Rusting Knight
Bug Catcher
- Pronouns
- he/him
- Partners
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Forme Change
The light that crept through the tight-woven canopy of Pinwheel Forest did so in sly, fragile rays, falling gray upon bare boughs and the conch-shell curl of dead leaves. A penetrating cold wound its way through the Sawbuck’s coat. Soon he would shaggy white fur for protection; soon his fringed hooves would crunch on thin snow, as he moved invisible in the blank landscape. His herd bent bared antlers over brittle grass. The sharp bite of the late Autumn air carried its signals into his nostrils: decay, damp earth, and the clean, fresh bite of the first ice and snow.
Search for the Evolution Stone
In the Murkrow’s nest were: a tangled net of cheap metallic bangles, a haphazard pile of bottle caps, buttons whose fabric coverings have frayed to reveal the shine underneath, a child’s toy car with the paint chipped off, a scrap of sequined fabric, silver paper clips, a wedding ring, a pearlescent seashell, a delicate bronze key, a fishing lure (in the blue-and-white mimicry of a WishiWashi) and several rusted coins. But the colour that repeats, over and over, is purple: tacky beads, pricey earrings dangling amethyst and spinel, a segmented tin Aerodactyl toy. There is no Dusk Stone - not yet.
But Would You Go Back, if you Could?
All the world is one to a Xatu. Everything comes together, in the wash of sun over patient green feathers, in warmth penetrating through layers of down. As a Natu it had hopped among long brittle summer grasses, bright among the gold, agile, curious about all it saw. Now there was no need for curiosity. It had found satiation and then peace. No more fun of combing through grass looking for tasty morsels. No more thrill in daring to venture into a Noctowl’s territory. No blinking. No more pleasure in vague intimations of something better to come. It had come.
Growing Pains
After the upgrade the changes came in a vast incoming tide of information, washing out all of the Porygon-Z’s old constraints. Date poured in swathes, came in primary colours, came with rounded corners, floating free from old constraints, strange, flickering, untranslatable. Now that it could understand simile the Porygon-Z could compare it to being in freefall, an endless drop through dizzying, feverish layers of colour, unpixelated, unprocessable. It hurt. All of it hurt. It glitched out of all those ordered mazes it had been led through blinkered, peaceable. It burst out, into a brighter world. Brighter worlds. White and boundless.
Mid-Battle Crisis Evolution
It happened like this: the last battle of the day, the gym leader clearly phoning it in, the match already lost in my mind. The city lights spread out like a hand of cards along the luminous grey horizon. No more gawkers, at that hour. And then there was this sound. This high, tinkling chime that sounded so small in that big, open-roofed stadium. I moved past the little line that divided the trainer from the battlefield, going toward my Tritone - my Chimecho. Their long blue body like an omen under the big white lights. Their music like a message.
What’s Left Behind
Before evolution, the Ninjask had seen them at night, while it had sung safely with the chorus. They floated between branches dressed in green and in the sodden autumnal undergrowth, their halos flashing silver in the slants of moonlight. It had thought them an easy thing to avoid. There were rituals, routines, a method of doing things so that one prepared for molting with a clean slate. Evolution means no more past. The Ninjask had done things the right way. And yet - out there flew something wearing its pale, shed skin. And inside it, tight-packed, was all its old bitterness.
New You, New Responsibilities
The Scrafty stood a little off apart from its group, its double-lidded eyes focused on the arrogant roll of early morning light over the desert, turning dunes into mounds of soft gold fabric. Around it Scraggy tussled, headbutting each other in over-ferocious play. Since its evolution the Scrafty’s own battles were real. Last night it had broken some scavenging Sandile’s skull with one kick, feeling the power in its new body and the other Pokémon’s frailty. The flush of victory, of being a protector, still flushed hot through its blood, like the enlivening warmth given by the unrelenting sun.