Record #4: The Luminosity

Nighttime fell quicker than Damien expected, with his focus stuck on Shinx bringing him a meal of Pecha berries back and forth before shifting to watching the crowd of Shinx that'd already had their share of berries play around. His friendly Shinx had run off to play with them too, at some point, but with an unexpected roar (which Damien nearly covered his ears to once more) by the male Luxray outside of the cave, it signaled 'bedtime' to the Shinx inside. Soon, they stopped playing and began rushing to wherever the second boulder wall within the cave hid from Damien's view.

Thus, Damien himself took it as his own signal to finally rest, having seen the moon already rise up into the sky and the cave walls around him completely turn dark. Taking off his coat, Damien laid it atop his body while resting his head on his duffel bag, deeming this to be the best replacement he'll be having to a pillow and blanket (he's certainly not going to find a bed out in the middle of the field). Yet, despite closing his eyes for the past (what Damien thought to be) a few hours, he found himself unable to sleep, wrapped up in his own thoughts.

'Why am I staying with this Luxio pride?

Rather, how can I actually be sure the Luxio would lead me somewhere?

How far away is civilization in the first place?

Even then, how would that get me home?

Am I… even getting home in the first place?'

Briefly, Damien shudders at that last thought, quickly slapping his cheeks to cut his spiral of thoughts off. Perhaps they should've already long gone through his head but, distracted by all the events that had happened earlier in the day, he truly never had the sense to think of them. Deciding he's merely wasting his own hours of sleep away if he's to logic his way out of all of them, Damien begins to do what he usually does when he has restless nights: prepare and research. It was a behavior he attained when he first started becoming his volleyball team's manager but he still hasn't lost it.

Aiming to reassure himself with the (hopefully true) fact that he had all the stuff he'd taken with him before he got sucked up into the Ultra Wormhole, Damien rubs his eyes and gets up off the cave floor before looking around for his bag. Despite not being able to see it clearly, the little gaps of moonlight that shone into the cave let Damien identify it in the night as he proceeded to drag it over onto his lap. Slowly unzipping the bag so as to not disturb his sleeping feline neighbors, Damien shifts his hands through the now-jumbled items within and lets the dim moonlight shine into his bag to make out its contents.

The first thing to catch Damien's eyes is his spare set of sportswear that lays atop everything else, having been a mess and unfolded from falling into the bush and running all day. Sighing softly at his clothing, he holds out his old team jersey, colored a navy blue with the number '14' in white, both front and back, sticking out from the rest of it. Damien's volleyball shorts and padded sleeves are similarly colored, though the padded sleeves lack the white coloring compared to the rest of the outfit. Then, folding the sportswear delicately, Damien dons an almost subdued expression before shaking his head and leaving the clothing to the side of his preoccupied legs and onto the cave floor.

Looking back into the bag, Damien notes his half-empty metal container of water and pair of black wired earbuds before pausing as he sees the few notebooks tucked to the side of the duffle bag. While a few are for school subjects and some simply never written in, most show signs of heavy use as the sides, usually depicting layers of white pages, are dusted with a dark gray and are, in general, thicker than the pages of the notebooks that remain unwritten in. Taking them out of the bag, Damien stacks them together and puts them aside, though he did flip through one of the heavily used ones as if it was an instinctual action.

After the notebooks, Damien continues to rifle through all the sparse contents in his bag and leaves them beside him. Of them, there was a clear pencil case filled to the brim with pencils, pens, highlighters, and erasers that barely fit. In a way, it oddly pairs well with the used notebooks, but the most odd of all his things was the rather thick physics textbook which Damien had to carefully stop himself from letting slam onto the floor from its weight.

'Oh… I was planning on completing the assigned classwork with it before practice. Not that it matters now. No wonder running felt harder than usual…'

Nodding in satisfaction over the confirmation that he'd still had everything he'd remembered placing within his bag, Damien blinks as he realizes something, quickly setting his duffel bag off his legs. He opens the pockets of his coat hastily, unzipping and closing them back up. A set of keys, his wallet (which upon inspection, only contained his metrocard, ID, debit card, and whatever few bills of currency that'd most likely be useless from now on), and most critically, his phone, now laid atop his coat.

While Damien had a few passing thoughts about pulling his phone out of his pocket throughout the day, such as when he'd woken up and initially entered the cave he's currently within, Damien had brushed them off and decided against the action. For one, he'd been distracted by the appearance of a Shinx to believe calling any authorities for help would help and as useful as it may be for a current source of light, and two, there was the issue of himself currently being in a den of electrically sensitive creatures and that he has no idea how much he has in battery percentage.

'I can't be sure if there'd actually be a charger that works for my phone in this universe anyway…'

If from what few stories he'd read of his current outlandish situation was to be believed, Damien also doubts his phone would be much use besides light anyway. There's likely to be some other form of internet created that's meant to actually deal with their coexistence with Pokémon and his phone certainly wasn't attuned to said form of internet. Damien sighs softly as he places his wallet, keys, and phone back into his coat pockets, undoing the entire process of having unzipped them from earlier.

Then, like clockwork, Damien reaches for his bag and settles it atop his lap once more, where he begins to replace all the items he'd taken out of it back neatly as compared to the mess it was like when he first opened it. The school textbook is first placed inside of the bag as silently as Damien could make it before the pile of notebooks are placed beside it. The pencil case is squeezed inside a small space leftover besides the books and the water bottle is placed on top of that. Before Damien's sportswear could be set onto the books however, Damien feels the undeniable rumble of his phone that he hadn't felt all day.

For a moment, Damien falters at the unexpected 'ping' sound that came from his phone that followed, nearly dropping his sportswear. Luckily not being so startled to cause Damien to slam his hand onto the cave floor (as he knew he could've and would definitely be in pain from), he takes a breath in, finally placing his sportswear onto the duffle bag before he opens his pocket where his phone is. Reaching in, Damien feels for his phone's off-button, but he pauses, his finger sliding off of it instead as a thought is brought to his mind.

'Wouldn't looking at that notification be important?'

At least, Damien assumed it was a notification; the rumble and slight light he could see coming from his phone let him deduce such. Plus, while this may be some far-off opinion, it may very well also be some message from… Arceus? It certainly wouldn't do Damien favors to ignore it, especially if it gave him answers to however an Ultra Wormhole appeared.

'Or maybe it's a message from someone back home…'

Damien bites his lip as the thought crosses his mind, knowing well that thought, too, to be illogical. How would messages from another universe even get through? Yet, his body betrays his mind as before he knew it, the phone was already out from his coat pocket and the screen was lit up onto his face. Squinting at the light, Damien's eyes adjust to the light to find…

Disappointment, if compared to anything remotely similar to what his thoughts were earlier. In lieu of some message from the Pokémon world's version of God, Damien finds himself looking at a notification from 'MasterDex':

'Come look for updated Pokémon Scarlet and Violet content!'

Actually, inspecting carefully, it apparently already happened two times earlier in the day, merely 3 hours separate from each other. While Damien had looked at the notification in confusion, it didn't take long until he realized what had happened. 'MasterDex' was simply the Pokédex app he had purchased onto his phone since (from what Damien remembers), the introduction of Generation 6. It had become somewhat of a tool Damien started to rely on to keep up with the continuous addition of new Pokémon forms and the like, as well as for keeping track of moves, items, and abilities that he'd never bothered to learn. He had to keep up with school and volleyball and trying to be a savant at Pokémon wasn't, in his opinion, a risk worth taking.

Thus, when it came time for the new generation of games Damien knew he wouldn't be playing, he had updated the app for whenever it was available - which just so happened to be the same day he'd been sucked up by the Ultra Wormhole. Damien doesn't know when the download had finished, but it must've happened at some point before he was sucked up. It didn't explain how he'd miss the other two notifications though.

'Did adrenaline affect me that much?'

Shooing away the notion, Damien glanced to the top right corner of his phone screen and silently cursed at his phone displaying '84%'. Despite being surprisingly high for how long Damien forgot to turn off his phone for, it still didn't spell well for if he'd ever need to use it in the future without some way of charging it. Quickly turning it off, Damien stuffed it back into his coat pocket before looking up at the cave ceiling to readjust back to the darkness of the cave.

"…shin?"

A soft call broke Damien from his staring of the cave ceiling, having almost lost himself to the boring gray and black rock. Looking towards the noise, though Damien couldn't guarantee it, he just knew it was the same familiar figure he'd gotten accustomed to. Damien's expression softens at the small feline, contrasting the bothered expression from when he had awoken. The Shinx, on the other hand, golden eyes glowing, seems to look at Damien with confusion as their head tilted to the side. His eyes squinted slightly as if trying to figure out why Damien was still awake. Damien, simultaneously, tries to figure out how he'd awoken the Shinx from his much needed nap. It didn't take long for Damien to come up with a theory though.

"I'm sorry bud. Did the light wake you?"

Damien figured it was his phone; if any creature was to see a random patch of light near midnight, it would be someone like the electric type Pokémon near him. That said, was it a particular trait for the Shinx line to notice these things or electric types in general? Was it actually from the light, or - Damien stops himself. That line of thought could be saved for another day. The Shinx, on the other hand, nods, slowly trodding over to Damien despite his eyes still showing signs of sleepiness. He only stops at Damien's legs to look around and sniff the air, as if looking for something. Damien, too, figures the Shinx was looking for his phone.

"I'll show it to you tomorrow, ok? I think you'd rather get some sleep right now, no?"

While the Shinx almost growls in protest, as soon as Damien's hand lands on a tuft of his fur, he stops. Instead, when Damien's fingers begin scratching through it, the Shinx purrs. The feline's eyes begin to blink away in drowsiness, and with the use of the last of their energy, quickly climbs up Damien's legs before settling into a comfortable sleeping position: perfectly curled up against Damien's chest. Despite not having purposefully gone to pet the creature, Damien's hand continues to ruffle through the Shinx's hair which continues to get a returned response of purring. As the purring soon turns into silent breaths, though, Damien glances towards the entrance of the cave where the moon appears perfectly in view.

'Perhaps thinking could be left for tomorrow…'

Despite his previous restlessness, Damien's exhaustion catches up with his mind as he yawns and brings his sight back down onto the Shinx sleeping on his lap. Slowly, Damien relaxes his arm and hand away from the Shinx that lets out a small protesting noise in response. Ignoring the itching need to return to petting the feline, Damien holds himself back, letting his back rest against the cave walls. Listening to the silent breaths of the Shinx below him, he lets the rhythm lull his eyes closed once more. Not even a minute later, Damien finds himself fast asleep with the warmth of his body shared with the Shinx on his lap.

It was sudden when the strident sound of a now-familiar roar echoed through Damien's ears and jolted him awake. His mind aches in the sudden change of consciousness as he glimpses at the sight outside the cave. The sky is still mildly dark with hints of blue and yellow, showing signs of it being barely dawn. Damien almost groans in frustration, but a small prod against his chest keeps him silent as memories of the previous night fill his mind.

'Right… Shinx.'

Blinking as his eyes readjust back to the light, Damien looks down to see the Shinx against his chest begin to stir awake. The creature wobbly gets himself up from his chest and, unaware of their surroundings, they claw into Damien's leg (luckily still protected by his coat) before stretching their front paws out.

"Shiiinx~"

The Shinx yawns before his mind seems to finally render itself awake as he accidentally steps between the gap of Damien's two legs, tripping onto the rest of Damien's coat. Startled, he thrashes around slightly before turning his head to Damien who barely registers the feline's yellow eyes as Damien himself responds to the Shinx's previous yawn with one of his own. The memories of the night before also click into the creature's mind before they let out a chipper, though muted, meow.

"Good morning sleepyhead…"

Damien doesn't register the irony of the statement in that he's barely as awake as the Shinx before him. Quickly thereafter, a second roar, this time much closer to him, pierces his ears. Barely able to duck his head down at the noise, Damien bites his lip at a sudden jolt of pain in his neck as he realizes the awful sleeping position he'd been in the night prior.

'This is ten times worse than sleeping on an airplane, that's for sure…'

He witnesses the Shinx leaping off his lap and the warmth of the small feline's presence quickly dissipates, leaving Damien in goosebumps. Realizing he had slept all night, all technically without a blanket on despite the cold air outside, Damien responds impulsively by putting on his coat. The residual warmth from the Shinx earlier keeps him slightly warmer and as he zips his coat up. As soon as Damien finishes with that, however, a sudden cacophony of pacing and trampling causes him to look at its source, quickly identifying it to be the litter of Shinx running out from the inner rock wall.

'Must've been their den inside there.'

Glancing at the wall for a moment, Damien wonders what the den would look like before his eyes trace to the sight of his still-opened duffel bag he'd yet to fully clean up from last night. Eyes widening, Damien rushes to stuff his last item of headphones within the bag before pulling it to his side and zipping the duffel bag closed. While the bag wasn't exactly in the way of the currently approaching litter of Shinx, Damien wasn't about to risk some runaway Shinx getting curious and diving into his bag. It'd no doubt mess up what tidying up he'd completed, and if the roar of the female Luxray within the cave means anything, her seeing a Shinx trapping themselves into his bag would also mean bad news.

While Damien had rushed to close up his bag, however, it appeared to be all for naught as he witnessed the Shinx run into the dark corner he'd seen them run into the afternoon prior - the corner where his friendly Shinx decided to get his meal of Pecha berries to feed him from - rather than actually run closer to the cave entrance as he'd expected. Damien looks on as he tries to make himself look more presentable, even if he has no mirror to look at nor an actual audience that cares. Dusting off whatever dirt was on his clothes, he listens in to the hums of enjoyment, squelching, and trampling of steps as the litter essentially inhale through their meal of assumed berries. (Damien couldn't actually be sure that was all there was within the corner unless he looked at it himself, after all.)

Seemingly distracted by the sounds, an all too familiar grunt of acknowledgment reaches Damien's ears once more. Like anyone could guess by now, the sound came from the very Shinx that had left his legs not even a few minutes earlier, now with yet another Pecha berry in its mouth. While a familiar scene that brought a smile to Damien's lips, it quivers as he notices a sweeping presence reaching throughout the cave. In the corner of his eyes, Damien spots the female Luxray. For a moment, he keeps silent as the Luxray's sight zooms in on him, but unlike the day before, it isn't nearly as dominant. Still, it begs Damien to question what she finds in him for her to be staring for so long.

'Did she notice the Shinx missing from her den? Probably… is she going to yell at me over it?'

Despite his hands clamming up, remembering the far harsher gaze of the female the day prior, the line of anxiety quickly shuts off in Damien's brain knowing the female leader had yet to actually take a step towards him and hasn't shown intention of harming him. Instead, the Luxray's sight seems to drift down to Damien's Shinx friend still awaiting for Damien's hand to take the berry. Her sight quickly shifting back up, Damien lets out a breath of relief as he sees her nod her head and stride towards the dark corner with the rest of the Shinx. A short meow from below cuts off Damien's moment of thought once more, the Shinx's eyes starting at Damien with focused intention.

'Was that… her accepting what Shinx was asking me to do?'

Damien looks more intensely at the Shinx, his eyes appearing almost to be glowing as it did in the night. Damien simply nods to himself, letting out his hand to accept the Shinx's treat even while he felt some guilt about having the Shinx miss out on his own meal. Consequently, the Shinx hums in response, happy that the human in front of him was accepting what he'd taken for them. Damien soon bites into the Pecha berry and lets out a smile at the sweet flavor, though he pauses as he sees the Shinx begin to turn around to grab him again before speaking out.

"Hey! You really should get your own meal, I'm not that hungry anyways."

He aims to give the Shinx a look of resolution, but instead, the Shinx must've interpreted it as one of doubt instead for it lets out a cute growl in response, shaking his head. To Damien, it was as if to say "No, you need to eat more!"

Shaking his head in a subconscious mimicry of the Shinx, Damien figures that the Shinx wouldn't accept his response and instead ponders for a moment over what other excuse he could give before the Shinx tires himself out from just fetching berries. When he sees the feline begin to turn around as if he expected Damien not to say anything else, Damien reaches out to hold onto the Shinx's body to prevent him from moving.

"No, really, I'm not that hungry. Plus, while what you've given me is perfectly sweet, I don't want to ruin my appetite in the future by eating so many of them y'know?"

The Shinx did pause for a moment upon hearing Damien, giving him a short moment to believe he got the feline to stop, but instead, the creature squeezed past Damien's grasp to run back to the dark corner, seemingly having a solution to Damien's 'conundrum'. Sighing, Damien can only watch as the Shinx runs away and returns back with another Pecha berry, but also a different one that Damien had yet to see since his arrival. While only slightly smaller than the Oran berry, it was instead a vivid red like a cherry tomato and was connected to a small green vine the Shinx had been holding onto within his mouth. The look of the berry was familiar but the name was something Damien couldn't recall; after all, he'd never found a need to use berries much at all.

Still, with the determined look Shinx gave him, Damien let it drop within his hands as he took a bite into the red berry. It was much easier to bite into than the Oran but immediately, Damien could taste one thing: spice. In fact, Damien, not expecting the taste, began to cough as his eyes watered, looking back down to the blue furred creature at his feet once more, almost with betrayal. The Shinx pushes the accompanying Pecha berry onto his leg and without hesitation, Damien bites into the Pecha berry, letting the soothing sweetness cool down the pain on his tongue slightly. Damien glances back at the Shinx when his mouth finally feels calmed down to see the Shinx looking at him with pride in their eyes. Damien barely mutters out a response to the sight.

"The taste… certainly isn't something I'd forget…"

The feline hearing Damien's response, simply nods before once again turning around. Damien, however, genuinely responds with panic rather than reluctance in this instance as he scoops the Shinx up with his hands. He was not going to experience eating whatever red berry that was again. Frantically, Damien tries to think of yet another solution to keep the creature currently flailing around in his hands. Scanning around the room, Damien notices his duffel bag and recalls the night before, quickly settling the Shinx down for a moment before he begins to wail. At the thought of the female Luxray hearing such a sound, Damien shivers (and may have perhaps glanced up to the Luxray still occupied with looking over the litter to ensure she didn't actually see what was going on). Right before the small electric type below him dashes off again, Damien beckons the Shinx over.

"You wanted to see what the light was about yesterday night didn't you? Now seems like a good time…"

For once, the creature perks up at the mention of the light and turns around on his own before barking out to signal his attention. Damien, in return, sighs in relief as he reaches to unzip his left coat pocket and pull out his phone. Despite being cautious of wasting battery at the moment, he supposed showing it off a little to the endlessly curious Shinx in front of him couldn't hurt - especially if he was going to use it for a beneficial purpose. Turning the phone screen face side up and letting the hand currently holding his phone down to the ground, he lets Shinx take a good examination of it before pressing the power button on with his middle finger currently clasped atop of it.

Seeing the sudden light, the feline lets out another bark of surprise as his fur shimmers with light for a split second that Damien almost didn't catch. Musing on the shimmering for a moment, Damien reflects back on the times when he'd seen Shinx outright glow the day before - something Damien swears he recognizes from somewhere - being when he had initially woken up and when the Beedrill… Damien takes a breath at the memory, instead focusing on the now interested regard the Shinx seemed to be having towards his phone.

"It was only on for a few seconds, but this is what we humans call a phone. Well, a cellular one anyways. We use it to talk to people from far away, keep track of information, send that information to other people through ways other than talking, and much, much more."

Damien aimed to explain the device in his hands as simply as he could for the little Pokémon to understand. Glancing down, seeing the Shinx's attention now back on him, Damien shuts off his phone and stuffs it back into his coat pocket where it belongs; he's still aiming to keep the phone alive for as long as possible, after all. Despite the glow of the phone now gone, however, the Shinx still seemed to be excited,his star-tipped tail started shaking around and shining brightly like when his fur glowed.

"You're excited, aren't you?"

The current and only resident human within the cave smiled at the sight, intently observing the new shining sight created by the tiny feline before him. Damien's hand closes into a fist, seemingly wanting to do something with his hands but being currently unable to. Holding onto his phone through his coat pocket with his other hand (and carefully not having a finger touching the power button), another thought flows into Damien's mind as his eyes continue to linger on the wagging of Shinx's tail.

'Did the MasterDex app ever actually require cellular data?'

As the glow on the end of Shinx's tail began to fade, Damien looked to his duffel bag and then to the entrance of the cave. Luxios were finally prancing about the fields and the sun was finally up in the sky, signaling the day to have truly begun. There was a faint feeling of static in the air that if the faint growl he could hear from outside was true, was due to an incoming battle - likely for play. Readjusting his glasses to look back at Shinx carefully, he curled his fingers through the blue fur, the action becoming almost instinctual by this point.

'I guess I'll have to take notes on all of you. For memories… and hopefully avoiding more surprises.'

A/N:

Fun Fact: The chapter did NOT come out in a week.
It's been... a whole month now? I apologize it took so long, I'd like to blame someone but it's purely the fault of my own procrastination. Anyhow, I also don't have another chapter prepared so there will be more waiting until I can get my brain to not be lazy with it (sorry in advance).

In the very end, I'm glad I managed to at least get this chapter out. It honestly didn't move much in terms of the plot but I just find writing Damien interacting with Shinx very comforting. I honestly also think I may have gone on a few tangents with the MasterDex and bag sorting but I hope it wasn't a chore to read. (At least my beta readers have gotten me to shorten them somewhat.)

Speaking of, I once more give my thanks to my beta readers Shiro, raindrops, and avardiris! Literally everything would probably sound wrong grammar and story-wise without them I swear...

That's it for now, I can only hope to see any of those that bookmarked my story (or followed if you're reading this on FFN) next-next week (who am I kidding, the best we're getting is next month really).