PokeWild

“PID-GE-OTTO!”

The light faded. She reappeared. She was taller now, equal with his waist rather than reaching up to match his knees. That was somehow one of the least of the changes. Her tufty crest was gone, replaced by long feathers that curled to the back of her head. Their color had changed too, tawny shifting to a red vibrant enough to be satin. That wasn’t the end of the color changes. Her brown feathers had grown lighter. Her sandy-cream breast feathers had been drained to a whiter tint, all that yellow pooling in her tail. She now had five tail feathers instead of three. Three red and two yellow.

Pidgeotto snapped at the air with a rose pink beak. Her talons had changed to match. They dug into the sand, scratching to gain traction as new weight settled on the beach.

Wings spread, nearly three meters across as the Pokemon fought to find her balance.

“Cloudburst?” It was all he could really say, all he could really ask. Pidgey had evolved, growing and changing into the Pokemon before his eyes. But was she still the same? What mental changes accompanied the physical?

Pidgeotto clacked her beak open and whistled.

David twitched, the unfamiliar noise making his concerns more real. They both seemed surprised by the noise. Pidgeotto clamped her beak shut, wings ruffling as she looked back and forth for the source. After confirming that they were alone, she tried again, hesitantly opening her beak.

Another whistling song came, but neither of them were as surprised now, and Pidgeotto continued trying. After a minute of stressful song, it came. A deep chirp. It wasn’t the same as she sounded before, yet still contained hints of those notes. She was still Cloudburst. His teammate.

David smiled.

Pidgeotto hopped forward, a move that proved to be a mistake as she landed on the sand at a tilt. The shrill she made trying to right herself was familiar enough to ease that weight in David’s chest.

“Cloudburst.”

“Pid-geotto.”

“You evolved!”

She whistled happily.

“We need to celebrate,” David said, stepping forward and reaching out. He wasn’t sure if he should touch her crest feathers now. They were very long, and crooked enough that they couldn’t be for flight. Were they some kind of sensory organ now, like Venonat’s antennae? He held his hand back at the last inch.

“A cake?” David looked around at the beach and reconsidered. Ovens were not commonly found washed ashore. “Maybe when we get back to town. I’m sure we have something — a berry? I’ll check.”

Cloudburst butted forward, dragging David’s hand through her crest. The feathers were strange. At the edges they were soft and fine, like a shaving brush. The further his hand sank the tougher the vanes got, from a stiff brush until the branches coming off the central shaft, barbs, gave not at all and scratched at his skin like wire.

“Definitely a berry. And something else when we reach civilization. A grooming, from a professional.”

Pidgeotto whistle-chirped.

“Right, let me dig through our bags.” David stepped away to the tent, letting his hand fall. He made a few steps, before a thump and squawk forced him to turn back. He was near instantly blinded by a thick plume of sand.

Spluttering the grains out of his mouth, he watched in shock as Cloudburst swept her wings about trying to right herself, talons pointed up to the sky.

“Oh Cloudburst.”

A squawk and more sand thrown was the response.

“Stop moving! I’ll help.”

More squawks filled the evening.

-.-

Venonat’s reaction to his new teammate was a surprise and not a good one.

Released from his pokeball, Venonat stood from a crouch, antennae waving as he greeted the setting sun. It was all routine and normal until he detected the meter tall bird Pokemon watching the campsite.

He fled, springing from a dead halt to a run in an instant.

Cloudburst’s startled squawk and David’s rushed entreaties didn’t help. Venonat ducked behind a tree and rattled at them.

David thought it was about to descend into a fight at first, as Venonat poked his body out only to glance at the Pidgeotto and duck back. Cloudburst’s familiar slow squawk in response told David that Venonat had only peeked to use a Nope.

But no glowing lines were thrown back in response. There was no battle to fight.

As the seconds passed, Venonat stuck a slim white antenna out from behind the tree. It was swiftly withdrawn, but returned again.

Five minutes later, David coaxed him out.

“It’s just Cloudburst,” he repeated, walking back towards the bird Pokemon.

Venonat kept his distance. This had never been an issue before, but Venonat had been larger than Pidgey. Now, Pidgeotto was as tall as the tops of his antenna while standing on her talons. David could only guess that instincts that didn’t see Pidgey as a threat, saw Pidgeotto as a predator. Her wingspan had doubled. Her beak was larger. Those oversized talons now fit her body.

While his team watched each other warily, he busied himself preparing food for them. Cloudburst got an extra helping and a full berry. It was bad news for his stocks, but David didn’t care. It took them a minute after the food was out to eat, Cloudburst starting thirty seconds before Venonat.

Things had changed, but it was possible for balance to be restored.

By the time he finally got to moving the tent to prepare for the storm, the wind had already arrived.

-.-

“No, this way.”

“Geotto.” Cloudburst tossed her head in the other direction. South, along the beach. The wrong way. The movement and the wind caught one of her crest feathers, tweaking it out of place. She squawked, shaking her head to reset it back.

“That’s where we came from.”

A whistle.

“We aren’t going back to Fuchsia. We need to go north.”

“Geotto.”

“Ugh.” David ran his palms down his face, tugging at the skin. This wasn’t working. He needed to get through to her. “Food! We don’t have that many supplies, and you’re bigger now. We need to go north to get more.”

Another, calmer this time, head toss south.

“Cloud.”

A shrill squawk.

What could it be?

“Look, you want your grooming, I get it. But we need to go north for that.”

She gave up, hopping away. The movement was less awkward than before, but she had yet to gain confidence in her new weight and size.

“Fine! But only a short trip. We are not going back through that swamp!”

Cloudburst stepped away from the tree, deciding not to hop against the wind. That storm had come in overnight and stayed. The presences of crashing waves and wind had changed the beach. Flotsam had washed up, branches and rocks that broke up the pristine sand. It was busier now. Krabby had flocked to the beach, and if David squinted, he occasionally saw dark shapes in the waves or water to show that something else had followed them in.

A Pidgey could not walk properly, their talons too large and close together to make the attempt. It was like putting clown shoes on a toddler, falling over the only possible result. A Pidgeotto however, was larger, with longer legs and a greater distance between them. Walking wasn’t a smooth process, but it was possible.

With as much dignity as she could, Cloudburst wobbled to the middle of the beach. No longer wearing clown shoes, but still a toddler. The Krabby had been keeping their distance from David’s campsite, but with her emergence, they scuttled further away.

Shaking her wings to clear them of any last remnants of sand, Cloudburst swept them back in preparation for a flight.

“Be careful now,” David said, eyeing her. “Remember how hopping went.”

She tossed her head, squawking once to express how she felt about that.

David grimaced and stepped out of the blast radius.

With a powerful sweep of her wings that kicked up a dust storm, Cloudburst shot up five meters into the sky. In an instant, she passed the canopy of nearby trees, leaving a red streak in the air. Her crest swayed in the wind, streamers flowing behind her head. Those five tail feathers were steadier, but the color made them blur.

“Wow,” David murmured, holding an elbow up to his face to block the sand.

She whistled, wind filling her wings and holding her there.

He couldn’t help but smile.

Then the wind turned, and full sails collapsed. A steady glide became a dive. Cloudburst shot down with a high pitched shrill.

David raced to follow. The Pokemon on the beach scattered.

The thump traveled through the sand. It was heavy enough that he felt it, impossible though it may sound, and he would swear by that. His full backpack didn’t make running on the sand any easier, but there wasn’t time to discard it.

“Are you okay?” he panted.

“Pidg.”

Sand was everywhere. Her brown feathers now looked speckled, and there was enough sand between the red feathers that they appeared orange from a distance.

A clacking to the side sent David whirling around. Six pink eggs and twelve white eyes stared back. They met each other’s eyes. The pink eggs began to retreat, rolling away over cracks in their shell and stones. They moved at different speeds, but always kept the largest egg at their center like a group of the smallest bodyguards and Humpty Dumpty.

David relaxed. “Must have been waiting for one of the Krabby to get closer, but caught larger prey than expected,” he mused to himself.

Grains of sand pelted his hair and back.

Cloudburst didn’t look remotely apologetic when he glared at her. She was more focused on preening her feathers.

David looked south, at the long beach ahead. He looked at the mini crater by his feet.

“Maybe sticking to the sand was a good idea.”

-.-

Cloudburst got better at flying with each attempt, much like how her hops had improved. By the time they reached the end of the beach, crashes weren’t a worry. If anything, her flight was smoother, steadier with the increased wingspan and weight of larger muscles.

They didn’t stop at the beach. They carried on south, hugging the coastline.

When the water began to recede beneath them as the ground rose up, and his steps became heavier, David grew worried. He stopped. After a few minutes without movement, Cloudburst glided down to meet him.

“No. We’re not going back.”

She tossed her head.

“No! You couldn’t fly this morning. Why would you want to do that again?”

Of course, his words had no effect on her. She could not understand them after all. Once more, the only response was a toss of her head.

“No.” He sat down. “I won’t go. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to miss.” One fumble, one ill timed press of that button, or one second too late and it could all be over. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Cloudburst sidled up to him, prodding and bumping into him.

David refused to move.

She sat down too, resting for a while. Ten minutes later, she was back at the prodding.

After fifteen minutes, she took to the skies. Heading south.

David cursed and followed.

Cloudburst remained in the skies overhead and in front of him, but she never traveled faster than he could keep up. As the ground grew steeper and rockier, she slowed to match him.

He could only carry on, curse, and worry about if he was doing the right thing.

As the hill grew steeper she moved west, dipping into the wind shadow of the cliff to save on energy. She didn’t stop until David reached a battered peak; the wind roaring in his ears and drowning out his thoughts. Down far below, low enough that it sank his stomach, great walls of water tore themselves to pieces against knives of rock. The cliff itself was no friend either. It was jagged and held no purchase for visitors or respite for greenery.

“Don’t!” he shouted. It was pointless. If she could not hear him before, there was no way she could now. Her pokeball weighed heavily in his hand.

“Are you sure?” he roared.

A whistled chirp answered.

She came in low, hugging the slope. Her wings beat furiously, gaining speed.

His heart beat achingly slow.

She reached the peak and continued, soaring up and up and up. Her wings stilled.

Cloudburst hung in the air. She flew over the cliff, out into the wild, the vast emptiness.

The winds came. They tore at her wings. They grabbed at her feathers. They tugged at her red crest.

She was buffeted back, and David’s throat caught in his mouth, his hand jerking up to track her movement.

A gust came, then another. She steadied. They came from every angle, forced up by the cliff, by each other, by the waves and the turmoil. Not all were met correctly. David had several more gut wrenching moments.

Cloudburst never fell. She adapted and began to dance.

The winds twisted under her wing; they came at her call. Gusts, updrafts, cyclones and squalls. They were hers.

David’s fear never left, but it became overshadowed by wonder. He knew this was something special, something unique. There was a splendor in the defiance of nature, of the weather.

“PIDGEOTTO!”

After a time, Cloudburst caught an updraft and turned, gliding away from the cliff edge and back down the hill.

Releasing his breath for what felt like the first time in hours, David left the cliff behind. Hopefully for the last time.