Chapter 4: Catch up
The day had completely exhausted Slate. Not so much physically, but also mentally. His crude awakening, accepting a deal he didn't fully understand, and having the details of a new body and world dumped on him. Not that he didn't appreciate Latenna and Dart's effort to orient himself, but the two of them were not particularly gifted at teaching. Dart did not have much restraint, and often went on speaking after seemingly forgetting the initial question. Latenna on the other hand, kept her answers short, and ha to be interrogated for any details whatsoever. Though mostly she kept to correcting Dart, and stopping him after having gone too far away from the point.
That's not to say he didn't learn anything. They taught him about what Pokemon are, and how all of them are of different elements, which reach to each other in different ways, and how he himself had the element of earth. Dart ended up demonstrating his fire-abilities by breathing fire, which shouldn't really be that surprising after everything that had happened, but still took him by surprise. They also confirmed that his species, Trapinch, was one of the slowest ones known. Though the also told him about how Pokemon would evolve, and that him in particular would experience a significant change in skillset once he did. These things should probably have gone over his head, but somehow, it felt vaguely familiar. Not much to go by, but any clue about his past was better than nothing.
Where he was an easier explanation to get. The HQ had a small library, in which they found a map of the continent, Oldega. They were in a small region only known as the Badlands, an arid region separated from the rest of the region by a mountain chain, with ocean beyond the desert. Their town, Sunshade, was built near one of the few patches of fertile soil in the region. While down there, they also found a book about species to study on his own. Thought Slate didn't remember any days of his life clearly, he was sure they were not supposed to feel that long.
"You paying attention Slate?" Latenna's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. They were standing by the HQ-entrance, with the sun now barely peeking over the horizon. The temperature was already decreasing at a fast rate.
"Sorry. Still a lot to process." he answered, snapping his focus back to the present. She nodded in return.
"Better get some rest now. Tomorrow we will take you through a mission. Goodnight." was all she said before heading off. Both the boys watched her leave before looking at each other.
"Goodnight then Dart. And thanks for helping me." Slate broke the silence. As he turned for the door, Dart finally spoke up.
"You could sleep in my house too if you want."
"You know I have no problem sleeping here, right?" Slate answered.
"Yes, but I also know that when a friend is going through hard time, it's important to remind them that you're there for them."
'Friends? We just met today.' Slate thought. He was of course very grateful towards him. Dart and Latenna had saved his life, and helped him through the amnesia. But did he consider them friends? Dart was always friendly it seemed, but Latenna had mostly been all business. They were ordered to help him after all.
"Yes… I would like that." Slate finally answered. He could probably use any support he could get about now. "But do you usually consider someone you met just this morning a friend?"
"You need one. I want to be one. Is that not reason enough?" Dart retorted quickly, wagging his short tail.
That wasn't the answer Slate expected. He had pegged Dart as carefree and energetic, with a stoic teammate to keep him in check. But this time he had a perfect read on him, and gave a concise answer to his question. What kind of mind was hidden under that jolly demeanor?
"You got me there I suppose…" Slate said with a light chuckle.
Sunshade
One of the few towns in the southern Badlands. Being close to the only river flowing through this harsh landscape, it's one of the places on the badlands hospitable enough to grow crops. Few trees grow in the badlands, thus making stone and dried clay the primary building materials used. The isolated nature of the badlands has necessitated the self-sufficiency of the town.
Dart led him to a hut in the towns outskirts. Like most houses in the village, it was a humble abode made mostly of clay. Inside they once again met the larger black canine from the meeting, a Houndoom as he had been told.
"Hi mom, I told Slate he could stay the night here." Dart told his mother.
She seemed surprised at first, but quickly decided to welcome her guest. "It's all good. My name is Alice. Darts mother as he said."
"I'm Slate, though I don't remember my real name."
"A pleasure. You are of course welcome, but you need to prepare an extra bed. We don't get visitors too often." Alice said, motioning towards a pile of straws. Dart was already carrying some over to make another pile. Not wanting to leave his host with all the work, Slate began carrying over straws as well, even if he did so very clumsily, and soon the makeshift bed was done. Meanwhile, Alice had cooked some kind of fruits over the fire-pit in the middle of the hut. The smell of food, only reminded Slate of how he hadn't really had anything to eat since he left the infirmary. Eating without arms was awkward, but with only quadrupeds in the room, a little messy eating was accepted. After the meal, Alice stood up.
"I have to head out for work. Don't keep him up too late Dart." she told her son.
"Bye, love you mom." Dart responded, standing up as well.
"Love you too." She said softly, licking her son on his nuzzle before leaving.
After she left, it didn't take the boys long before they found their way to bed. The fire-pit now reduced to embers.
"You should rest up, tomorrow we will take you into your first mystery dungeon." Dart said, tail wagging in enthusiasm.
Slate had no idea what a mystery dungeon was. Neither did he feel like asking right now. He could only hope he was tired enough to sleep despite everything on his mind. Not that he had an opportunity to ask anything either, as Dart already was sound asleep after seconds.
'He does run out of energy sometimes after all." Slate thought with a smile before he also closed his eyes and let his consciousnesses slip away.
Slate had no problem sleeping, with the tiring day finally having caught up to him. However, in his dreams he saw absolutely nothing. An empty void with no sound, light or scent. Did his missing memories take away his dreams as well?
After a completely uneventful night, he woke up to a nose poking him. Dart whispered to him that it was time to go. After a second of shaking off his sleepiness, Slate surveyed the room. Alice was still sleeping, in a straw-pile that seemed made for someone larger than herself. Quietly, Dart grabbed a pair of apples before the pair left the house.
"Mom works at night, and sleeps while I'm working." Dart said, giving Slate one of the apples. "Wake her up at your own peril."
"Thanks."Slate said, who had found that simply eating the apple whole was the least messy method he could use without arms. Dart started leading him through the town, which mostly meant running ahead, and waiting for him before he got out of sight. With even Latenna outpacing Slate by a significant amount, the pace was painfully slow for the canine. When they finally arrived at Latenna's house, she was already waiting for her. Slate heard her say something about it being the first time she had to wait as he lumbered over to join the pair.
"Ready for your first day?" she asked.
"As ready as I could…" answered Slate with a less than confident sounding voice.
"Before we leave, I want to quickly measure your strength a bit." she stated, gesturing toward the firewood in her garden, where a small log was placed on a stump. "Try attacking that log."
"Attack it?" Slate questioned.
"Simply biting it would do." Latenna answered.
Biting a log full force was not an idea Slate was fully on board with. Not wanting to hurt his teeth, he carefully bit into the log and applied a bit of pressure.
Snap!
The log shattered like it was nothing, and Slate barely even felt it. As Slate spat out splinters, Latenna walked up to him.
"Good power, but still just a basic attack." she stated. "Are you capable of using any moves?"
"Uuh…" was all Slate could say.
"Well, I guess it will do for today." Latenna sighed.
"Wow, you're pretty strong!" Dart encouraged
"Come, let's get started." Latenna said "I'll explain on the way."
Once again Dart lead the team by running ahead, and stop to wait for his teammates. At least Latenna decided to slow down to match his pace.
"Is there no way for me to move faster?" Slate finally decided to ask.
"Eventually yes." she answered "We did show you your evolution line in that book yesterday. But you don't look ready to evolve to me."
Slate thought back to the dragonfly-looking thing, not really thrilled about another weird new body-shape. But if he got to the dragon-form he could finally have arms again.
"And in the short term?" He again asked.
"Not really." she answered "Training can improve you a little, but most people recommend playing to your strengths rather than hopelessly trying to mend weaknesses."
"And my strengths would be?"
"As a Trapinch, you are painfully slow, have weak ranged attacks, and your durability is fairly average." She explained to a Slate with a less than happy look in his face. "However, your physical attack are unmatched among first-stage species. That is why you easily shattered that log without infusing aura."
"...I don't know what aura is either." Slate sighed. Seems like every answer would leave him with more questions. Guess that's just how it is to be dropped into an unknown world. Though this statement finally got something of a reaction out of Latenna.
"Humans don't have aura? Do you even know how to breathe?" she asked, sounding more worried than anything.
"Pretty sure I've always had to breathe, eat, drink and all that, but I've never had any aura." Slate answered, hoping he had finally reached a topic basic enough to start from.
"Really, how did you use your powers then?" Dart interrupted, with the other finally having caught up to him.
"I've… never had any." Slate answered. "No mind reading, no healing hands and certainly no fire breath."
"Curious…" Latenna mumbled, mostly to herself "I wonder if…"
Then, out of the blue, Latenna headbutted Slate, knocking him a meter away in the process. As soon as he recovered from having the wind knocked out of him, he turned towards Latenna, brandishing his fangs against her on pure instinct. Though when she didn't make any move to follow up on her suprise attack, he spat out.
"What the hell?"
"To answer your previous question first." she stated matter-of-factually "Aura is the life-energy within all Pokemon. We materialize it in all kinds of shapes and elements, making it the source of our power. Some aspects of it are passive, other require you to actively manipulate it. Your natural element is Ground, making you particularly adept at using it, while also affecting how much other elements hurt you."
The explanation sounded like supernatural nonsense, but was easy enough to follow. Though Slate still had his eyes narrowed after the attack.
"As for the attack…" she countinued "...I was curious if you truly had no aura like you said, or simply don't know about it. You should posses an ability which passively seeps your aura into the ground, and hinder the movement of all nearby foes. Arena Trap, we call it. By attacking you, I became your opponent, and my legs immediately sunk into the sand, making me practically immobile."
"So, your saying…"
"Your aura is working just fine, you simply need to learn the manual parts"
While Slate certainly didn't appreciate her methods, he also knew that fighting Latenna would never go his way, and thus chose to let it go. Once the last of his fighting spirit faded from his subconscious, she finally seemed to get some decent footing in the sand.
"And your fighting instinct also seems to be hidden under your confusion as well, so I believe a little stress test will give you just the push you need." She stated, now with a more ominous tone. Worried, Slate turned towards the less threatening Dart, only to be met with an enthusiastic smile, as the pair led him back to the Ranger HQ.
'What have I gotten myself into?'
The entrance hall was very functional in nature. Sandstone floor, walls of dried clay, and what seemed like the bare minimum of wooden support beams. The front desk, a couple of bulletin boards, some tables, and seats of various sizes made up the interior. A Noctowl (as pointed out by Dart) with graying feathers at the desk was the only other creature in the room. Even as one of the biggest buildings in town, it still didn't have a second floor.
'They build with what they have, I guess.' Slate pondered as he was led towards one of the bulletin boards by his teammates. The owl courtly nodded, before returning his gaze towards the papers on the desk.
"We are late, but the others rarely do low rank missions anyway, so it the selection should be as always." Latenna stated.
"Still boring. Can we at least pick a D-rank?" Dart asked Slate as he tried to read the papers on the board. Luckily, the letters of this world was readable, with only weird eyes on all the letters. There were still quite a few words he didn't know, though he did find two missions ranked D. One was about gathering apples, the other some kind of berry, both somewhere called the Shaded Canyon.
"Yes, we are doing the D-ranks." Latenna gave as an answer, even if it was clearly meant as an order.
"How are these jobs even ranked?" Slate decided to ask.
"E-rank is for harmless odd-jobs, if you risk fighting or entering a Mystery Dungeon, it's always at least D." Latenna explained. "If there are outlaws involved, C is minimum, and from there it is considered based of how dangerous the area and/or target is."
'Again with these Mystery Dungeon.' Slate though. But as he tried to as it aloud, Dart interrupted by saying it was a thing you had to see for yourself.
"Picking fruit doesn't seem like a Ranger-task to me." Slate answered.
"Aside from sentry-duty, the Badlands doesn't require much law-enforcement. So we take missions to explore and gather resources when there isn't any critical missions going on."
"And picking fruit requires fighting?"
"It does in a Mystery Dungeon." Dart responded.