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When Marl came to, light filled her eyes and blinded her vision. The Salamence briefly took a moment to let her sight adjust to the lighting as it slowly dawned on her that she was in a large, open room with walls panted in pastel greens. There were shelves and cupboards lining one of the walls, along with machines on wheels with a bunch of buttons and knobs. For a brief moment, she thought that she might have been dreaming, when the pain in her left wing suddenly came back.
I suspect bwtween title and everything else this is notngoing to be a "sting in the center and done" sort of thing. And consoderong this is a Sal'... yeah might as well retitle this cruel and unusual tje ficlet.
A glance over at it revealed it was still hanging at a funny angle and hurt whenever she so much as fidgeted it… and that there was a pair of Chansey just past it. One of them wore a small white hat and looked like she was in charge of something, while the other one looked a bit younger and went about without any accessories. Behind them, each of the Chansey were accompanied by a trainer wearing mostly white clothing: the elder Chansey had a tense-looking human male in glasses, while the younger one had a female with pink pigtails.
Marl set her teeth on edge as everything clicked together and she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was in the backroom of a Pokécenter.
The fact that she hadn’t seen anything of her mock-den and its surroundings(,) or remembered anything about the way over(,) meant that when Calvin recalled her her Pokéball put her in medical stasis.
Pokéballs did that whenever (whatever) made them work determined circumstances were such that it was better for the Pokémon inside to be in limbo until whatever wounds they had could be treated.
Marl’s breaths started to pick up. Medical stasis normally kicked in when Pokémon returned to their Pokéballs fainted… and in times when they were seriously hurt. Her own Pokéball had done that to her once back when she was a Bagon and broke her leg after an ill-fated jump from Calvin’s bedroom window. It wasn’t hard to see why she’d been put into stasis: her wing looked awful right now, and she swore she could see it swelling up worse and worse in front of her eyes
“We’re so not getting paid enough to deal with this,” the elder Chansey’s voice said. “Ema, have your human go get Ari from radiology. He’s going to need to look at this… and maybe also throw a few sparks around.”
Marl looked back and saw the two Chansey sizing her up. The one without the hat tugged at Pigtails and said something her ears didn’t quite pick up which sent the female doctor hurrying out into the hall. Glasses remained where he was in the room, tense and wary-looking as the Chansey with the hat sized her up. The elder Chansey shook her head, and had an expression that reminded Marl of the ones Roy would have when he caught her trying to climb up to high places as a Bagon on her own.
“The tournament hasn’t even started yet,” she sighed. “How on earth are Pokémon already getting drug in off the field in this state?”
Marl hesitated. ‘Off the field’…? As in off the stadium’s field?
“W-Wait, but I thought the Pokécenter was an entire bus ride away out in Goldenrod.”
“It is,” the Chansey with the hat explained. “You’re in on-site overflow set up for initial assessment and treatment here at the Pokéathlon Dome. Normally we get sprains and pulled muscles from Pokéathlon contestants, so getting a patient in your condition is admittedly unexpected for us.”
That wasn’t reassuring to hear at all. These Chansey and their trainers didn’t sound like they were as skilled as doctors, so why were they keeping her here? Shouldn’t they be sending her over to the normal Pokécenter?
The door suddenly flew open as Pigtails came back huffing and puffing with a Pokéball in her hand… along with a stack of thick blankets. Marl eyed the blankets, before shooting a sharp frown over at the Chansey.
“What are you doing? It doesn’t take this many doctors to treat one Pokémon,” she demanded. “And why are there so many blankets? My wing doesn’t feel cold right now, it hurts.”
“They’re not to warm you up. The blankets are restraints,” the younger Chansey said. “They’re meant to wrap up parts of your body like your claws or your tail to keep you from moving them around while you’re being examined.”
Marl started to inch back until she could feel her tail brush up against the wall of the room. She flashed her fangs, when her voice came out with more of a nervous stammer than she expected.
Marl my sister in arms.. i feel your pain of a broken limb and wanting t9 nope out of medical mayham land. Hopefully the staff wont have to pry her off the ceiling... that last line was not a confesion.
“S-So you’re going to tie me up? Since when do Pokémon need to go through that when they’re hurt?!”
“When they're Pokémon of size and strength class like yours where a human or a Pokémon simply can’t simply hold you down against an examination surface to keep you still,” the Chansey with the hat explained. “It’s a basic safety measure for us and our trainers in order to do things like taking a closer look at that wing of yours.”
Marl backed up tighter into the wall and subconsciously found herself spreading her uninjured wing out as the human doctors cautiously approached. Pigtails spread out the blankets on the floor, as Glasses called for her in their language. Marl dug her claws into the floor and turned her snout up. She didn’t trust these four. Couldn’t she just tell them to return her to her Pokéball and have the doctors back at Goldenrod’s Pokécenter look at her?
... i'm imaging...like comparitivly
.. washclothes being spread before a broken leged person baring the physic of say... did you ever seen green mile, the man who plays coffee? That type of biuld. Insanely tall wide and... and a washclothe being plopped down in front of the man with aide chirping. "Hop up, this will work fine..."
Marl suddenly felt a sudden flash of pain run through her wing and looked left. It was still hanging with that ugly swelling, and it’d surely still keep hurting until someone made it better. If it were even possible. She shook her head and relented, grudgingly placing her foreclaws down on the blankets.
“Lie down and bring your tail in as close to your right hindleg as you can,” the Chansey with the hat instructed. “Assuming you can stay orderly, there shouldn’t be any need for a muzzle as part of this examination.”
Muzzle? Marl wasn’t sure if she liked where this was going, but Pigtails and the Chansey without the hat were already stooping down and wrapping the blankets around her before fastening zip ties over them, which enclosed her claws and kept her from being able to pull her limbs back.
She felt the pair move on to her tail and felt them wrap one of the blankets and repeat the process between her right hindleg and her tail, preventing her from doing much more than wriggle its tip.
The Salamence grit her teeth, partly from the pain, partly from the frustrated growl coming from her throat. Were these Pokémon trying to convince her to just go back to her Pokéball?! They didn’t even seem to care about how awkward and uncomfortable this was for her! Especially with the way the elder Chansey was just going around with that exhausted, indifferent expression on her face…
“Alright, now that that’s taken care of…” the Chansey with the hat sighed. “Where does your wing hurt?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the part where it’s obviously being held funny right now?”
“You have no idea how little that narrows things down,” the Chansey grumbled, pinching her brow. “But I assume that you mean this part?”
The Chansey motioned up as Glasses brushed fingers against her wing. A piercing pain suddenly shot through her wing and her mind went blank. Marl bellowed in pain and reflexively brought her jaws towards Glasses’ hand. He yanked it back just as she clamped down on empty air, and felt the blankets dig into her tail as she tried to swing it out from its curled position.
“Wh-What did you do?!” she cried. “You just made my wing hurt worse!”
Marl thrashed and tried to shake the blankets on her forelegs and her tail loose as the doctors and the Chansey suddenly rushed her and held her back, with Glasses hurriedly running a plastic cord around her snout that he pulled tight, enough so that it barely let her move her mouth enough to speak. She bellowed, partly from the pain, and partly because for the first time she could remember in a long while, Marl genuinely felt scared.
She briefly glimpsed her Pokéball was right there on the shelf. She just needed to get these four out of the way and then she could go back into it. She wouldn’t feel any pain that way. She didn’t know if a real doctor could fix her wing, but it had to be better than this.
“Ema, hurry up and get your trainer to bring Ari out here!” the Chansey in the hat snapped. “These restraints aren’t going to hold her forever!”
Marl lost her footing and yelped as her injured wing shifted, beating her free one wildly. She briefly saw the female doctor throw out the Pokéball from earlier, which bounced against the floor and shot out a red light that materialized into the form of a Luxray. The Electric-type saw her, and after his eyes met hers, had a brief flash of alarm cross his face.
“Oh boy, I just had to get dragged along for stadium duty this week.”
One of the doctors shouted something frantically at the Luxray that made Marl’s eyes widen as she recognized it to be a command for an attack.
“Th-Thunder Wave?!” she spluttered. “What sort of ‘healing’ is-?!”
An electric crackle suddenly filled the air and Marl felt warmth run through her body. Her limbs locked up, and she stumbled forward, her legs too numb and stiff to get her back upright. The Chansey came up and yanked at her muzzle with a brief grumble about it being “too loose” as Marl swore she could feel starting to dig into her scales. Her ragged breaths came out mixed with stifled whimpers, as she briefly saw the Chansey with the hat turn to her counterpart with a tired sigh.
“Ema, bring her trainer in here… and get some localized anesthesia while you’re at it.”
Again i'm thinking 90% of tjis could be dodged if theyd asked her opinion. Or just explained. I wonder how comon tjis is on the mon world and how calvin is going to respond to this madhouse...
Also wonder how psychics are treated in this sotuation as theyre equiped either via painshare telekenisis or telepathy to let everyone know thier opinion on everytjing.
Marl tried to thrash about, but her body barely managed more than a pathetic wriggle as moisture started to bead up at the edges of her eyes. So this was what she’d waited her whole life for. To be lying splayed out on a cold, tiled floor, unable to fly, unable to even push away strangers who were hurting her.
She briefly saw Glasses holding a syringe as footsteps approached the door and her heart raced in a panic. The Chansey were shouting something at her as she tried to get onto her feet and limp away as they neared, but between the paralysis and the restraining blankets, she just couldn’t shake the doctors’ and the Chansey’s grip. Couldn’t do anything other than to let out stifled cries in protest in increasingly frantic, pleading tones.
The door suddenly opened as a familiar-sounding human voice joined in and suddenly the others let go of her. Marl frantically started to struggle up as much as her limbs would allow, when she suddenly felt human fingers cupping and stroking her neck, and looked over to see a young man with an unplaceable face, who moved his hand and loosened the muzzle around her mouth just enough for her to get out a soft murmur.
Hm this feels make or break for thier relationship. Marls stressed. Cals swoopong in to seemingly save. If this goes well if feels like the lynchpin to mend thier relationship...
Sure enough, he was there. He looked tense and worried, but kept stroking and saying soothing-sounding words in his language. That things would be okay. That he understood she was uncomfortable right now, but the whole ordeal would be over soon. He moved his fingers under her chin and scratched at it as her breath calmed, and she lowered her head down onto his shoulder with a low whine.
Marl wished that he would just take her away from here. She didn’t know how she’d get her wing healed, but there had to be better places than this.
The Salamence blinked after noticing pink in the corner of her vision, and saw that the elder Chansey had stepped in front of her.
“Salamence, we’re going to need to administer anesthesia to your wing. It’s delivered by syringe, so you’ll feel a bit of a pinch at first,” she said. “But unless you want us to call in the anaesthesiology team to break out the Sleep Powder, we need you to hold your wing out as straight as you can for us to deliver it. Can you manage that?”
Marl didn’t meet the Chansey’s eyes. When she dreamed of being fully evolved when she was younger, she thought she’d be big and strong. That she’d always be up above looking down on the world, and never be afraid of anything…
And here she was, somehow feeling even smaller and more pathetic than she had during her lowest points as a Bagon.
“Uh- Uh huh…”
She turned her head away as her trainer stroked her and spoke to her, cradling her head and turning it rightward away from her injured wing. She didn’t understand much of his words, but it kept her mind occupied until the prick in her wing came.
There was a brief flash of pain, then a chilly feeling that started to spread along her wing’s membrane as her vision began to grow bleary.
True to the elder Chansey’s words, that ‘anesthesia’ thing really did make it so that after about a minute Marl could barely feel her left wing beyond a dull ache. The Luxray briefly looked her over, before nudging at Pigtails and prompting her to go and fetch a thick metal plate, along with a bulky device with a handle that looked almost like some sort of strange flashlight. The Chansey with the hat passed on a few hushed words to her trainer which her ears mostly missed, beyond overhearing something about wanting a ‘friend’ out but not one that was ‘too big’. She wasn’t sure what to make of it until Calvin took one of the other Pokéballs with him and aimed it at the ground. He tapped it, and in a flash of red light, Eira took form in front of her and stared at her.
There was a brief moment as the Marowak took in her surroundings, before she noticed Marl’s left wing and fell silent.
“Oh boy, it’s just been one thing after another with you these past few days,” the Ground-type sighed, before turning to the Chansey. “Though what exactly do you two need from me here?”
“Your friend needs to lay on her side and get her injured wing as straight as possible for us to check the bones in it,” the second Chansey said. “The anesthesia should dull the pain of the process, but considering what happened earlier with her and how we had to have her Thunder Waved…”
Marl really didn’t like where this was going, especially when she could barely raise a word in protest with her mouth fixed mostly shut like it currently was. She looked down at Eira, who traded askew glances between her and the Chansey, before giving a dubious frown.
“I’m sorry, what do you expect me to do here again?” the Marowak asked. “She’s still looks paralyzed right now, and if you’re looking for someone to help hold her down, literally everyone else on my team would’ve-”
“Just… help keep her calm, alright?” the Chansey sighed. “I’d prefer if things didn’t have to come to putting her under a Sleep Powder and rolling her onto her side afterwards, but we can’t treat her if she’s going to stay uncooperative.”
Some doctors these were. They couldn’t even spare a Cheri Berry for her! Marl couldn’t understand how they expected her to stay calm when they couldn’t even be honest about whether what they were doing would hurt her or not. She shrank back and tried to flare her good wing amidst its stiff and sluggish muscles, only to feel human hands stroking at her head crest and look down. It was Calvin and his unplaceable face, he spoke and patted her, before motioning off at her side with her injured wing.
It was like that time she’d hurt her leg as a Bagon. Except she was much smaller back then and Calvin always seemed to have more time for her when he was younger. She wouldn’t have imagined that he’d miss an evolution of hers back then, much less her most important one.
She looked back at her left wing and the way it hung limply and swallowed a gulp. She could almost feel the pain coming back just looking at it. She still didn’t trust these doctors, but what if it was really hurt? What if it needed to be fixed quickly or else the wound would be permanent?
She shook her head and knelt down.
“O… Okay… if you’re sure…”
Marl fought against her stiff limbs and knelt down and started rolling onto her side. Glasses took her left wingtip and gently tugged at it while Calvin held its base closer to her shoulder. She felt a pain through the numbness and fought back a yelp, as the Chansey and humans guided her body to the ground and Pigtails slipped something under it. Eira grabbed her free hindleg to hold it still under the blankets as Calvin placed his hands under the base of her injured wing, guiding her down until she saw the world on its side and faintly felt something cold on the parts of her wing that still had feeling left in them.
Marl shifted her head to lie it flat on the ground to try and peek under her left wing. It was straight along the floor now, aside from a large swollen spot next to dark discolorations that ran along in a line where she’d hit the pole, with the metal plate from earlier underneath. Pigtails was aiming the strange flashlight-like device at her wing from above, while Glasses and Calvin were holding her wing steady.
She cast glances as they moved the machine around in a slow arc over the stretch where her wing was swelling. She tried not to whine and fidgeted her free hindleg, only to feel Eira’s grip tighten on it as the Marowak poked her head past her back.
“Deep breaths, Marl,” the Marowak said. “You’re doing good, you’ll be able to get up again soon.”
The Salamence breathed in and out as her breaths calmed. Pigtails eventually hit a switch on the flashlight-like device the younger Chansey took it away. Glasses went off out into the hallway with the Luxray following after him.
“Your results will be back in a few minutes,” the Electric-type said. “Though Io, Ema, start getting the padding and casting tape together for her. Just from what I could see of her wing’s bones with my own eyes, they’ll most likely require a half-wing cast to hold them in place.”
Marl felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart skip a beat.
And reality is sinking in like a rock. Poor marl shes going to have it rough as this revelation is hitting from a place of
A medicated
B in the mother of all her sore spots...
The process of putting the cast together went by faster than Marl expected. First came the padding along her wing, then the white layers that were wrapped around them and hardened, with the two Chansey finishing up the last layers as Eira and Calvin stayed at her side.
Extra restraints aside, this really was like the time she’d broken her leg, except… something was missing. She supposed the splint she’d had then let her see her hide underneath and this cast didn’t outside of a couple coin-sized holes that had been punched near the site of her wing break for shortened tubes made of clear plastic with some sort of twistable tip to be inserted and then taped to her cast, but there was something else that didn’t feel right at the moment.
“Can’t my other friends be here with me right now?”
Right, back then, all of her teammates had been out to try and cheer her up. Even Jaki reined in his normally rude and abrasive attitude back then for the occasion. Marl supposed that she technically had more teammates now and none of them were as small as back then, but she thought that she’d at least have more than just one of them there at her side right now.
She glanced over at the Chansey with the hat, who shook her head with a low sigh.
“It’ll have to wait until you’re transferred back to Goldenrod Main where they’ll have you stay overnight in a recovery room for observation,” she said. “We were a bit tight on space for treating you as-is, and we need to keep our other rooms as free as possible for other patients.”
Marl looked around and realized that just from standing in place, her body and her wings were taking up at least a quarter of the room’s free space. After accounting for Calvin, Eira, the medical staff, and the equipment in the room… there really wasn’t much room leftover to spare.
… She supposed that it was understandable the doctors here wouldn’t want her to stick around, at least, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing being cooped up in a cramped space all night. But it still didn’t make her feel better.
“On the positive side, we’re done applying your cast,” the Chansey explained. “We should be able to start undoing the restraints on your limbs now.”
Silver linings, Marl supposed. The female doctor briefly said something to her trainer as they stooped down and undid the zip ties and blankets around her forelegs. She got up and idly pawed at the floor to try and shake some feeling in them, then came the restraints that were on her tail and right hindleg, and finally her trainer undid the plastic loop closing her mouth shut, holding up a Cheri Berry just below her snout.
She bit down and gobbled the berry up as almost immediately, she felt the stiff numbness in her limbs start to fade away. Her trainer briefly patted at her afterwards, and said something about thanking her for her patience.
Marl still thought that these doctors were quacks, but at least things were over and they could go back to worrying about the tournament. Even if she didn’t know how she was supposed to manage things like this.
She still felt a dull pain in her left wing, and when she tried to bat it, it didn’t catch air right. She kept at it a couple times, when she heard a sharp tak against the floor and saw Eira pulling her bone up from the tiles.
“Marl, don’t stress your wing like that,” Eira said. “Let it heal on its own with time.”
Yeah, but how long would that take? Didn’t the tournament start tomorrow? She knew she wasn’t super experienced with flying yet, but just how was she supposed to fight effectively if she couldn’t get into the air?
I take back everything about reality sinking in.. marls still on the banks of denial and is sport fishing there as we speak... this is going to be another kick in the teeth for her scaliness, isnt it?
The door suddenly swung open as the male doctor came back without the Luxray carrying a darkened sheet that reminded Marl of camera film. He stopped and traded words with Calvin before passing the sheet over, as her trainer seemed to tense up after looking down. Why was he reacting like that, was whatever was on the sheet bad? Marl made a couple faltering attempts to crane her head to see the dark sheet, Eira noticed it and tugged at Calvin for attention.
“Calvin, I think Marl wants to see.”
The young man with the unplaceable face looked down, as Eira motioned between Marl and the sheet. He seemed to put two and two together, and went over and grudgingly showed it off to her.
Marl looked down and noticed that there was an outline shaped like her left wing, with white lines that fanned out from a set near its base with an arrangement that vaguely reminded her of Calvin’s fingers whenever he spread them out.
“What is this?” she asked. “Why are those white things in my wing?”
“I think Roy called it an ‘X-Ray’. You had one like this taken when you broke your leg a few years back… even if I didn’t remember seeing the doctors using a machine like this back then,” Eira explained. “Those white things are the bones inside of it. That’s how the they can see where and how badly they’re hurt.”
Marl looked down at the Marowak’s club and then back at the sheet. Their ends weren’t quite the same shape as the one that Eira used to fight with, but they really did look like bones. The Salamence followed the bones on the sheet up to her wing’s midsection, when she saw it:
One after the other, there were dark gaps running across the bones, almost in a straight line from one end of her wing to the other. Maybe it was just a trick of her eyes, but she swore that some of them looked like they didn’t even line up properly.
She suddenly noticed her breaths coming in and out quickly and shallowly. She knew that it wasn’t the first time she’d broken a bone, but there were so many of them. And with those dark gaps and how much it hurt even with that ‘anesthesia’ she’d been given, she was starting to fear the worst…
“I-I’m never gonna fly again, am I?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s just a few fractures,” the junior Chansey said. “When I heard that you were thrown into a lightpole, I was honestly expecting worse.”
She whirled around and set her teeth on edge. Just a few fractures?! Was this ‘mon even listening to herself speak right now?!
“Worse?! I’m just stuck here waddling on the ground like a giant Shelgon right now!” Marl snapped. “I’m supposed to take part in a tournament tomorrow! How on earth am I supposed to do anything in it like this?!”
“You aren’t.”
Marl froze and turned her head towards the voice, seeing the head Chansey walking up with a stern shake of her head.
“You won’t be doing any battling until that wing of yours is healed,” she said. “No proper trainer would expect you to go out on a battlefield in your current state. Even if yours tried to enter you into the tournament with a broken wing, the organizers would never allow it.”
Marl’s attention drifted down towards the floor as her mind went blank and vision started to grow fuzzy. She knew she wasn’t happy about how things had started, but now she couldn’t even take part in the tournament? Calvin and the others had said they wanted to spend time with her to make things up, they’d promised!
Except, if she couldn’t do anything other than just sit and watch, th-then…
“But- But I-I-”
“Need to focus on getting rest,” the head Chansey insisted. “We’re done here, so please return to your Pokéball so that way your trainer can bring you to a larger facility for observation.”
Her vision started to grow muddy as she just stared down in shock, trying to blink back tears from her eyes. She briefly overheard Calvin saying something in his language and saw him grabbing a Pokéball, as she felt a tug at her foreleg.
She looked down and saw Eira staring up at her. There was an uneasy, pitying look about the Marowak’s face that made Marl feel small and pathetic, when the Marowak motioned off at the Pokéball with her club.
“I think we need to return you to your Pokéball before bringing you over. You didn’t exactly fit on the bus even when your wing was healthy,” Eira said. “Will that be alright, Marl?”
while i salute eira for showong some bloody ta ts (glares dryly at every other cast member in scrubs) i suspect that marl isnt anything like alrigjt... i wonder jow calvin and co are going to handle it?
Marl briefly felt the scales around her eyes start to grow damp when her Pokéball’s light swallowed her up again. And then, everything once again returned to darkness.
Before Marl knew it, she was laying on a set of bedding spread out on an adjustable frame that had been lowered for her to clamber onto it easier. It was in a larger room with a window at the far end and other sets of bedding like it lined up in nice rows, some of which were occupied by other Pokémon. She’d quickly gathered that she was in one of the recovery rooms in the Pokécenter back in Goldenrod, along with an explanation from one of the Chansey on-staff that she’d need to spend the night here away from her teammates for the on-site doctors to keep an eye on her wing. Her trainer had been let in by the staff shortly afterwards, and spent a good deal of time uneasily sitting beside her and patting at her foreleg—to try and lift her mood, she assumed.
Calvin let her teammates out to try and cheer her up, if fewer at a time than what she remembered when she was younger. They were simply too big to all crowd together in the room like they used to.
They came one after the other, including those two new Pokémon from the Field Biology course. Even Jaki wasn’t as obnoxious as he normally was, not that Marl had much of an appetite for idle chatter or do much more than lie in her bedding and glance down towards the floor. Human shoes and Pokémon’s feet drifted by her bed in a hazy blur, and before she knew it, it’d already been almost half an hour in that bed. Marl stirred after hearing slow, lumbering footsteps come towards her and looked up to see Roy beside her and her trainer, her Blastoise teammate looking down with his teeth set on edge.
“Hey, are you doing alright?”
Marl turned her head away after the words reached her earholes. She knew that Roy had surely meant well, but was he really not able to put two and two together right now?
“Roy, my wing’s broken. Of course I’m not doing alright.”
A noticeable pause followed afterwards, before the Blastoise sighed and spoke up again.
“Yeah, I kinda figured,” he said. “I don’t think any of us realized that Numa’s warning would be this serious…”
Marl whirled her head around and narrowed her eyes, forcefully enough that Calvin stumbled back from her and she swore she saw the Blastoise jump slightly. Was Roy seriously insinuating that this was somehow her fault?!
“‘Warning’?! Roy, that Hydreigon attacked me first!”
“Marl.”
“I didn’t even start it! She was-!”
“Marl.”
The Salamence caught herself and bit her tongue. That was the sort of tone of voice that Roy took with her whenever she’d gotten in trouble and he was passing word along to their trainer. She hesitated and looked up, but instead of the scowl or annoyed expression she was expecting, Roy looked tired. He looked aside, pawing at his shell with a low sigh.
“It doesn’t matter at this point, Marl. The damage is already done,” he said. “Those broken bones are nothing permanent, but it’ll still take time for them to heal.”
Marl lowered her head and slunk against her bedding, casting a glance off at that ugly white cast that took up half her left wing. She’d been a Salamence for all of three days and her dream of flying had been snatched away from her. She almost wished that she’d smashed one of her legs into that light pole and that she’d broken one of its bones instead.
At least she’d still have been able to fly that way…
She heard Roy briefly hem and haw, as the Blastoise seemed to fish around for words before finally speaking up.
“Garrett felt guilty over not being able to recall… er… ‘Hydreigon’ in time to keep everything from happening,” the Blastoise explained. “So he’ll be covering the cost of the Potions and other materials needed to help speed up your recovery.”
“Yay me, I guess,” she muttered, curling her head in towards her body.
Calvin hesitated a moment at her side and scratched under her chin to turn his attention up. Large chunks of human language were still a mystery to her even after the years she’d spent growing up alongside them, but she caught that he was saying something about the tournament and about going home.
Her breath caught for a moment as she turned to Roy. The Blastoise seemed visibly hesitant, before he spoke up after their trainer.
“I suppose that it should go without saying that we can’t keep you on the team roster in this condition,” Roy said. “Calvin pulled you from the tournament about an hour ago and has been trying to line up another Pokémon to take your place.”
Marl’s mouth hung open. She turned to the young man with the unplaceable face and as her vision began to swim. It wasn’t that anything that Roy said was wrong, but after everything that happened… Calvin was really just going to push her aside?
“Y-You’re really going to send me back home all on my own? L-Like thi-?”
She felt a stroke at her neck as her trainer spoke soothing words in his language. That things weren’t her fault, that she’d get better soon enough.
That he and the others would be there for her.
From the side, Roy listened in briefly, before waiting for their trainer to fall silent before joining in.
“He considered it, but no. Or at least not if you don’t want to go back,” Roy explained. “Your wing still needs someone to observe it and treat it while it heals, and there’s nothing saying that Calvin and the rest of us can’t do it here between matches.”
Roy looked at the man with the unplaceable face as the Blastoise. The Water-type listened and nodded along before the man got up, Roy took their trainer’s place and raised out a claw to her.
“Calvin still wanted to make good on his promise of spending more time with you. There should be plenty of time for him to do so whenever he’s not battling or imminently waiting to take the field,” he explained, before trailing off.
“... Is that something you’d like? Garrett and those friends that he came here with also offered to help keep an eye on you whenever Calvin’s not able to do so.”
Marl bit the inside of her cheek and looked aside. She didn’t want to just go back to laying around a room alone back at the house. Not when she could barely fit through the hallways after evolving. Not now when all she could do was stay grounded with that ugly cast on her wing...
“I guess… but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now,” she said. “All I’d be able to do is just sit around. I can’t even practice my flying at the moment…”
“Then stay around with us and the others,” Roy insisted. “We’re going to be spending the bulk of our time around the stadium until the tournament’s over. I’m sure that there’s things that can be done for fun there.”
She didn’t know how much that was going to be manageable when she already didn’t fit in half the places she used to as a Shelgon. What on earth was there to do aside from watching battles? Going outside to gawk at the blue roof and those golden antennas on it?
There was a lingering silence, as she looked up and saw the Blastoise pawing at the back of his head.
“Though if you change your mind about not wanting to go home… just speak up and let us know, okay?”
Marl hung her head, as her words came out in a defeated croak.
“Okay…”
Marl sank down into her bedding and looked away. She heard her trainer come over and felt him try to stroke her, but she didn’t have the heart to turn and face him.
While i get calvins offer was made from a place of good intentions i can see marl taking the being on the sidelines experience very baddly. Shes very active. Insanely so. Bed rest is gping to go as well for her as a fairy type dancing on her backside..
It will be interesting to re-meet the rest of the cast in less incidentary circumstances and see jow they all ping off of each otjer, and marl in a safer setting...
I suspect bwtween title and everything else this is notngoing to be a "sting in the center and done" sort of thing. And consoderong this is a Sal'... yeah might as well retitle this cruel and unusual tje ficlet.
Yeeeeeah, I suppose scope management has always been one of my weaker suits as a writer, since this story has shot up considerably in wordcount. Though as of today’s update, I’ll be roughly around the midway mark to the story from a casual eyeballing of the notes and half-written content in my story outline.
Hm what makes a chancy look older vs younger. Tail length, fur shine, do they turn more sherbert pink vs buvblegum pink as they age?
As you saw later on, the blankets are less there to hold her on their own and more to keep the proper restraints from cutting into her scales.
Marl my sister in arms.. i feel your pain of a broken limb and wanting t9 nope out of medical mayham land. Hopefully the staff wont have to pry her off the ceiling... that last line was not a confesion.
[...]
Again... they prob should not be saying all this... as marls likely to hit the roof.
I now have the mental image of ceiling Salamence. It’s quite something. :V
... i'm imaging...like comparitivly
.. washclothes being spread before a broken leged person baring the physic of say... did you ever seen green mile, the man who plays coffee? That type of biuld. Insanely tall wide and... and a washclothe being plopped down in front of the man with aide chirping. "Hop up, this will work fine..."
I mean, in their defense, would you want to have to deal with an injured Salamence? ^^;
Again i'm thinking 90% of tjis could be dodged if theyd asked her opinion. Or just explained. I wonder how comon tjis is on the mon world and how calvin is going to respond to this madhouse…
Also wonder how psychics are treated in this sotuation as theyre equiped either via painshare telekenisis or telepathy to let everyone know thier opinion on everytjing.
I think that’s probably species-dependent. It’s certainly an interesting thought exercise, though.
Hm this feels make or break for thier relationship. Marls stressed. Cals swoopong in to seemingly save. If this goes well if feels like the lynchpin to mend thier relationship…
I mean, at least things can’t really get worse for him at this point? Even if he’s not just going to lightswitch his way into everything being good again. ^^;
Ah so hes being used to calm her down... so they.can poke and numb... i've mixed feelings on tjis trick…
And reality is sinking in like a rock. Poor marl shes going to have it rough as this revelation is hitting from a place of
A medicated
B in the mother of all her sore spots…
I take back everything about reality sinking in.. marls still on the banks of denial and is sport fishing there as we speak... this is going to be another kick in the teeth for her scaliness, isnt it?
while i salute eira for showong some bloody ta ts (glares dryly at every other cast member in scrubs) i suspect that marl isnt anything like alrigjt... i wonder jow calvin and co are going to handle it?
Something something, “having to balance the wants and needs of five other Pokémon versus one”.
While i get calvins offer was made from a place of good intentions i can see marl taking the being on the sidelines experience very baddly. Shes very active. Insanely so. Bed rest is gping to go as well for her as a fairy type dancing on her backside..
It will be interesting to re-meet the rest of the cast in less incidentary circumstances and see jow they all ping off of each otjer, and marl in a safer setting...
And thanks for the feedback. Some of it admittedly took me a little bit to sift through, but it was really fun and helpful. ^^
Though it’s been a bit longer than I expected to get this next chapter out. Though let’s pick up with an update where thanks to the doctor’s orders Marl’s getting a bout away from her normal teammates and expected scenery, and finds herself with a lot to unpack in it:
The place where that Bug-Catching Contest Sessen wanted to go to was apparently only a short distance away from the National Park on foot, but for whatever reason, the wavy-haired trainer didn’t take the same bus as Calvin—something about grabbing supplies on the way over that required taking a different bus line. It only took a few minutes for the other bus to come after Calvin’s, but the wait somehow felt like a small eternity. Marl just stood there the entire time, her eyes drifting towards the ground as she tried to tell herself that things would work out and that if she stuck with Sessen now, she’d be there with Roy and the others when it counted the most today—when they were actually having their battles at the Tournament.
It didn’t really help her mood, nor did Sessen’s attempts to try to cheer her up by stroking her neck and saying reassuring-sounding words in human tongue. Things that Calvin should’ve been doing right now and not some friend of his that she didn’t really know. The fact that she was going to be close enough to her trainer that she could’ve just gone and flown over to fetch him if her wing wasn’t broken was just the frost on top of the Icicle Spear.
Eventually, she heard the rumble of the oncoming bus. The light of her Pokéball’s beam filled her vision afterwards and everything went black.
When she left stasis and started seeing things again, she was taken aback by how bright everything was. From the blue sky overhead, it was later in the morning, and at first from the trees, she thought she was still at that little park by the bus stop. She quickly realized that she was standing in a space paved with bricks which was hemmed in by decorative fencing and tall trees. Every which way, there was the hum of human and Pokémon chatter in the background, along with a large red-roofed building behind her that just kept going on and on into the forest.
“Are you alright, Marl? You look a little disoriented.”
The Salamence turned around towards the building and saw that there at the entrance, there was Bushel along with the rest of the Tropius’ teammates… and Rako, too. Sessen was off to the side with a man in a red uniform and hat who was scrutinizing her with a frown that made her feel uncomfortable for reasons she couldn’t put her claw on...
“Where are we right now, Bushel?” she asked.
“We’re at the National Park. It’s a place here in Johto where people and Pokémon go to relax in nature a bit,” the Tropius explained. “It’s actually just a relatively short walk away from the Pokéathlon Dome, so we should be able to return there easily when we’re done.”
Marl looked back at the treeline in the direction that the long hall stretched off towards, and sure enough, she could see the three spires of the Pokéathlon Dome poking out over them in the distance. She didn’t know if it made her feel better or worse knowing that it was that close by. Yes, she knew that her teammates were going to be busy practicing and there was only so much space around the fields available when they even had access to them to begin with… but did they not know this National Park was right at the proverbial mouth of the arena’s den? If so, couldn’t they have at least committed to come and see her sometime in between in that case?
The Salamence sighed with a low mutter, only to freeze after looking deeper into the square: everywhere she looked, there were humans and Pokémon gathered together and queued up, with a lot of said humans dressed like those trainers obsessed with Bug-types that were back in Hoenn… “Bug Catchers”, she was pretty sure Roy called them, and the number of Bug-types going around sure looked like they were Bug Catchers’ Pokémon…
Except they were all here, with her broken wing in plain view in front of them.
Marl cringed and shrank back, as she eyed her Pokéball in Sessen’s grasp. A part of her debated whether she should just go back in there and spare herself the humiliation of being seen like this. She briefly noticed that Rako himself looked puzzled, as the Floatzel blinked at the sight of the crowd before shooting Bushel back an askew glance.
“... This place is seriously supposed to be relaxing compared to the Pokéathlon Dome?” he asked. “It looks as crowded as those registration booths were back at the tournament! And the only water around here’s that little fountain in the middle!”
“There’s a bigger one deeper in the park,” Bushel insisted. “And they are hosting a Bug-Catching Contest here today, so the place is a bit busier than normal.”
Clearly this Bug-Catching Contest was a bigger deal here in Johto than Marl realized. But even so, why would all these trainers care so much about trying to catch Bug-type Pokémon here? A sideways glance revealed that she surely wasn’t the only one who found the idea strange from the way Rako was pinching his brow at the moment.
She turned her head away from him and turned her snout up with low harrumph. Maybe she should try and get her mind on something else. It wasn’t as if she needed more help with being in a crummy mood right now.
“So just what is this ‘Bug-Catching Contest’ again?” she asked.
“You know, ‘twenty free Pokéballs, try to catch anything you can in twenty minutes’?” Rako replied. “If you weren’t busy constantly moping for the past few days, you’d have heard Sessen talk about it earlier.”
She felt a flash of anger come over her and spat blue dragonfire at the Floatzel’s feet. Not anything that’d hurt him, but enough to make him jump back with a loud yelp and send him beelining behind Bushel. The Salamence’s moment of satisfaction lasted about as long as it took for her to turn her head, where many of the nearby humans and Pokémon were staring at her in alarm. Off by Bushel, Sessen was visibly grimacing in front of the human official in the red hat and jacket who was currently trading a withering frown between her and the wavy-haired man. The fire in Marl’s belly died down as her teeth settled into a sharp grimace.
“I… shouldn’t have done that, huh?”
“You definitely didn’t make it easier for Sessen to convince the officials to let you stay out,” a gravelly voice sighed. A quick glance down revealed it to be Sessen’s Geodude, who came up walking—or at least Marl thought it was walking—alongside that Wooper on his team.
“If you need help calming down, I could always try blowing you a bubble,” the Wooper offered. “Though you should really stop annoying her like that, Floatzel.”
Rako ran his mouth off with some yippy complaint afterwards about not being “the one who almost got burned” that grated her nerves like claws dragging against glass. She began to turn around when she suddenly felt patting at her neck, where there was Sessen, visibly flustered and uneasily saying something about her being a “nice dragon” in a voice that sounded much like a human hatchling’s. The Salamence noticed the official sizing her up and let out a tired sigh, before she looked back at Bushel and opted to try and get her mind on something else.
“Why does Sessen need that many more Pokémon to join you guys? How on earth would he make time for everybody?”
“Well, it’s not quite as simple as your Floatzel friend made it sound,” the Tropius explained. “For starters, the Sport Balls they give out here are only as effective as a Great Ball and all the catching has to happen here in this garden area with whatever Bug-type Pokémon come through from the forests.”
“Also every trainer is only allowed to have one Pokémon that they entered for contest scoring join their team at the end no matter how many they caught,” the Geodude chimed in. “So at most, we’ll be getting one extra teammate out of things today.”
It made sense, she supposed. A few stray words between Sessen and the official caught Marl’s ear. She turned and saw Sessen giving a flustered paw at the back of his head, while the official’s frown hadn’t budged by so much as a scale the entire time.
Marl already knew that wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m guessing that that look red-vest is giving me has something to do with another rule, doesn’t it?” she sighed.
“Er… well, yes,” Bushel replied. “See, in the Bug-Catching Contest, it’s the rule that one Pokémon is supposed to help their trainer out during the actual event, while the others have to sit out from things.”
Marl felt her wings droop and subconsciously pulled her tail in close to her body. This shouldn’t have upset her so much, but at a moment when she was just useless and stuck on the ground, was she really just not going to be allowed to lay down in a glorified meadow like this?
“Wasn’t the entire point of me coming here to not be stuck in my Pokéball? Why am I even here if I’m just going to be sent back to my Pokéball and my wing will put me into stasis again?”
“Well, the rules didn’t say anything about Pokémon not being able to sit out from the Contest outside their Pokéballs,” Bushel explained. “Sessen heard of other trainers doing the same in the past, and wanted to make sure he could do the same here with you.”
Marl stiffened up after feeling fingers cup and scratch under her chin, peering down to see Sessen scritching at her with his face fixed into a flustered smile back at the official. The man in the red hat scrutinized her a bit, before saying some very grouchy-sounding words. He turned and walked off afterwards, making his way over to a trainer with a Granbull off towards the long hall in the back.
Marl shuffled her wings uneasily and let her head droop towards the ground. She supposed that meant she wasn’t allowed to stay outside her Pokéball. So what was she supposed to do now? She needed to be out of her Pokéball for her wing to properly heal and that was the most of the reason why she was sitting things out with her friends, but…
“That was an awful lot of words to say that Sessen’s not allowed to keep me out.”
“That’s… not what he said at all, really,” Rako said.
Marl craned her head with an incredulous blink as she looked over past Bushel where there was Rako, poking his head out from behind the Tropius. The Grass-type herself nodded along, and shuffled her wings before speaking up.
“The official actually said it was alright for you to sit on the sidelines,” Bushel said, before trailing off with an awkward hem and haw.
“It’s just… well… there’s some rules that you’ll need to keep in mind.”
Marl learned a few things while waiting with the others for Sessen’s turn in the contest to arrive. She finally learned the names of his other two Pokémon with him and what they were like. The Geodude was called ‘Kepa’, and was a bit of a storyteller who kept trying to command Sessen and his teammates’ attention—almost as if he was worried about being overlooked. The Wooper was ‘Daichi’, who much to Marl’s astonishment was almost her age in spite of being about as childish as Bac, especially with that veritable fixation he had with blowing bubbles that stuck around in the air for surprisingly long.
She also learned about the rules for Pokémon being able to wait on the sidelines in this ‘Bug-Catching Contest’. They apparently weren’t all that different from the ones back in the tournament: she and the rest of Sessen’s Pokémon could stay out and on the sidelines as long as she didn’t interfere with anyone currently participating in the contest. When Sessen’s turn came, she’d be allowed to keep doing much the same, but he would have to stay close enough to be able to maintain a line of sight with her.
The rules were simple and easy to understand, as were the consequences for her breaking them: Sessen would be disqualified from the contest and if she started any fights, they’d be kicked from the National Park for the day. That didn’t phase Marl that much, since in the end, this place wasn’t that different from those bleachers on the repurposed fields outside the Pokéthlon Dome where her teammates had been practicing for the past few days. Just softer, grassier, and with a lot more space. It was a bit of a relief to not have to constantly look ahead to make sure she’d fit through an oncoming passageway or see if there were others she needed to wait to let pass. Same for being able to take it for granted that she could settle down and stretch out when she wasn’t getting a Potion applied to her broken wing, like she was doing now.
What was different from the tournament was the way the organizers insisted on keeping track of the Pokémon like her on the sidelines…
“Is this really necessary? I’m already orange!”
Which for some blasted reason, as Rako’s whining from beside her reminded, it meant wearing a rubbery band hiked up on her right foreleg that was in the most hideous shade of orange imaginable which looked and felt like it’d been cut from a traffic cone. There were human glyphs on it that apparently said ‘spectator’ on it, and from the way hers in particular chafed her scales on her leg, she suspected it had originally been sized in mind for a much smaller Pokémon. It would probably explain a thing or two about the way Kepa and Daichi were just completely unbothered by the bands they had to wear.
“I’ll admit, they’re not exactly lookers, but these bands do have an actual purpose, Floatzel,” Kepa explained. “They help the participants see that you’re not one of the wild Pokémon that come through here so that way they don’t accidentally throw a Pokéball at you.”
Marl’s face sagged as she briefly turned her snout down to nose at the band to try and loosen it as she glanced around her surroundings. There weren’t many other Pokémon waiting around as spectators like this, but every one she could see wasn’t a Bug-type at all. Just what was there to be confused about?
“I’m sorry, but do any of us on the sidelines here look like Bug-types?” she huffed. “Just what sort of dense trainer would manage to confuse us for one?”
“Well, there’s Pokémon like that Crustle over there. That Swampert with Garrett said they’re apparently Bug-types.”
A stray bubble floating past Marl’s face turned her attention downwards. She briefly caught Daichi peeking up and pointing off with his tail further down the path before the Wooper took off chasing his bubble again.
When she looked back off where the Wooper had been pointing, she saw an orange crab thing with what looked like a giant stone block on its back that was flexing its claws… also adorned with one of those band things. She held her mouth open with a disbelieving scowl and caught Rako doing much the same, when the Floatzel abruptly shook his head and pinched his brow.
“Just how much longer are we supposed to sit and wait here again?”
“Floatzel, you said your trainer wanted you to keep an eye on your friend. Just what did you think you were going to be doing during this contest?” Kepa harrumphed. “Each batch of contestants gets 20 minutes to work with and everyone has to wait until they’re called up. There was a reason why Sessen was expecting to miss most of the matches in the tournament before your friends’ battle today.”
“Well gee, why don’t I just go back into my Pokéball and watch her from there at this rate?!” he hissed.
Marl rolled her eyes and lowered her head with a sullen pout. She honestly wished that yippy sea weasel would go back to his Pokéball. And if her wing wouldn’t have triggered medical stasis, she would’ve done the same herself right there and then. Marl knew that Calvin had her other teammates to juggle right now as well, and it wasn’t as if it’d be more comfortable standing and waiting on the sidelines there…
But at least her friends would’ve been there and she could’ve egg them on. And her trainer would’ve been there to spend time with her.
Like he’d said he would.
She heard a sharp yip and saw Bushel leaning in on Rako, her wings flared with a glare that had the Tropius had some fangs, wouldn’t have seemed too out of place from a Salamence’s face. Sessen noticed the pair and stepped in, the wavy-haired man pulling Bushel aside and patting her, saying a few things that made Grass-type grudgingly ease up as Rako subconsciously inched away. Sessen moved onto her next, giving a tentative pat as he stooped and adjusted the band on her foreleg a bit. It felt a little looser against her scales afterwards, and the wavy-haired man followed it up with a few tentative pats along her neck.
It was mostly soothing. Mostly. Not for any fault of Sessen’s, but it was hard for Marl to fully push everything off her mind. The sudden shouts in the background from a battle somewhere in the tall grass weren’t helping either. The wavy-haired human’s charms had apparently worked well enough on Bushel as well, as she turned her attention back to Rako, her demeanor now noticeably more resigned and less testy.
“Rako, if you’re really struggling so much for things to do, just take some time to talk and shoot the breeze with the Pokémon around you a bit,” the Tropius insisted. “Marl’s supposed to have a chance to take things easy right now anyways. It’s just us, the sunshine and breeze, and-”
A sharp thwip followed by a pop cut through the air as Marl suddenly felt water land on her flank. She whirled around, where there was a wet ring on the ground, with a pointed barb lying in the middle as Daichi stared down at it, his little dark eyes now surprisingly wide.
“A-Aah! My bubble!”
Marl craned her head up after hearing cries in the distance, and caught a glimpse of a Weedle and a thing that looked like a short-limbed Linoone that Bushel had called a ‘Furret’ battling off in the tall grass. Sheesh, nobody here had even thought to post a Pokémon with Protect to keep attacks from spilling over?
“My bubble- you killed my-”
She turned her head down where she noticed Daichi murmuring and visibly shaking. Both Bushel and Kepa looked visibly alarmed, as the Geodude shrank back with a grimacing stare.
“Oh no, not again…”
“YOU MONSTER! YOU KILLED MY BUBBLE!”
For such a little Pokémon, Daichi sure had a set of pipes… and surprisingly quick feet. He shot off for the tall grass, his eyes screwed up in an almost draconic rage as he cried out loud enough that both the Weedle and Furret further off in the tall grass stopped and whirled around. Water swirled about his mouth kinda like did when Roy used a Water Gun when he was littler, when all of a sudden a red light shot out after the Wooper. It swallowed Daichi and he dissipated into an arcing red light, which shot off towards Marl’s left.
When she followed it with her eyes, she saw Sessen was up and grabbing a Pokéball, visibly fighting with it as it rocked in his grasp. Everyone else’s attention lingered on Daichi’s Pokéball for a moment, when Kepa let his arms droop with a tired sigh.
“Oh, he’s going to be mad when he comes out again.”
Rako walked out from beside Bushel, looking off at the still-shaking Pokéball, and then back at Bushel with a disbelieving gape.
“What on earth was that about?”
“Daichi’s still a bit of a child at heart and he… uh… can get quite worked up about things he cares,” the Tropius explained.
“He’s also quite a bit tougher than he looks,” Kepa chimed in. “So don’t get any ideas of going and provoking him.”
Marl gave her head a frowning tilt. Something about the idea of Daichi being childish, getting angry for silly reasons, and deceptively strong felt like an uncomfortably familiar combination. She wasn’t sure why until she looked over at her left wing in its cast and it finally clicked:
Everything that Kepa had said about his teammate basically described ‘Hydreigon’, except the Hydreigon was less understandable. And bigger. And stronger.
Marl felt a tremor of her own come over her body and let out a sour grumble. Even while resting, she just wasn’t ever going to get away from that humiliating moment, was she? Things were just going to be like this until her wing healed, maybe for even longer afterwards.
A buzzer snapped her to attention as she saw Sessen fish out that weathered PokéGear of his and briefly check it before tucking it away, and then holstering Daichi’s Pokéball before grabbing another. The Salamence wasn’t sure what that was about at first, when Kepa briefly traded glances between his trainer and her.
“That’s Sessen’s cue right now. Are you sure you’re going to be alright following us from the side on your own, Marl?”
She wasn’t, but she didn’t say that. She hoped that Rako would say something given that he looked a bit annoyed himself and with how whiny he’d been in the past few days, surely he wouldn’t take being benched to his Pokéball lying down, but he didn’t do much beyond turning aside and tilting his snout up.
“Tch, the organizers specifically said that Sessen had to remain close enough to keep an eye on her, and besides? Just how much trouble do you expect her to get into with them around?”
The Salamence followed the Floatzel’s paw off down the path where there was a human in a peaked hat along with a Growlithe at his side who was yawning and shooting an unamused look of his own back with words she could just barely make out from their distance.
“I don’t believe this, Dirk. How on earth do you get us roped into babysitting contest attendees on top of our night shift?”
She felt her face sag and looked away, feeling her tail sway back and forth with quick, tense movements as she felt heat swell inside her. Gods, she had half a mind to just set the tall grass in front of her on fire right then and there and get this contest over with. Sure, she’d likely get in trouble over it, but at least she wouldn’t be stuck here, right?
“... Marl?”
She saw shade fall over her and saw Bushel making her way over alongside Sessen. A quick glance revealed that Kepa wasn’t there anymore, while the Tropius and her trainer looked visibly uneasy.
“Is there something that you wanted to talk about? You don’t look all that happy right now.”
She let out a low growl in reply. The Tropius briefly blanched, as Marl averted her gaze with a sullen rumble.
“This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day…”
There was a moment’s tension between them when she felt patting at her shoulder and heard the wavy-haired man speak up with calming-sounding words. The Salamence hesitated for a moment, before drooping her head forward with a defeated whine.
Great, now she was going to get Sessen and his Pokémon mad at her too. It wasn’t Sessen’s fault she was here and he and his teammates were at least trying to make her feel like she belonged with them… but what was she supposed to do?
She didn’t ask to be stuck on the ground useless like this, and now she couldn’t even sit on the sidelines from her proper friends as a consolation…
“Look, I know that you’re trying and that everyone is busy today,” the Salamence murmured. “It’s just that I’d have felt better if I was with my friends right now…”
The Tropius visibly hesitated for a moment, before craning her head past her trainer as he fished through his bag—probably for something he needed for the contest. For a second Marl thought Bushel might have spotted a wild Pokémon sneaking out from the tall grass, when she noticed that the Tropius was looking over at Rako… and then motioning off at her with her leafy wings.
“Rako, why don’t you stick with Marl’s until the round’s over?”
The Floatzel stiffened up and his air sac briefly puffed out in response. His reaction faded almost as quickly as it came, as he turned back to the Tropius with a loud splutter.
“Wh-What?! Why me?!”
“Because she mentioned wanting to be around her friends and you’re one of them,” Bushel snapped. “Read the room.”
Marl screwed her eyes shut and let her wings droop. She knew what Bushel meant well, but shouldn’t she have seen enough over the past few days to know that she and Rako weren’t particularly close to each other?
“Bushel, he’s not-”
The words died in her mouth as she saw Sessen’s hands leave his bag with that doll from the crane machine in tow. She stiffened up at attention, as Sessen brought him over to her back and just set him there, much to her flustered surprise.
“Hey, wait! What are you-?!”
“Sessen thought you needed a bit of extra companionship. And you did seem to like your doll, so…”
“Well, yes, I do, but- wait, it’s not my doll, and-!”
Marl fumbled over her words one after the other as she realized that everything she tried to say just made her look more and more silly. She gave up, her cheeks burning in embarrassment as a small electronic chime played, and she saw Sessen start to leave, with Bushel tagging along with her.
“Sorry to cut you short, but we really need to get going,” the Tropius said. “Though don’t worry, we’ll be back out of the tall grass and back at your side as soon as the round’s over.”
Bushel and Sessen started heading off as Marl briefly spluttered. S-She couldn’t just go around with that doll like that! She already looked weak and pathetic right now with her wing in its cast, just how was going around with a doll like a little hatchling supposed to help?
She turned her head back towards the doll on her back and gave a small, careful nip at the doll to try and give it back to Sessen, when just as she picked it up, she heard a rustling noise from the grass.
“Huh?”
She craned her head and thought she saw movement along the edges, but when she looked over, the grass was still and she couldn’t see anything. She gave a few wary paces over, when a sharp yip reached her ears from the side.
“Oi, are you coming or what? I thought we were sticking with Bushel and her trainer!”
Marl turned her head and saw Rako further down the path, tapping a foot impatiently, while Sessen and Bushel were further down, still heading off. A glance towards the other side revealed that officer and his Growlithe eying her closely, as the sighed and made her own way after the others.
She couldn’t help but glance back off at the grass every now and then, as she swore that occasionally, she’d see something move and the shade of green in the grass change ever so slightly.
Each round of the Bug-Catching Contest was only supposed to last twenty minutes, but somehow, Sessen’s felt like his dragged on longer than all the other ones beforehand. Maybe lying down and staring at a bunch of tall grass the entire time had something to do with it, but it didn’t help that Sessen spent the bulk of his time pacing around in tight, repeating paths with Bushel. Marl was frankly surprised that he’d managed to catch a Caterpie and a Venonat so far, since it looked more like he was vibrating in the grass rather than getting anywhere fast at all.
“Oh yeah, this was totally worth blowing off tournament matches today. Seriously, no one could ever find that fun.”
And as the yippy voice off to the Salamence’s right reminded her, Rako was there too and enjoying things about as much as she was right now… if from a healthy berth away. She lowered her head and glanced at her feet at her other companion: that doll with the sewed-up wing. She hadn’t been able to balance him properly on her back after settling down, and at least with him by her claws, she could tuck him behind her leg and hide him easily…
A sudden rustling noise caught her ears and she suddenly sat up alert. A little too quickly from the shot of pain that ran under her cast. After a brief moment to let the feeling subside, she turned her attention out towards the grass. She thought it was just Sessen passing by, but no, he was far away enough that she couldn’t hear anything of his paces back and forth...
“... Must’ve just been the wind.”
The Salamence settled back down with a grumble and laid against the ground, letting the sun’s rays fall upon her. She turned her attention back to the doll by her feet and eyed him briefly, before nosing him out under the sun to let him bask, too. It was probably silly since dolls didn’t feel things… probably—she wasn’t fully sure how that worked with those creepy Banette back home. But somehow, this little lump of fluff in front of her really did feel like her in miniature just then…
“I guess you’re probably lonely too right now, huh?” she sighed. “Your wing’s also hurt and all of your friends are back in that crane machine…”
“Lonely? What are you talking about? You’re my best friend, and you’re right here with me!”
Marl sprang back all of a sudden and beat her wings out after hearing a higher-pitched and growling voice coming from just ahead of her. She almost immediately regretted it from the wince-worthy sensation that followed in her left wing. She moved her attention back towards Rako’s position and she saw his muzzle briefly move and she put two and two together:
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
The Floatzel went stiff as a board and his floatation sac visibly puffed up. He cringed and backpedaled briefly, staring up at her with a blank stammer.
“I- I- Uh…”
Marl turned to face him as Rako stumbled and pratfell. She leaned in on him, her eyes hardening into a sharp scowl as the Floatzel flinched and piped up with an audible squeak.
“L-Look, I thought it would help, okay?!”
She blinked for a moment, before pulling her head back with a puzzled tilt. She’d only been around Rako for a few days up to this point, but something about his reaction felt more genuine than she was expecting. Even if she didn’t really understand why he’d done any of this...
“... Help? How is making funny voices and tricking me like that supposed to help?”
Rako got up and quietly hemmed and hawed in response. For a moment, Marl thought that the Floatzel was just going to turn around and bolt, only for him to shake his head and give a paw at his shoulder.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you, it’s just… well… when I was younger, there was this time when I got my paw messed up after getting it caught on a fishhook,” the Floatzel explained. “When I was recovering, there was this Buizel doll in the doctor’s office and the Chansey that worked with the humans on-staff would speak like that with it so I’d feel less alone without someone else like me to talk to.”
Marl felt the tension in her claws and wings ease up briefly. So then this had been an attempt to try and make her feel better? This, from the Pokémon that never stopped whining and running his mouth off? Why did he care?
… Maybe that wasn’t fully fair to him. After all, the others seemed to know him well, and he at least seemed friendly with that Lucario from the Field Biology course. Marl remembered how disappointed Rako was about being left out from the tournament when she first met her friends here in Johto. Sure he had been childish and obnoxious about it, but could it be that he wasn’t quite his normal self the past few days just like she hadn’t been?
“L-Look, it was a bad idea, I get it,” he began. “I just thought-”
“Are you able to do that voice without sounding like you’ve got a squeaky toy stuck in your throat? I don’t actually sound like that to you, do I?”
Rako blinked slowly for a moment before he came over. He stooped down and grasped the doll. Marl tensed up and reflexively moved her head to try and take the doll back, only for the Floatzel to hold it out and shake it a little as he spoke up out the side of his mouth in that growling voice he’d taken earlier.
“Um… well, I’m much smaller than you so I do sound a bit different. But… that can always change if you give me a voice!”
Marl let her jaw sag open. She almost spoke up and answered only to catch herself and furrow her brow. This was ridiculous. Like playing pretend was really supposed to make her feel better right now…
“... Maybe another time.”
Marl moved her mouth forward to reclaim her doll, when just as she was about to nip at the back of it, she heard Rako speak up in that poor attempt of a dragon’s voice again.
“Are you still mad right now?”
She hesitated, as Rako still held onto the doll, subconsciously inching back from her. He looked a bit on-edge, and Marl wasn’t fully sure how she felt about the question or if she should be annoyed about it. After a moment to think things over, she decided that most of all, she was confused about where the Floatzel was coming from with it.
“What do you mean by ‘mad’?” she pressed.
“Well, you’ve been upset for most of the time since you rejoined your trainer,” Rako continued in that silly voice of his. “You’re kinda scaring him and his friends. Like that charming and dashing Floatzel he trusts to look out for him.”
Marl rolled her eyes in response and didn’t even try to hide it. She supposed that was one way to tell that in the end, it was Rako speaking for the doll, since she’d certainly have never made him say that.
She thought she heard rustling grass and stiffened up, and saw Rako turn his head too. It came from the edge of the tall grass again, but when Marl looked over, she again couldn’t see anything there.
The Salamence turned her attention back to Rako and saw he was waiting for her to answer. She uneasily dug a foreclaw along the ground, before shifting her attention to the doll in the Floatzel’s paw.
“I guess… it’s just that it feels like everything’s been going wrong for me since evolving, and I just can’t get a break.”
She felt her head and wings droop, as she averted her gaze, looking off towards the fences and treeline at the end of the clearing. And then, before she could think things through, she spoke up and continued.
“First Calvin and everyone else misses my evolution. Then I get my wing broken for no good reason. And now when I want to be with everyone else, I’m stuck here away from everybody…”
She abruptly froze and screwed her eyes shut. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why on earth did she say all of that? Especially when Rako probably wanted nothing more than to just be away from her right now like he had every other day up to this point-
“... You’ve got me here, don’t you?”
That one caught Marl off-guard, not least of all since the Floatzel dropped the voice he’d been using for the Salamence doll. She looked back at the Floatzel as he too averted his gaze. He lowered the doll, rubbing his free paw against his arm’s fin with an uneasy murmur.
“I mean, I know that I haven’t really been doing a great job at it so far, and honestly you still scare me with that way you just go from being seemingly calm to ready to smash and burn stuff around you in a flash,” he began. “But it is my job to try and help others out, even if I’m more used to just swimming them around. I guess, just try and be more open about if you need someone to talk to? I don’t know if I can really help, but I’ll at least try if you want me to...”
… Maybe she’d been a bit quicker to judge this Rako Floatzel than she’d ought to have been. Marl still thought he was yippy and annoying, but she supposed it helped a little knowing that he tried to look out for others… in his own way. She certainly wouldn’t mind if he did this for her again in the future.
She suddenly caught herself, and set her teeth on edge after realizing that maybe there was something about Rako’s attempts to look out for others that she didn’t want to happen in the future. Or at least not when it wasn’t just the two of them together.
“... You’re not going to do the whole ‘pretend to be the doll’ thing in front of Jaki, are you? I already know he’d never let me hear the end of it if he saw us right now.”
“What?” he asked. “No. I figured this was one of those things that you wanted to keep between the two of us.”
The Salamence quietly breathed out a sigh of relief. Yes, Rako surely thought she must’ve being silly from that askew glance he was giving her, but it was surely better to be safe than sorry…
“Probably for the best. Though did talking to that Buizel doll really help you when you were hurt? Since-”
The rustling noise suddenly came back from the grass as Marl turned her head and saw a shape move further within. This time she knew that she saw something there. Whatever it was, it was green and blended in with the grass, with rigid-looking points which poked up here and there over the foliage. Rako clearly saw it too, as he took a couple paces forward and the grass shook again at his approach.
“Hey, what the-?”
All of a sudden, a green blur shot out of the grass and everything went by in a disconcerting blur. Rako crying out and falling over as the blur shot past. The doll falling to the ground. Marl darting forward by reflex as she heard Rako’s voice letting out a sharp yelp.
“Yeow! It cut me!”
She briefly looked back as Rako grabbed at his arm, where there was a thin, ruddy streak forming. It didn’t look too serious, but had that been the work of a wild Pokémon? If so, where was-?
“Got you!”
She got her answer with a sharp buzz past her shoulder—maybe female, but Marl didn’t know if Bug-types here in Johto were like the ones in Hoenn. She whirled towards it and there, just in front of her, a green bug thing about Rako’s size with cream wings and blades for arms who swooped down and snatched up her doll off the ground by pressing him between the flats of her blades. It was obviously a Bug-type of some sort, but she’d never seen a Pokémon like before and didn’t know what she was.
Just that she was stealing her doll from her right now.
“Hey! Give him back!”
The words came out in a roaring bellow as the Bug-type suddenly whirled around. She froze briefly and her eyes visibly shrank.
And then she screamed.
“AAAAAAAAH!”
Very loudly. Enough that Marl briefly recoiled from the racket.
When Marl opened her eyes, they shrank after seeing the bladed bug thing bolting for the tall grass. She felt heat at her throat and spewed out a stream of bluish dragonfire, but much to her alarm, it missed and carried on into the grass as the Bug-type kept running.
“No no no! Get back here!”
She took off running and planted her feet for a jump, spreading her wings to take flight, only for the pain to come roaring back. She stumbled and fell forward with a yelp, hitting the ground as she heard shouts and felt her eyes growing bleary as it sank in on her that she was really going to lose her doll, her treasure, to this stupid little bug.
She stumbled up, where off in the distance, Sessen and Bushel suddenly whirled around. Marl couldn’t see what was going on from her angle, but she certainly heard it, as she heard that strange bug’s voice buzzing out in a startled panic.
“H-Human! Tree thing! H-Help me! There’s a scary one-winged lizard that’s-!”
All of a sudden, Sessen threw a Pokéball and there was a flash of red light. Marl reflexively ran forward through the grass only to stop after seeing Sessen stoop and pop back up. In his hand, there was a Pokéball… along with her doll, seemingly none the worse for wear.
It dawned on the Salamence that her heart was pounding. She breathed out and shook her head. She wasn’t fully sure what just happened, but-
“Oi! You two! Get off the grass!”
Marl froze as she craned her head back and saw that Growlithe with the police officer was there, scowling at her through a trail of crushed grass behind her.
Right. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Marl retraced her steps, and as she emerged back from the grass, she saw Rako doing the same, looking visibly chastened and pawing at his nicked arm. The Growlithe and his human sized them up, as the sound of approaching wingbeats rang out.
It was Bushel, flying in with Sessen hitching a ride on her back. The wavy-haired man summarily dismounted as the officer pulled him aside. One of those red-vested humans came along as well, as Marl dug her claws into the ground with a sharp grimace as it dawned on her that she’d surely gotten Sessen into trouble.
“What on earth were you two doing?”
She flinched and turned her head over to Bushel. The Tropius flared her wings out, her face marked with a quiet agitation that even without fangs, was unmissable.
“I thought you two were staying on the sidelines.”
“We were, and then that bug came out of nowhere and ambushed us,” Rako explained. “It doesn’t count as interference if the Pokémon from the contest come to the sidelines, right?”
Marl saw Sessen talking with the two humans, when he lifted up the Salamence doll. Her eyes widened, as one thing led to another, and she darted up with a firm nudge at the wavy-haired human’s side.
“A-Ah! Wait! Be careful with him!”
He stumbled a bit, while the other humans visibly recoiled. There was a moment’s hesitation, before he set the doll back on her back and gave her a pat before drifting off a short ways.
Rako and Bushel caught up with her, when her attention fell on the Growlithe with the police officer who was trailing after him.
“Er… I didn’t get him in trouble, did I? I wasn’t trying to break any rules…” she murmured.
The Growlithe turned back and stared at her and her companions. He pinned his ears and shook his head with a tired sigh.
“I… don’t think you did, actually. But why don’t you sit back with that doll of yours and let your trainer try and take a moment to sort this all out outside the tall grass, huh?”
The blood came flushing into her cheeks as the Growlithe drifted off, but after a quick glance backwards at the doll, the feelings faded a bit.
She decided that she wouldn’t have wanted it anywhere else but right there with her just then.
Much to Marl’s relief, explaining things to the contest officials went better than she’d expected. They wound up ruling that since she started the fight with that bug thing—a ‘Scyther’, according to Bushel and her teammates—and since she didn’t help Sessen actually battle her, that his catch still counted for the contest. Her Salamence doll had turned out alright, too. Beyond some dirt that had gotten on his fabric that wasn’t too hard to clean off, it was none the worse for wear from the Scyther’s attempt to steal it.
Marl should’ve felt relaxed right now. Sessen’s round was over, her doll was now safely back in Sessen’s bag, and her last Potion dose on her broken wing hadn’t worn off yet. Even Rako being beside her right now didn’t feel annoying like it had when she first came to this ‘National Park’. Except, here at the bench where she and the others were gathered as the contest’s rounds continued on, she remained tense and alert. Her eyes were fixed into a piercing glare, heat swirling in her belly as Sessen patted her neck with his right hand, nervously smiling.
And off in his left hand, there was that red and white ‘Sport Ball’. A reminder that that would-be doll thief hadn’t gone anywhere fast this entire time. A part of her wanted to just snatch the thing and smash it. Sure it wouldn’t really do anything on its own to the Scyther inside other than force the bug out to face her, but as Daichi and Kepa’s ongoing chatter reminded her, things weren’t that simple…
“Sessen’s going to an award ceremony?” the Wooper asked. “Did he really do that well in the contest?”
“Well, it’s more that Scyther’s doing, really,” the Geodude reply. “They apparently tend to score well for these contests, and it looks like it’ll be enough for Sessen to make the top three today.”
Marl tried and failed to fight back an agitated rumble from her throat as Sessen pat her a bit harder and quicker and Bushel came over with a flustered beat of her wings.
“Um… Marl? Are you alright?” she asked. “You seem agitated.”
No, she wasn’t alright. Was she seriously going to be kept for longer from her friends so that way that little thief could get celebrated for turning tail and all but diving into a Pokéball? Even Rako seemed to find the idea ridiculous as he blinked and pawed at his fins, before shooting a sideways glance past her and up at the Tropius.
“Are we still going to make it back in time if we do that?”
“We should. Or at least in time to see your teammates’ battle,” the Tropius insisted. “Sessen planned out this trip in mind for us staying through to the awards ceremony, and the Pokéathlon Dome’s just a short walk away. Really, something truly drastic would have to happen to make us miss it.”
Gods, could Bushel tempt fate any harder right now? Marl breathed in sharply and tried to focus on Sessen’s affection. The fire inside her calmed a bit and the red in the corners of her vision faded, but she noticed that the others had still backed away a bit. Kepa was staring at her for a long, noticeable moment, when he turned his gaze leftward by degrees to Bushel and their trainer.
“Sessen, are we sure it’s a good idea to send her out?”
“Kepa, she’s just a sprout,” Bushel replied. “It wouldn’t do any good to just take her from here without making sure she’s alright with it first.”
“That’s not what I was getting at, Bushel…” the Geodude said.
They seriously considered that Bug-type a hatchling? Why, she was almost as big as Rako! If that was really so, just how big did Scyther get when they were fully grown? And more importantly, why did she need to be out of her Pokéball? Marl could already feel her face sag just at the idea of having to see her again after everything she’d tried with her doll. Why, even Rako surely agreed with her from that long face on his muzzle right now!
“Do we really need to be out for this right now?” the Floatzel demanded.
“Well, Marl’s doll’s safely inside Sessen’s bag right now, isn’t it?” Bushel said, sheepishly fidgeting her wings. “And I am Sessen’s starter, so it’s my job to help bring new teammates up to speed…”
Marl glared back, before looking back at Sessen as he had his teeth set on edge and seemed to have the Scyther’s Pokéball in a death grip. She still didn’t like that bug, but maybe she was being unreasonable here. After all, it wasn’t as if Sessen had put her up to trying to steal her doll. And while she didn’t know anything about what Scyther were like, if the one inside really was just a little hatchling, he’d surely get her in trouble if she tried to settle scores with her. Humans had an annoying tendency to see putting others in their place as somehow being bad when the other ‘mon was weaker and outmatched.
Marl hesitated briefly on that last thought as uncomfortable thoughts of her encounter with ‘Hydreigon’ came to mind, and how Numa said she was weaker and outmatched against her. She didn’t fully believe it, and even then it was completely different from this since it was the Hydreigon who started things, but…
Would everyone else really see it that way?
She sighed and averted her gaze. It still bothered her that the Scyther was basically getting away with things from earlier, but at least Bushel and Sessen would be there to keep her in line this time. And she definitely didn’t want the others thinking that she was somehow the same sort of Pokémon that ‘Hydreigon’ was…
“Fine. Just hurry up and get this over with.”
Sessen put two and two together after she pulled her head away from him. He looked down at the Sport Ball, before aiming it at an empty patch of dirt near his other Pokémon and tapping its center. A red, jagged light arced out of it, coalescing into the winged and bladed form of that ‘Scyther’ from the brush. The Bug-type chanced to emerge back out into the world looking at Kepa and Daichi, as she ran up with an awestruck buzz.
“Is that really what those balls are like inside? There was an entire forest-!”
Partway over, her eyes drifted upwards and met Marl’s. At once, the Scyther’s sense of awe evaporated, as she jumped back and batted out her wings with a startled shriek.
“A-Aaaah! Why’s the mean one-winged lizard here?!” the Bug-type cried. “I-I thought that you ran away from her!”
Marl felt blood pulse inside her head and grit her teeth. She reminded herself that the bug was supposed to be a hatchling, but she still couldn’t fully hold back the growl in her throat.
“I’m a dragon,” Marl snapped. “There’s a difference.”
She heard a brief “Wait, there is?” from her side which trailed off when she craned her head over to Rako and glared. He got the message and quickly shut up, prompting her to turn back to the little thief with a sharp huff.
“Also, I have two wings, thank you very much.”
The Scyther shrank back uneasily as Sessen came up and spoke soothing words to try and calm her down. Kepa and Daichi came over to her side, as the Geodude of the pair let out a rumbling sigh.
“You… shouldn’t talk about Marl’s wings right now,” Kepa said. “It’s a bit of a sore spot for her.”
“And Sessen wouldn’t run away from those two!” the Wooper added. “They’re friends of ours! The Floatzel can even make bubbles of his own!”
Wait, Rako could? Marl didn’t know how she’d missed finding out about that one. She was about to ask the Floatzel herself when she noticed the Scyther walking up towards Sessen with an awestruck gape, and then motion between her and the wavy-haired human at her side.
“So… you’re one of those Dragon Tamer humans? As in you tamed her?”
“Well, yes, but actually no,” Rako said. “It’s complicated, but the long and short of it is that Sessen isn’t our proper trainer. And if you had nicked her with those scythes of yours earlier, you’d probably be burned to a crisp right now.”
Marl brushed Sessen aside and stepped forward towards the Scyther. She narrowed her eyes, and after a brief stifled wince from shifting her broken wing, she noticed from the corner of her vision that her good one was subconsciously raised and flared out like it’d be when she was upset.
“And what was your problem earlier?!” she snapped. “I get that Salamence apparently aren’t well-known in this region, but why would you think it was a good idea to just go and steal a dragon’s treasure like that?!”
… Which Marl supposed that she was, even if the sharp call for her name reminded her that she probably shouldn’t have done that. She saw Sessen was visibly tense and reaching for her Pokéball, while the Scyther was tapping her scythes and glancing towards the ground. Maybe Marl had just been too used to being around humans, but it almost seemed apologetic.
“The doll? I didn’t want to steal it,” the Bug-type insisted. “I just wanted it long enough to draw it since I’d never seen Pokémon like you or the furry one with you, and it didn’t look big and scary like you two, so…”
Marl’s felt her features sag. She saw Rako walking past her with his arms folded, and his muzzle fixed into an unimpressed frown
“You wanted to draw us. Really?”
She should’ve figured that the bug wasn’t really sorry. Though really, what sort of excuse was that?
“Hrmph, I’m sure that you did-”
“I-I’m serious!” the Bug-type buzzed. “Look, I can even draw you all right now if you stay still for a moment!”
Daichi and Kepa turned and paused for a moment as the Scyther stepped forward, glanced them over, and then stooped and dragged the tips of her blades in the dirt. The mantis made what looked like a series of circles, smoothing some portions over to undo the strokes as Sessen came over curiously. He made it a few paces, when Bushel craned her head forward and nudged him to stop.
He obliged as the Scyther glanced up at the two before continuing on. Rako followed after her strokes with a raised brow, and after a brief moment of hesitation, curiosity got the better of Marl as she made her way forward just as the Scyther stepped back.
“See? Pretty good, isn’t it?”
Marl looked down in the dirt, as much to the Salamence’s surprise, there really was a drawing there. The shapes resembled those really old drawings Calvin apparently made with those “crayon” things when he was a little hatchling himself that sometimes turned up in the closets back in his family’s house, except the drawings actually resembled them… somewhat. She didn’t think her head was that round and the teeth in the drawing looked more like those barking balls with teeth that sometimes turned up in human video games humans than her own.
It was still more than what she was expecting, and Kepa and Daichi clearly enjoyed it from the way that they were poking and prodding over the Scyther’s work.
“That’s not half-bad, actually,” the Geodude murmured.
“Ooh! Ooh! Can you draw bubbles, too?” the Wooper asked. “It’d make the picture even better!”
“Sure!” the Scyther buzzed. “I even make them with color sometimes, like the drawings I make after my hunts!”
Marl stiffened up and craned her head back with an askew glance. The conversation suddenly grew awkwardly quiet as Marl spotted Rako nervously inching away back towards her and Sessen. Bushel took the Floatzel’s place, giving a flustered hem and haw.
“That’s something that you wouldn’t be doing if you decided to stay with us. Or at least not with your… uh… food,” the Tropius said, before sharply clearing her throat. “Though remind me, how much do you understand what these humans around us do here?”
“I mean, this is some sort of place where humans come to find partners and they make a game out of it,” the Scyther explained. “They usually come with all sorts of other Pokémon and I like drawing them.”
The Bug-type trailed off and pawed a foot against the ground with a shy buzz.
“I’d thought about joining a Pokémon with a human like you in the past, but I was always worried that I’d pick the wrong one and regret it…”
Marl had to admit she was a little cute. Even if she still wasn’t happy about the way the bug went and snatched her doll earlier. Rako piped up, still safely beside her, and pawed at the back of his head before glancing over at Bushel and her teammates.
“I mean, I think you could do worse than having teammates like them? It’s just that I don’t know how much you’re really going to get to know them before we have to leave,” the Floatzel said. “We’re in a bit of a time crunch and need to get back to that tournament as soon as Sessen and you are done with those awards…”
Marl let out a grumbling sigh. Yes, even if the Scyther wasn’t as aggravating as she’d thought she’d be, she supposed it didn’t change the way she was forcing things to come down to the wire for seeing her friends’ battle.
“... ‘Tournament’?”
Marl looked back at the Scyther and saw that she was holding her head at a puzzled tilt. Did this ‘mon really not know what a tournament was when the Pokéthlon Dome literally poking up over the treetops right now? Marl knew that the place normally wasn’t known for hosting battles, but surely there’d have to have been others hosted in the past during whenever the off-season for Pokéthlons was, right?
“It’s… the way we were hoping to meet a Pokémon like you,” Bushel admitted. “But we are going to be fairly close to the National Park through to the end of the tournament. So if you wind up getting homesick and change your mind, we can always bring you back here.”
“I mean, that sounds fine and all, but what is a ‘tournament’?”
It had been hard for Marl to dispel the growing pit in her stomach while waiting for the awards ceremony of the Bug-Catching Contest to finally come around and for Sessen to finally get called up onto the stage with that Scyther and get things done with. The wavy-haired man at least seemed to be aware that time was running short and made a point of squaring away her afternoon dose of Potion for her broken wing… except he kept getting bugged by one phone call after another on that ‘Pokégear’ of his. Marl didn’t remember him talking on his phone anywhere near as much on past days, and every time, it just worsened that squirming dread in her that something would happen and make her miss her teammates’ battle entirely.
Sessen would come over now and then and say something about her trainer along with some reassuring-sounding words in human language that she couldn’t follow, not least of all because she was too busy fretting to fully pay attention to the conversations she did fully understand around her. Time and again, she’d steal glances off at the golden spires of the Pokéthlon Dome poking above the treetops. So close and yet so far away when she didn’t even have both her wings to carry her up into the sky where she belonged.
Thankfully, the journey back to the Pokéthlon Dome really was just a short walk from the National Park, and the gnawing sense of dread inside her faded as they made their way down that great long hall westward and exited out right in front of those welcoming arches in the arena’s square. Just a few moments later, they were all back inside the main entrance hall with its black flooring and its lights and displays, just the way Marl remembered it over the past few days…
“Wow, look at them all!”
Well, it wasn’t quite the same. That Scyther from Sessen’s team was going around and gawking at all the lights and the passersby. Bushel would tail along just behind her, occasionally nudging her back whenever she was about to wander off.
“I did say that this was a bigger contest,” the Tropius said. “Even if there’s not humans and Pokémon finding each other the same way here, it’s still a place where you can meet a lot of others and make friends quickly.”
… Which meant that Bushel also wasn’t there to help hide her left wing’s cast and that Marl had to make do with Sessen’s much smaller and narrower body. In a room full of other human and Pokémon eyes passing by every which way.
Would it really have killed the humans who built this place to have added some caves or something for a ‘mon to go through without being seen by the whole world? Since Marl swore that the humans and Pokémon going by were looking at her wing more than they did the day before. She knew that Bushel as Sessen’s starter naturally would be expected to spend a lot of time helping bring new teammates up to speed, but did it really have to be right now? And couldn’t they get through this hallway any faster?
Marl heard Sessen call out some name that he’d been playing around with for the little Scyther back in the National Park. Much to the Salamence’s alarm, the wavy-haired man started to drift off leftward towards his Tropius and his new companion. Marl gingerly followed after them, her head and good wing pulled in towards her body as she shuffled up and tried to tuck her left wing behind Bushel’s. Her claws must’ve made more noise than she expected, since Bushel turned her head back with a worried frown before she could even move her wing into place.
“Marl? What are you doing?”
“I’d just like to stay close to you a bit longer,” Marl insisted. “My cast makes my wing stick out like a Nosepass’ face right now, and I don’t want anyone recognizing me like-”
“Oh hey! You’re here again!”
Marl stiffened up after hearing a rumbling, throaty voice calling out. She craned her head rightward, where there, coming straight for her, was a waving Feraligatr along with a blue-haired young man—‘Miloch’ and ‘Don’ from the other day.
Don briefly glanced at her and did a double-take, before drifting off towards Sessen. It dawned on Marl that her good wing was currently drooping and her tail was curled rightward, like they’d been those times when she’d been cringing or afraid over the past few days.
Gods, Miloch must’ve thought she looked like some pathetic little Whismur right now. She glanced uneasily up at his face as she saw his expression wavering, before the Feraligatr held his head at a worried tilt.
“Are you alright, Marl? You look rather tense,” he asked. “I saw some of your teammates on the practice fields today and when I didn’t see you or your other friends there, I was a little worried that something happened.”
Marl raised her wing and head before turning around. Broken wing or not, it wasn’t as if Miloch judged her last time for it. Even if he’d see her cast, it wasn’t as if she needed to make herself look more weak and pitiful.
“I’m fine, my trainer was just bad at managing his schedule with his friends today,” she huffed. “The doctors said that I needed to rest more, so I wound up sitting things out in the National Park today. That’s where she came along."
Marl pointed a foreclaw over towards the Scyther and noticed the others around her were looking tense themselves. Had she overdone things? She just wanted to not look small and weak, not for everyone to stare at her like this!
The Feraligatr blinked briefly, before lumbering over and stooping down in front of the Scyther. He briefly opened his mouth, only to stop seeing the Bug-type shrink back behind her trainer—probably because a smile with fangs like his would make a newly-partnered ‘mon think he’d just found lunch. Don seemed to notice the Scyther’s reaction and went over and patted at his partner’s shoulder, which after a few strokes, got the bug to warily poke her head out again.
“Hey there, I didn’t realize Scyther started out so small like you,” he said. “My trainer calls me ‘Miloch’, what about yours?”
“He wants to call me ‘Palette’,” she replied shyly. “Humans think that’s a nice name, right?”
Right, ‘Palette’. That was the name that Sessen had been playing around with, which Bushel said had something to do with how she liked drawing. The Feraligatr seemed to find it amusing, and gave a soft chuckle in reply.
“Well, I don’t always know what the names humans give us mean, but it at least sounds nice to me,” the Feraligatr said. “And who are your new friends?”
Marl listened as Palette went along and introduced Bushel and her other teammates one by one, and much to her surprise, even introduced Rako… but not her. Probably because she’d glared and flared her good wing out at Palette every time she’d tried getting close while waiting on Sessen to finish with the Bug Catching Contest.
Not that she was bothered by the little thief leaving her out or anything like that.
Palette trailed off after finishing her introduction and warily stepped forward. Marl watched as she traded glances between her and Miloch, before pointing off at her with one of her scythes.
“Though how do you and the scary lizard know each other?” she asked. “Are you two friends?”
Marl shot an askew glance back at Palette, curling her mouth into an unimpressed frown.
“Palette, we barely know each other.”
There was an awkward silence afterwards, broken only by a yipping “Wait, you do? Since when?” from Rako in the background.
… Maybe she should’ve phrased that differently, since her past meetings with Miloch hadn’t been unpleasant, and with how the Feraligatr was pawing at the back of his head, he was clearly very flustered right now.
“I’m afraid that she’s right there. We’ve only bumped into each other a couple of times so far,” he said. “Though we do seem to have a knack for crossing paths, so who knows? Maybe we’ll get to know each other a bit better before the tournament’s over.”
Marl couldn’t help but beat her wings out at that, and stifled a yelp after feeling a jolt run through her left wing under her cast. She cringed and shrank back afterwards. She was sure that Miloch was a nice Pokémon, but did he really have to keep seeing her like this? With her wing all wrapped up in its cast and her stuck on the ground?
Fortunately, a sharp yip turned everyone’s attention away. Rako was over by Sessen, tugging at the hem of the human’s shirt with a stare that was equal measures uneasy and impatient.
“You’re sure that we didn’t miss Calvin’s match?” he insisted. “Since that awards ceremony of yours dragged on longer than I expected.”
Sessen hesitated a bit, before turning over to Don and asking something about Calvin and the time. The blue-haired trainer turned and pointed off at a bank of electronic displays, as Miloch briefly glanced over, before turning back with an uneasy hem and haw.
“Er… it sounds like he’s up next, actually,” the Feraligatr said. “There’s a match going on right now between some trainer from Hoenn and another one that spoke a strange language that trained some Pokémon Don called a ‘Samurott’. Why, I think that’s them on the screen right now.”
The Feraligatr pointed off towards the same displays, and as Marl followed along, she noticed that on one of them, there was a video of an Eelektross on a battlefield jumping back from a Haxorus giving a heavy-looking swing of their tusks. On one side, there was a female trainer in a cape that she didn’t recognize, and on the other, there was Garrett with that darker skin and hair of his.
She heard a startled yip, and glanced back to see Rako with his flotation sac puffed up and his eyes widened. He beelined over to Sessen, all but shoving him along with his paws.
“Oi! Get your rear into gear already!” he snapped. “We’re missing out here!”
The Floatzel’s reaction drew a startled cry from Sessen himself, along with sharp protests from the wavy-haired man’s teammates. Bushel looked particularly offended, as she stomped forward, wings flared out with a sharp huff.
“Rako! What do you think you’re-?!”
Fortunately for the Floatzel, Sessen seemed to take the hint. He motioned to the Tropius for calm, before saying a hasty farewell to Don and hurrying along for the hallways to the stands. Rako was the first to follow after as the others made their way off one after the other, leaving Marl lingering behind with Miloch and his trainer as he gave a sheepish smile.
“Guess this is it for now,” he said. “Good luck out there?”
Marl opened her mouth to say that it wasn’t her that really needed it, only for her eyes to drift back over to her cast. She hesitated, before giving a low mumble in reply.
“Thanks, I guess. Good luck with your match, too.”
She picked up the pace after that, eager to catch up with Bushel to hide her wing again. About halfway over, she stole a glance back over her shoulder, where just as Don was heading off, Miloch briefly caught a glimpse and waved after her.
She sure hoped he was still around whenever the medics said she could start hanging around the stadium more regularly. Since she wouldn’t have minded meeting him again.
“Oh hey! We were starting to get worried you wouldn’t show up. You made it just in time.”
Just a couple minutes later, Rako had all but dragged everyone back to the same group of seats that they’d been in for the past few days, which had been strangely barren beyond Numa waiting there on his own. As Marl returned to her perch by the railing, this time, Rako joined her instead of going down to the seats as usual. He was too short to really hide her left wing’s cast, but she at least appreciated the thought.
Marl quickly gathered that Garrett’s battle was still ongoing from the sounds of battle and the crowd’s roars in the background. She wasn’t really sure why the others weren’t in their seats right now, but Alberi was at least nearby and making his way up the steps, with his Nidorino and Espeon out and Bac happily skipping along right ahead of them. She took that as a sign that the Sandshrew had wandered off… again.
Whatever had been happening, as soon as they noticed them, they waved and made their way over. Sessen’s Pokémon made their way to claim their spots to get a better view of the match as Alberi pulled him aside to talk about something. Just a little ways down, Bushel stopped by the railing herself… and was quickly joined by Palette, who flitted up and clung to the railing with a sharp buzz as she gaped out about her surroundings.
“Whoa… there’s so many benches in here!” she said. “Though why are they spaced so close to each other?”
The comment prompted Rinaldo and Esquiza to turn their heads from their seats, as they looked up with a pair of surprised blinks.
“Oh, esto es nuevo…¹”
Alberi went up towards the Scyther as Sessen talked with him and quickly began to introduce Palette with words that thankfully Marl couldn’t really hear, since she already knew that they’d annoy her. She understood that Sessen was surely excited over having a new partner, but did Alberi really need to dote on Palette right in front of her as if the whole episode with her doll hadn’t just happened earlier today?
She heard a rumbling chuckle from beside her and saw Numa sidling up and watching Palette’s introduction himself.
“A Scyther, huh? I sure hope she likes Sessen’s team enough to want to stay with them, since he sure got lucky with that Bug-Catching Contest to catch her there.”
“You wish; she basically forced herself on him,” Marl harrumphed. “She at least seems to like being with Bushel and her teammates so far, but I still say that I didn’t need to be there for any of that contest.”
Marl kept her attention focused on the Scyther with a wary scowl. Maybe she was being silly, but Sessen still had her doll in his bag and Palette was right there next to it. She heard Rako raise his voice and saw him stepping around her tail towards Numa. The Floatzel tilted his head at the Swampert briefly, before casting a gaze out towards the battlefield below.
“What’d we miss, anyways?”
“Most of Garrett’s match, unfortunately,” the Swampert explained. “He started about ten minutes ago, and Solís has got his opponent down to her last Pokémon down there on the field.”
A sharp buzz turned Marl’s attention down to the field, where she saw a Flygon diving at a Volcarona. He was visibly burned, but still managed to grapple him and slam him to the ground hard enough to leave behind a tangible tremor. Marl briefly winced as the Volcarona beat his wings wildly, while just beside her, Rako folded his arms with a sullen pout.
“Bah, I sure hope someone recorded everything,” the Floatzel grumbled. “If I’d known Garrett was going to fight a Dragon Tamer, I’d have blown off that awards ceremony earlier!”
Marl looked back just in time to see the Volcarona force the Flygon off of him with a truly massive swirl of wind, much to the crowd’s roaring delight. Marl looked on blankly for a moment. That sort of turnaround should’ve got her blood pumping, but all it did was make her good wing droop in disappointment.
If the entire battle had been as action-packed as this, they’d clearly missed out on a lot. Up on the displays over the battlefield, she noticed there were portraits of different Pokémon on them. On the Dragon Tamer’s side, the Flygon was the last portrait that hadn’t been grayed out. On Garrett’s side, there were two: this ‘Solís’ Pokémon in the middle of the top row and that ‘Fenris’ Lucario on the bottom right. Both flanking a picture of that Hydreigon on his team… grayed out.
… She supposed that it was a small silver lining that she wouldn’t have to see her fight today. Maybe. A part of her wished that they could’ve have arrived a little sooner to see that harpy crash to earth like she deserved-
She jolted up after hearing a ‘Marl?’ from somewhere to her right. Her name. Being called out by Calvin’s voice.
She whirled around, where there was her trainer, making his way forward down the path at the top of the seats from where Sessen and the others were, stopping with a blank, puzzled stare at her.
Their eyes met for a moment when everything clicked and she felt heat at the back of her throat. Calvin had had time to just sit and watch battles today? Without her? She flared her good wing, and bared her fangs with an angry snarl.
“Oooh cielos, esto es seguro una buena señal…²”
She wasn’t sure what that comment from Rínaldo or him pinning his ears back was supposed to mean, and she frankly didn’t care. Calvin had led her and her teammates on to think that he was going to be busy today, to the point that none of them knew whether or not there’d be someone to stay with her so that way she could watch her teammates’ battle. And yet here he was with all the time in the world!
“What on earth is your problem?!” she shouted. “You seriously went and dumped me on one of your friends so that way you could just go and loaf around without me?!”
She saw her trainer freeze up and blanch. She noticed Rako backing away uneasily from her, while shooting a dirty glare off at Calvin himself. Off on their end, Sessen and Alberi were quietly hushing things to their Pokémon. Marl saw Esquiza briefly traded glances between Alberi and her, before she raised a paw with an uneasy mewling voice.
“Bien… ¿quién va a decirle sobre el cuervo ese en su equipo?³”
What was that tone supposed to mean? Was that Espeon insinuating that she was the problem here. All of a sudden, Marl felt a firm grip on her shoulder. She glanced over, where there was Numa, motioning with his hands for a stop.
“Easy Marl, that’s not quite what happened,” Numa explained. “The reason why Calvin’s here is because he’s about ten minutes away from getting disqualified from the tournament and we’ve all been trying to help him avoid it.”
Marl’s breathing slowed little by little as she blinked once and then twice. She coughed after feeling the heat in her throat abruptly fade and she could swear she saw the image of him get hazy for a moment… from the smoke trailing up from the corner of her mouth, the fire had quite literally died inside her. Rako was mirroring her same incredulity in his own way, his arms folded; he let his muzzle fall into a disbelieving frown.
“‘Disqualified?’” he asked, in what was all but a pitiful pipe. “From what?”
“You see, Jaki just went and vanished on the rest of your friends a couple matches ago,” the Swampert explained. “We’ve been trying to track him down, but-”
“You rang?”
The sound of wingbeats turned everyone’s heads upwards, where there was Jaki descending down from the rafters above. He came to a stop in the middle of everybody before turning to face Calvin and bringing a wingtip up to tip the brim of his head feathers. There was a moment of stunned silence, before Alberi’s Nidorino finally broke the quiet with a baffled stare.
“¿Y esto es algo normal para él?⁴”
“Must be,” Bac chimed in. “He’s almost as good at suddenly popping up as I am.”
Wait, ‘must be’? Marl wasn’t sure what Bac meant by that, when she heard sputtering and a sound that reminded her of her own growls, just quieter and higher pitched. She glanced back over at Calvin, whose unplaceable face was screwed up in a sharp glare leveled at Jaki as he grabbed a Pokéball off his holster. The Honchkrow for his part didn’t look the least bit bothered, and raised a wing with a dismissive caw.
“Yes, yes, I was getting things ready for the battle. No need to thank m-”
A tap at its center, and Jaki was gone, his form melted away in red light and returning to the sphere within. Calvin sharply shoved the Pokéball back onto his holster, when his attention briefly drifted off to the seats. When Marl turned to follow him herself, she saw that a number of spectators had shuffled away to give her an uneasy berth, and a number of others who hadn’t were staring up at them.
Up at her.
Marl backed away from the railing and screwed her eyes, quietly cursing herself. Yes, she supposed that it wasn’t Calvin’s fault since he truly hadn’t just blown her off to watch matches. It was Jaki she should’ve be maddest at for getting her to jump to conclusions again. But none of it made her feel better; she’d still been stuck away from her teammates the entire day and even if Calvin didn’t know things would work out this way, she really could have been able to rest without having to be apart from the majority of her friends…
… And on top of it all, she’d just gotten back to him, only to watch him almost get disqualified?
A loud buzz followed by a sharp cry rang out from the field. Marl turned her head and saw the Flygon crashing to earth flopping over from shockwaves reverberating through the air from the Volcarona’s wings. He came to a stop on the ground and stayed there for one second… two…
BZZZZZZ!
The buzzer rang out and the crowd erupted. It also made its way up onto the ledge, with Numa cheering on that ‘Solís’ on the field and Palette excitedly buzzing and pointing alongside Bushel and her other teammates. Everyone was having fun except for her, her trainer, and the one teammate who’d been with her all day.
“Tch, great planning there, Calvin.”
Rako turned away and looked out onto the field with a sullen pout. Calvin’s eyes briefly followed after him, only to stop and linger on her. He seemed stuck, and had his teeth set into a grimace, when a shock of pink fur appeared by his feet. It was Esquiza, tugging at his pant leg with a paw.
“Parece que se les acaba el último minuto. ¡Apúrense!⁵”
The man with the unplaceable face began to turn to leave, only for him to pause. Probably because he could surely see that she wasn’t happy right now. Calvin made his way over cautiously and raised out a hand, saying a few apologetic-sounding words in his tongue, with the last few sticking in Marl’s mind.
‘I’ll make things up afterwards, I promise.’
Marl pulled her head away before Calvin’s fingers could reach her scales, and turned away with a sour huff.
“Whatever, though your idea of ‘making things up’ better be something better than grabbing some bauble from the souvenir shop,” she harrumphed. “Just get going and don’t let everyone else down today.”
The man with the unplaceable face hesitated, before turning and darting off for the exit, his steps picking up speed until he was just shy of running. Marl instinctively turned around and craned her neck, trying to reach out for him; but it was too late. Did he seriously just give up on her instead of digging in and at least trying to pat her before leaving? Even him making some promise of bringing a treasure and insisting on how special it’d be would’ve put her in a better mood even if it really did turn out to be some cheap junk from the souvenir shop in the end!
She turned her head off towards the railing with a sullen huff. No matter how she tried to get into the cheers and roars of the surrounding crowds, they just didn’t lift her mood.
About ten minutes later, the stands were starting to fill up again from humans and their companions coming back from trips to grab concessions or stretch their legs. The battlefield below was empty, its pitch having just been smoothed over while the Porygon on staff at the edges were practicing their Protects for the next match.
It was one of those slower moments of the tournament. One which on prior days, Marl would’ve kept herself busy talking with Numa or with Bushel and her friends. Except Alberi had brought Numa back to Garrett and his other friends in the on-site Pokécenter during the break, and Bushel and her teammates were wrapped up with some story that Kepa was telling to Palette .
“Wow! So you got to battle in a place like this, too?” Palette asked.
“Well, it wasn’t quite as big, but that’s right!” the Geodude insisted. “Bushel and the others would’ve lost that exhibition match without me being there with my rock-solid stamina!”
Maybe it was just her still being in a crummy mood over the way things had gone with Calvin, or her just still being annoyed with Palette, but Kepa’s story felt like it’d been dragging on for a lot longer than it really had to. She sighed and shuffled off a couple paces to hear less of the Geodude’s blathering before looking off at the displays above the battlefield. Calvin and her teammates’ portraits were on the right side of the screen this time—on what would be their half of the battlefield. Except, it was still empty, and she couldn’t see any sign of her trainer or the others past the open entrance onto the field…
“... Maybe I shouldn’t have told Calvin to get lost so quickly.”
She supposed it was too late to do anything about it now. The organizers for whatever stupid reason wouldn’t let friends visit contestants in the last few minutes before matches, so even if Alberi or Sessen were there to try and translate for her, she’d just get shooed away at the door.
… Well, she supposed if she wanted in badly enough she could still get to him, but there was no way that would end well. And Bac was too busy listening in on Kepa himself to work his magic for helping her sneak around. All that was left was to just wait and quietly stew in her regrets about things she could’ve or should’ve done earlier…
“Hey, are you doing alright?”
Marl heard Rako’s yipping voice from her left and turned to face him, when she suddenly froze. In his paws, he was holding her Salamence doll that she thought was safely in Sessen’s bag. She at once tensed up and bared her fangs, raising her voice with a sharp growl.
“What do you think you’re doing with him?” she demanded.
“Easy. Easy. I was just bringing him over to you.”
The Floatzel nervously motioned with a paw as he went up and cautiously set the doll in front of her, inching back with his paws raised. Marl quickly tucked the doll behind her forelegs, before lowering her head with a piercing scowl.
“Ask first before helping yourself next time,” she harrumphed. “Though why are you even here anyways? Shouldn’t you be hanging out with the others?”
“Well, I’d like to watch Aoi fight and not have to worry about you being upset the entire time,” the Floatzel explained. “You were in a better mood when he was with you earlier, so I figured it was worth a shot.”
… Of course. Marl supposed that Rako was that same Floatzel that she’d found yippy and whiny the past few days. At the same time, he had genuinely helped her mood when they were at the National Park together.
And a part of her was glad that he was there with her right now…
“Settle in, I guess.”
She batted a foreclaw against the railing with a metallic tak. Rako blinked out of disbelief for a moment, before he scampered up and propped himself up against the railing. Marl tried to settle down herself and shuffled her feet in place before trying to shift her wings. Her good one was as responsive as it ever was, while she shifted her broken one slowly by degrees to try and avoid jostling it too much.
Halfway into moving it into place, she felt a faint itch at the base of her wing near the edge of her cast. Had the stupid thing chafed her scales or something? She brought her snout down to try and nose at it, when as she turned, she saw that there was a Snubbull along with a younger man of a trainer on the walkway.
Just standing and looking at her.
“Hey! Stop staring at me!”
A snarl from her throat and flash of her fangs sent the two pests scurrying off. She harrumphed and nosed at the itchy spot along her wing’s base. She briefly noted Rako staring at her on-edge, but dismissed it with a sour frown as she turned her head back out towards the battlefield.
“And just what’s that look supposed to…?”
She trailed off and abruptly froze after her eyes told her the rest. Out there in the stands below, what felt like half the spectators between her and the field were visibly wide-eyed and staring at her.
… Because of course they would’ve when a Salamence’s growl by nature was one of those things which made the world around them sit up and take notice. And hers had been much louder than the one she’d given Calvin.
Marl shrank back, as she suddenly felt so much more exposed and she swore she felt a part of her die inside.
“Hey! You there!”
The Salamence looked over towards Sessen and Alberi and down towards the ground. There was a Growlithe glaring up at her, coming up alongside an officer in a peaked cap whose own expression matched her partner’s.
Which she just knew was a sign that things were about to get a lot worse.
1. “Oh, this is new…”
2. "Ooooh boy, that’s totally a good sign there…"
3. "So who’s going to tell her about that crow on her team?"
4. “And this is a normal thing for him?”
5. "Looks like you are almost past the last minute. Hurry!"
