PokeWild

The meditation session did not go as planned.

Instead of being led through chants while some soothing music played in the background, David was instructed to sit, close his eyes and think. There was no clearing of his mind. No scented incense. No inner peace. Jenny told him to picture the training, walking him through the morning, prompting for his thoughts and how he felt at certain moments. He wasn’t supposed to answer, just re-experience the panic, the rush and evaluate it.

It was more difficult than he realized, especially when Jenny asked what he’d do if he could change his actions and his instructions. Would he send Venonat left instead of right? How would that have played out? Could he have avoided this trap? Turned this Move against Venomoth?

Instead of being relaxing, the meditation was difficult and draining. He was sore, tired, and Cloudburst wouldn’t sit still. Given all that it was as much of a surprise to him as Jenny when he fell asleep, though he didn’t learn that until later. When he woke up, he wasn’t sure if he was more surprised that he had fallen asleep, or that Jenny had let him sleep.

By the time he was moving again their time was up. Jenny escorted him to a small canteen that was only noteworthy because of how empty the large room was. There they sat at one of many tables and were given matching plates of some sort of grain mixed with berries. Pecha berries to be exact, and David’s had decidedly more than Jenny’s. The reminder of his sore shoulder wasn’t welcomed, but his hunger overruled everything. If anything, he was more wary over what Cloudburst was served, a bowl full of small, pellet sized balls that were a mash of more berries and seeds. Seeing his close examination, Jenny helpfully explained.

“It’s a berry mash. Mixing them all together dulls the flavor, and helps Pokemon get vitamins they’d usually avoid. It’s not quite as effective as the raw berry, or as tasty to Pokemon, but it helps. ”

Cloudburst treated her food much as she had the first sachet he’d given her. She hopped over, and prodded the balls around in the bowl with her beak. The prodding continued, long enough that David was both feeling the urge to tell her to stop playing with her food, and going through a crisis where he wondered if he should have been buying her toys. Her first taste was a quick one. A peck forward that left the bowl a single ball emptier, and she continued knocking the balls around like she hadn’t taken one. It was another minute of playing before she started to eat properly, and he followed her example.

After the meal, Jenny led him through a series of rooms, following what felt like random directions until they stopped in a room that was definitely not where he’d entered the gym. It didn’t even look like part of a gym, more a normal living room combined with an entranceway. There was a table surrounded by cushions off to the side and a shoe rack near another door. Photos of a family hung on the walls.

“Your training will begin at the same time tomorrow. It will finish earlier, and start again tomorrow night, but we can decide on the times for that in the morning.” She paused. “The time is both to accommodate your Venonat’s sleep schedule and to keep the training private. If you are asked what you are doing here, you are to tell people you are looking for a gym match, and waiting for a slot to open up.”

Alarm bells started ringing in his mind. They were very worn out after the morning and last few days, but they were still there. He wasn’t worried about being disappeared by Fuchsia anymore, but his distrust of the city had only grown. “Private? It sounds like you mean secret.”

“Fuchsia gym is offering you seven days of training before the end of your League recovery program. It is not a service that the gym offers.” Jenny raised a slim, manicured eyebrow. ”I would think you have no interest in answering questions about the why, and the gym has no interest in refusing others asking for the same treatment.”

David pursed his lips, but he didn’t have a response to that. She was right, he had as much reason as they did to keep the training quiet.

“But isn’t that a poor excuse? Won’t people be suspicious if I come every day and don’t get a slot?”

Jenny‘s face softened. “The current challenge schedule is fully booked for the next two and a half weeks.”

“Two and a half weeks,” David repeated numbly. It had been odd that he got a slot within twenty-four hours of walking in. The cancellation that made it possible didn’t seem suspicious to him at the time, but looking back...

He’d never had a chance, had he?

“Your next challenge has been booked already,” Jenny said, understanding some of his shock, but changing the subject.

It did help. A little. He hadn’t gotten to the point of realization and worry about that yet, but he would have and it would have been horrible.

“Get some rest. Come back tomorrow. You can do a lot in seven days.”

She ushered him out the door by the shoe rack. The door closed behind him, and David found himself back on the streets of Fuchsia. He whirled around, inspecting both the door behind him and the neighboring houses. There was nothing, nothing to tell them apart. Each looked like a normal house, with different curtains in the windows, normal wear on the outsides. There was no sign of the gym, and if he didn’t know it himself he wouldn’t have believed it.

With a chill crawling down his spine, David walked away.

His steps took him first to a main street where he could get his bearings. Then on to the Pokecenter, where he continued to walk without a destination. Not one he acknowledged anyway. It was only when he stepped out onto Route 18, leaving the buildings and city behind that he stopped to think about where he was going. He wasn’t running. Not as such anyway. He wanted out, out of the city and away from everything it represented. The road to Route 18 was familiar, one he walked most days, and it’d been easy to follow without considering any deeper.

It was a dull, damp day. The gym had shielded him from a morning of rain, but the path ahead was sodden and the white trees alongside were now gray. The only energy in the area was the gurgle of a hundred streams from the long trenches across the landscape.

He closed his eyes and took a breath, smelling the fresh rain and a hint of the marsh in the distance, carried to him by those streams. His steps continued when he opened his eyes again. They were lighter.

By the time he reached the Ranger’s office, he almost felt normal again.

“David!” Louis rushed to his feet and around the desk before David could even get in the door.

“How’d it go? The challenge? I couldn’t find you after work yesterday, and I was thinking of sending you a message, but after what happened last time and how tense you were, and it’s the Fuchsia gym, and I’m from Fuchsia and...” Louis stalled, noticing David’s wide eyes. “Did... Did you win?”

David’s shoulders sank. Louis’s frantic questions had taken him aback, leaving him reeling and to his surprise oddly grateful, but this part was going to suck. Why hadn’t he kept walking a little longer?

“No.”

“Shiiit.” Louis exhaled. His shoulders fell. “Want to talk about it?”

David paused. The answer to that was loaded. He did want to talk about it, even if only to have someone confirm how crazy it was to meet two gym leaders, one of whom was hated in Fuchsia, after his second gym challenge. But there was a lot he didn’t want to talk about or explain. How would he even start to explain this?

His grimace was apparently enough of an answer for Louis.

“Or, I was planning on servicing the emergency rafts some time today. Want to blow something up?”

“Not really-” He closed his mouth. It’s not like he had anything else to do. “Actually yeah. Why not.”

Sadly it wasn’t straight to the blowing up. Louis had to grab a lot of paperwork, and they then had to maneuver two of the three heavy bags out to the clearing out back. It did give them some time to talk, and allowed David to cherry-pick what he’d say about his gym challenge.

“All I do is pull on this?” He asked, holding onto an orange rope that ended about five meters away in the bag. It felt close enough to those cartoons with a box of TNT and detonation cord to be satisfying but far away enough not to be concerning.

“Yeah,” Louis said distractedly. “Keep pulling until you feel resistance, then tug it.”

David began to pull, hesitant at first, but with more strength when he realized how much line there was.

“The Kakuna I understand, but the Golbat too?” Louis whistled.

“It was pretty bad.”

“I mean, Golbat are serious Pokemon. They’re very awkward to train and feed, but a strong species. Nearly every one is a hard fight, even if they only evolved recently.” He looked at David with a question in his eyes.

“I don’t know. It was a lot smaller than the last Golbat I saw.” The Team Rocket Golbat was a monster though, so that wasn’t saying much.

“And it was definitely a second badge challenge? No issues with the paperwork or anything?”

“Yeah, why?”

Louis looked uneasy. “I definitely didn’t fight anything like a Golbat for my second badge challenge. Maybe the third, but that depends on the Golbat.”

“Ah.” He pulled the rope faster, spurred on by anger. If they fixed the time of his battle, what’s to stop them from fixing the battle itself? Losing only made him more likely to accept the training.

His hands stopped. The rope was tight.

“Really pull it, like you’re trying to yank the bag towards us.”

Do they have pull start lawn mowers here?

David threw his anger at the rope.

The heavy bag popped open, bouncing into the air and spitting out a mass of black and yellow fabric. The mass started to hiss, at first like an Ekans, then louder and louder until David felt like he was walking behind the engine of a plane. It doubled in size, then tripled, the fabric inflating as the noise increased. The mess of fabric had become a square pyramid by the time it hit the floor. It bounced, wobbled once, twice, then fell still.

A discarded cover fluttered down behind the raft. The hissing slowed, becoming a quiet steady exhale.

A laugh bubbled out of his throat. “I didn’t think it would look like that.”

Louis shuddered. “The hissing always gets to me.”

“Should it still be hissing? Is that a leak?” David asked. He stepped closer to get a good look.

“No, it's normal. The pressure is equalizing.”

All the air was coming out of a small white valve on the side of the raft. It was oddly shaped, and unlike any valve he’d seen before.

“It sounded like an Ekans at the start.”

“A Seadra, actually. The hiss helps keep Pokemon away while it inflates.”

David’s interest in the valve increased. That was a smart design and he kind of wanted one. Did they make similar whistles?

“Let’s inspect the inside then pack it up. We should have time to do another.”

“Oh, Cloudburst has got to see the next one.”

-.-

David leaned back, resting on his hands as Venonat gnawed their way through their second sachet of food. He hadn’t waited for David to even open this one, nabbing the bottom of the packet and eating through the wrapper and contents all at once instead of his usual neat behavior.

Venonat had woken up hungry. Very, very hungry.

If it wasn’t nighttime, David was sure he’d be getting some dirty looks and comments about Pokemon welfare. The training grounds were deserted as usual though, so he just sat back and watched, the next sachet ready.

Cloudburst was a few meters away, head buried under a wing. All three of them were too tired to train, but it was too early to sleep.

“What the hell are we doing Cloudburst?” David asked, rubbing his face.

She poked her head out from her wing to look at him, but didn’t make a sound.

“These aren’t nice people. We’re caught up in something, wedged in the middle of it, and I don’t know what’s going on.”

She stood and made her way closer.

“They ran us into the ground today. And poisoned me for Christ's sake.”

She cawed at that. Amused.

“Hey, that’s not normal for me.”

There wasn’t another caw, but he could feel she wasn’t really paying his rebuttal any mind.

Why would she, when she nearly expected poisoning in every battle here, he realized. Would he be reacting differently if they had poisoned Cloudburst for Venonat’s training instead of him? Was it the same? Did the people in this world think of it in that way?

“Ugh,” He flopped back. Was he trying to rationalize this? “Do you think we should continue? The training? I don’t know if we can leave, but should we try to avoid it?”

Venonat lifted his head from the sachet to watch them. He chirped questioningly.

“Just thinking Venonat. It could get worse. Jenny said that this morning was the worst of it... but we can’t trust that. I don’t know how we’d get out.”

Cloudburst chirped, drawing his attention back to her. She spread her wings out, holding them wide and high until he could see gaps between the feathers at the tips. She puffed herself up. “Pidgey.”

David squinted at her. “Strength? Victory? I don’t get it.”

She flapped her wings at him.

“What- oh. You think the answer is to grow stronger. Then we’ll have more say.”

She held in that position for a second before folding her wings and nesting down.

David ran the idea through his mouth. It left a bitter taste, but it made more sense than any of his other choices, though it wasn’t really a choice. Venonat chirped again, the high pitch so different to Cloudburst’s chirps. It gave him the distraction he needed.

“You know, maybe we should call ourselves team chirp. You both seem to like the noise enough.”

Cloudburst squawked and he smiled.

“Hey, Muggle!”

David turned his head, being especially mindful of where his hands were. If Koga said he was poisoned, there was a reason, and he was going to avoid as many needles as possible.

Finn jogged towards him, indigo hair swishing in front of his face. “How’d the challenge go?”

David gently placed Venonat’s brush down and opened his mouth, but he was a touch too slow.

“Aah.” Finn grimaced. “That sucks. Sorry I wasn’t here yesterday, there was this thing at home.”

David stiffened, unable to hide his reaction as he connected that to Sabrina’s disappearing act. He remembered the battering emotions, the turmoil. What did the leader of Saffron gym do after leaving Fuchsia?

“A thing at home?”

The grimace deepened. “Yeah. I don’t know exactly what and I can’t talk about the rest, but a thing. Don’t worry, nothing to do with me.”

David’s heart fell. Wasn’t it? Sabrina knew he was here. She knew where he was hiding, and she could find out what Voyant was searching the city. How long would it take to connect Fred to David?

Finn took a step back. He winced. “I see I came at a bad time. I’ll- I’m sorry about your challenge, and I’ll see you around.”

He beat a hasty retreat.

David was again a touch slow as he warred with the decision of revealing who he was. Would it help Finn? No one said he couldn’t speak about meeting Koga and Sabrina, but if they didn’t want him to talk about the training, what was that compared to everything they spoke about?

“Finn-”

The psychic didn’t turn back.

Venonat let out a sad wail. David picked up the brush and let Finn walk away.