The nearest place to park in the shade was five blocks away from the Haven. Five blocks to walk under the harsh midday sun, which Esaax hadn’t been under for years. He certainly wasn’t enjoying it, and he continued to wonder how in the world a snorunt could tolerate it at all, shade or no shade. He still halfway expected to find a little gray-and-yellow corpse sitting behind the wheel—or perhaps just a puddle…
Oh, so Esaax basically reverted to natural form once
Jesse and James bit it, huh? Since sounds like he’s spent a decent chunk of his life since then just chilling in dark places to hide his tail.
Breaking away from that train of thought and the rather morbid turn it had decided to take, Esaax tried to distract himself from the light and the heat. “Hey Syr. Think Jan’d let me drive? It’s been a while.”
“It’s ‘Jen’, Esaax, not ‘Jon’,” Syr corrected.
“I said ‘Jan’.”
Snerk. Well if nothing else, you can’t say that that’s not on-brand for former Pokémon of the TRio from the anime there.
“Well, whatever you said, it was wrong. Anyway, no, you can’t drive this car.”
Esaax: “Syr, I have
actual limbs unlike you.” >_>;
“Yes I can,” Esaax said a bit crossly. “Just tell him to point the way.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s just not gonna happen. Besides which… well… I haven’t forgotten your record with vehicles. Every time you tried to drive something, anything, you’d break it or wreck it, or else you’d just—”
Well. I can see why the ‘mon with no limbs is having such a cow about Esaax getting behind the wheel there. (Though how on earth would he even reach the pedals as a Wobbuffet anyways?)
“But they fixed that at the Haven,” Esaax interrupted. “They made me stronger so I can be more careful and less likely to break things.”
The arbok at his side raised a scaly eyebrow at him. “…Somehow that doesn’t sound quite right.”
I’m with Syr on this one, Esaax.
“I’m not gonna wreck it! Just let me drive the stupid thing!”
“I’ll only say this one more time. Listen very carefully. You can’t drive this car,” Syr said.
Esaax: “Oh yeah, and like you’re going to do so much better with just your mouth and your tail. And just what’s so special about this car that
I would do worse at things, huh?”
Esaax was about to argue some more, but then he actually saw the car—a copper convertible—for himself and knew at first sight that Syr was absolutely right. The wobbuffet couldn’t drive it, no matter how much he wanted to or how carefully he thought he could. The driver’s seat had been modified, reshaped expressly for small species to put everything within their reach. The space was so small and everything in it crammed so closely together that it would have been awkward to the point of impossibility for someone Esaax’s size to occupy and use.
That thing must be a maintenance nightmare unless they just ripped the top off after the opening mechanism stopped working and called it a day.
Syr: “So am I going to get an apology, or…?”
Esaax: “Shut up. Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re correct.” >_>;
And there was indeed a snorunt behind the wheel. Despite Esaax’s concerns, the ice-type was very much alive and well. Jen scrutinized Esaax through beady little eyes, nibbling every few seconds at a tropical snow cone as he stared. “That’s him?” he asked.
“Yes, this is Esaax. Esaax, this is my son, Jen,” Syr said.
… I have so many questions right now. .-.
[ ]
“Uh… hi,” Esaax greeted him with an awkward little wave.
This feels like a moment that would’ve been potentially funny to see the gears in Esaax’s head turn about the whole absurdity of a little shin-kicker Snorunt being able to drive before he could.
“Hi,” Jen responded, continuing to stare at Esaax. Then he smiled at the wobbuffet, further baring teeth that looked more than capable of taking off an arm. “I’m very happy to meet you, Esaax. You can ride up front with me if you want.”
Esaax: “No, no, I think that I’m good staying in the back, really!”
Esaax shivered, finding that smile more than a little unnerving. But it looked as though he didn’t really have much choice with regards to the seating arrangements; Syr was really too big to ride anywhere but in the back, and it’d be more than a little cramped if Esaax joined him. Most of his body could handle the compression just fine, but his tail gave him pause.
Well then, looks like Esaax is going to have
all the awkward discomfort on this car ride. I like how it’s even open-topped such that he can’t indulge his natural instinct to hide his tail.
Esaax: “... Damn it,
seriously?”
So Esaax took his place next to the snorunt, albeit reluctantly. The arbok got in after him, coiling loosely across the back seats, and within seconds they were all on their way.
I’m just going to go ahead and guess that none of them are wearing seat belts by virtue of them not being sized for Pokémon.
“So uh…” Esaax said to Jen shortly after they’d headed off, chatting more out of nervousness than actual interest, “how do you plan on driving this thing once you evolve and don’t have hands anymore?”
“He’s not evolving,” Syr said.
[ ]
“Now that’s not fair,” said Esaax. “You can’t forbid him to evolve just because you’re scared of—”
“No, it’s all right,” Jen assured him. “I don’t want to become a glalie. If he said ‘do it’, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do it for anyone. Evolving is a really, really big deal. It’s not just your shape that changes—your whole life changes. Especially when it comes to changing into a glalie…”
Oh, so this is another one of those settings where personalities radically changing after evolution is the norm. Though a part of me wonders if the bracketed area would’ve been a fun place to see Esaax react or else his thought process in a bit more detail.
Jen gave a small shudder and went dead silent, apparently not wanting to proceed any further with that topic. Luckily they arrived at their destination just then, preventing things from getting much more awkward.
The three of them entered the house, and the interior caught Esaax by surprise. This had once been a home for humans, and outwardly it still looked like one. But on the inside, only a scattered few furnishings, such as a television and a large, gray sofa, still spoke of its former residents. In the place of human décor, the home had largely taken on a more natural appearance, fashioned into a curious amalgam of a woodland burrow and a cave.
That actually makes me wonder if it’s going to be maintained in a human fashion, or if as the house decays, its present occupants will Ship of Theseus it into something that feels more natural to them. Though it’s a fun depiction of how Pokémon would repurposes a human space for themselves.
Esaax tossed himself onto the sofa like a bean bag and stared up at the ceiling and the artificial stalactites that hung there. Their points hung a lot closer to the ground than the ones he remembered from Evergray territory; he had to shoo away an sudden, unbidden mental image of one of them breaking off and falling on him.
“How long did it take to put all this together?” he asked as he turned his gaze back toward the arbok, indicating his surroundings with a wave of his hand.
“Couple of months,” Syr answered. “We started right after I got Jen. We actually had a pretty small team working together on it; I’m surprised the work went by so fast.”
Huh, that’s quite some dedication there to making this space feel more natural for Esaax. I wonder what other house/room conversions we’ll get to see in this story, since it feels like there’s enough possibilities to get a
ton of mileage from the concept.
“I think it’s cool,” Esaax said. “You guys did a good job.”
“Nomel cookie?”
That wasn’t Syr. Esaax looked over to his right and found Jen offering him some dainty-looking little cookies on a tray. There was that disturbing smile again—was that a smile? Man, that kid’s creepy, Esaax thought. He took two of the cookies and thanked Jen so as not to risk offending the snorunt’s feelings—he didn’t want to find out the hard way just what those teeth could do.
Syr: “Esaax, cut Jen some slack. It’s not his fault that Snorunt smiles make him look like he just found lunch.” >_>;
Esaax: “So why doesn’t he smile
with his mouth closed?” >.<
Esaax popped a couple of the cookies into his mouth, but a weird twinge prickling across the back of his mind in the next moment distracted him from their flavor at once. Someone, and something, were coming his way. He had no time at all to figure out how or why he knew this; just as soon as the notion had hit him, that someone was knocking at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Syr said as he went to answer the door. He opened it and found a xatu standing on the other side.
Esaax: "Um...
hi?" .-.
“Misters Esaax Evergray and Syr. Someone wishes to speak with you,” the xatu said.
“How’d you find us?” asked Esaax as he rose to join Syr.
“And who wants to speak with us?” Syr added.
“I foresaw myself arriving at this destination prior to leaving,” the xatu said in response to the first question. To the latter, “You are summoned by one Faurur ursh Nanku.”
Kinda the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. Though I suppose it feels decently consistent with Xatu’s depictions in official media for them to be a bit seemingly loopy and outwardly off-putting.
Both Esaax’s and Syr’s eyes widened dramatically at this the message. Syr’s mouth fell slightly open, but he remained silent.
Okay, so Faurur is someone important to them. I wonder if that’s another ex-teammate or if it’s someone different.
“I shall wait for you outside until you’re ready to leave.” Without even touching it, the xatu closed the door on the bewildered recipients of his message.
Esaax and Syr looked at each other for a few moments, neither saying a word. Finally, “Jen?” Syr spoke up, turning toward where Jen still stood with his cookie tray. “Esaax and I need to have a talk in private,” the arbok said. Jen nodded and planted himself on the sofa while the others left the room.
Jen: “Huh? Wait, why? What’s going on, dad-?”
Syr: “Just… grown-up things, okay?” >_>;
Syr led Esaax into the bathroom and shut the door. Esaax noticed that unlike the other rooms he’d seen, the bathroom was almost completely human-style. All the fixtures were still intact—including the toilet. Unbidden curiosities made it to the surface of his mind, even in spite of the much heavier thoughts already there.
So, what’s the over/under that it’s no longer used as a hygienic device? Since just saying, unless that’s a squat toilet, that’s probably a
bit hard for Syr and Jen to use.
Fortunately, Syr brought Esaax back into focus before he couldn’t help asking as well as wondering. “I’m not so sure about this,” the arbok said. “You’re the psychic. Tell me: can we really believe this guy?”
“I’m psychic, but I’m no mind-reader. Still, I’m pretty sure he’s for real. I got this… this feeling about him just before he showed up. I knew he was coming and that his arrival was very important somehow.”
“A premonition?”
… Wait, he
did? Was this something from Chapter 3 that I’m forgetting about? Since I didn’t see any of this premonition in the earlier scenes.
“I guess so. I can still feel the weight of that, plus… something else. I’ve just got this instinct about him, and it just feels really, really… big.” He shrugged. “It’s enough for me to vouch for him, anyway.”
The wobbuffet noticed that he was pacing and realized he’d been doing so ever since he’d entered the bathroom. He’d overestimated his nerves yet again. He managed to get his legs to stop moving, but his tail kept on anxiously switching back and forth. Though he tried, he couldn’t calm it.
Syr: “Esaax, you’re fidgeting again.” -_-;
Sighing in surrender to his unrest, Esaax said, “You know, that’s actually what I wanted to discuss with you back at the Haven—not the xatu, obviously. I mean, you know, what all you two did after you left T—” He felt his voice catch in his throat. “What you guys did after you left us, and how Faurur’s been lately…”
“I actually haven’t talked with him in a long time,” Syr said, sounding a bit troubled.
Oh, so Faurur
is another one of the TRio’s Pokémon. Weezing, I presume?
“Her,” Esaax corrected.
“…What?”
“You really haven’t seen Faurur in a long time…” Esaax remarked. “What’s been keeping you two out of touch? I always thought you were like the ultimate best friends and all…”
Okay, yeah. That definitely sounds very ‘Weezing’ right about now.
“Hey, it’s not like it was my fault!” Syr blurted out. His outburst surprised even himself. He took a moment to stop and breathe; then, “Sorry… sorry, it’s not like it was really Faurur’s fault, either. Something happened—something really strange. It was almost right after Faurur and I parted ways with you. These strange lights appeared and moved across the sky one night. The next day, the koffing were all saying that their ‘gods’ had arrived. They demanded that my people swear loyalty to these gods, too.
Yeah, I knew it. Though those lights totally sound perfectly innocuous and not hugely ominous at all. /s
“We had no clue what they were talking about, and we weren’t about to just give ourselves and our faith to total strangers. So the koffing drove us all away—you wouldn’t believe how strong they can be in a group…” He shook his head. “Anyway… since you’ve seen her more recently than I have… how was she?”
Well, that would explain why Syr and Faurur aren’t on speaking terms right about now. I take it that there was a
lot of this sort of stuff once humans left the scene in this story’s world.
Esaax hesitated. He didn’t really want to go on about what had happened between himself and Faurur; the memory still pained him to no small degree. But at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling like he owed it to Syr, seeing as the arbok and weezing had known each other and been close friends long before he’d come into the picture.
I take it that The Happening in this chronology went down sometime before that one episode where Jesse and James cut Arbok and Weezing loose after crashing that poacher’s attempt to cart off a bunch of Ekans and Koffing. Does that mean that Meowth also will show up in this story? Or is he too busy doing gigs with his guitar these days?
As Esaax began to tell his story, his voice underwent a marked transformation. His words were strained; it was all too clear that he was forcing them out.
“After the Extinction,” Esaax began, “I tried to get back together with some of the old crew. No luck finding anybody other than Basath, but… well, she kind of hates me… You never got to meet her, though, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Syr confirmed.
“Basath”?
Maybe I jumped the gun in thinking that this story diverged before the Hoenn seasons. The name kinda gives me ‘Seviper’ vibes, but that wouldn’t explain how Esaax-
ohhhh, Basath’s the Gyarados that they bought from the Magikarp salesman, huh?
Relief washed over Esaax’s features; maybe he could put off discussing that incident, then. Deciding he needed to get back on topic as quickly as he could, “Eventually, I managed to find Faurur,” he said. “Now, as for these ‘gods’ you were talking about, she didn’t mention any such thing. And when I asked her where you were, the answer she gave me was really ambiguous. She told me that you and the ekans just decided to go off on your own somewhere, and that you gave no explanation as to why.
Wow, I think that I hate Faurur already from this obvious double-talking here. Though I have to wonder what on earth happened for
this to happen. .-.
“What she said didn’t seem suspicious at the time. I don’t remember that anything about the situation did. But now that I think about it, I’m not surprised that I missed the signs. I was… kind of in another mind at the time…
“Anyway…” Esaax’s voice started to tremble and crack. “…Anyway, something went wrong—nothing to do with gods or sky-lights or any such crap. Faurur wanted to know, of course, what had become of her poor, precious ‘Master’. She actually, honestly didn’t know; that’s how far-removed her life had become. I had to break that news to her. I had to deliver that message—it was awful.”
[ ]
“You can just imagine her reaction, right?” But before Syr could answer, “Wrong. You have no idea. I mean, the level of adoration she had for him… it was much greater than we ever thought. I told her, and it was like I’d just ripped her right open…”
This is a moment where it might have merited showing off Esaax’s pause a bit more, especially if he’s doing something like visibly choking back tears or something like that. Though, uh. Yeah. I can already tell that Meowth didn’t take Jesse and James’ deaths in this setting well. Even if that now makes me morbidly curious as to how
Ash’s Pokémon handled things.
Once again, Esaax caught himself pacing and stopped himself, albeit with difficulty. But this time, rather than standing, he sank to the floor, sliding down the wall until his spine bent at a sharp angle.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound pleasant
at all there.
“It was awful,” he repeated. “I just felt like a monster for making her feel that way. And so I swore that, no matter what, I would do anything to help her. I gave her that pain, so I had to be the one to take it away. I had to be there for her so she could recover.”
His voice changed yet again; it was now barely more than an exhalation. “We became very, very close…”
Ah yes, love before a wee little spot of ethnic (or I suppose more accurately, species) cleansing. Fun times!
Syr’d had his head lowered in the somberness his friend was casting over the room. He finally looked back up at Esaax and found the wobbuffet staring at nothing.
“We became very close,” Esaax said, “and then… and then we…” He swallowed very hard. “We had an egg.”
Ah yes, I can already tell Syr will take this well™. I was surprised at this, too, but an Egg Group check confirms that this pairing is indeed very much possible.
For a moment, Syr was too surprised to say anything. Even once he found his voice and his wits again, “Oh… oh wow…” was all he managed.
“We had a little girl,” the wobbuffet continued. “A koffing, of course, but a little more blue than purple because of me. When she hatched, she was so tiny I could hold her in one hand…” He gave a wistful and very shaky smile. “She was named Drasigon, and I really liked that name. Faurur told me that it means ‘never ignored’, and I agreed on it instantly.”
Oh, so interspecies pairings
do have effects that show up in the resulting progeny. Duly noted.
Startlingly, his gaze locked back into focus in a single moment. With a stare like a homing missile straight into Syr’s eyes, Esaax said, “Guess how long she lasted.”
“What?”
“Come on, guess.”
Drasigon didn’t make it past her first year, huh?
What kind of a thing is that to say? Syr wondered. “…How long?” he finally asked.
There was no response.
“How long?” Syr asked again, more gingerly this time.
“Four days,” Esaax answered abruptly, harshly. “Four days. That’s all. Four days, and then she just burst into flames. And then she was gone, Syr, like some evil magic hit her. For no reason!”
Ouch. Though I’m beginning to understand why Esaax more or less spent most of his life after the Extinction living in caves, since
that had to do a number on him emotionally.
Esaax was shaking so hard at this point that it looked like he could just fall apart. His eyes closed, overflowing with tears. As Syr stared at him in shock and sorrow, feeling tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, he thought that he saw something strange, something troubling: for just a second, there seemed to be a faint, multicolored aura around Esaax.
“And Faurur was there when it happened, too,” Esaax went on. “We were just frozen there for a little while. I looked her right in the eyes, and… and I just didn’t know what to do, so I… so I just ran…”
Wew, and here I thought
Syr’s reunion with Faurur was going to be awkward. That’s a
whole different level there.
Syr: “... Um… remind me, the cellular networks still work nowadays, right? Maybe we’re better off calling Faurur through a Pokégear before making a big journey off to go see her in person.”
Silently weeping, Syr gathered up the wobbuffet in his coils and embraced him tightly as if trying to hold him together. Though Syr certainly wanted to reunite with Faurur, he wasn’t sure it was such a good idea for Esaax to revisit that aspect of his past face-to-faces, regardless of whether or not the wobbuffet wished to do so. In fact, Syr began to wonder if maybe the only place Esaax ought to be going was right back to the Haven…
I was going to say that the underlined was an error when I realized that it’s a play off of how Faurur
would have two faces. Cute little touch there.
Before he could say anything to that effect, however, Esaax took a very deep breath, stood once more, and then effortlessly removed himself from the arbok’s coils. “I have to go back to her,” the wobbuffet said. “Right now.”
“Are… are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Syr asked quietly.
See,
I’m not the only one thinking it right now, Esaax.
“She needs us,” Esaax responded, wiping the tears from his face as well as he could. “Both of us. She wouldn’t have called for us both if she didn’t. If something happened to her because I couldn’t be there for her…” He swallowed hard again. “…I don’t think I could forgive myself, Syr.”
Syr: “... Or she could get mad at us and use an Explosion in our faces, just saying.”
Syr frowned at Esaax for a moment, still unsure about the situation. Esaax lowered his gaze, then turned toward the door. Sighing, Syr followed him out of the room and back to where the xatu was waiting, hoping that this was indeed the safer course of action for his friend to take.
Narrator: “It was absolutely not the safer course of action for Esaax to take.”
