Chapter Thirty-Three:
Patience

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Notes: I'm posting this a day after I just had my (third!) hip surgery. I figured it was time to polish off the last bit of this and get it out to y'all as an early holiday present. Hopefully I can get more out to you guys and soon!

Current Team: Keno the Marshtomp, Sela the Mightyena, Ambrose the Kirlia, Faye the Taillow, Nux the Magikarp, Gunner the Aron

Badges Won: Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Dynamo Badge

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Water is patient, Adelaide. Water just waits. It wears down the clifftops, the mountains, the whole of the world. Water always wins."
The Tenth Doctor, "Doctor Who"


Their second day hiking was a shorter day. Shay blamed it on her cramped, aching legs. She was halfway considering getting a roller so she could massage her muscles out at the end of the day—but then that would be just another thing to carry, and an oversized and awkward one at that. It would get better with time, but she had a feeling her running days back in Mauville had eased what could have easily been an even worse transition.

Everything could be feeling worse than it was now. She kept telling herself that.

The end of their trek, thankfully enough, ended close to a lakeside site. They broke out camp in the early evening and after setting everything up, they still had enough light to enjoy the view.

Shay let Nux out in the water, and he swam in tight circles, excited at the sudden upgrade from cooking pot to freshwater lake. She watched him dart in and out of the shallows with a smile, his bright scales winking merrily in the clear waters until he swam out so deep, she couldn't see him any longer. That made her anxious, not being able to see where he was.

Keno seemed to sense this, and he wordlessly waded into the water, flashing her his signature toothless smile.

"I'll keep an eye on him. Besides, it's been a while since I had a nice dip."

Shay chuckled, some of her fears assuaged as Keno took his last steps before diving down into deeper waters. The fin crowning his head was the last thing to disappear beneath the azure waters.

She saw it surface, slicing through the water like a shark's fin about twenty feet further from shore. It vanished once more and didn't come again. Shay watched, eyes scanning the water for a good minute before she got up and dusted her pants off.

"Okay. Let's get camp started up."

She returned to where she had her tent set up, and the majority of the team was gathered around. Faye had gone for a flight around the area, while Sela went to check the perimeter of the lake. Shay could sense they were all restless, especially after all their time in the city. The only times they had spent outside Mauville's walls were for runs and training. Having some downtime would do them all good.

Ambrose and Gunner were gathered around a set of stones circling a pit of dirt and sand. Gunner nudged one large stone into place before looking up at Shay, looking quite proud of himself. Ambrose moved another with a burst of psychic energy, a lavender glow engulfing it.

"We thought we'd help out. Sela said she'd bring back some stuff to cook."

"'Stuff'?" Shay repeated, brows raising as she regarded Gunner. Her gaze shifted to Ambrose, but the Kirlia merely shrugged.

"Dark-type, remember? I can't get a read on them."

"Right. They're like a black hole."

She was suddenly very interested what 'stuff' Sela had decided to grab during her patrol.

"You guys want to help me gather some firewood?"


"I'm sorry, but…what the hell are those?"

She knew what they were, but still felt a strange sort of obligation to ask. Plus, it the words had just tumbled out, frankly. From their long, springy hind legs, white tufted tails, and long ears—it was difficult to mistake them for anything else.

Rabbits. Plain old, regular, run-of-the-mill rabbits.

A pair of them dangled from Sela's mouth and she gave Shay a mild glower, as if to say what she couldn't aloud, 'What do you think?'

She gently set them down and licked her chops, the last red flecks of blood disappearing inside her maw.

"Dinner."

Shay paled, eyeing the tiny bodies that had been laid at her feet.

"I…have no idea how to clean these, prepare these, I…"

The laptop. She'd almost forgotten about that. It was still so new; it wasn't part of her routine. She checked the time on her x-transceiver and did a quick assessment of how much time she had between now and sunset.

If I can get a connection, I can look up how to do it on YouTube—no, wait. MewTube. God, that is such a cute name. Please be wholesome, don't be full of clickbait videos and crapsack government conspiracy theories.

Her laptop was sealed in a waterproof bag in an inner pocket of her pack. Her old hard drive she'd had Norman ship out to her was nestled right alongside it. She pulled it all out and seated herself on the ground, the slick solar panels on the clamshell catching the light. The honeycomb patterns flashed as sunlight filtered into them.

When the computer was up and running, she went through the motions and found that she had a glimmer of a connection to the internet, a small bar. Unlocked. She jumped on it, not caring nor wondering where it was originating from. It was something.

It was slow going, but Shay managed to get a video working. The narrator was a man, dressed in hunting gear and looking grizzled, his tools laid out on a table as he began speaking to camera.

She dutifully watched the ten-minute video on how to field strip and clean rabbits, while getting her own gear set up.

"If you don't have a designated gutting knife, that's fine. Any knife in a pinch will do, especially for you hard-working trainers out on the road!"

He went on at the end, pitching the 'like and subscribe' spiel before the video ended. Shay eyed the two rabbits dubiously, the monumental task of having to skin and gut something larger than a fish briefly daunting. She had never done anything like this before. She hadn't even agreed to do this in the first place!

Shay turned to Sela, annoyance clearly painted on her face as the Mightyena stared back, maraschino-bright eyes placidly challenging her. Sela yawned; teeth briefly exposed as she did. Thick, powerful, large. Enough to crush flesh to a pulp, and shatter bones to tiny splinters. And yet, Sela's work with the rabbits had been delicate, practiced, deliberate. The bodies weren't mangled or torn. There were puncture wounds in the throat, and blood coated the fur in the localized area, but that was it. She had done this work in a rather expert manner that impressed Shay.

"Well? Can you do it?" Sela finally asked, as if she could read what was Shay's mind as easily as Ambrose could. Or she's reading my face, Shay corrected herself.

"I…think so."

She reached out to touch one of the rabbits, fingers brushing gently along the coarse fur. She touched the second one, doing the same thing.

"My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friends stopped running today."

Sela tilted her head to the side, brows puzzling together.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's…just from a book I read as a kid. It had…rabbits in them."

She lifted one of them up and laid it out on a thin, lightweight cutting board and then picked up her knife. She restarted the video, angling the computer screen toward her once again.

"Okay, let's get started…"


"Uh, Shay? I think we might have a problem."

Shay paused from her work with the spit she had erected above the fire. It was holding the rabbits she'd finished cleaning and gutting, letting them roast. She had the pelts drying out, courtesy of another how-to video.

"You can sell these in town for a nice profit!" The video blogger had stated rather proudly, as if speaking from his own experience in doing so.

The rabbits were quite crispy on the outside now, and probably good enough to take off the spit, ready to prep and add to the stew she had on standby now. Shay glanced at the speaker, Keno, as she set the rabbits aside on the cutting board to let them cool.

"What is it, Keno?"

"I tried to get Nux into that pot like we did yesterday, and he won't get in. He's…also a bit…bigger? I think?"

That gave Shay pause. She wiped her hands clean and judging from the quizzical looks on the rest of her teams' faces, they were just as curious, just as concerned.

Shay stood and stretched, her knees giving a crack and pop as she did.

"Don't touch the food just yet, and I'll sort this out. Guys, keep an eye on camp! Keno, show me where he is, please?"

Keno led the way with a nod and began leading the way to where he had last seen Nux. It was a short hike, but nothing too extraneous. They were nearly a quarter of a mile from camp, Shay guessed, hiking along the shore, with the water constantly on their right. Keno finally broke away from the trail along the lakeshore and headed for the water. The evening sun was making the surface of the water shimmer like a giant silvery-gold sheet.

The secondary collapsible cooking pot was sitting by the water, sinking into the soft sand. Water was inside it, stiller than the lake's gently lapping waves that licked along the side of the pot. Close to the shore, visible in the shallows, was Nux. He swam in sullen, tight circles, one flank clear and incandescent and the other broken by scarred tissue.

Shay gave Keno a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, then sat and undid her boots and slipped her socks off. She rolled up her pant legs and waded out into the shallows, mud squishing between her toes, the water tepid against her skin. Nux stirred and broke his circling patterns and darted around her ankles excitedly.

"Hey there, Nux! How'd you like the lake today, huh?"

Nux raised his mouth to the water's surface and spat globs of water out. She laughed and reached down to stroke his sides. Shay's lips pulled firmly into a thin line, concern dawning on her. She felt around the Magikarp's girth and found that she could no longer fit both hands around him with room enough to let the tips of her fingers touch like the other night. There was at least nearly a half-inch gap between them now. Did that mean he was longer now, too…?

"Keno says you don't want to get in the pot. What's the matter, buddy?"

"He can't speak, but I think I gathered a gist of what he wants. He…he's been hitting a lot of the fish in the lake. Even the regular ones, the…ones that aren't pokémon. Just headbutting them, ever since you let him out."

"What?"

Shay's head whipped around to look down at the Magikarp enjoying the little massage she was giving him. She stopped and Nux wiggled impatiently against her hands, as if to urge her to continue.

"Nux, are you trying to get eaten? You can't go around smashing into other pokémon! Or regular animals, for that matter. That's not okay!"

"He's not doing it to be rude, Shay. He's…trying to get stronger. I think." Keno said, his voice sounding closer. He waded out into the waters beside her, worry rippling across his face.

Nux sunk against one of her hands, listing heavily into her palm. Shay frowned as she continued regarding Keno.

"He might need some medicine. He got hit back pretty hard a couple of times when I couldn't get to him in time. I'm surprised he wasn't knocked out."

"Nux, you dummy. C'mon, let's get you into the pot—"

A sudden surge of energy burst from Nux, and he darted out of her hands and just deep enough that she couldn't get at him. She could still see his flashing, bright scales in the water where he waited, watching her.

"Nux!"

"I told you he didn't want to get in the pot. I chased him around for a good while before coming to get you. I thought he'd listen to you, if not me…"

"Thanks, Keno." Shay said quickly before turning back to the stubborn little Magikarp, planting her fists on her hips. Nux rose to the surface, just enough to spit a few globs of water out. "Nux, c'mon. This isn't funny. You can hang out with us at camp."

Nux sunk back down, taking to swimming in tight circles once more. Keno made a soft noise beside Shay. She frowned, watching the Magikarp before deciding to scoot backwards until she could sit on the shore, with her feet still in the water. She buried her toes in the sand and mud, letting it squish further between them. She recalled having read somewhere that sand was a natural exfoliant, so this had to be good for her, right…?

Nux cautiously inched closer. Keno made to grab him but stopped when Shay told him to hold off. Keno hesitated, then nodded and simply stayed put. She waited patiently, and it paid off. Nux slowly heeded closer to his trainer, until he was within arm's length. He was practically beaching himself on the mud, with just enough water over his head to filter water into his gills.

"You…are definitely bigger," she confirmed, brows raising higher.

"Told you. He won't fit in this pot anymore. The one we're using back at camp could probably hold him…but we're using it to make dinner."

"I can help with that."

Keno whirled at the new voice and Shay turned to face it as well. Gunner stood just within the tree line, pawing idly at the ground. Shay and Keno exchanged a look with one another.

"Hey there, Gunner. You…said you could help? How?"

"I can smell the iron around here. It's all over the place. I could…dig some up and make a big bowl for the fish-guy over there. Big enough to hold him. If that's something you'd like, I mean."

Shay exchanged another look with Keno. It sounded like a good enough solution for the time being, but she wondered how that would work out in the long run. When they left in the morning, how would they sustain this for tomorrow night? And the next night? And then the next?

She looked back to the Magikarp still idling beside her, his caudal fin's movements having slowed down almost to nothing. She eyed him worriedly, noting how lethargic he'd grown.

We'll figure out the rest for tomorrow, Shay thought before she nodded to Gunner.

"Do it. I know you need to eat some too, so just keep enough to make the bowl for Nux. Keno, do you think we can get a pit dug out to put it in, so it doesn't get knocked over by accident?"

"Sela and I can handle that, for sure." Keno said with a smile, already wading his way to shore. He paused at the water's edge.

"What about Nux? We can't leave him here."

Shay turned to look back at the Magikarp. She didn't know how, but he looked exhausted. She could sense it, with how listless he'd grown in the last couple of minutes.

Going around headbutting everything in sight probably does that to some, she thought. He didn't even struggle his way back into the deep like he had before when she pulled out his pokéball and recalled him. She stepped onto the grassy bank and picked up her boots.

"Okay, I think we're good now. Gunner, you do your thing. Keno, with me."


It was hours before everyone was finally settled and still. The nighttime chorus of insect chirrups filled the air, joining in on the soft lapping waves of the lake water. A few clouds scuttled across the glittering gallery of stars, and occasionally blocked the moon's pale light.

The fire crackled merrily, all the pots having been cleared of their contents and scrubbed clean, collapsed in their travel-mode, and now put away. Close by, Nux was happily doing laps inside the metal basin that Gunner had created for him. It was nestled safely in the hole that Sela and Keno had dug out.

Faye had returned to camp shortly before dark, having been keeping an eye and ear out for their spot by the lake. She did report back that there was a community of cabin homes not that far up north of their position. I guess that's where the wi-fi is coming from.

Ambrose, in the time Shay had been gone, had helped unpack some of Shay's things. It was…a bit of a mess, but it was the thought that counted. It didn't take long for Shay to reorganize.

Shay had finished making dinner shortly after her return and lost track of what everyone was doing until she settled down and started filling up bowls for them. Once more, she sat by Nux's makeshift home-away-from-home and spoon-fed him pieces of the rabbit stew. He seemed to especially enjoy the rabbit meat and hungrily scarfed those down like it was his last meal.

She was glad he didn't seem to have any teeth; he chomped on her fingers once or twice when he got overzealous trying to suck down everything. He was definitely bigger, she concluded with finality.

Now was the time to enjoy themselves and relax.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" The question rent the air with such a suddenness that Shay hadn't realized she'd be dozing until that moment. Shay jerked out of her dozing stupor, turning to the speaker. It was Faye, perched in one of the low-hanging branches right by their campfire. She shifted in her seat, wincing as the numbness in her butt ebbed away and was replaced by a stinging sensation of feeling rushing back in.

Shay shot a cursory glance at the rest of the team, her eyes lingering on Nux the longest. The Magikarp swam in concentric circles in his little home-away-from-home, occasionally pausing every other spin to gawp back at her.

"I think we should stay, if we're up to a vote," Ambrose piped up. He was holding his bowl of food in his claws hands and lap, delicately tapping his clawed tips against the sides. Everyone turned to look at him, and he offered a toothy grin in response. Even if he was incapable of seeing, he could still sense the confusion, the curiousity in the air directed at him.

"If we leave, it will be harder for Nux to battle. He's too dependant on the water, but if he evolves…"

"Then he'll be more freed up to move as he wants," Keno finished off, flashing a toothless smile at Shay. "I think Ambrose is right. We should stay. Just long enough to help Nux evolve. I get why he was fighting all day long now. He didn't just want to be stronger. He wants to become a Gyarados!"

It was something that Shay had already figured out herself. Or it was at least something she highly suspected as to being the reason why he was so gung-ho with headbutting all the fish in the lake.

"Do y'all want to stay a little longer?"

"It is a nice place," Sela remarked, lifting her snout to the sky, and giving it a hearty sniff. "I like the way it feels out here. It's better than how it was in the city. It was too…crowded. Suffocating. I could do with staying out here a while longer."

"I like the lake," Keno said, adding his concession to Sela's. "It's been a while since I've had some time in the water that wasn't from a tap…or soaking in a bath."

The others began to voice their own agreements with staying put just a while longer, even if it was only just until Nux could evolve.

Shay pulled out her Pokédex and after thumbing through the files inside, she landed on Nux's—Magikarp's—entry. She scrolled through the digital pages dedicated to fish pokémon. She pulled up the scanner and waved it over Nux, the sensors working to pull up the relevant data she was looking for. The Pokédex gave a little cheerful beep at her, the screen blinking once before changing:

Registered Pokémon: Magikarp
Registered Nickname: Nux
Caught at: Level 5 on Route 105
Current Level: 17

There were other blurbs of information but the solid information she was more concerning herself with was the set level Nux was currently at. He was close. Closer than she would have expected.

She beamed down at Nux. The Magikarp listed over on his side to stare at her with one eye, mouth working open and closed.

"We'll stay another day or two. And then we'll be on our way to Lavaridge. Sound like a plan, everyone?"

A round of enthusiastic affirmations rose up in response. Even Nux began spinning in his makeshift home with frenzied energy.

"Okay, then I guess that settles it." Shay paused before adding, "We should be hitting the hay soon. We'll need all the rest we can get before we start again in the morning. Keno, think you can keep an eye on Nux again, make sure he's safe?"

"I can do that, sure."

Shay turned her attentions to the rest of the team. "And everyone, you can do your own training if you'd like. You'll need it if we're to beat Flannery."

"Fire-types should be easy enough for Keno, and for Nux, once he's up to speed with more attacks other than splashing or headbutting," Ambrose drawled out.

"Don't count the others out so fast now," Shay remarked, letting her gaze glide over everyone. "If we keep up with the training, any of you could hold your own against her team, I can guarantee it. I trust you guys. But for now, let's wind down and get ready for bed."

They polished off the rest of their meals and Shay cleaned them all up. She set them out to dry, along with the rest of the cook wares. Once that was done, they piled inside Shay's tent, ready to get their rest. The last thought that crossed Shay's mind as they all seemed to snuggle up on her when she wedged herself inside her sleeping bag was, "Cuddle party!"

The back of her scalp went itch-shiver-scratch, and she could feel Ambrose's silent laughter ringing in head.