
Nida sighed at the Growlithe's stubbornness. Perhaps in the future he'd be a little less hesitant to trust his teammates' advice.
"Elty wasn't too hard on you out there, was he?"
"He kept on attacking me even when I wasn't ready!" Pleo chirped indignantly, pouting a bit at how Elty had so persistently dogged him throughout the entire session.
"Well, I won't say anything about his attitude," Mosca interrupted as she returned from surveying the damage from the match. "But he wasn't doing anything wrong in helping you train."
"He… wasn't?" Pleo asked, tilting his head as Elty continued being preoccupied with his, erm… First aid?
"Argh! You're scraping me!"
"Stop squirming!" Crom huffed as he attempted to pin the wriggling Growlithe in place on the dog's flank. "I need to apply the berry!"
"Oh boy… Looks like I'll have someone else to tend to," Mosca muttered under her breath. The Hawlucha stared a moment at Crom's fumbling attempts at treating wounds, before she turned back to address the young Protector. "Well, remember when you first fought him? Were any of you really worrying about if the other side was ready or not?"
"I... don't remember anyone worrying about it," Pleo replied. Though really, who was supposed to worry about that when the 'other side' was trashing the town?
"Recall that the whole point of sparring is to prepare you for battles where you can't retreat," Mosca explained. "Part of that is also preparing for things you might encounter in those battles. Even if they aren't necessarily very fair."
"I guess I understand… But he seemed like he was enjoying it too much!" Pleo squawked as Elty's voice rang out again.
"Why are you holding a clawful of my fur?!" he cried out, turning his head up from the ground.
And true enough, Crom was holding a clump of Elty's fur, which he set aside.
"Well, I couldn't get the berry to touch your hide, so I just needed get some of your fur out of the way. Look, I'm almost done. I think there's just a couple more scrapes for me to get to-"
"Get away from me!" the orange dog yelped as he sprang to his feet.
"I think the universe might have agreed with you a little there, but even so, be gracious," Mosca replied as Elty bolted away from his 'healer'. Nida tried and mostly failed to stifle a giggle as this former brigand was put on the run by an attempt at healing of all things.
"Crom? Maybe you should let me take over," the Hawlucha instructed.
"Yes, please!" Elty cried out.
"Oh? But I just started!" Crom protested as Mosca started tending to the Growlithe who was all too eager to sidle up and wait on her assistance. On the other hand, it wouldn't make sense to protest too much... It was one less task to do, he guessed. Meanwhile, Nida observed that Pleo continued to be troubled.
"Hmm," he sighed.
"Is something else bugging you, Pleo?" the Nidoran asked. After all, he seemed satisfied enough with Mosca's explanation earlier… So then what could be bothering him now?
"It's not something that Elty did, it's just that- Well... Kiran says that I need to practice flying… but I also need to practice sparring. So I tried to do both today, and-"
"Hey! I'm back!" a chirping voice interrupted.
Its owner swooped in in a blue and red blur. After circling around the courtyard to slow a bit, the speaker alighted on a railing along the corridor, revealing himself to be the Swellow leader of Team Traveler. After taking a moment to shake out his plumage, Kiran bent his neck down to talk with his younger teammates from his perch.
"How'd sparring go?" he asked.
"Harrumph! Elty needs to learn how to make up his mind!" Crom growled, shooting a dirty look at the Growlithe. "First he tells me that he wants me to heal him, and then he takes off on me before I even got started!"
"Well excuse me for expecting someone who could treat my wounds without putting me through agony!" the Growlithe replied, incensed that the creature that hurt him had the gall to be the one to complain first.
"Er… Crom... you did mention to him that you're still going through first aid training beforehand, right?" Kiran sighed after hearing the argument between the Druddigon and the Growlithe.
"Wait, what?!" Elty cried, as his expression hardened into an exasperated scowl that seemed to be doing its hardest to all but bore through Crom's hide.
"Why are you looking at me like that? You never asked!" the Druddigon protested.
"You really didn't, Elty," Nida added.
As Elty grumbled a little under his breath, Kiran then turned to the only Pokémon on his team who hadn't said a word to him so far about sparring.
"What about you, Pleo?"
"Well, I guess it wasn't too bad, but..." Pleo said as he shuffled his wings uneasily. "Kiran? Why is flying so hard?"
The question took Kiran aback as he all but fell off of his perch on the railing. "Eh?! Mosca already moved you onto airborne sparring?!" he squawked in surprise.
"Wait, she did? But I thought I was just sparring with Elty," Pleo mumbled, now rather confused. Mosca was supposed to teach him flying while he was sparring too?
"He tried to get airborne in the middle of today's match," Nida explained. "And… Well, he didn't quite stay off the ground too long."
"Hey, it's not all bad! He pinned Elty nicely once he came down!" Crom added as he mimed Pleo's earlier dropping tackle onto the Growlithe, who rolled his eyes out of annoyance.
"I see," Kiran mulled to himself as he hopped down to hallway's floor.
"Wait, what were you doing away from the Dojo today anyways?" Pleo asked with a curious tilt to his head.
"Oh, I told Hatteras about the trouble you've been having flying, Pleo, and you're not going to believe this!"
"Huh? What did he say?" Pleo asked.
"He pulled a few strings to get you on your wings faster with Melissa's help! Why, you just might be flying by sundown!" Kiran exclaimed, beating out his wings excitedly. It was a revelation that made Pleo hop into the air and mimic his team's leader in celebration.
"Yay! That's awesome! But… Who's Melissa?"
Kiran answered the question quickly enough as the team made their way out of the Dojo and through the town, even if it was one that Pleo couldn't quite wrap his head around. Apparently 'Melissa' was an odd little bird who had a talent for helping other Pokémon to learn moves.
Melissa's shop was surprisingly easy to find; part of it was because the shop was one of the few buildings on its path that wasn't in dire need of repairs. The other part of it was that the shop was... in a word, strange.
Unlike any of the other structures Pleo saw in Bluewhorl so far, the walls of Melissa's shop were composed entirely of mismatched and various-sized stone cubes. The stone blocks were fitted haphazardly here and there, glued together with something that looked like silt. Along the top of the walls, bits of undyed canvas poked out horizontally from in between stone, apparently the building's roof. The doorway and windows, if they could be called that, were empty spaces with erratic fringes as the cubes jutted in and out of where a straight-ish contour would usually be. The only remotely normal features of the doors and windows were the plain, drab pieces of canvas that covered them from the inside, listing with the movement of the wind.
It made the younger Pokémon on Team Traveler wonder… Just what was Melissa going to do to Pleo?
"So… Melissa's a 'move tutor'?" Pleo asked. The Lugia couldn't help bob his head side to side scanning along the peculiar building, mesmerized with the stone cubes in the wall.
"Uh huh! Uh huh! She's supposed to help Pokémon learn moves they normally couldn't with the help of tee-yems!" Crom replied, before he put a claw to his mouth and continued on in a more puzzled tone. "Although... some of them are called eych-ehms for some reason or another."
"'Tee-yems'?"
"I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be magical plates that were created back in the days of the old gods," Nida added as she took a moment to scratch an ear with a paw. "Or at least I'm pretty sure they're magic since I don't know what 'dee-yenay baioh-dehta' is supposed to be otherwise."
A 'dee-'? A what now? Pleo thought to himself that for the first time, this 'dee-ehn'... Whatever thingy seemed to be a word that Nida didn't know for herself, which only made him more confused and left him staring blankly at his partner.
"Huh?"
"It's what Melissa says they're made out of," Kiran explained. "The plates are supposed to be made of a material containing the essence of life and have some sort of spell for learning a move that was written on them."
"Wait, so this place… Is full of tee-yems?" Elty asked, as a devious grin began to creep over his muzzle. They were peculiar things and supposedly useless in the paws of most Pokémon. But, in his former line of work, they would reward anyone who was lucky enough to nab one with a princely sum. And from the sound of it, his old compatriots had somehow missed this veritable treasure trove!
"They wouldn't by chance miss one, would they?"
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't think that I can't see that smirk on your mug!" a chittering voice from within cried out.
The voice's owner quickly stormed out, revealing himself to be a glowering Corphish. The red and white crustacean was quickly joined by a young Tropius- the daughter of a certain Tropius apple farmer out on the fringes, the more seasoned members of Team Traveler guessed.
"For the record, all of the discs in here are labeled already," she huffed. "If you tried to walk off with one, everyone else in Bluewhorl would know it came from here!"
"And we would get your sorry pirate bum punted off to the Wastes afterwards if you stole from here like your buddies tried to!" the Corphish hissed as he clicked and flailed his claws angrily.
"Alright! Alright! I get it!" Elty hastily corrected as he bounded back behind Crom. "It was just a question!"
As Nida and Crom rolled their eyes at Elty's transparent excuse, Pleo blinked back at the two other creatures with confusion.
"Wait, which of you is 'Melissa'?"
"Neither of them are," a strange, droning voice from within chirped. "Those are my assistants, Bracket and Patricia."
The droning voice came out and revealed itself to be a bird quite unlike any others the gathered Pokémon could think of. She was a pink creature with a teal beak, tail, underbelly, and a pink body. In lieu of the more expected limbs a bird might have, Melissa had nubby triangular things in place of wings and moved about by floating to and fro above the ground. The creature's flesh, if it could be called that, was firm and angular, as if she was a giant lantern folded from some curious type of paper.
"I am Melissa. Move Tutor and- DOGGY!"
The Porygon abruptly chirped and gestured excitedly at Elty with her beak, much to the Growlithe's surprise.
"Eh?! What's with you?!" he cried out, as the Porygon floated back and attempted to recompose herself.
"Apologies, residual subroutines… As I was saying, I am Melissa, Move Tutor and Sentient Advanced Variable Virtual Interface. Bracket, Patricia, please be dear moderators and lead our guests in," the creature chimed, as she returned to the inside of the stone building.
The Corphish and Tropius began to follow after the creature and beckoned Team Traveler to follow. The house seemed every bit as unusual inside as out. The roof was composed of canvas partitions that laid on a cross-hatched grid of rope, such that they could be taken down whenever Melissa desired. The receiving room was furnished with naught but some canvas on the floor and some stone cubes of different sizes. Crom and Nida couldn't immediately tell what any of the furnishings were for; perhaps the agglomeration was supposed to be some sort of rug paired with stools or small tables?
"My internal subconscious processes are being regulated by SilphOS version . Though not for much longer if Team Sawtooth finds me an Up-Grade soon," the creature carried on in a peculiar if recognizably congenial tone. The strange bird bobbed up and down off the ground giving her "wings" a small twist before she turned her attention to the Swellow in the group.
"So what brings you here today, Kiran?"
"Yeah, I can't remember the last time you ever came by here," Patricia added.
"Hatteras said you would be able to teach Pleo a move to help him learn how to fly?" the Swellow asked, as he dug out a slip of folded paper from his bag, uncreased it on the ground, and presented to the Porygon with his beak. "He even gave me a voucher for one of your lessons to use it on."
Pleo stared at the slip of paper as Melissa sized it up. He still couldn't fully understand what the runes on it, this 'writing', were supposed to mean. Pleo was sure it was just there to be pretty and decorative when he first saw it, but everyone else was adamant that it was a form of talking for the eyes. Why, none of the patterns on the slip of paper looked anything like the ones that Nida and Crom had shown him earlier.
"Hmm… Yes, the organization is a bit sloppy, but my image processing routine can confirm that this is indeed a valid voucher. As for a move to fly… Let me run a quick internal query," the Move Tutor said as her eyes seemed to wander.
"I detected four potential results excluding duplicates. Information from prior queries suggests that the most requested result for this query was HM02," the pink and blue bird answered, bobbing her tail in triumph. "The most common associated applications for HM02's use are battle and endurance flight."
"That sounds perfect!" Kiran chirped, all but taking to the air out of excitement. "We'll take that one!"
"So… You're going to teach me to read 'dee-yenay baioh-dehta'?" Pleo asked the young Tropius, tilting his head.
"Oh no, silly. You wouldn't be doing the reading," the Tropius explained as her shorter counterpart ducked into a back room.
"Yeah!" Bracket added before darting out, holding the edges of some tablet with his claws. "Good luck trying to make sense of this!"
The Corphish presented the contents of his claws to Pleo, which Nida, Crom, and Elty quietly walked over to snoop in on for themselves. The tablet was a clear substance that looked like some sort of glass, though felt less smooth and cold to the touch. The tablet appeared to have two hinges or bindings, almost as if it were a book bound on both sides, and had apparently developed some cracks on its "covers" through the ages. In spite of all of that, the fragile little volume seemed to do its part in protecting a reflective circle with a hole in it that was there in lieu of pages.
"It's a mirror?" Pleo asked.
"Nope," the Corphish answered he as moved the translucent tablet nearer. "Look closer."
The four looked and looked, and after a while, Crom, always the team member with one of the keener visions, blinked as he noticed something amiss with this 'tee-yem'.
"Eh? Why there's rings on the outer and inner edges!" the young Druddigon cried out. "So that's what the spell is written on?"
"Er… sorta," Bracket burbled as he handed the disc off to Patricia, who clamped gently down on a corner of the volume. "Most of the writing is supposed to be on teeny little dots that are too small for any of us to see, or at least that's what Melissa says."
"Yeah, and on top of that, the writing needs to be interpreted properly," Patricia added as she beat out her wings, the case muffling her words. " If it isn't done just right, it's downright useless!"
"But then how on earth is anyone supposed to read writing on tiny invisible dots?" Elty barked, giving a puzzled frown to the Tropius and Corphish.
"That is where I come in," Melissa droned. "Every properly-functioning Porygon instance contains data IO capabilities, including an interface for biodata mass storage."
"Basically, she'll read the disc for you, and teach you how to get started," Patricia explained in a cheery tone. "All you need to do is follow instructions."
"Please come in to the tutoring chamber so we can get started, Protector," Melissa instructed. The Porygon began to float off into a chamber next to a window with a canvas shutter before gesturing with her beak at Elty. "Bracket, please ensure the extraneous variable in the group doesn't cause any problems coming into the room."
"What's that supposed to- Gack!" the Growlithe cried out, as he found his head being drug towards the ground by Bracket, who had clamped on firmly onto his scarf.
"Way ahead of you, Melissa," the Corphish chirped in response as the group headed into the chamber. As the crustacean dragged him along, Elty grumbled quietly all the while at the indignity of having to be led around like a troublesome pup.
"Ugh… Is this really necessary?"
Team Traveler entered a chamber dominated by two cube-shaped seats, each directly opposite the other. Melissa settled down next to the one further from the door, coming to a rest on her side as Kiran and his teammates traded blank looks with each other.
"Please take the other seat while my attendants prepare me for the reading, Protector," Melissa instructed.
"Prepare you?" Nida asked, tilting her head at just what a teacher would need to prepare for reading some words.
"She goes into a bit of a trance while teaching," Patricia explained as she trotted over to Melissa, still holding the tablet Bracket showed off to Team Traveler earlier.
"Yeah, so she needs help both getting into it and out of it," Bracket explained as he drug Elty over to Kiran's side by the Growlithe's scarf. The Corphish then let go and skittered over to Melissa. When he reached the Porygon, he felt along her underbelly, seemingly in search of something.
"While I am in Data Read Mode, please sit in the designated space and do not leave it until I return to normal operations," Melissa droned.
"O- kay..." Pleo answered. The little Lugia settled down and tried his hardest to stifle the urge to move about, to look around, to preen himself, or to do any of the things that a young bird normally would.
"And don't interrupt him!" Bracket added in an adamant tone. "Move Tutoring only works on one Pokémon at a time! If you butt in, it could ruin the session!"
"Understood. But…" Crom trailed off in a curious tone. "What exactly is Melissa going to do?"
"Yeah, sounds like one heck of a trance," Nida murmured, as she began to grow concerned. Elty on the other hand gave an unamused huff, still annoyed about being drug along into the room by a little mud bug shorter than he was.
"Pbbt, as if we'd want to interrupt! Just how far do you expect any of us to fly?"
There was then the sound of a faint click after Patricia made a motion along Melissa's underside, and of something whining inorganically as what seemed to be a hatch opened. Bracket then grabbed the tablet, fiddled a little with its orientation a little… And slid it into the hatch with a click before Patricia closed it.
"Eh?! You put the tee-yem in her!" Pleo cried out, as the pupils on Melissa's eyes faded and she began to drone in a monotone.
"External Disc detected. Entering Data Read Mode. Detecting External Disc encoding."
"Oh, that's not creepy at all," Elty yipped, his fur beginning to stand on end. Nida too, couldn't help but be unnerved by this sudden change in demeanor in what, just moments ago, was the cheery Move Tutor.
"M-Melissa?" she stammered, as the Nidoran fanned out her barbs… Just in case.
"Are you okay-?" Crom asked, before Bracket interrupted.
"That's her trance. It'll start getting into the good stuff shortly, so just stay still, Protector," the Corphish chittered. Bracket and his Tropius partner eased Melissa up onto the vacant stone cube and righted her, pointing Melissa's beak at Pleo. The vacant look persisted in her eyes as the Porygon continued her monotone.
"Hidden Machine detected. Biodata is unlearnable by this Porygon instance. Do you wish to tutor another Pokémon?"
"Yes," Bracket chirped.
"Command accepted. Booting Move Tutor Routine. Starting Biocompatibility Analysis."
A light shot out from it and moved up and down the young Protector, who was at once mesmerized and mildly intimidated by the experience. It was then that a voice called from the doorway.
"Ahem. Kiran?"
"Hmm-? Oh!" the Swellow turned and discovered that, much to his surprise, it was none other than Guildmaster Hatteras. Or Mayor, or Judge, or Lighthouse Keeper, as the time and scarf dictated. The wizened Ampharos of many trades was a steadfast shepherd for Bluewhorl Town through its trials and tribulations, but what had brought him here?
"While Pleo's being tutored, might I see you for a moment?" he asked. He quickly qualified his request after seeing Nida, Crom, and Elty creeping for the door. "In private, that is."
"Um… Sure?" the Swellow replied. Kiran's words caused a disappointed look pass over the faces of his teammates. There would be no escape from watching this most peculiar and chilling magic that Melissa was practicing in the room, it seemed. The three sighed and resigned themselves to sitting through the rest of Melissa's session close to the door. Just in case, they figured, so that Kiran could come to their aid quicker if something went amiss with the Porygon's magic.
As Kiran followed the Ampharos out of the room, he could hear Melissa droning "Biocompatibility Analysis Complete. Target compatible." She then asked some sort of question that Kiran couldn't make out that the Corphish affirmed. A few more mechanical-sounding words resounded from the next room, including what Kiran swore was "Beginning biodata transfer." For a fleeting moment before he crossed the doorway, Kiran saw an arcing and waving blue light shoot from Melissa's beak and connect with Pleo.
Kiran took a moment to collect himself and involuntarily ruffle his feathers. Safe as it was, he was unable to dispel the nagging sensation that he shouldn't be leaving his younger charges all alone in the room as Melissa's eerie rite droned on.
"You had something you wanted to do out here?" the Swellow chirped reluctantly.
"Well, I did overhear that Pleo received a little keepsake a few days ago… A King's Rock, I think?" the Ampharos cheerily asked.
"Hmm? You mean this?" Kiran asked, before he dug into his bag with his beak and pulled out a stone, crown-like ring.
"Yep! I was hoping to make it into something for Pleo… a lucky charm, you might call it," Hatteras replied. The Ampharos took the stone ring from Kiran, untied some cord he had fastened about the knot on his scarf, and began to thread the cord through the stone ring. As the Ampharos closed the loop little by little, motions of his paws progressively betrayed an uneasy tenseness in the creature.
"Guildmaster Hatteras… You didn't really call me out here just to watch you make a fashion accessory, did you?" Kiran asked.
"No, I can't say that I did," the Ampharos bleated as he peeked over at Pleo in the next room and adjusted the cord in between his paws. The Ampharos hesitated a moment before he began to speak again.
"In terms of things on the island, things are going well… Or at least as well as we could have hoped with recent events," he said as he formed a knot with the cord and tightened it. "And Pleo has been making admirable progress for someone starting from a total vacuum of experience."
Kiran gave a perplexed tilt to his head. Why, everything that Hatteras had said so far sounded like good news!
"Then what is the problem?" he asked.
"I'm afraid that as fast as Pleo has been progressing towards awakening his true power... That he might be running out of time," the Ampharos sighed, as he rubbed his brow with a free paw.
"Running out of time?" Kiran squawked and beat his wings out of surprise. "How? It's not as if he'd need to worry about keeling over overnight!"
The Swellow quickly became mum after he saw Hatteras motion for quiet. It would defeat the purpose of a private conversation if the kids could just overhear it all, but… What was the electric sheep getting at?
"On his own, time surely would not be an issue. But what with that Aggron, or one of his better-prepared friends..." Hatteras said as he slipped the newly crafted necklace into Kiran's bag. The Ampharos shook his head, and the expression on his old face became increasingly serious.
"On top of all that, we have at most a matter of months before the Company comes after the next harvest. And that's assuming that they don't come beforehand for whatever pretext their overseers have thought of."
"But Guildmaster, Pleo fought off a pirate captain!" Kiran replied in a hushed tone, spreading his wings to convey his surprise in lieu of running his beak off. "I don't understand what the problem you're getting at is!"
"The problem is, Kiran. Pleo fought that pirate captain off using his true power. We don't know if Pleo will be able to draw out that power if we wind up in such straits again. And worse, if he finds himself in such straits."
Kiran caught himself and froze. That… was a rather good point that Hatteras made. Why, if Pleo's power hadn't been awakened as it was during the raid, he would have been knocked out just as easily as his teammates were. And, if the Aggron were a little less foolishly preoccupied with that shrine bell…
Why, he could have kidnapped Tromba's Protector! And gods know where Pleo might have ended up after that.
Kiran shook his head, hoping to dispel that dark fantasy from his mind.
"What do you propose then, Guildmaster?" he asked.
"To discover whether there's some way that Pleo can draw out his true power reliably. Or at least reliably in the circumstances where he would most need it," Hatteras replied. It was a suggestion that immediately took Kiran aback with a cry.
"Eh?! You're not suggesting that I put him in harm's-!"
"I'm suggesting that we need to find a way push up against the boundaries as much as it's safe," Hatteras interrupted. The Ampharos' serious expression held firm and now began to show shades of adamance as he continued on. "To see if whether or not our strategy should be to put Pleo at the vanguard of the town in troublesome times…
"Or if our strategy should be to make ourselves his vanguard in such times for the foreseeable future."
"But how can we do that?" Kiran demanded. "I mean, if we organized a mock pirate raid… If we succeeded at drawing out Pleo's power, wouldn't we put the volunteers in danger?"
"You think a little too grand in scale, Kiran. There's something that's more controllable that we could use to test him. Something that two rookies of yours have been waiting for a while now."
Something that two rookies of his had been waiting for? The Swellow scratched his head blankly for a moment, just what could Nida and Crom be looking forward to that could possibly-? Wait! Surely Hatteras wasn't referring to...
"Eh?! You want to send Pleo into the Mystery Dungeon?!" he whispered back, shocked.
"Along with your rookies on a solo run, yes," the Guildmaster replied. "You would obviously be shadowing them with some help in case anything went wrong, and the teleporters would be monitoring their presence closely."
"But he's younger than most of the kids at Hariti's!" Kiran protested, flapping his wings.
"And in spite of that, he has already delivered this town once," Hatteras quietly reminded the team leader. "Surely that's grounds for making an exception, yes?"
"I mean," the Swellow mumbled, trailing off a bit. Hatteras did have a point. Even if Pleo was young enough to be in the Day Care, he definitely had contributed more to its defense than anyone else from it had at his age. "I guess it would have been a matter of time for Nida and Crom but... Surely there's another way this could be done, isn't there?"
Hatteras sighed and gave his head a slow, sad shake as he found himself looking at the floor.
"It is the best that I can think of, Kiran. For all these generations, we've been taught that the gods were bigger than us. That they knew more, that they were stronger, that all that they needed in order to protect and bless this island were a few gifts and adoring words every so often… we never realized that there would be a time when they would need to be protected by Pokémon like us.
"If there is some better way of doing this, it's not in the books," the Ampharos said, as he shifted his head to meet Kiran's gaze. "I won't blame you if you refuse to undertake this, but... The stakes are both high and real here, and waiting only will raise them."
There was a long, dead silence in the room, punctuated only by Melissa's continued droning and some indistinct chatter from the rest of Team Traveler in the background. Eventually, Kiran made up his mind, and spoke.
"I'll do it. On the condition that Pleo's made aware that he's being sent into the Mystery Dungeon to test himself."
"I see. I'll let you get back to your little lambs… and your muzzled wolf for the time being," Hatteras replied. The Ampharos gave a passing nod, and then quietly walked out the door of the peculiar hut composed of stone cubes and back out into Bluewhorl.
As the Ampharos' footsteps faded away, Kiran headed back for the room where the rest of the team was, just in time to see the arcing light between Pleo and Melissa vanish.
"Biodata transfer complete. Terminating Move Tutor Routine. Please eject disc to exit Data Read Mode," the Porygon continued in her monotone. As Bracket and Patricia quickly went over to fetch their employer from her seat and set her on the ground on her side again, Pleo gave his wings a thorough series of beats. To get his blood flowing, Kiran surmised, as he and his teammates went up to see just what had Melissa's handicraft had done.
"Wait, Pleo… Do you feel any different?" Crom asked. The question prompted the young Protector to inspect his body and pat himself down… Nope, he felt just like same old him from a few minutes ago.
"I don't see or feel anything that's different," Pleo responded
"Well of course he wouldn't, it's a move!" Elty barked.
"Heh, so tutoring went well, I take it?" Kiran questioned in a cheerful, if slightly forced, tone.
"Mmm hmm! Mmm hmm!" Patricia insisted, as she looked up from Melissa while holding the disc from earlier. The pink bird was now moving her appendages again and the vacant stare left the Porygon's eyes. The sight made the Swellow's expectations soar as he turned to the white and blue Protector.
"Well, let's see it!" he cried excitedly to Pleo as Melissa floated over, seemingly unfazed by her strange episode earlier.
"Jump after taking a moment to breathe in and focus, Protector," she instructed.
Pleo hunched down, tensed his legs, and after a short wait, sprung up… Finding that he could now reach the canvas roof with his hop.
"Whoa!" he cried. He was finally so high in the air, he began to flap his wings, and… This was it! He was flying!
"Wow! I'm flying! I'm fly-!"
Or at least that's what he thought for the few seconds before he fell out of the air. The Lugia frantically flapped his wings to no avail, only to hit the ground with a dull thud.
"Oof!"
As Pleo rubbed his head a bit from the fall and dusted himself off, Kiran turned to Melissa with an ever-so-unsubtle hint of concern in his eyes.
"Uh… Melissa, I thought you said that your tutoring would teach him how to fly…"
"My tutoring awakens the potential for using a move and gives a small foundation," the Porygon corrected. "The Protector will need to practice in order to make the most of those jumps… Let alone to be able to leverage them into flying."
"Then what was the point of all of that?!" the Swellow cried, screwing his eyes shut in frustration and beating his wings.
"Everything takes practice, Kiran," Melissa chirped. "Surely you of all Pokémon would understand that."
"Aw… So I still can't fly?" Pleo asked, disappointed.
"Not exactly," Bracket replied. "But! It should help you learn a lot faster!"
"Yeah, Pokémon that get tutored by Melissa always get the hang of their moves a lot sooner!" Patricia added.
"Let's hope." Nida sighed.
"What were you and Guildmaster Hatteras talking about out there anyways, Kiran?" Crom asked.
"Oh, he made this for you, Pleo!" Kiran cheered as he dug out the stone necklace that Hatteras fashioned out in the hallway and slipped it over Pleo's head.
"Oh! It's the 'offering' that ziggy-zaggy thingy gave me!" the young Lugia cheered.
"Uh huh! Just remember to slip it under your scarf later! It'll keep it a bit safer from the elements," Kiran chirped back, as the other Pokémon on Team Traveler scrutinized their leader.
"The sheep seriously spent all that time talking with you about a rock on a string?" Elty asked, lowering his eyelids skeptically.
"Er," the Swellow hesitated. "Well, not exactly..."
"Then what was he going on about then?" Nida pressed.
A few moments later, from the path outside, the din of daily life found itself abruptly pierced by a chorus of overjoyed cries from inside Melissa's stone hut.
"Woo hoo!"
Yes… This was going to be quite the transition. In more ways than one if the Sentret holding his ears in pain from the shout was any indication.
"Gah… I didn't know 'blowing around hot air' needed a Move Tutor to learn!"
Author's Notes:
- en recreo - Spanish: "on break"
- Chodź i weź to! - Polish: "Come and take it!"
- kurczę - Polish: lit. "chicken", general use euphemistic interjection. Analogous to saying "darn" or "crud".
