AN: To answer Foxy-Kawai's review, somewhat: I can tell you the Zoroark (you got that right!) has a role to play. Some of it will be answered in the next chapter or so.
Her mind was fuzzy, she was dreaming.
Tenno was crooning at her softly from his position in her stomach, and while she couldn't properly see them, she knew the rest of her team was there as well. If this was the afterlife, it was warm and it was nice.
Twinkle's big, rough tongue lapped at her cheek. Was she crying?
If they were here, did that mean they died as wel?
As if someone had used defog on her brain, her mind cleared and she shot upright, making her bird squawk. He refused to relinquish his place on her stomach and gripped her clothes to keep himself steady, his back now pressed into her lap.
"Ooow." Holding her head, she groaned in discomfort. It was positively pounding, overpowering the throbbing in her leg. She was definitely not dead, she decided, and to her relief, neither was her team. It was dark, but the moon was bright, so she could tell they were on a small beach, resting under a nearby tree, she could see a line in the sand from where she had been dragged towards the treeline. Probably Twinkle's doing.
Her legs were still in the sand but her hands met soft earth. She winced at the sight of her left leg, the Sharpedo teeth having ripped open the skin at several places, leaving the whole appendage red and swollen. It didn't appear to be bleeding anymore, there was that.
"What happened?" She asked, and despite Tenno delving into a long, winding explanation full of excited chirping, she couldn't quite understand what he was saying. Still, she smiled at him indulgently, scooping him up and gently pressing him against her chest.
"You did so well." She whispered, nearly choking on the sudden emotions flooding her. Relief, fear, pride, guilt. "I'm sorry."
He chirped softly, sadly, then finally let go of her clothes as he returned the embrace with his wings. In that moment, Twinkle bumped against her arm.
"Laii?"
Yun wiped her eyes and offered her a watery smile. "Come here, you." She threw her arm over her back and bumped her head against her steel type's armored one in a show of affection. It didn't help her headache but somehow made her feel better anyway. The fact that Twinkle positively beamed under the attention, made it all the more worth it.
"Reign?"
She looked around and found him a bit closer to the treeline, both his claws raised and his stinger uncurled.
"Can guard duty be put on hold for a minute to cuddle with your trainer?" Her voice sounded wet yet happy at the same time.
The question made him hesitate, as if truly weighting whether or not he could afford to drop his guard. It made her realize her Pokémon would carry the scars of the whole ordeal for some time to come. They were just as affected by the prospect of losing her, as she was of them. Guilt laced through her, hot and angry. What was she thinking putting herself in these type of situations?
But then Reign turned around with a cry. "Skooo!" He ran up to her, eyes shining in the moonlight and attached himself to her shoulder, nuzzling his head in the crook of her neck. "Rupi." And whatever negative emotions that were coursing through her, subsided for the moment.
They stayed like that, the four of them together, until the first sliver of sunlight appeared on the horizon.
"We need to find help." She admitted. Her headache was subsiding but her leg was only beginning to feel worse.
"Tenno, can you fly above the trees and see which direction the nearest village or city is?" With any luck, she had washed up somewhere nearby Veilstone.
Without question he took off and Yun looked around. "Where are your Pokéballs?"
Twinkle grumbled something and then walked over to another tree and started digging with one paw. Crawling over on hands and knees, every movement making pain race up her leg, she saw the three Pokéballs lying in the small hole she had dug. "You hid them? Smart girl." She praised.
She stashed them in her now torn hoodie, checking to make sure the pockets were fully intact. There was no way she was going to lose them again, not now, not ever.
Tenno returned eagerly and pointed his beak towards her right. "Alright, perfect, let's see if I can walk on this leg."
Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself up, resisting the urge to scream. Nothing was broken, she could tell that much, but it was still agony to rest her weight on her wounded leg. The Sharpedo teeth had torn deep into her calf, beyond the layer of skin and fat and into her muscles. She had to blink away stars appearing before her eyes.
Before she could fall, Twinkle was there and Yun was grateful to hold on the ridge of her back for support.
"I need," She looked at her leg, the wounds had started to bleed again and were covered with sand, "I need to get to the water."
The seawater would sting, no doubt, but the level of salt might also help to disinfect the open wounds somewhat. At least, she hoped it would. Slowly, Twinkle started trekking towards the water with Yun hobbeling along. They were in a small natural bay and the water was calmly lapping at the shore.
When they were at the edge of the water, Twinkle hissed while the water came up to her paws.
"It's okay, I can make the rest on my own." Yun assured. As a rock type, her Lairon was dispositioned to hate water but she didn't back down, instead she grit her teeth, and continued forward.
"Whoa-" Yun was almost dragged along into the sea. She found out she was right, it hurt, it hurt bad.
Her breath was coming out in short gasps in an effort to not cry, and Twinkle looked equally agitated. "Okay," She panted, "we're good, time to get out."
They were almost completely out of the water when it erupted behind them, covering them in a fine spray. Yun turned her head and gaped. Red tentacles shot out and reached for her, she fell backwards and tried to crawl out of reach. She gathered the breath to scream.
Only Twinkle butted her head against a tentacle almost gently and Tenno flew up and landed on the red head emerging from the sea, as if greeting an old friend. By the time Reign crawled up her shoulder and gave her a puzzled look she noticed the shark bites littering the creature's body, similar to the wound on her leg.
The tentacle that reached for her unfurled and within it, it was holding... a Pokéball. Realization dawned on her.
"Fish?"
"Octy!" He greeted.
Still reeling, she took the Pokéball. "You evolved, and dear Arceus, you're a giant." Then she had an epiphany. "You saved me!"
The Octillery eyed her and seemed to smile down at her. Though it could have been her imagination, she wasn't yet familiar with this Pokémon's body language or facial expressions. "I guess, you're no longer a fish, huh." She mumbled. Then she held out the Pokéball. "Are you sure? You have this whole ocean to explore, if you want to."
"Tillery!" He sounded offended by the very question, making her giggle.
"Sorry, sorry. You're part of the team now. I'll think of a proper name for you soon." And finally get to replace his tampered Pokéball for a proper one registered to her name.
It was something to look forward to, she decided, but first she needed to get out of here. The struggle to get up was even harder now, her strength quickly waning. A tentacle gently wrapped itself around her middle and lifted her atop of the Octillery's head. To her surprise he slid out of the water and continued on land, the eight tentacles weaving in an intricate pattern's to propel himself forward. While not nearly as fast as Tenno, he was swifter on land than she had believed a sea creature like him could be.
She rested her chin on his cool skin contently and allowed herself to believe they were all going to be okay. At some point it became hard to keep her eyes open and she might have actually dozed off between blinks.
During one of her attempts to stay awake she noticed a dark spot on the beach, near the horizon. Perhaps it was a strange rock, half covered in sand or maybe... they got closer to it and it was starting to look less like something solid and more fuzzy. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision. Fish hesitated but then decided to scuttle around it.
"Wait." Her voice was weak but her Octillery responded anyway.
She slid off of his back and all drowsiness left her when she hit the ground on both legs. Hissing in pain, she doubled over, her eyes caught an object laying right next to her foot. A gun.
The sight of it pierced trough the relative serenity of her mind, reminding her of when it had laid in her own hands in the midst of the burning ship. This nightmare wasn't over, it would never be over. Those criminals were still out there, and she knew there was more where they came from. There would always be people like them lurking in the shadows, threatening her and her team, and some of them now knew her face.
Gingerly she bend down and picked it up, clutching it between her small hands, feeling sick for the way it made her feel better. Then she remembered the reason why they had stopped moving, taking a cautious step forward because the pile of dark fur laying just a few paces away was breathing.
A cyan eye greeted her and she resisted the urge to jump back, knowing she would probably just fall down. She marveled at how clear its visible eye was because at the same time, the creature looked close to dying. Its rapid breath was shallow and accompanied by a raw wheezing sound, the sand underneath it looked suspiciously pink.
Still, she saw herself reflected in it's eye and she noticed its lip briefly pulling taut in recognition.
"You survived too." She whispered and its exposed ear perked up but nothing more. "Barely." She amended. Even then, broken and near death, it managed to terrify her.
At the same time, leaving it there on the beach to a slow agonizing death felt unbearable somehow. Slowly, she lifted the gun. It recognized the item too, its ear flattening against its head but then its eye sought out hers. She could see it, the exact moment the creature gave in and accepted its fate. Its face relaxed and it closed its eye, Yun brought her fingers to the trigger, it would be a mercy to-
Tenno chirped from his position on her Octillery's head, perhaps she could hear a question in his tone and her imagination provided the rest. What are you doing, trainer?
The gun fell from her numb hands and the creature's visible eye snapped open just in time to see a myriad of emotions pass on her face before it settled on ashamed. Despite knowing that laying there, fighting for each breath, must be racking, she just couldn't do it. For all that she knew it would have felt no such reservations if the roles had been reversed, she still couldn't do it. All at once, she felt terribly drained and fell to her knees.
Suddenly, Twinkle was there and once again swallowed the gun in one gulp. Later, she would wonder if Twinkle was a secret genius or knew more about the social constructs of humanity then she had let on. Because she couldn't have known just how bad the whole scene would have looked, a girl kneeling by a gun alongside a Pokémon bleeding out from what could potentially be bullet wounds, to the ranger bursting through the canopy not a minute after she ate the evidence.
"Goodness!" Judging from the ranger's tone, it still looked bad, just in a different way.
The older woman came rushing in on a Rapidash and called out to her. "Are you Yun Kazama?"
Yun struggled to find her voice but managed to croak weakly. "That's me."
"Thank Arceus, we found you!"
As the woman lifted her to her feet and even managed to haul her onto the Rapidash with her body mostly unresponsive, Yun wondered why the ranger would have been looking for her. She was a trainer, disappearing for weeks at a time in the wilderness was basically what they did. There was no way she had been gone for long enough to raise the alarm.
The woman was talking to her, saying something about her Pokémon, Yun understood the gist of it and reached for her pockets, but her hands were unresponsive. The ranger seemed to have caught on and took the Pokéballs out. Yun tensed.
"Don't." She heard herself say, trying not to panic. "They're mine."
Thankfully, the woman returned the Pokéballs to her pockets right after recalling her Pokémon with a few reassuring words. Still, she wished that at least Reign was there.
"Do you have the Pokéball for the Zoroark?" The ranger asked.
Confused, she shook her head, wondering what she was talking about. From the corner of her eye, a light flashed and not soon after, the woman jumped on the Rapidash and they took off.
AN: Tada, Fish's species is finally revealed. So, I have grossly misjudged an Octillery's actual proportions before I started writing this. I read 2.11 in it's Pokédex entry when the random generator decided he would be added to the team. And being European, I immediately made it into 2m11, thinking 'wow, Yun's going to have a giant sea monster for a Pokémon, it stands taller than most people'. I mean if it's height is more than 2m, imagine how big it is across. The biggest octopus ever found was 9m across (that's longer than you're average ship-container, btw) and it didn't even stand at 2m tall.
I was so disappointed to find out it was actually written in feet... but then decided to go with the mental image I had created anyway, so Fish is now an abnormal but gentle giant.