PokeWild

Venonat was confused by his teammate’s disappearance at his breakfast and her dinner. The lack of team training that night didn’t help.

David had no answers. He was still puzzling it out himself. Any attempts to send her out of her pokeball ended with her recalling herself if he wasn’t polite enough to do it first. All attempts at cajoling her out failed with little response from the hard metal ball. It worried him. It was also clear that Cloudburst was not changing her mind any time soon. He had to wait.

Waiting was torture without a distraction, so that’s what David found. The process of fully wrapping up, tugging on the thick gloves and triple checking his filter mask was enough of a pain that it worked for a while. With all that it involved, it was a rare occasion that they could train Poison Powder. To do it safely, they needed a wide open area. The open plains were perfect for that. The right kind of wind was also important. If it was too weak, the powder would never disperse. It would linger, harming the environment and poisoning the land they stood on. If it was too strong, or irregular, they might end up with the powder blowing back on themselves or blowing onto the tent. This was something David wanted to avoid at all costs, mask or not. It needed to be just right. Like today. Blowing back inland steadily. Strong, but not as strong as it’d been up on the cliffs.

The physical distance between the spot Venonat and he chose and the tent where Pidgey’s pokeball rested helped too. Out of sight, out of mind.

David checked his seal once more. “Poison Powder.”

Venonat hunched, compressing low to the ground. Five counted seconds passed by. A faint purple film rose around his fur. It was indistinguishable if David hadn’t already been looking for it.

There was no warning before Venonat moved. It was those twitch-like reflexes again, the Pokemon’s muscles acting more like springs than rubber bands. The fuzzy Pokemon sprung high and began to shake. Flakes of purple spread away like a horrifying dandruff. Some of the specks glowed against the fading light. Others drifted to the floor where they settled and gave no warning of the danger they held.

“Okay, good job with the volume, but the spread wasn’t as good.”

As the flakes settled, they did so in a teardrop shape away from David. The wind could carry some, if not all of the powder, and while it made the Move reach further, it wasn’t a boost they could rely on during a match. The circle around Venonat was smaller than usual, by perhaps a foot.

Venonat warbled, and hopped towards the edge of the circle. He stopped to twitch his antenna at one of the few flakes that had yet to settle. Thankfully whatever energy let the Pokemon perform the Move also made him immune to it. Venonat caught the powder on his snout. His huge compound eyes didn’t move an inch, but David could tell the Pokemon was watching the flake closely.

“Come on,” he called. “Let’s make the most of the light while we have it.”

They moved over about ten meters before using the Move again. This let them judge the spread of the powder without having to tell it apart from earlier uses, and was less likely to damage the soil or environment. Lots of walking, watching and judging. The life of a Pokemon trainer.

-.-

“I’m never sure if I should say ‘Om’ or not,” David told his Bug type friend. Pidgey’s still pokeball sat at his side, right at the entrance of his tent.

They were back at the camp now after a thorough clean, first of Venonat with a special brush, and then David with whatever foliage or water could be spared. The local yellow grass worked well to sweep away any flakes.

Now dark, there was little David could do to assist any training beyond this. Meditation. His optimistic attempt to teach Venonat how to use Psychic Moves.

Ironically, his current state of mind was meant to be ideal for this kind of training. The step after meditation was emotions, controlled and not. Finn described the process as reaching out to the Psychic Pokemon and carefully embroiling them in all that was, and all that was not. He said it was important that they understood the difference, because at its heart, that’s what the simplest Psychic attacking Move was.

Of course, David couldn’t do that, not like a psychic could. So he was left with the best he and Finn could come up with. Meditating, pushing away his emotions while keeping them close.

It was just as awkward and nonsensical as it sounded. Finn had no idea if it would work, but he thought the idea itself was... possible. The psychic always paused before saying that, too. Time would tell if it was an elaborate prank or not.

First, David tried to clear his mind. He wasn’t always successful, but sometimes it worked too well. There was a reason he was sitting at the entrance to his tent and not outside of it. If he fell asleep here, there was at least semi-comfortable padding to fall back on.

Today he had partial success, which was as good as he got with the circumstances. Then his thoughts came to the pokeball beside him and his first partner.

Cloudburst. Pidgey.

He recalled the day, running his thoughts over his memories to see if he’d missed anything. Sometimes it was easier to picture the moment, like the time spent with that friendly pink blob in the morning. Ditto was not a Pokemon you forgot. Other times, it was easier to recall their ‘conversations’ or as much of them as they could have.

They’d played catch while hiking. It wasn’t catch, not as he’d played as a kid, but it was the next best thing for them. He would call out a destination, a branch in a tree, a flower standing above the grass, and she would race to reach it. There was no real way of winning, but they both knew when it happened. Cloudburst would dive, soar and bound to make it. With her in the air, they didn’t have to fear any surprises. David moved on, unable to identify any issues here.

Then there was the climb. Cloudburst’s amusement as the incline made him pant. She flitted around him, making a show of his efforts.

David felt a prod, but he ignored it, caught up in his search.

They reached the windswept summit; the earth falling away to reveal the raging sea. It took her by surprise, throwing her around, and yet she struggled.

And failed. David felt the worry, that fear again. His heart beat. He felt the pokeball slipping away from him, even though he knew it hadn’t.

Another prod.

Why had she tried to go out again? Those gusts and currents of air had been deadly around that cliff, the wind raging as it had been denied by that shield of stone.

Why was she like this now?

At some point, these thoughts became a dream. David couldn’t say when, or if he noticed at all the next morning.

-.-

Cloudburst glided through the air high above. High enough in the sky that David needed to squint a little to keep track of her, but not so high that he was searching. Well out of reach anyway. It was a listless flight, with none of her usual swoops and turns. Transport, not a dance.

She would come down in a few minutes, if the last few hours had been anything to go by. Then she would hop by his side through patches of low grass for as long as they lasted, or until David tried to talk to her.

It was a long day of hiking north, maintaining a rigid distance from the danger zone to his right. Only when the cliffs fell in the distance, ducking below the horizon, did David start walking east again. A forest in the distance where there should have been a shoreline looked like an inviting place to spend the night.

David slowed his steps as the sound of crashing waves reached him. There was not much of a breeze today, especially between these trees. No branches reached out from the thick trunks around him, and what undergrowth could be found was mossy, though closer in size to a football than a lichen that grew between cracks. The trees were similar to palm trees in shape, except for a few key details. Their trunks grew in the same way the extendable shaft of a toy lightsaber did, in cake-like sections that became narrower with each step. Instead of branches full of fronds, the tops of these trees sprouted thick singular leaves.

It was enough to make him miss home, yet far enough apart that he was under no illusions.

He carefully turned a glance at Cloudburst. She hopped on, showing no signs of an impending headlong rush or any emotion from the crashing waves. Still, David tried to keep an eye on her with each step.

Another two minutes of walking later, the trees separated. David started to see patches of yellow grains. Those spots grew until he stopped sinking into moss and began to get buried in the sand. Cloudburst never made a move. The only time she darted away from him was when he crouched down and took off his boots.

The beach stretched out for around two miles. To the northeast, the waves lapped against a thick network of dunes covered in green. To the south it gave way to cliffs. Walls of water tipped with white paint to prevent climbing rolled against the entire length of the beach. The swells were so steady that it almost looked like the yellow beach was the one moving.

“What do you think, Cloudburst?” He asked softly, treating her like the wounded animal she was, though he knew not what those wounds were. This was the second time she had ever seen the sea, and he was praying for a different reaction to the first.

She remained silent, hopping forward to sink her talons into the sand. The movement kicked grains up into her breast feathers. There was no shake to remove them.

If anything, David thought, she looked disappointed, but there was a stiffness to the turn of her head as well.

“This looks as good of a spot as any,” David announced, shrugging his backpack off. “And I am going for a swim.”

Even with that dramatic statement, he carefully scouted fifty paces in either direction before stripping down. There was only one Pokemon in sight, and it was small and about two hundred meters away from his chosen spot. David wouldn’t have even seen the creature if it hadn’t seen him first. The Pokemon’s orange shell blended in with the sand quite well, and it was only a scooter’s length long. Krabby. The crab Pokemon. It didn’t appear very special. Without the dopey two eyes and catcher’s mitt sized claws, it could have passed for a king crab back home.

After seeing those claws, he spent a lot longer surveying the water before going in. It was worth it in the end, as weeks of travel grime washed away under crashing waves and cold bracing water.

His dinner that evening was gritty with stray grains, but it was worth it to feel the sand under his toes. Cloudburst remained apart, roosting on a lone clump of moss above the sand. David took it as a good sign that she wasn’t retreating to her pokeball.

He was readying Venonat’s pokeball for the nocturnal Pokemon’s wake up when a wind threw sand at his eyes.

“Ah shit.”

Dark clouds were gathering on the horizon, illuminated by the last of the sun’s rays from behind him. It was a great swirl of grays and blacks, stretching almost down to the water. An occasional flash of lightning illuminated the depths below. A storm was building.

David looked back at his tent, pegs already buried as deep in the sand as he could sink them. A wasted effort. Big wave could sweep away the entire beach tomorrow. “I think I’ll have to re-pitch Cloudburst.”

No response.

He looked over at where she’d been roosting on a clump of moss out in the sand. She’d left the perch, hopping onto the sand with her wings spread.

“Cloudburst?”

Specks of white flashed in his eyes. Reflections from the setting sun on the waves.

Why was she so still?

As the waves continued to crash, and the flecks refused to disappear, David knew something was wrong. The dots of white began to grow.

“Cloudburst!”

A wind swept at his back, binding his shirt to the damp skin at the small of his back. The flecks became a sphere.

“Pidgey?”

The orb of blinding light began to pulse, shedding sparks. David couldn’t look away. It burned his eyes, but he could feel it. Feel that larger sense, the looming shadow, the pressure that surrounded them, pushing, changing, growing.

How long he was locked there, David didn’t know.

The sphere pulsed, and he was free. A blinding wave stole his sight.

“Cloudburst!” He shouted, not believing it.

“PID-GE-OTTO!”