EonMaster One
saeculum harmonia
Chapter 16
“The hell do you mean, ‘the bridge is closed’?!”
A blonde-haired youth stood over a blue-clad Unova police officer, scowling angrily. The police officer sighed in exasperation. When he took this rather simple job of standing guard over the paved path here in Pinwheel Forest, he had no idea that one of the people he’d have to block from passing would be an irritated teenager with one-percent body fat that honestly looked like he could rip a grown man in half with his bare hands. Even so, an officer of the law was not to be intimidated by anyone.
“It’s as I said, sir,” the officer replied, trying to keep his tone civil, although he was already tweaked from having had to explain this several times that day. “We’re running an investigation in this area for the time being. You can come back tomorrow –”
“Screw that,” the youth snapped angrily. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Or,” the policeman said over him, now even more irritated at having been interrupted, “there’s a path that winds through the forest itself, that’ll put you on the other side of our block. It’s a bit longer, though, and I can’t promise you’ll be entirely safe. Wild Pokémon are all over the place in that area, so unless you have Pokémon of your own, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
The young man kneaded his face with one of his hands.
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Yeah, like hell you are,” grumbled the young man, stalking off toward two other teenagers that seemed to be waiting for him.
Dalton watched as Phineas Assad walked toward him. The latter’s expression didn’t look at all hopeful.
“It’s a no-go,” he said, sounding defeated as he threw up his hands.
“Of course it’s a no-go,” repeated Dalton, mentally cursing his luck. Talia, however, looked fine with the entire situation, if not a bit happy about it.
“Well, I guess it’s the forest path,” she said brightly. Dalton yelped as Talia grabbed him around the forearm and started to pull him toward a nearby gap in the seemingly endless rows of tall trees.
“Hey, Nature Girl – hold on a second,” said Phineas loudly. “Those woods are full of dangerous Pokémon, and I don’t have any Pokémon.”
“We do,” Dalton answered. “So I guess you’ll just have to stay behind us, won’t you?”
Phineas grimaced.
“If you have such a huge problem with it,” Dalton added, “you could just go back to the cop and let him know you’re Interpol, show him your badge... he’d probably let us through then.”
There was a loud slapping sound a second later, and it wasn’t from what you’d think; Phineas had palmed his own face so forcefully that it had echoed, sending Pidove from a nearby tree in alarm. When his face emerged from his hand again, it was wearing a joyless, quivering smile. “Are you – brain dead? What part… of ‘incognito’… do you not understand?”
“Okay, fine, ‘incognito’… geez,” muttered Dalton, turning away from the agent. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“Maybe I’m missing something?” Talia asked, wearing an expression of genuine curiosity. “I’m not getting the logic here, guys… if you don’t want to be seen, wouldn’t the path through the forest be the best way to go?”
“I didn’t give you permission to talk,” said Phineas quickly. Then, turning to Dalton, he asked mockingly, “D-did you give her permission to talk?”
Dalton rolled his eyes.
“Listen,” Phineas said, painting on a very plastic-looking smile as he turned to Talia. “Talia. You’re pretty. Try to work with that. This is a classic ‘beauty-brains-brawn’ trio. I’m obviously the brawn, your ‘would-be-boyfriend-if-he-actually-had-a-pair-between-his-legs’ over there can’t be the brawn, so he’s the brains… which leaves you with the beauty. Don’t try to be the brawn or the brains. You’re f—ing up the balance.”
Talia took what seemed like an extremely elaborate and sneaky insult surprisingly well. She turned to Dalton (as if Phineas wasn’t standing right there next to her), smiled, and said, “Well, now we know why Finn’s single. Doesn’t matter how much muscle you put on if you’re a sexist *******.”
“For your information, princess, I’m single because agents are more effective without emotional attachments,” Phineas answered almost disdainfully, as if this was an obvious fact that everyone knew. “In my line of work, if you can’t guarantee that the people closest to you won’t get shot… you’re better off not having anyone close to you.”
He shot a look at Dalton as he said this. Then he turned his eyes on Talia again.
“Well, for all those muscles, right now, you’re the only one with no Pokémon to protect us,” she commented. “Which makes you… pretty much useless.”
Phineas’s face tightened alarmingly.
“I don’t get that,” remarked Dalton. “You think a special agent that could be posted anywhere would have a Pokémon on him.”
“Well, that’s because you don’t know jack s—t about Interpol, buddy,” Phineas said flatly. “Pokémon represent a degree of brute force that would do more harm to most of our missions than good. We like to operate with a little bit more finesse.”
“‘Finesse’?” laughed Dalton. “So the part where you go out of your way to look like a bodybuilder is all about finesse?”
“There are a lot of advantages… not that you’d know anything about them,” Phineas said, smirking. “Sometimes, our covers call for a little bit of charm – get my drift?”
“So you roleplay the part of a ladykiller with a nice six-pack, is that it?” asked Talia almost distastefully.
Phineas bared his teeth in a smile toward Talia. “Who said I was roleplaying? For that matter, who says I need to roleplay? Of course, if you’re that curious about it…”
“We’re wasting time here,” Dalton cut in. “We could be halfway through the woods by now.”
He shot a look at Phineas, who returned it with something of a smirk. “Then lead the way, O Brainy One.”
Dalton started down the path. Talia fell into stride right behind him, and Phineas (presumably) brought up the rear – not that Dalton would have been too upset if they had managed to leave him behind. It wasn’t long before Dalton started sweating; thankfully, it was still late spring and not terribly hot yet, but it was warm enough, and this forest was almost stiflingly humid.
“What are you doing?” Dalton heard Talia ask. Feeling like he hadn’t done anything worth asking the question, he figured Talia was talking to Phineas and didn’t bother turning around.
“What?” the agent uttered defensively. “It’s hot.”
There were a few more seconds of silence.
“You look curious,” Phineas remarked. “You can touch them if you like.”
Dalton’s jaw unhinged. He still didn’t turn around – now because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was going on.
“You’re unbelievable,” scoffed Talia, much to Dalton’s relief. (And that relief was much to Dalton’s confusion.) “Do you just try to flirt with anything that has a vagina?”
Dalton whirled around. He couldn’t help himself – Talia’s frankness had thrown him that far off guard. (Then again, he quickly had to remind himself, this was the girl that confessed to having played ‘Doctor’ with a neighbor boy at the age of six. She’d said that the first day they’d met, in fact…) He must have been wearing a priceless expression indeed, because Phineas – who, somewhat mercifully, was merely walking around with his tanktop hiked halfway up his ribcage and his washboard abs on display for the world to see – immediately gave a snort of laughter before looking at Talia again.
“Not ‘anything’,” he said somewhat roguishly. “Only the good-looking ones.”
Talia had her fists clenched and was glaring at Phineas as he passed by, but was also blushing furiously – a mixed reaction that attempting to read, Dalton knew, would only lead to his own bewilderment… and severe headaches.
Meanwhile, Phineas took the front for a moment, stretched his arms, and laughed. “Damn, this is gonna be a fun trip.”
A strange buzzing sound cut him off and he turned around very slowly. Something was hiding in the tall grass in front of them, and the only way Dalton could tell for sure was because the form’s reddish-purple color was a violent contrast to the foliage around them.
“Ah, geez…” muttered Phineas, backing away and making sure Dalton was out in front again. “This is your department, right?”
“What is that?” muttered Dalton, pointing his PokéDex at it.
“Venipede, the Centipede Pokémon. It discovers what is going on around it by using the feelers on its head and tail. It is brutally aggressive.”
“‘Brutally aggressive?’” repeated Dalton, closing the PokéDex. “That doesn’t sound good…”
“The damn thing’s two feet tall, if that,” remarked Phineas disdainfully. “Can’t be all that strong…”
The strange, new, insectoid beast curled up into a ball.
“Looks like it’s scared to me,” commented Phineas.
It was at that point that the rolled-up form of Venipede started to rotate furiously, like the tires on a drag racer.
“Is that bad?” uttered Talia. Then Venipede shot toward them like a missile. Talia and Phineas, both being athletic and better at sensing danger than Dalton, leapt out of the Venipede’s path. Dalton wasn’t so lucky or skilled…
WHAM.
Before Dalton even knew what was going on, something had hammered him right in the split of his ribcage, throwing him for a loop. He hit the grassy earth on his back and felt himself skid along the ground. A sound somewhere between a laugh, a wheeze, and an astonished gasp rang in his ears. “Holy crap!”
“Dalton!” he heard Talia yell. “Are you okay?!”
Dalton could only cough repeatedly in response. It felt like someone had punched him right in the diaphragm, and it was taking all of his effort to draw even a single good breath. With Talia’s help, he sat up, wincing. He choked out an oath as he tried to get back to his feet.
“You wanna play rough, huh?” he uttered, snatching a Pokéball off his belt (and nearly yanking the entire belt off his waist in sheer frustration). “We can play rough. Nina, let’s go!”
And out came the Nidorina.
“<What’s this?>” she asked, eyeing the Venipede.
“Exercise,” replied Dalton. “Nina, use Poison Sting!”
Nina’s ears flared out. Purpling darts of light shot forth from them, hitting the Venipede square on between the eyes. The bug-like Pokémon hardly flinched, and a second later, a similar-looking attack came forth from the Venipede’s mouth. Nina took a step backward as it hit her, and shook her head quickly, not looking very fazed by it.
“That Venipede’s a Poison-type, I bet…” muttered Dalton. “I don’t think you can poison a Poison-type, can you?”
He had asked this question to Talia, who shook her head. “Probably not…”
Dalton grimaced, looking up at the canopy of trees above him. “Dammit. I’d switch back to Lake, but I don’t think there’s enough room for her to fly around in here…”
Meanwhile, Venipede had rolled into a rounded shape again, and was literally revving up to charge.
“Oh, s—t. Nina, move!!” Dalton exclaimed.
Fortunately, when they were prepared for it, Dalton noticed that this strange rolling attack wasn’t nearly as fast as he thought it was. Nina was able to dodge it with ease. Venipede missed, rolled right up a tree, and came hurtling down toward Nina, back-first.
“Nina, use Double Kick!!” Dalton ordered. Nina somehow managed to execute a full backflip and kick the Venipede in the process. The Centipede Pokémon went flying and landed in a heap near the tall grass where it had started. It did not appear beaten yet, though. It rose again, opening one eye blearily…
A bluish-white jet shot forth out of nowhere, hitting Venipede dead on in the face with a loud CRACK! The insect-like Pokémon collapsed. Dalton and Nina looked around for the source of the assault…
They didn’t find anything that looked remotely capable of issuing an attack that powerful. What they did find, however, was a blue creature that Dalton assumed to be a Pokémon. In fact, with its monkey-like appearance, it could have been some sort of distant cousin of the Pansear that Dalton had battled several days back, in Striaton City. It was slumped against a tree, in a semi-seated position.
“<I already told you, braaaaahhhh…>” Dalton could hear the Pokémon say in a blissfully lethargic-sounding voice. “<Y’don’t interrupt the Z’s, brah. Here I am, tryin’ to catch some shuteye, and Kamikaze-san over here decides he’s gonna wreck himself right into my humble abode. ’Snot cool, man...>”
“<Who the hell are you?>” snapped Nina. “<You want a piece of us, too?>”
“<Whoa… aggro vibes, aggro vibes… chill out, lady,>” the Pokémon replied in its slow drawl, thrusting forward its mitten-like hands. “<I don’t wanna ‘piece.’ I just want some ‘peace’… catch my drift?>”
The Pokémon looked around – or at least turned its head toward everyone else. Its eyes, for whatever reason, seemed incapable of opening. Then again, Dalton thought, that may have been because it simply couldn’t be bothered with the effort.
“<We mellow? Nice…>” drawled the Pokémon. “<I’m goin’ up to finish my nap. Catch you dudes on the flip side.>”
And with that, it climbed up into the tree – but then it stopped.
“<Oh… you’re not from around here, are ya?>” it asked.
Dalton looked at Talia, wondering if she could understand the simian creature as well. He looked back at the Pokémon and shook his head.
“<Didn’t think so… yeah, I’d find some shelter to crash under if I were you,>” the Pokémon advised. Patting the strange formation atop its head, it explained, “<My cloud’s gettin’ all puffy… usually means there’s a storm coming, and a gnarly one, too.>”
And with that, it disappeared (rather acrobatically, at that) into the treetops.
Dalton grimaced. So enthralled had he been with the entire exchange that he’d forgotten to scan the Pokémon to see what it was.
“That wasn’t a Pansear, was it?” he queried.
“Using Water Gun? Nope,” Talia answered, shaking her head negatively. “That was a Panpour. It’s what you would’ve fought if you’d battled Cress instead of Chili.”
“Oh…” Dalton frowned. “You think he was serious about the storm?”
“I didn’t hear anything about a storm,” commented Phineas.
“Well, you wouldn’t,” Dalton answered bluntly. “Your phone doesn’t get any freakin’ service in these woods.”
Phineas frowned. “Don’t remind me.”
“I don’t know…” Talia remarked. Then, cupping her chin in a pensive pose, she added, “But I feel like Pokémon would be pretty in tune with nature.”
“I’m not sure that Pokémon was in tune with much of anything,” retorted Phineas.
“What, did you understand any of the conversation?” asked Dalton.
“No,” Phineas admitted. “But that… Panpour, was it? It came off kind of…”
Talia tilted her head. “‘Kind of’ what?”
“You know…” muttered Phineas. Then, he pinched two fingers near his lips and drew in a couple of short breaths. Dalton got the hint and rolled his eyes.
“Seriously? You couldn’t have just said ‘stoner’?” he asked, shaking his head. “We’re all grown-ups here.”
Glancing at Talia, Phineas commented, “Well, technically…”
Talia scowled, gave Phineas the finger, turned on her heel, and walked off. Phineas grinned – a strange, lopsided sort of grin that Dalton could have sworn he’d seen on the internet at several different points. Then, turning to Dalton after Talia was well out of earshot, Phineas remarked, “She’s cute when she gets mad, don’t you think?”
“You don’t think it’s kind of creepy to talk that way about someone who’s that much younger than you?” Dalton muttered.
“What, I’m not allowed to say she’s good-looking for another… nine days? Or is it eleven? Whatever,” uttered Phineas. “I don’t see where that law’s on the books anywhere. Besides, you think the same thing, too. It’s the one thing we probably agree on, right? …Well, that, and that Ghetsis is a massive d—k.”
“That’s beside the point,” Dalton said, lazily starting to walk again. Nina fell into stride right behind him. “It’s not that she’s young. You’re old.”
“Says who?” Phineas asked, sounding affronted. Dalton tried to keep a straight face – he thought this was rather hilarious.
“With your job?” laughed Dalton. “You’ve gotta be at least, what, thirty?”
“Does this face look thirty to you?” Phineas said incredulously.
“With or without the full beard?” Dalton snarked.
“Hey, don’t get jealous that all you can grow on your face are pimples,” Phineas replied. “I’m not even close to thirty yet. Let’s just leave it at that.”
They kept walking.
“What’s her story, anyway?” asked Phineas. “Why’d she run away from home?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Dalton asked, getting annoyed with this conversation.
“I was going to try to be a nice guy,” sighed Phineas. “…Let you have a ghost of a chance, you know?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Dalton dourly.
“Don’t take this the wrong way… well, actually, I don’t really care how you take it…” Phineas muttered. “But she’s way out of your league.”
He raised both his eyebrows.
“That’s what this is? A competition?” asked Dalton, a bit disdainfully. “Sorry, but I’m not taking the bait… Talia’s a person, not a prize.”
“That’s really idealistic of you,” chuckled Phineas. “You don’t like the game, so you don’t want to acknowledge it… then you wonder why you don’t ever win.”
Phineas raised his eyebrows at Dalton and smiled. Just then, Talia came running back toward them.
“C’mon, guys,” she said briskly. “We’re in a hurry, right?”
Much to Dalton’s annoyance, he was stopped for a battle not long after (“Are you serious? That’s the third Herdier in two days!”) He won, though, and his reward was a fair bit of money and… a berry.
“A berry,” repeated Dalton, holding the tiny fruit in the palm of his hand as they left the defeated trainer (dressed in some sort of faux-official-looking red-and-black garb) behind. “Who gives out berries as a prize? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Uh… eat it?” suggested Phineas. “Grind it up into a smoothie?”
Dalton rolled his eyes.
“Hold on to it,” advised Talia. “It might be useful later.”
Dalton looked askance at Talia. He wasn’t so sure about that.
As they continued walking, Dalton looked up and noticed that the vague blues that had been filtering in through the treetops had darkened. “Geez, how long have we been walking? Anybody know what time it is?”
“Doesn’t your PokéDex gadget have the time?” asked Phineas.
Dalton hadn’t thought of that. Muttering an oath to himself (he was starting to realize how much he hated Phineas being right about anything) he took the small, computerized machine out of its pocket and asked, “What time is it?”
“The current time in southern Unova is: 2:14 PM. It is recommended that people in this area seek immediate shelter. The Unova Meteorological Center in Castelia City has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for –”
Amanita’s voice never finished the sentence – and if she did, Dalton never heard her over the loud, echoing rumble that immediately followed.
Dalton looked at Talia, who gave a grimace. Meanwhile, Phineas buried his eyes in one of his hands and muttered, “Oh, great… now what?”
“What do you mean, ‘now what’?” replied Dalton.
“I mean, do we try to travel through it or hunker down until it blows over?” Phineas asked. Looking at the surroundings (they were standing in something of a clearing), he added, “We need to make a decision now because it won’t be as easy when it—”
Almost instantly, the trio was drenched.
Wearing a deadpan expression of annoyance, Phineas finished, “—starts raining. For f—k’s sake…”
A clap of thunder immediately followed a flash of lightning. Boughs of trees danced in the suddenly swirling winds, their arms undulating in a foreboding group luau that caused shadows to dance over the muddying path. Talia and Phineas were now at full sprint with Dalton bringing up the rear, panting and struggling to keep up. He almost would have preferred standing still and being wet as opposed to being both wet and exhausted… not to mention hungry.
He felt his foot catch as another flash of lightning temporarily blinded the path in front of him. His fall came in time with a crash of thunder in the background. He bit into his lip hard and immediately tasted his own blood. A pair of strong hands tried to yank him up to his feet, but only his shoulder and arm went.
“Get up, damn it!” he heard a snarl above him.
“Lay off!” he heard another shout.
“We don’t have time for this!” the first voice snapped.
“He’s not a robot!” the second voice – Dalton recognized it as Talia’s – bit back. “He needs rest.”
This comment coincided with Dalton’s second wind. He staggered to his feet. Talia reached out a hand for him. Dalton knocked it away. “I’m fine.”
He steeled himself and started to walk again.
“Dalton…” murmured Talia.
It was a mark of how hard it was raining that Dalton’s sigh was accompanied by a fine, rising mist coming from his nose and mouth. “It’s either keep moving or get soaked, right?”
“We’re already soaked,” Phineas pointed out.
“Thanks for that clever observation,” Dalton deadpanned. Looking up, he pulled up short (Talia walked into his back and shoved him lightly in response.) “The hell is that thing?”
What he saw in front of him, despite Mother Nature doing her level best to screen it from view, was a jagged opening, almost cave-like in its formation. There were trees on either side of it for as far as the eye could see (which wasn’t saying a lot in this weather)…
“That’s either a cave or the biggest f—king log in existence,” commented Phineas. “And seeing as we can’t really get through anywhere else…”
Dalton let out a short groan. “Beautiful.”
But as he stepped into the log-cave-tunnel (he found he could see through to the other side rather easily), it quickly became apparent that, although dark and slightly strange-smelling, it was a much preferable place to be than outside in the unforgiving elements.
More surprising, it could fit the three of them rather easily. Dalton knew one thing for sure; he had never seen an ordinary log this large.
“Did something hollow out a tree trunk?” asked Talia.
“What could have done that?” Dalton queried, at the same time not sure he wanted to know.
Phineas allowed a second’s pause before he spoke. “We should rest here.”
“Oh, so you’re running the show now?” asked Dalton a bit bitterly, trying to stand straight as possible in order not to betray that his calves literally felt like they were on fire.
“You’re exhausted, aren’t you? I could go on for another hour or two, but you obviously need some rest. There’s no point trying to push it in this weather and you getting hurt,” Phineas explained, his arms folded. He brushed past Dalton and Talia. “I’m going on ahead to scout for any sort of trouble and a suitable place to make camp. At the rate we’re going, we’re probably not gonna be able to get across the forest today, and even if we do, there’s the bridge to deal with.”
“What’s wrong with the bridge?” asked Dalton.
“Have you seen how long that thing is?” Phineas asked. Then, snickering to himself in a somewhat Evan-like manner, he made his way out of the tunnel.
Dalton leaned against the wall of the tree-tunnel and slumped down to his backside. He smashed a fist into it, which was supposed to be a release of frustration. Now, though, not only was he still extremely frustrated, but his hand hurt, to boot. Talia sat down across from him. There was a long period of silence – almost a minute where all Dalton could hear were the rain and the voices in his own head.
As if answering one of them, he suddenly muttered, “I’m not weak.”
He wasn’t sure who had put him together, but whoever or whatever had put him together had certainly not built him for this. Whoever had tabbed him as the ‘chosen one’ clearly hadn’t made the best choice, either.
“I’m not weak,” Dalton repeated.
How was he supposed to be a Pokémon trainer – let alone a Champion-level Pokémon trainer – if his body was too frail to make the journey? It was embarrassing. How pathetic did he look next to kids three or four years younger than he was? They didn’t seem to be having any problems. Here he was, almost eighteen, and…
He stared down at his forearms. At his height, they were almost spindly. He’d always been skinny, even as a young boy – but he’d hit his growth spurt at fourteen, which had only made things worse. “The spider”, they used to call him in high school. Being just short of six feet tall in high school was likely the only thing that kept him from being stuffed into any lockers. Well, that, and the time Evan Stanfeld hit a would-be bully across the face with his skateboard. The so-called victim lost two teeth and Evan was suspended from school for a week. Dalton had just met Evan back then… Loretta, too. Granted, Loretta seemed to hate his guts from the jump – or so he thought. Hell, maybe she did hate his guts back then before (according to her, at least) falling for him recently. Maybe it was both at the same time. Girls are funny like that…
“What are you thinking about?” Talia asked. She was sitting across from him. He heaved a sigh and didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’m holding everyone back,” he said heavily.
“No, you’re not,” Talia replied so quickly, Dalton was almost sure she was lying to him to try to spare his feelings. He wasn’t sure if he should feel angry or not. She must have noticed, however, that he was skeptical, because she kept talking: “Honestly, I’m tired, too. Finn’s the only one in so much of a hurry.”
She glared out of the opposite end of the tunnel, where Phineas had gone a few minutes before.
“Most of us don’t run on ice water and rocket fuel,” she added dispassionately. Dalton knew she was trying to cheer him up. Dalton heard the wind swirling outside. In fact, some of it came right to the tunnel. Dalton gave an involuntary shiver. Talia noticed; her face contorted into a displeased frown. “You know… maybe you should…”
“Huh? What?”
Talia seemed hesitant, almost… embarrassed, which wasn’t like her. “Your shirt, I mean. It’s soaking. You’ll catch a cold.”
It took Dalton a second, but he figured out what Talia was getting at. “I’m f-fine,” he said, cursing himself mentally for the fact that his body had chosen the most inopportune moment to give another twitch, thus turning his simple statement into a shivering stammer. Talia sighed as if exasperated.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Dalton lied.
“Bulls—t – you can’t even look at me,” Talia answered immediately and flatly. She reached across the small space. “Here. Let me –”
“NO!!”
She withdrew her hand as if something had burned her. She looked at it for a second, flailing it and trying to get rid of some of the awful stinging. Dalton realized what he had done. He looked up into her blue eyes, which appeared to water for a moment as she investigated her hand. She seemed more shocked than in pain. She flailed her right hand again. “God, Dalton… what the hell was that for?”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, looking away from her. “I… I just…”
She seemed confused. “Do you really not like having your shirt off? I mean… how do you shower or anything? I don’t really get it.”
“It’s not that…” Dalton muttered, now too ashamed to look her in the eye. “It’s just that…”
“You don’t like having it off in front of people?” she asked. “I mean… you seemed okay with it that one time we went swimming…”
“But I wasn’t, remember?” he said. Dropping his voice to a near-inaudible murmur, he added, “Besides… it was dark then…”
Talia frowned. “You’re self-conscious because you’re so thin – is that it? Well, that’s kinda stupid, to be honest… doesn’t mean you should hit people’s hands.”
“I don’t like people reaching out to grab me, okay?!” Dalton blurted out. In the ensuing silence, another gust of wind caused his sopping-wet shirt to go deathly cold again. He shivered – then he swore. Talia rolled her eyes.
“Look… you can be proud and get sick,” she said. “You’re already having trouble traveling as is. If you get a cold or something, you’re gonna be down for the count. Do you want that?”
Dalton mulled it over for a moment. Then, with a snarl of frustrated resignation, his hands came up to the buttons on the shirt that Talia had bought for him. They started to shake violently.
“Are you that scared?” Talia asked, the tone in her voice now making it obvious that she thought this whole thing was becoming ridiculous. “I promise I won’t laugh. Even if I see your entire ribcage, I won’t laugh. That make you feel any better?”
“I know you won’t laugh,” Dalton said. “It’s not a funny sort of thing.”
And then, moving his hands as quickly as he could (lest he lose his nerve and be unable to go through with it), he undid the second button on his shirt… then the third and the fourth.
Talia’s eyes widened. She sat back against the wooden wall of the log tunnel, hand to mouth, her face as white as a Mahogany Town winter, her expression altogether appropriate for someone who had just come face-to-face with a ghost.
“Oh, my god…” Her voice was barely there, breathless, like someone had sucked all the air out of her lungs. No longer having the heart to go all the way, Dalton started to button his shirt up again.
“And that’s what happens when your dad’s got a temper and you cost him his favorite child,” he said lifelessly. “And stop looking at me like that. Didn’t I tell you I don’t want your –”
“Pity?” Talia interrupted, her voice now much higher, almost to the point of absurdity. “How do you expect me – any human being with half a soul – to react to… to that? I just…”
And she turned her head, her face contorted into a lost expression. She quickly ran a hand across her face, but not quite quickly enough to keep Dalton from noticing a couple of tears falling. She shook her head and literally appeared to break down for exactly two seconds before wiping her eyes again.
“I shouldn’t have—” Dalton murmured a bit powerlessly.
“No,” Talia interrupted breathlessly, swallowing hard and wiping her eyes one last time. “I’m glad you did… I feel like I know you so much better now…”
She was trying to put her brave face back on, but it was still obvious by her somewhat deer-in-headlights facial expression that she was still very shaken by what she had seen.
“Talia…”
“I shouldn’t have hit you that one time,” Talia muttered. It took a moment or two for Dalton to remember what she was talking about. “If I’d had any idea…”
“Well… you didn’t,” Dalton said flatly. “Nobody did. Not ‘til now.”
It took a couple of seconds of Talia staring at her knees for the significance of this statement to hit her. Her eyes lit up with realization and then…
“Alright, kids, break time’s over,” Phineas (who had to duck to do so) leaned down and into the log tunnel. Dalton could see from a distance that his hair was lank and plastered to his face by the rain. “The rain’s lightened up enough so we can actually see now. There’s a hill up ahead, not too far from here. If we want to make camp, I’d rather do it there than in a tree carcass.”
And he disappeared from view again. Dalton shook his head. “What a d—k.”
Talia let out an audible giggle as she got to her feet.
The outside world seemed to have transformed in their absence; Dalton caught a whiff of a heavy, earthy rain musk that was somewhat foreign to him. Concrete-addled as his hometown was, the smell (although it seemed to rain there every third day or so) was nowhere near as pronounced. The ambient buzz of nature reverberated through the trees and through his brain. Above, Dalton could see powerful light filtering through the canopy of treetops, as if the Sun itself had taken note of the time it had lost, and in its return had doubled its efforts. Dalton could already feel the warmth bringing relief to his cold body. On nearby trees, drops of rainwater held on for dear life before falling to the ground below. Four-petaled flowers burst blue and orange out of nearby bushes, some taking to the air on a sudden breeze and spinning like… pinwheels. Now, suddenly, the name of the locale made some sense.
More importantly, Dalton felt somewhat lighter; like he had left something behind in that log tunnel – something that he had not realized he was glad to lose until he had actually lost it. While a slight pang of mourning hit his heart – he was sure Professor McCourt would have loved to see something like this – he found himself, as crazy as it sounded, somewhat happy to be alive.
A hand grasped his shoulder. He went stiff for a moment until he realized there had only been one person behind him.
Talia stared at him for a moment, her face serious. Her eyes were still just a bit red, but they were not watery, and she was lightly smiling. She seemed to struggle with words for a moment…
“You kept saying, ‘I’m not weak,’” she said. “You’re right… you’re not. And… I hope you believe that about yourself one day… or… something like that. Yeah.”
She looked down a bit sheepishly, as if she’d wanted to say something a bit more poignant, and her brain had simply failed to deliver. Then she stood up on her tiptoes just a bit…
A moment after her feet returned to ground level, Phineas came back around the corner. “You guys still back there?”
“Coming,” Talia replied, visibly rolling her eyes. She looked over her shoulder, flashed a smile toward Dalton, and walked off.
Dalton stood there for a moment, staring at the back of Talia’s head. With a childlike brand of curiosity, he slowly put his hand up to a small spot on his cheek…
Hidden by a pair of black sunglasses and what looked to be a white helmet, a head peered out from the top boughs of a nearby tree. The man to whom this head belonged (holding tightly on to the tree limb with his remaining three limbs) produced a radio in his right hand and began to speak into it. “Sir, I’ve got a visual on what looks like… a trio of teenagers, possibly young adults.”
He waited for a response from the other end.
“Can you give me a description of any of them? Preferably all of them?”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “They all look to be in their late teens, early twenties. Two males, one female. One male’s short, jet black hair, tall, extremely thin…”
“Extremely thin?” repeated the other gentleman.
“Sticklike… sir,” the radio user elaborated. “There’s a female, about the same age… long, orange hair…”
“So one male, one female – male with black hair, girl’s a redhead? Interesting…”
“Sir, are these the targets?”
“Not quite… but still… let’s say persons of interest, if my guess is correct. Now, you said there’s a third person with them?”
“Yes, sir. Male as well. May be a bit older than the other two. Blond hair, about shoulder length… muscular. Very muscular.”
“Huh… sounds like they picked up a new traveling companion,” the voice on the other end mused.
“Should we engage them, sir? They’re starting to open distance.”
“Negative – do not engage,” the man on the other radio answered through the slight speaker distortion. “If you can keep a safe distance, listen in on their conversation. Find out what their plans are…”
“And if we encounter… those others?”
“If there’s one, and you’re sure they’re alone, your group has permission to engage – but I want that individual alive and in a shape to talk, do you understand? We can’t get any information from a corpse or a vegetable.”
“What if there’s more than one?”
“If there’s more than one, don’t engage them. The Rearguard doesn’t have the manpower to handle those guys, if what I hear about their reputation is correct. Also…”
The helmeted man pressed the radio closer to his ear, feeling like this next bit of information might be important.
“Whatever you do, under NO circumstances – none at all – are you to engage a young man with silver hair if you encounter him. Do you understand? I’m ordering you to flee on sight.”
The man paused.
“Captain Marlow, do you copy?”
“… …Yes, sir.”
“Rearguard Commandant, over and out. ‘Nam mundus sine canitia.’”
“Nam mundus sine canitia. Plasma Rearguard Captain Marlow, out.” Marlow repeated, silencing his radio. He snarled a curse to himself. He still wasn’t sure about this assignment, honestly. He supposed it was marginally less dangerous than the Vanguard, and a bit less stiff than the Royal Guard. Hell, maybe it was less dangerous than the Royal Guard. He’d heard a rather nasty rumor that one of the Royal Guard members had dropped the Plasma flag while marching His Excellency out of a nearby town… and that his reward had been an immediate pistol bullet to the forehead. Marlow shuddered. Still, though… his commander had a degree of autonomy that meant that he didn’t always have to answer directly to His Excellency. It was almost as if they were not Plasma at all, but rather a rogue splinter group that existed solely to do the Commandant’s bidding. Normally, that would not have been a problem, but it just so happened that the Commandant’s bidding had become a touch erratic in the past couple of weeks. He had gone investigating seemingly random targets, which Marlow supposed was the Rearguard’s job to some extent. The way the Commander talked about some of these targets, however…
“Damned boogeymen,” the captain muttered to himself. “I mean… a flee-on-sight order? What the hell are we chasing, that he’d say ‘as soon as you find it, run completely the f—k in the opposite direction’?”
But Captain Marlow wasn’t about to disobey an order from the Commandant. After all, they were never told whether any given mission was the Commandant’s own idea, or a direct order from the Regent himself. Marlow wasn’t about to take a chance that this was the second. If he was going to get into trouble, he would much rather do it where Plasma had sent him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to look his pregnant wife and four-year-old daughter in the eye, not so much because of shame as an acute and terminal case of ‘bullet-to-the-forehead’. If someone had survived that ailment and been in any shape to tell about it, Captain Marlow was yet to meet that someone. Still, though, there was something about this mission that made him decidedly uneasy…
Commandant Colress… he thought. What the devil have you gotten us into…?
16: The Path Less Traveled, Or Something Like It
“The hell do you mean, ‘the bridge is closed’?!”
A blonde-haired youth stood over a blue-clad Unova police officer, scowling angrily. The police officer sighed in exasperation. When he took this rather simple job of standing guard over the paved path here in Pinwheel Forest, he had no idea that one of the people he’d have to block from passing would be an irritated teenager with one-percent body fat that honestly looked like he could rip a grown man in half with his bare hands. Even so, an officer of the law was not to be intimidated by anyone.
“It’s as I said, sir,” the officer replied, trying to keep his tone civil, although he was already tweaked from having had to explain this several times that day. “We’re running an investigation in this area for the time being. You can come back tomorrow –”
“Screw that,” the youth snapped angrily. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Or,” the policeman said over him, now even more irritated at having been interrupted, “there’s a path that winds through the forest itself, that’ll put you on the other side of our block. It’s a bit longer, though, and I can’t promise you’ll be entirely safe. Wild Pokémon are all over the place in that area, so unless you have Pokémon of your own, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
The young man kneaded his face with one of his hands.
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Yeah, like hell you are,” grumbled the young man, stalking off toward two other teenagers that seemed to be waiting for him.
Dalton watched as Phineas Assad walked toward him. The latter’s expression didn’t look at all hopeful.
“It’s a no-go,” he said, sounding defeated as he threw up his hands.
“Of course it’s a no-go,” repeated Dalton, mentally cursing his luck. Talia, however, looked fine with the entire situation, if not a bit happy about it.
“Well, I guess it’s the forest path,” she said brightly. Dalton yelped as Talia grabbed him around the forearm and started to pull him toward a nearby gap in the seemingly endless rows of tall trees.
“Hey, Nature Girl – hold on a second,” said Phineas loudly. “Those woods are full of dangerous Pokémon, and I don’t have any Pokémon.”
“We do,” Dalton answered. “So I guess you’ll just have to stay behind us, won’t you?”
Phineas grimaced.
“If you have such a huge problem with it,” Dalton added, “you could just go back to the cop and let him know you’re Interpol, show him your badge... he’d probably let us through then.”
There was a loud slapping sound a second later, and it wasn’t from what you’d think; Phineas had palmed his own face so forcefully that it had echoed, sending Pidove from a nearby tree in alarm. When his face emerged from his hand again, it was wearing a joyless, quivering smile. “Are you – brain dead? What part… of ‘incognito’… do you not understand?”
“Okay, fine, ‘incognito’… geez,” muttered Dalton, turning away from the agent. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“Maybe I’m missing something?” Talia asked, wearing an expression of genuine curiosity. “I’m not getting the logic here, guys… if you don’t want to be seen, wouldn’t the path through the forest be the best way to go?”
“I didn’t give you permission to talk,” said Phineas quickly. Then, turning to Dalton, he asked mockingly, “D-did you give her permission to talk?”
Dalton rolled his eyes.
“Listen,” Phineas said, painting on a very plastic-looking smile as he turned to Talia. “Talia. You’re pretty. Try to work with that. This is a classic ‘beauty-brains-brawn’ trio. I’m obviously the brawn, your ‘would-be-boyfriend-if-he-actually-had-a-pair-between-his-legs’ over there can’t be the brawn, so he’s the brains… which leaves you with the beauty. Don’t try to be the brawn or the brains. You’re f—ing up the balance.”
Talia took what seemed like an extremely elaborate and sneaky insult surprisingly well. She turned to Dalton (as if Phineas wasn’t standing right there next to her), smiled, and said, “Well, now we know why Finn’s single. Doesn’t matter how much muscle you put on if you’re a sexist *******.”
“For your information, princess, I’m single because agents are more effective without emotional attachments,” Phineas answered almost disdainfully, as if this was an obvious fact that everyone knew. “In my line of work, if you can’t guarantee that the people closest to you won’t get shot… you’re better off not having anyone close to you.”
He shot a look at Dalton as he said this. Then he turned his eyes on Talia again.
“Well, for all those muscles, right now, you’re the only one with no Pokémon to protect us,” she commented. “Which makes you… pretty much useless.”
Phineas’s face tightened alarmingly.
“I don’t get that,” remarked Dalton. “You think a special agent that could be posted anywhere would have a Pokémon on him.”
“Well, that’s because you don’t know jack s—t about Interpol, buddy,” Phineas said flatly. “Pokémon represent a degree of brute force that would do more harm to most of our missions than good. We like to operate with a little bit more finesse.”
“‘Finesse’?” laughed Dalton. “So the part where you go out of your way to look like a bodybuilder is all about finesse?”
“There are a lot of advantages… not that you’d know anything about them,” Phineas said, smirking. “Sometimes, our covers call for a little bit of charm – get my drift?”
“So you roleplay the part of a ladykiller with a nice six-pack, is that it?” asked Talia almost distastefully.
Phineas bared his teeth in a smile toward Talia. “Who said I was roleplaying? For that matter, who says I need to roleplay? Of course, if you’re that curious about it…”
“We’re wasting time here,” Dalton cut in. “We could be halfway through the woods by now.”
He shot a look at Phineas, who returned it with something of a smirk. “Then lead the way, O Brainy One.”
Dalton started down the path. Talia fell into stride right behind him, and Phineas (presumably) brought up the rear – not that Dalton would have been too upset if they had managed to leave him behind. It wasn’t long before Dalton started sweating; thankfully, it was still late spring and not terribly hot yet, but it was warm enough, and this forest was almost stiflingly humid.
“What are you doing?” Dalton heard Talia ask. Feeling like he hadn’t done anything worth asking the question, he figured Talia was talking to Phineas and didn’t bother turning around.
“What?” the agent uttered defensively. “It’s hot.”
There were a few more seconds of silence.
“You look curious,” Phineas remarked. “You can touch them if you like.”
Dalton’s jaw unhinged. He still didn’t turn around – now because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was going on.
“You’re unbelievable,” scoffed Talia, much to Dalton’s relief. (And that relief was much to Dalton’s confusion.) “Do you just try to flirt with anything that has a vagina?”
Dalton whirled around. He couldn’t help himself – Talia’s frankness had thrown him that far off guard. (Then again, he quickly had to remind himself, this was the girl that confessed to having played ‘Doctor’ with a neighbor boy at the age of six. She’d said that the first day they’d met, in fact…) He must have been wearing a priceless expression indeed, because Phineas – who, somewhat mercifully, was merely walking around with his tanktop hiked halfway up his ribcage and his washboard abs on display for the world to see – immediately gave a snort of laughter before looking at Talia again.
“Not ‘anything’,” he said somewhat roguishly. “Only the good-looking ones.”
Talia had her fists clenched and was glaring at Phineas as he passed by, but was also blushing furiously – a mixed reaction that attempting to read, Dalton knew, would only lead to his own bewilderment… and severe headaches.
Meanwhile, Phineas took the front for a moment, stretched his arms, and laughed. “Damn, this is gonna be a fun trip.”
A strange buzzing sound cut him off and he turned around very slowly. Something was hiding in the tall grass in front of them, and the only way Dalton could tell for sure was because the form’s reddish-purple color was a violent contrast to the foliage around them.
“Ah, geez…” muttered Phineas, backing away and making sure Dalton was out in front again. “This is your department, right?”
“What is that?” muttered Dalton, pointing his PokéDex at it.
“Venipede, the Centipede Pokémon. It discovers what is going on around it by using the feelers on its head and tail. It is brutally aggressive.”
“‘Brutally aggressive?’” repeated Dalton, closing the PokéDex. “That doesn’t sound good…”
“The damn thing’s two feet tall, if that,” remarked Phineas disdainfully. “Can’t be all that strong…”
The strange, new, insectoid beast curled up into a ball.
“Looks like it’s scared to me,” commented Phineas.
It was at that point that the rolled-up form of Venipede started to rotate furiously, like the tires on a drag racer.
“Is that bad?” uttered Talia. Then Venipede shot toward them like a missile. Talia and Phineas, both being athletic and better at sensing danger than Dalton, leapt out of the Venipede’s path. Dalton wasn’t so lucky or skilled…
WHAM.
Before Dalton even knew what was going on, something had hammered him right in the split of his ribcage, throwing him for a loop. He hit the grassy earth on his back and felt himself skid along the ground. A sound somewhere between a laugh, a wheeze, and an astonished gasp rang in his ears. “Holy crap!”
“Dalton!” he heard Talia yell. “Are you okay?!”
Dalton could only cough repeatedly in response. It felt like someone had punched him right in the diaphragm, and it was taking all of his effort to draw even a single good breath. With Talia’s help, he sat up, wincing. He choked out an oath as he tried to get back to his feet.
“You wanna play rough, huh?” he uttered, snatching a Pokéball off his belt (and nearly yanking the entire belt off his waist in sheer frustration). “We can play rough. Nina, let’s go!”
And out came the Nidorina.
“<What’s this?>” she asked, eyeing the Venipede.
“Exercise,” replied Dalton. “Nina, use Poison Sting!”
Nina’s ears flared out. Purpling darts of light shot forth from them, hitting the Venipede square on between the eyes. The bug-like Pokémon hardly flinched, and a second later, a similar-looking attack came forth from the Venipede’s mouth. Nina took a step backward as it hit her, and shook her head quickly, not looking very fazed by it.
“That Venipede’s a Poison-type, I bet…” muttered Dalton. “I don’t think you can poison a Poison-type, can you?”
He had asked this question to Talia, who shook her head. “Probably not…”
Dalton grimaced, looking up at the canopy of trees above him. “Dammit. I’d switch back to Lake, but I don’t think there’s enough room for her to fly around in here…”
Meanwhile, Venipede had rolled into a rounded shape again, and was literally revving up to charge.
“Oh, s—t. Nina, move!!” Dalton exclaimed.
Fortunately, when they were prepared for it, Dalton noticed that this strange rolling attack wasn’t nearly as fast as he thought it was. Nina was able to dodge it with ease. Venipede missed, rolled right up a tree, and came hurtling down toward Nina, back-first.
“Nina, use Double Kick!!” Dalton ordered. Nina somehow managed to execute a full backflip and kick the Venipede in the process. The Centipede Pokémon went flying and landed in a heap near the tall grass where it had started. It did not appear beaten yet, though. It rose again, opening one eye blearily…
A bluish-white jet shot forth out of nowhere, hitting Venipede dead on in the face with a loud CRACK! The insect-like Pokémon collapsed. Dalton and Nina looked around for the source of the assault…
They didn’t find anything that looked remotely capable of issuing an attack that powerful. What they did find, however, was a blue creature that Dalton assumed to be a Pokémon. In fact, with its monkey-like appearance, it could have been some sort of distant cousin of the Pansear that Dalton had battled several days back, in Striaton City. It was slumped against a tree, in a semi-seated position.
“<I already told you, braaaaahhhh…>” Dalton could hear the Pokémon say in a blissfully lethargic-sounding voice. “<Y’don’t interrupt the Z’s, brah. Here I am, tryin’ to catch some shuteye, and Kamikaze-san over here decides he’s gonna wreck himself right into my humble abode. ’Snot cool, man...>”
“<Who the hell are you?>” snapped Nina. “<You want a piece of us, too?>”
“<Whoa… aggro vibes, aggro vibes… chill out, lady,>” the Pokémon replied in its slow drawl, thrusting forward its mitten-like hands. “<I don’t wanna ‘piece.’ I just want some ‘peace’… catch my drift?>”
The Pokémon looked around – or at least turned its head toward everyone else. Its eyes, for whatever reason, seemed incapable of opening. Then again, Dalton thought, that may have been because it simply couldn’t be bothered with the effort.
“<We mellow? Nice…>” drawled the Pokémon. “<I’m goin’ up to finish my nap. Catch you dudes on the flip side.>”
And with that, it climbed up into the tree – but then it stopped.
“<Oh… you’re not from around here, are ya?>” it asked.
Dalton looked at Talia, wondering if she could understand the simian creature as well. He looked back at the Pokémon and shook his head.
“<Didn’t think so… yeah, I’d find some shelter to crash under if I were you,>” the Pokémon advised. Patting the strange formation atop its head, it explained, “<My cloud’s gettin’ all puffy… usually means there’s a storm coming, and a gnarly one, too.>”
And with that, it disappeared (rather acrobatically, at that) into the treetops.
Dalton grimaced. So enthralled had he been with the entire exchange that he’d forgotten to scan the Pokémon to see what it was.
“That wasn’t a Pansear, was it?” he queried.
“Using Water Gun? Nope,” Talia answered, shaking her head negatively. “That was a Panpour. It’s what you would’ve fought if you’d battled Cress instead of Chili.”
“Oh…” Dalton frowned. “You think he was serious about the storm?”
“I didn’t hear anything about a storm,” commented Phineas.
“Well, you wouldn’t,” Dalton answered bluntly. “Your phone doesn’t get any freakin’ service in these woods.”
Phineas frowned. “Don’t remind me.”
“I don’t know…” Talia remarked. Then, cupping her chin in a pensive pose, she added, “But I feel like Pokémon would be pretty in tune with nature.”
“I’m not sure that Pokémon was in tune with much of anything,” retorted Phineas.
“What, did you understand any of the conversation?” asked Dalton.
“No,” Phineas admitted. “But that… Panpour, was it? It came off kind of…”
Talia tilted her head. “‘Kind of’ what?”
“You know…” muttered Phineas. Then, he pinched two fingers near his lips and drew in a couple of short breaths. Dalton got the hint and rolled his eyes.
“Seriously? You couldn’t have just said ‘stoner’?” he asked, shaking his head. “We’re all grown-ups here.”
Glancing at Talia, Phineas commented, “Well, technically…”
Talia scowled, gave Phineas the finger, turned on her heel, and walked off. Phineas grinned – a strange, lopsided sort of grin that Dalton could have sworn he’d seen on the internet at several different points. Then, turning to Dalton after Talia was well out of earshot, Phineas remarked, “She’s cute when she gets mad, don’t you think?”
“You don’t think it’s kind of creepy to talk that way about someone who’s that much younger than you?” Dalton muttered.
“What, I’m not allowed to say she’s good-looking for another… nine days? Or is it eleven? Whatever,” uttered Phineas. “I don’t see where that law’s on the books anywhere. Besides, you think the same thing, too. It’s the one thing we probably agree on, right? …Well, that, and that Ghetsis is a massive d—k.”
“That’s beside the point,” Dalton said, lazily starting to walk again. Nina fell into stride right behind him. “It’s not that she’s young. You’re old.”
“Says who?” Phineas asked, sounding affronted. Dalton tried to keep a straight face – he thought this was rather hilarious.
“With your job?” laughed Dalton. “You’ve gotta be at least, what, thirty?”
“Does this face look thirty to you?” Phineas said incredulously.
“With or without the full beard?” Dalton snarked.
“Hey, don’t get jealous that all you can grow on your face are pimples,” Phineas replied. “I’m not even close to thirty yet. Let’s just leave it at that.”
They kept walking.
“What’s her story, anyway?” asked Phineas. “Why’d she run away from home?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Dalton asked, getting annoyed with this conversation.
“I was going to try to be a nice guy,” sighed Phineas. “…Let you have a ghost of a chance, you know?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Dalton dourly.
“Don’t take this the wrong way… well, actually, I don’t really care how you take it…” Phineas muttered. “But she’s way out of your league.”
He raised both his eyebrows.
“That’s what this is? A competition?” asked Dalton, a bit disdainfully. “Sorry, but I’m not taking the bait… Talia’s a person, not a prize.”
“That’s really idealistic of you,” chuckled Phineas. “You don’t like the game, so you don’t want to acknowledge it… then you wonder why you don’t ever win.”
Phineas raised his eyebrows at Dalton and smiled. Just then, Talia came running back toward them.
“C’mon, guys,” she said briskly. “We’re in a hurry, right?”
Much to Dalton’s annoyance, he was stopped for a battle not long after (“Are you serious? That’s the third Herdier in two days!”) He won, though, and his reward was a fair bit of money and… a berry.
“A berry,” repeated Dalton, holding the tiny fruit in the palm of his hand as they left the defeated trainer (dressed in some sort of faux-official-looking red-and-black garb) behind. “Who gives out berries as a prize? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”
“Uh… eat it?” suggested Phineas. “Grind it up into a smoothie?”
Dalton rolled his eyes.
“Hold on to it,” advised Talia. “It might be useful later.”
Dalton looked askance at Talia. He wasn’t so sure about that.
As they continued walking, Dalton looked up and noticed that the vague blues that had been filtering in through the treetops had darkened. “Geez, how long have we been walking? Anybody know what time it is?”
“Doesn’t your PokéDex gadget have the time?” asked Phineas.
Dalton hadn’t thought of that. Muttering an oath to himself (he was starting to realize how much he hated Phineas being right about anything) he took the small, computerized machine out of its pocket and asked, “What time is it?”
“The current time in southern Unova is: 2:14 PM. It is recommended that people in this area seek immediate shelter. The Unova Meteorological Center in Castelia City has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for –”
Amanita’s voice never finished the sentence – and if she did, Dalton never heard her over the loud, echoing rumble that immediately followed.
Dalton looked at Talia, who gave a grimace. Meanwhile, Phineas buried his eyes in one of his hands and muttered, “Oh, great… now what?”
“What do you mean, ‘now what’?” replied Dalton.
“I mean, do we try to travel through it or hunker down until it blows over?” Phineas asked. Looking at the surroundings (they were standing in something of a clearing), he added, “We need to make a decision now because it won’t be as easy when it—”
Almost instantly, the trio was drenched.
Wearing a deadpan expression of annoyance, Phineas finished, “—starts raining. For f—k’s sake…”
A clap of thunder immediately followed a flash of lightning. Boughs of trees danced in the suddenly swirling winds, their arms undulating in a foreboding group luau that caused shadows to dance over the muddying path. Talia and Phineas were now at full sprint with Dalton bringing up the rear, panting and struggling to keep up. He almost would have preferred standing still and being wet as opposed to being both wet and exhausted… not to mention hungry.
He felt his foot catch as another flash of lightning temporarily blinded the path in front of him. His fall came in time with a crash of thunder in the background. He bit into his lip hard and immediately tasted his own blood. A pair of strong hands tried to yank him up to his feet, but only his shoulder and arm went.
“Get up, damn it!” he heard a snarl above him.
“Lay off!” he heard another shout.
“We don’t have time for this!” the first voice snapped.
“He’s not a robot!” the second voice – Dalton recognized it as Talia’s – bit back. “He needs rest.”
This comment coincided with Dalton’s second wind. He staggered to his feet. Talia reached out a hand for him. Dalton knocked it away. “I’m fine.”
He steeled himself and started to walk again.
“Dalton…” murmured Talia.
It was a mark of how hard it was raining that Dalton’s sigh was accompanied by a fine, rising mist coming from his nose and mouth. “It’s either keep moving or get soaked, right?”
“We’re already soaked,” Phineas pointed out.
“Thanks for that clever observation,” Dalton deadpanned. Looking up, he pulled up short (Talia walked into his back and shoved him lightly in response.) “The hell is that thing?”
What he saw in front of him, despite Mother Nature doing her level best to screen it from view, was a jagged opening, almost cave-like in its formation. There were trees on either side of it for as far as the eye could see (which wasn’t saying a lot in this weather)…
“That’s either a cave or the biggest f—king log in existence,” commented Phineas. “And seeing as we can’t really get through anywhere else…”
Dalton let out a short groan. “Beautiful.”
But as he stepped into the log-cave-tunnel (he found he could see through to the other side rather easily), it quickly became apparent that, although dark and slightly strange-smelling, it was a much preferable place to be than outside in the unforgiving elements.
More surprising, it could fit the three of them rather easily. Dalton knew one thing for sure; he had never seen an ordinary log this large.
“Did something hollow out a tree trunk?” asked Talia.
“What could have done that?” Dalton queried, at the same time not sure he wanted to know.
Phineas allowed a second’s pause before he spoke. “We should rest here.”
“Oh, so you’re running the show now?” asked Dalton a bit bitterly, trying to stand straight as possible in order not to betray that his calves literally felt like they were on fire.
“You’re exhausted, aren’t you? I could go on for another hour or two, but you obviously need some rest. There’s no point trying to push it in this weather and you getting hurt,” Phineas explained, his arms folded. He brushed past Dalton and Talia. “I’m going on ahead to scout for any sort of trouble and a suitable place to make camp. At the rate we’re going, we’re probably not gonna be able to get across the forest today, and even if we do, there’s the bridge to deal with.”
“What’s wrong with the bridge?” asked Dalton.
“Have you seen how long that thing is?” Phineas asked. Then, snickering to himself in a somewhat Evan-like manner, he made his way out of the tunnel.
Dalton leaned against the wall of the tree-tunnel and slumped down to his backside. He smashed a fist into it, which was supposed to be a release of frustration. Now, though, not only was he still extremely frustrated, but his hand hurt, to boot. Talia sat down across from him. There was a long period of silence – almost a minute where all Dalton could hear were the rain and the voices in his own head.
As if answering one of them, he suddenly muttered, “I’m not weak.”
He wasn’t sure who had put him together, but whoever or whatever had put him together had certainly not built him for this. Whoever had tabbed him as the ‘chosen one’ clearly hadn’t made the best choice, either.
“I’m not weak,” Dalton repeated.
How was he supposed to be a Pokémon trainer – let alone a Champion-level Pokémon trainer – if his body was too frail to make the journey? It was embarrassing. How pathetic did he look next to kids three or four years younger than he was? They didn’t seem to be having any problems. Here he was, almost eighteen, and…
He stared down at his forearms. At his height, they were almost spindly. He’d always been skinny, even as a young boy – but he’d hit his growth spurt at fourteen, which had only made things worse. “The spider”, they used to call him in high school. Being just short of six feet tall in high school was likely the only thing that kept him from being stuffed into any lockers. Well, that, and the time Evan Stanfeld hit a would-be bully across the face with his skateboard. The so-called victim lost two teeth and Evan was suspended from school for a week. Dalton had just met Evan back then… Loretta, too. Granted, Loretta seemed to hate his guts from the jump – or so he thought. Hell, maybe she did hate his guts back then before (according to her, at least) falling for him recently. Maybe it was both at the same time. Girls are funny like that…
“What are you thinking about?” Talia asked. She was sitting across from him. He heaved a sigh and didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’m holding everyone back,” he said heavily.
“No, you’re not,” Talia replied so quickly, Dalton was almost sure she was lying to him to try to spare his feelings. He wasn’t sure if he should feel angry or not. She must have noticed, however, that he was skeptical, because she kept talking: “Honestly, I’m tired, too. Finn’s the only one in so much of a hurry.”
She glared out of the opposite end of the tunnel, where Phineas had gone a few minutes before.
“Most of us don’t run on ice water and rocket fuel,” she added dispassionately. Dalton knew she was trying to cheer him up. Dalton heard the wind swirling outside. In fact, some of it came right to the tunnel. Dalton gave an involuntary shiver. Talia noticed; her face contorted into a displeased frown. “You know… maybe you should…”
“Huh? What?”
Talia seemed hesitant, almost… embarrassed, which wasn’t like her. “Your shirt, I mean. It’s soaking. You’ll catch a cold.”
It took Dalton a second, but he figured out what Talia was getting at. “I’m f-fine,” he said, cursing himself mentally for the fact that his body had chosen the most inopportune moment to give another twitch, thus turning his simple statement into a shivering stammer. Talia sighed as if exasperated.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Dalton lied.
“Bulls—t – you can’t even look at me,” Talia answered immediately and flatly. She reached across the small space. “Here. Let me –”
“NO!!”
She withdrew her hand as if something had burned her. She looked at it for a second, flailing it and trying to get rid of some of the awful stinging. Dalton realized what he had done. He looked up into her blue eyes, which appeared to water for a moment as she investigated her hand. She seemed more shocked than in pain. She flailed her right hand again. “God, Dalton… what the hell was that for?”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, looking away from her. “I… I just…”
She seemed confused. “Do you really not like having your shirt off? I mean… how do you shower or anything? I don’t really get it.”
“It’s not that…” Dalton muttered, now too ashamed to look her in the eye. “It’s just that…”
“You don’t like having it off in front of people?” she asked. “I mean… you seemed okay with it that one time we went swimming…”
“But I wasn’t, remember?” he said. Dropping his voice to a near-inaudible murmur, he added, “Besides… it was dark then…”
Talia frowned. “You’re self-conscious because you’re so thin – is that it? Well, that’s kinda stupid, to be honest… doesn’t mean you should hit people’s hands.”
“I don’t like people reaching out to grab me, okay?!” Dalton blurted out. In the ensuing silence, another gust of wind caused his sopping-wet shirt to go deathly cold again. He shivered – then he swore. Talia rolled her eyes.
“Look… you can be proud and get sick,” she said. “You’re already having trouble traveling as is. If you get a cold or something, you’re gonna be down for the count. Do you want that?”
Dalton mulled it over for a moment. Then, with a snarl of frustrated resignation, his hands came up to the buttons on the shirt that Talia had bought for him. They started to shake violently.
“Are you that scared?” Talia asked, the tone in her voice now making it obvious that she thought this whole thing was becoming ridiculous. “I promise I won’t laugh. Even if I see your entire ribcage, I won’t laugh. That make you feel any better?”
“I know you won’t laugh,” Dalton said. “It’s not a funny sort of thing.”
And then, moving his hands as quickly as he could (lest he lose his nerve and be unable to go through with it), he undid the second button on his shirt… then the third and the fourth.
Talia’s eyes widened. She sat back against the wooden wall of the log tunnel, hand to mouth, her face as white as a Mahogany Town winter, her expression altogether appropriate for someone who had just come face-to-face with a ghost.
“Oh, my god…” Her voice was barely there, breathless, like someone had sucked all the air out of her lungs. No longer having the heart to go all the way, Dalton started to button his shirt up again.
“And that’s what happens when your dad’s got a temper and you cost him his favorite child,” he said lifelessly. “And stop looking at me like that. Didn’t I tell you I don’t want your –”
“Pity?” Talia interrupted, her voice now much higher, almost to the point of absurdity. “How do you expect me – any human being with half a soul – to react to… to that? I just…”
And she turned her head, her face contorted into a lost expression. She quickly ran a hand across her face, but not quite quickly enough to keep Dalton from noticing a couple of tears falling. She shook her head and literally appeared to break down for exactly two seconds before wiping her eyes again.
“I shouldn’t have—” Dalton murmured a bit powerlessly.
“No,” Talia interrupted breathlessly, swallowing hard and wiping her eyes one last time. “I’m glad you did… I feel like I know you so much better now…”
She was trying to put her brave face back on, but it was still obvious by her somewhat deer-in-headlights facial expression that she was still very shaken by what she had seen.
“Talia…”
“I shouldn’t have hit you that one time,” Talia muttered. It took a moment or two for Dalton to remember what she was talking about. “If I’d had any idea…”
“Well… you didn’t,” Dalton said flatly. “Nobody did. Not ‘til now.”
It took a couple of seconds of Talia staring at her knees for the significance of this statement to hit her. Her eyes lit up with realization and then…
“Alright, kids, break time’s over,” Phineas (who had to duck to do so) leaned down and into the log tunnel. Dalton could see from a distance that his hair was lank and plastered to his face by the rain. “The rain’s lightened up enough so we can actually see now. There’s a hill up ahead, not too far from here. If we want to make camp, I’d rather do it there than in a tree carcass.”
And he disappeared from view again. Dalton shook his head. “What a d—k.”
Talia let out an audible giggle as she got to her feet.
The outside world seemed to have transformed in their absence; Dalton caught a whiff of a heavy, earthy rain musk that was somewhat foreign to him. Concrete-addled as his hometown was, the smell (although it seemed to rain there every third day or so) was nowhere near as pronounced. The ambient buzz of nature reverberated through the trees and through his brain. Above, Dalton could see powerful light filtering through the canopy of treetops, as if the Sun itself had taken note of the time it had lost, and in its return had doubled its efforts. Dalton could already feel the warmth bringing relief to his cold body. On nearby trees, drops of rainwater held on for dear life before falling to the ground below. Four-petaled flowers burst blue and orange out of nearby bushes, some taking to the air on a sudden breeze and spinning like… pinwheels. Now, suddenly, the name of the locale made some sense.
More importantly, Dalton felt somewhat lighter; like he had left something behind in that log tunnel – something that he had not realized he was glad to lose until he had actually lost it. While a slight pang of mourning hit his heart – he was sure Professor McCourt would have loved to see something like this – he found himself, as crazy as it sounded, somewhat happy to be alive.
A hand grasped his shoulder. He went stiff for a moment until he realized there had only been one person behind him.
Talia stared at him for a moment, her face serious. Her eyes were still just a bit red, but they were not watery, and she was lightly smiling. She seemed to struggle with words for a moment…
“You kept saying, ‘I’m not weak,’” she said. “You’re right… you’re not. And… I hope you believe that about yourself one day… or… something like that. Yeah.”
She looked down a bit sheepishly, as if she’d wanted to say something a bit more poignant, and her brain had simply failed to deliver. Then she stood up on her tiptoes just a bit…
A moment after her feet returned to ground level, Phineas came back around the corner. “You guys still back there?”
“Coming,” Talia replied, visibly rolling her eyes. She looked over her shoulder, flashed a smile toward Dalton, and walked off.
Dalton stood there for a moment, staring at the back of Talia’s head. With a childlike brand of curiosity, he slowly put his hand up to a small spot on his cheek…
~~~ *** ~~~ *** ~~~
Hidden by a pair of black sunglasses and what looked to be a white helmet, a head peered out from the top boughs of a nearby tree. The man to whom this head belonged (holding tightly on to the tree limb with his remaining three limbs) produced a radio in his right hand and began to speak into it. “Sir, I’ve got a visual on what looks like… a trio of teenagers, possibly young adults.”
He waited for a response from the other end.
“Can you give me a description of any of them? Preferably all of them?”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “They all look to be in their late teens, early twenties. Two males, one female. One male’s short, jet black hair, tall, extremely thin…”
“Extremely thin?” repeated the other gentleman.
“Sticklike… sir,” the radio user elaborated. “There’s a female, about the same age… long, orange hair…”
“So one male, one female – male with black hair, girl’s a redhead? Interesting…”
“Sir, are these the targets?”
“Not quite… but still… let’s say persons of interest, if my guess is correct. Now, you said there’s a third person with them?”
“Yes, sir. Male as well. May be a bit older than the other two. Blond hair, about shoulder length… muscular. Very muscular.”
“Huh… sounds like they picked up a new traveling companion,” the voice on the other end mused.
“Should we engage them, sir? They’re starting to open distance.”
“Negative – do not engage,” the man on the other radio answered through the slight speaker distortion. “If you can keep a safe distance, listen in on their conversation. Find out what their plans are…”
“And if we encounter… those others?”
“If there’s one, and you’re sure they’re alone, your group has permission to engage – but I want that individual alive and in a shape to talk, do you understand? We can’t get any information from a corpse or a vegetable.”
“What if there’s more than one?”
“If there’s more than one, don’t engage them. The Rearguard doesn’t have the manpower to handle those guys, if what I hear about their reputation is correct. Also…”
The helmeted man pressed the radio closer to his ear, feeling like this next bit of information might be important.
“Whatever you do, under NO circumstances – none at all – are you to engage a young man with silver hair if you encounter him. Do you understand? I’m ordering you to flee on sight.”
The man paused.
“Captain Marlow, do you copy?”
“… …Yes, sir.”
“Rearguard Commandant, over and out. ‘Nam mundus sine canitia.’”
“Nam mundus sine canitia. Plasma Rearguard Captain Marlow, out.” Marlow repeated, silencing his radio. He snarled a curse to himself. He still wasn’t sure about this assignment, honestly. He supposed it was marginally less dangerous than the Vanguard, and a bit less stiff than the Royal Guard. Hell, maybe it was less dangerous than the Royal Guard. He’d heard a rather nasty rumor that one of the Royal Guard members had dropped the Plasma flag while marching His Excellency out of a nearby town… and that his reward had been an immediate pistol bullet to the forehead. Marlow shuddered. Still, though… his commander had a degree of autonomy that meant that he didn’t always have to answer directly to His Excellency. It was almost as if they were not Plasma at all, but rather a rogue splinter group that existed solely to do the Commandant’s bidding. Normally, that would not have been a problem, but it just so happened that the Commandant’s bidding had become a touch erratic in the past couple of weeks. He had gone investigating seemingly random targets, which Marlow supposed was the Rearguard’s job to some extent. The way the Commander talked about some of these targets, however…
“Damned boogeymen,” the captain muttered to himself. “I mean… a flee-on-sight order? What the hell are we chasing, that he’d say ‘as soon as you find it, run completely the f—k in the opposite direction’?”
But Captain Marlow wasn’t about to disobey an order from the Commandant. After all, they were never told whether any given mission was the Commandant’s own idea, or a direct order from the Regent himself. Marlow wasn’t about to take a chance that this was the second. If he was going to get into trouble, he would much rather do it where Plasma had sent him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to look his pregnant wife and four-year-old daughter in the eye, not so much because of shame as an acute and terminal case of ‘bullet-to-the-forehead’. If someone had survived that ailment and been in any shape to tell about it, Captain Marlow was yet to meet that someone. Still, though, there was something about this mission that made him decidedly uneasy…
Commandant Colress… he thought. What the devil have you gotten us into…?
END
