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Chapter 6 - It’s called the Vine because of the grapevine analogy, I was educated at university
I saved this one for later because it was short. T-ransitory as the saying goes. For some reason I thought about how our main characters react to stimuli. Kirby-o can sense people’s psycho pass color, while Shine has good ears. They could really be a wacky team if Curio got her eardrums blown out and Shine was fully blinded. I get to wondering though, after a point, does the minute tagging of beaks, tails, and aura sensors reach a point of second nature in the audience? Aside from the particularly inclined, who can spot a misplaced five-fingered hand a mile away, how much can one expect the audience to create assumptions of a character about the nuances of their actions? We’ve established it’s a Lucario and it holds things in its paw, simple enough. But when things like sensing auras become a factor, can you expect an audience to understand how it shapes the characters actions? I’m gonna have to say no here and hit myself with a book. Thinking in fanfiction is fun, but overthinking is odious.
A few jokes are in short order though. No real thoughts on the Galar stuff, but to play it completely straight, what can anyone really expect out of regional diversity? The intersection of species is such that there’s no particular sense to be made about invasive interference. Reminds me of how the TSA runs things. If you got something that aint good, then you can either give it up or go back and check it through luggage. One time I set off the detector cause I had four pocket knives in my bag. Oh well, I can get more.
I’m not from England, and I haven’t read english writers, so the Toole piece is a lost cause. Though by direct relation, Swift is a nice guy, proposals and all that. I don’t listen to Donald Glover either since I spend all my time listening to sarcastically narrated Ayn Rand e-books.
Emotion reading is a misty grey zone full of expired cola and pastel colors. Most depictions of aura I know of are the empathetic sort, if not the color variety. But I can’t tell here. Curio woke up because Shine was worried about Tony falling and being unable to get up and his aura was whack. I’m trying to figure this out (and if the modus operandi was explained earlier and I forgot, or it’s forthcoming, ignore this), how was the strong aura negative enough to wake her up? Is it a color, so bright that she could see it? Maybe it makes a sound, tinnitus-esque? Or was it just a negative sort of headache inducing that jolted her awake through pain or something. You know I literally just said something about overthinking. Ah, whatever, overthink whatever you want if it’s fun.
Then they ride in a shopping cart, crash and die. I like this scene, it’s simple and evocative. Just characters doing character things. Hit it up with a suitably thoughtful and rounded statement and you got a chapter end.
Before the seventh chapter, it’s time for an \arc review/. I’ve not read much fanfiction before the year 2018, so arcs was interesting to consider. Arcs in normal fiction can take many forms, like Gail Wynand (yes I read the Fountainhead, I don’t agree with Rand, but the book is fun). So where does this leave us? I don’t know, so I’ll try to act like I’m professional for a moment.
As a summation of the stakes at hand, the *Chase Bank Auditorium* arc handily outlines the story so far effectively. Shine’s motivation is clear and consistent, he wants to remember the past he lost along with part of his head on the road, and find his friend. Curio is a handy package, essentially the catalyst for the entire plot and a driving force behind the actions of Shine. The plot has direction, a purpose, and a theoretical endpoint (not necessary dude you gotta believe me, I can’t do this with my own stories to save my life).
I can’t do any more of that right now, I actually just used all my intelligent thought on a forum post about Global Art. Anyway, the twin suns are back together. Realistically someone might say the rising action is next, but since this is partially an extended framing device for a flashback intensive story, I’ll call it a rising action anyway. That last sentence was deliberately confusing to cleanse the comprehension palette. Like sorbet at an Italian restaurant.
Chapter 7 - Dragonites have four stomachs. JUS lIKE CoW
Character development! Shine didn’t throw up this time. Alright, maybe I’m setting the bar a bit low.
They go to teach Goodra-san english, opening the stage for another mini-tangent on education. As the narration has mentioned (and gosh has it mentioned), pokemon speaking the king’s language is somewhat of a hot button issue. This got me wantin for a chronological tabulation of the practice. If society has had time to reach modernity, wherein is the parallel development of the pokemon speech rights movement? If there’s evidence from our flashback that pokemon-human speech synthesis is a mythological concept, when did speech sounds (Octavia Butler heh) become a matter of contention. I can understand that as a taboo concept it was kept under wraps in earlier ages, but in the advent of a post-industrial (assuming) society, there has to have been some nature of mass movement. Maybe I missed it again. (Hey wait a minute I’m just overthinking things to pad the word count)
Anyway, they’re only doing this because Shine’s a good for nothing. Just jump off the Dragonite early and dine and dash. Morality is a bitch.
(Ha, I finally found an error. When Curio says an asshole, there’s no space!)
We get a little look into Shine in demagogue form. The ills a civilized society inflicts on the linguistically impaired is a topical issue (hold up, I’m being told that’s been an issue since the beginning of time). Curio is quick to pass judgement, but she was right, because the horrible man is just reading them books for child. That does raise the question of how to classify levels of linguistics. We assume a certain baseline with people and the age of adulthood, but we can throw most of that out when you factor the discrepancy of evolution and pokemon age.
A bit of phonetical converse and they break for lunch. A little hint of a maybe a subject even more taboo than language, and it’s game time. Well, more of the ‘gamifying of knowledge’ sort.
I’m not particularly bothered by carnivorism. Pokemon eat other pokemon, another day of pursuing the mythical equality. Sentience makes everything difficult doesn’t it?
Points for giving Adele an accordian though. One of the great undervalued instruments, consigned to the realm of polka and upbeat hymnals, when it deserves more. Up there with the bagpipes and the harp (both of which an aunt of mine plays. cool!)
Another banger for the aura train. I can guess it’s essentially implying that Curio can extrapolate Shine’s general thoughts from his aura and the context of the situation, but that’s so easy to mess up. One day, Curio’s gonna get it wrong and then we’ll all be sorry.
Anyway, I know there was a song to go along with the jig, but I can’t stop my music in the middle because it ruins the groove. So the dance is set to Mark Tyson’s Fridayda, ah shit. But it was not to be, because it reminds Shine of the time he was beaten up at GeL. Again.
Ay, that’s it. I’ve been particularly disjointed today, so this makes less sense than usual. But then again, I always say that, so at best expect the kind of stuff you’d see in a Vice horoscope article.
What has today’s chapters got me feelin? Today I think it’s like Nont For Sale by Sudan Archives.
That was certainly news to him. If there was ever the chance of Shine going to that clinic in Coumarine after all that waiting, would he see a Goodra there? But that seemed to be enough to go on, except for one thing.
“Not if he’s not doing his job!” Shine stepped forward, a little swept up in the conversation. A part of him was insulted by what Petri described. If teaching was such an easy thing to do, then why hadn’t every Pokemon in the world learned to speak human by now? Nevertheless, he stepped back and took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s think about this. It sounds like you’ve been learning long enough for you to get past simple sentences, even from human to Pokemon. How has he been teaching you so far? Do you at least know which sounds go into each words?”
Shine was pretty silent for the lines before this, so it feels kind of dumpy to get this motivation all at once here. Maybe ease into this more, show Shine starting to get upset before.
"Well, kind of. The more I think about it, the more it confuses me."
Shine took a deep breath. It would’ve taken a little bit of explaining to do, but thankfully, from what he did remember from GeL, he took away some nuggets of truth from the language lessons. He could do it there; he had done it before with that Bunnelby.
Mmm, snarling seems like an inherently aggressive gesture. With Petri's description of it, you seemed to be going for something like a puma call, which I'd call a cry or a roar or a growl. A purr might be good for a friendly signal.
Shine gave a hard look at Curio, who had fallen asleep with her bag tucked under her head like a pillow, but brushed aside her sloth and continued with Petri.
Got somewhat similar a gripe here to what I pointed out with Shine getting upset before - the last we saw Curio, she was interjecting to the conversation, and now she's asleep. Just mentioning a yawn before should ease this.
A little repetitive with both clauses ending in adverbs, though "most engaged over" tripped me over more. It might be valid English, but it initially reads like Petri was interested in Accendare rather than being more active in the lesson than her. It's also weird to
Nitpicking, but I don't think "pale" fits the sun. In a photograph, it might fit the hue, but in real life, it burns you just to glance at it. "Pale" has a connotation of weakness and faintness that I don't think goes well here.
Slightly the same here, though to a lesser extent. I don't know if it's just because I'm Finnish, but I don't like leaning on gendered pronouns this heavily.
She nodded and sat down, staring at her feet. Something in his gut told him this was a situation he’d rather not witness, so he dismissed himself and nodded to Curio, who caught up with him and padded through the open area on the way to the farmhouse’s path. While they walked, Curio absent-mindedly picked at her ears with a tiny piece of Bone Rush.
“Did you notice something odd about Accendare?” Shine said.
“Nope.” She tossed the waxy swab aside. “Nothin’ at all.”
A part of him wasn’t convinced by Curio’s tone, but felt no need to press further.
“Must be my imagination.”
When they arrived, they faced the back of the barn, which forked into two paths at each side leading to the house. They chose the one on the right and on the way there, they passed by two members of staff who lugged around two wheelbarrows full of Pokeballs.
The description of the events here left me confused at what point they actually entered the building. They're said to be on the way to the farmhouse’s path, meaning their destination is an outdoors location. However, "they faced the back of the barn, which forked into two paths at each side leading to the house" sounds like the "back of the barn" "forked", which sounds like the barn itself split into two, and then I assumed they'd walked into the barn and faced the back wall, and there were hallways attached extending to the house proper, which they then took the right one of. Did you mean that the path leading to the back of the barn forked? That'd make more sense, but it means the sentence needs a rework.
They chose the one on the right and on the way there, they passed by two members of staff who lugged around two wheelbarrows full of Pokeballs. Shine couldn’t take his eye off it until they were out of his sight, knowing full well what purpose it had, but Curio didn’t bat an eye. They were livestock Pokemon specifically bred for eating, fattened up in both body and mind until they were essentially walking entrees. Though he knew it wasn’t something to be changed, just the thought of what went on in those factories sickened him. Not sick enough to forgo dinner completely, but still uncomfortable.
Kind of a worldbuilding chapter this time around, learning more about the place of Pokemon in the world. Their language, too, though... I think I'm more confused now than before. I'm not sure what that demonstration Shine did had to show other than the difference between animalistic noises and human noises. Shine mentions syllables and phonemes, either suggesting that mon language does have them or doesn't, and really both options bring up a lot of questions. If the language does have grammar, it wouldn't explain how all Pokemon learn it the same regardless of where they are or what they are. If it doesn't have grammar, it would basically have to be telepathy to convey complex messages, which is still distinct in this world.
I feel like this is one of those mechanics that an author should either handwave or exhaustively explain, but not something in between, as it feels too inconclusive otherwise and raises all these questions that are not and possibly can not be answered. I would be cool with some Arceus magic lore about the gift of communication between Pokemon, but no explanation at all has just got me lost.
Curio's fun as always, though also bordering on jerkish in places. It's strange to see her brush aside whatever Accendare had on her mind, as she'd definitely know given her aura powers.
Dance scene was ringing bells big time until I realized you moved it here from the old chapter 4, lol.
Thanks to Curio I'm now imagining a goodra just kind of... dripping into a vat and then someone getting in. Like a mud bath, I guess, only instead of mud it's dragon slime. I'm sure someone would like it. I would not. :B
She shrugged, whilst she tried to put together a daisy chain with her tiny claws.
I'm pretty sure I've said this before, maybe even in this thread, but whatever: I could honestly read an entire fic's worth of language lessons. It's just so darn fascinating.
And hey, the accordion gets to live this time! :D (For now, anyway. Who knows what dark fate may lie in store for Tawny...)
I loved this so much. It has such a great, powerful opening that hooks you in, and the way you slowly build up Shine's character with his general nervousness on multiple occassions until an acute episode of why he's like that, it's so well done. It's excellently crafted. At the risk of getting personal, as someone who's dealt with somewhat similar nervousness, it felt wholly organic.
I loved this approach to characterization. It makes Shine really feel, well, real. His struggles make sense, his emotions align with why, his thoughts follow (il)logical threads, he's just a great character.
Your prose, as well, is just fun to read. Not sure how to put it other than it's easy on the eyes. You sell the setting when you need to, introduce the characters quickly enough, your tiny little jokes that leave me giggling for the next few paragraphs, and it all just flows smoothly with at most like two or three typos.
You could, however, extend some of this prose into character action during the dialogue. You tend to leave conversations as pure quote paragraphs, which isn't necessarily bad (I legally can't say it's bad thanks to Hemmingway for whatever reason being a respected author), but you almost rely on it as a crutch.
If instead you included some character action alongside the prose, it could help sell the scene better and also give you an opportunity to display the emotions of the character speaking. Plus, for dumb readers like myself, it makes it easier to keep track of who's talking.
This story is just so great so far. I'm excited to see more about GeL (the secret you handled so well by only referencing it vaguely, keeping the rest to the reader's imagination and also putting the reader in Shine's sh-paws since he also only has a vague notion to go off), see more about Curio (the pokémon aren't the only ones that see them being an item), and more of your juicy prose. I really love this story. I'm, like, always busy, so I won't be able to read on a consistent basis, but It'll always be high on my list. Keep it up! I love this so far! (Never thought I'd say as much about a trainer fic, lol.)
With food in their bellies and a half-day of work behind them, the two headed back to Tony’s apartment. Although Shine wasn’t entirely sure how to retrace his steps in the night sky, his golden vision helped guide him back to civilization. Once he got back to the city, the walk home was easy.
He led the way to the second floor of the apartment complex, leading to a balcony area connecting to the entrances of each apartment, and stopped after reaching Tony’s door. Dread washed over Shine as it was the first time he had ventured alone on such short notice, and didn’t know how Tony would react to his departure.
“Wait here,” Shine said, “I need to talk to him first.”
“Do what you gotta do.”
Shine took a deep breath and entered, since it was already open. As he came in, the smell of cooking oil drifted through the air, along with a symphony of sauces and other spices. It was stir fry night for his trainer, evidently. The radio was playing too, and Tony was singing along with it. He had a nice voice, as usual. Even when all of that added up to bring a homely feeling, Shine still hesitated to approach him, just hanging beside the kitchen door. Deep breath, in and out. He had to take responsibility for his actions. And so, he slunk over to the kitchen and there Tony was, hunched over the stove in his shorts.
“Er, hello,” Shine said. Even though his trainer wasn’t looking, he bowed out of courtesy. “S-Sorry for leaving.”
Tony turned down the radio and smiled, waving over to Shine with his free hand as the other stirred at the wok.
“That’s alright,” he said, “I’m not going to scold you for going out. Sure, I could’ve done with a bit more notice, but I’m glad you’re back.”
Shine sighed with relief. Hearing Tony’s reassuring voice again took a bit of pressure off of the past few days, and he curled up beside his trainer’s legs, waiting for his hand to stroke his head. He did so as Shine purred affectionately, lost in the moment.
“Where did you go, anyway?” Tony said.
“Dendemille. There was someone I--”
“Ah, yeah, yeah, Ines gave me that paper. She said you were raring to tell me, though I was really busy that day. So, was that the same Lucario you talked about before, that friend?”
He didn’t even need to respond to that. As with a lot of things, Shine mentioned a Lucario in passing, though memories were still vague. But Tony knew what Shine knew.
“She’s waiting outside, actually.”
When he heard that, Tony stopped, put the frying pan to one side and turned to Shine, wide eyed.
“Wait, you brought her here?”
Shine smiled, and Tony hugged him, abandoning the dinner for a moment. “Oh, terrific! That’s great news! Is she just visiting? What is she like?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. I told her about the documentary, and she wants to help.”
“Ah, perfect! Hold on, I have an idea...” He jerked his head from one place to another. “Where’s my kit?”
“It’s still in your studio.”
Tony rushed to the other side of the apartment and came back towing his camera case. He shakily opened it and assembled it in front of Shine, putting the camcorder and the zoom mic together. “How did you get her to come all the way with you from Dendemille, anyway?”
It wasn’t something Shine wanted to worry Tony about since he had been inches away from needing a seeing-eye Pokemon to follow him around.
“Long story.” Shine glanced at the front door. “Can I let her in already?”
“Yes, sure, there’s just something I want to try.” He looked up at Shine with a glint in his eyes. “I want to get one of those shots where someone’s walking in for the first time. Doing it that way would make it seem natural instead of just rehearsed, you know.”
Curio probably wouldn’t have been happy being made to wait, but if it was necessary for Tony to film her reaction, then she could’ve bore another minute alone. Not that he actually knew too much about shooting documentaries in the first place. And so, Shine nodded, and led Tony to the front door, who walked towards it with the REC button pressed.
“Can you open this for me?”
Shine nodded and stood on his hindpaws to pull on the handle, which opened to reveal... nothing. Nothing but the railing and the coast behind it. Wait, where on earth was she? Shine rushed out to see where she was, before giving his trainer an exasperated look.
"U-um, hold on a second."
Shine turned on his golden vision and realised Curio had wandered off to another side of the floor for whatever reason, staring out the other end of the complex. What was she doing there? To catch her attention, he roared and she took the hint, walking back to where she came from. And there she was again, in front of him and his trainer.
“Didn’t realise how nice the view was from up here.” It would’ve sounded happy were it not for her scowling expression. “So, you’re Shine’s trainer, huh? Took you long enough.”
“Yes, sorry about that. I’m Tony.” With his other arm free from the camcorder, he outstretched it for a handshake. “It’s wonderful to meet one of Shine’s friends at last. He’s been--”
“Are you recording me already?” Curio pulled back, baring her fangs.
“Yes. I thought it would be a good shot to—”
“Look, shithead,” she yelled, wagging her paw at him, “you can’t just film me like some safari Pokemon, so turn that camera off before I cram it up your ass!”
Shine covered his mouth, trying to process his reaction to that. His trainer, a shithead? Why, he--
“Sorry,” Tony said, pointing the camera away from her. “I got a bit excited, that’s all. I didn’t mean any harm.”
She sighed, crossing her arms. “Whatever, can I come in now?”
“Absolutely.” He backed away and she stormed through the hallway. Both of them stood in stunned silence as the Lucario huffed in the living room.
“That could’ve gone better,” Tony said, clicking the camera off.
“It’s not your fault, really, I should’ve warned her.” Shine shook his head in disbelief and looked to his trainer. “I’ll deal with her while you finish cooking. Hopefully, I can talk some sense into her.”
“Alright, thanks.” With that, the human made his way to the kitchen, and Shine padded over to where the curious Lucario was, who poked at the various oddments on Tony’s desk. He leaned over to get a good view of it all, though he knew it quite well already. There were the standard work documents, as well as various ornaments depicting several different marine lifeforms, but what caught Curio’s interest was a framed picture of Tony and Shine together with the conservation centre’s crew.
That was a good day, since it was the first time Shine had set foot into Tony’s workplace. His trainer took him for a guided tour from the aquarium to the conservation centre, he introduced Shine to all his work chums, and it gave him a good idea of the efforts Tony went through to save some of these Pokemon. The day when they brought in an injured Kingdra stood out to him the most. Although Shine had to keep his distance for that Pokemon’ safety, given its type, Shine got to see it unfold in another room with the cameras. The way Tony acted as cool as a cucumber, even when the Kingdra thrashed about in the water in its panic, left an impression on him. He only hoped Curio saw the same way as he did.
With that, Shine patted her leg, turning her away from the photo.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I should’ve asked you if it was alright for him to film.”
“Oh c’mon, that’s not the point.”
“Then what is it?”
She huffed with a shrug. “Whatever. C’mere.” She found a nearby couch and collapsed onto it, putting her feet up on the table. Making herself at home already? No matter. Shine joined Curio, keeping a little bit of distance from her.
“Who’s they?” she said, pointing to the picture.
“Some of his friends from where he works. They--”
“Don’t care.” She casually tossed the frame onto the table.
“Careful!”
It clattered against the wooden surface, yet still maintained its pristine image. Shine could’ve turned white; it was a miracle the glass hadn’t broken.
“Sorry, I guess.” She jerked her head to both directions. “This is where you live?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a dive, alright.”
“Really?” He grumbled. “He only cleaned the place up a few days ago, as far as I know. He’s not that messy.”
“You kiddin’? This is cleaner than most places I’ve been to, too clean if you ask me. You know, I’d be happy to mess this place up for you if you want.”
“Curio, that’s enough.” Shine leapt off the couch and glared at her. “I get that you’re not friendly with trainers. That’s fine. But at least get to know Tony before you throw him under the bus. I’m not having this in my own home.”
“Listen...” She put her arms behind her head, glancing to the side. “I’m not here to sip tea with your trainer or whatever it is he gets up to, I just want to get to this interview already.”
“Just be patient with him, alright?” He gritted his teeth. Why did he feel guilty in the company of his own friend like this? No, he had to put his foot down. Or rather, his paw down. “Do this for me, please.”
She glared back at Shine, the two locked in an internal battle between each other’s gazes. The clock ticked in the background, tick, tick, tock, filling the silence in the room aside from the sizzles in the kitchen. How long was it going to take until they reached an agreement? Before that could happen, though, Tony came in with a plate full of stir fry. Shine turned, sensing that Tony debated where to sit, and he looked back to Curio, raising an imaginary eyebrow. Finally, she took the hint, sighing as she sat on the floor opposite the couch, just behind the table.
“You could’ve just moved up,” he said.
“Didn’t wanna,” she said in her own tongue. He guessed she wasn’t proud of admitting that, but it was best not to dwell on it for now. Shine sat back on the furniture as Tony joined him, jabbing a fork into the mess of noodles. He ate in silence while Shine thought of something to say, anything to diffuse the tension.
“That smells nice,” Shine lied, thinking it was rather strong for his tastes.
“I used a different sauce this time.” Tony chewed on another mouthful as Curio wrinkled her nose.
“Alright, erm, Tony,” she said, “whaddya need me to do? I didn’t come here to watch you stuff your face or talk about sauces, y’know.”
Shine would’ve told her off again, but to his surprise, Tony smiled. “I like your attitude. Well, I didn’t mean to drag you here and expect you to fire away immediately. I just thought we’d get to know each other first. Sorry about the camera thing again, y’know.”
She scratched her ear, lingering on it for a while until she shrugged. “Ugh, never mind. Look, I don’t really wanna get into this right now. I’m not here to make friends with you.
“Curio...” Shine growled, before Tony held up his hand.
“Alright, I understand.” Tony put his plate to the side and clasped his hands together. Despite Curio’s glass-shattering gaze, he wasn’t intimidated, but confronted her with a confident gaze of his own. “You want to get to the point already. Shine already told you about the project, so you’ll probably want to know when to start.”
“As soon as we can, if that’s fine.”
He patted Shine’s head. “If my buddy’s fine with it too.”
“Y-yes, of course.”
“Okay, cool. I wanna know somethin’, though.” Curio straightened her back and drummed her metallic fingers on the varnished counter. “You know what you’re doing, right? You aren’t doing this just to rake in the dough, or become famous, or whatever. You’re not using Shine as a tool, are you? And don’t think of lying. You never lie to a Lucario.”
That phrase put a chill down Shine’s spine. Was she threatening him? And what business did she have to assume that about his trainer?
“I know what I’m doing,” Tony said in a heartbeat. “I just want Shine to get better. If I can uncover this story, that’s only a bonus, and when I do post it, I doubt it would make much money, if any at all. Since you are his friend, though, and he has talked about you, I understand you’d be worried.”
She took one look at Shine, shooting him a smirk, before she returned to that soured expression with his trainer. Or rather, a focused expression. At this point, Shine had started to sense when Curio was looking at someone’s aura. It was more seeing through them, rather than looking at them.
“Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.” She gritted her teeth, then clapped her paw and hand together. “It’s, er, nice to do business with you, Tony, sure, yeah.” Saying it out loud didn’t make the disdain for him any less apparent. Shine was still not impressed, as his friend struck him as being needlessly difficult. At least she honoured his wish to keep things civil, for the moment.
“I can finish this quickly before we start recording; I’ll just wash up later.” Tony stood up with his half-eaten plate in hand, looking down at Curio. “Do you want a drink before we start, though?”
“Nope.”
Maybe not all that civil.
--
Tony walked the two over to the studio, shovelling the rest of the stir fry in his mouth on the way there. They went to Tony’s bedroom, which had a walk-in closet, and past a rail filled with floral shirts and beach shorts was another room with no windows, covered up in painted-over egg cartons. Aside from the cheap insulator, the room looked like a professional recording booth, with equipment to one side, and lightboxes leaning on one wall. At the same time, it had that homespun vibe, with the familiar interview couch Shine had more or less tolerated. Curio wasted no time in making herself comfortable, throwing her bag onto one of the cushions. Before she sat on it, however, she took a peek at what Tony was doing as he adjusted the camera’s tripod.
“Like what you see?” he said.
“N-no,” she huffed. “Human tech’s all nerdy to me.”
That was awfully dismissive. Not that he remembered it at all, but that struck Shine as rather off based on his intuition.
“I’m almost done here, so we can start soon.”
“Good.” Curio sat down on the couch, and, facing the full brunt of the lighting equipment, shielded her eyes from its glare.
“I’ll turn it down just a bit.” The light in the room dimmed and Tony sat down next to the camera. Shine sat beside his legs, mostly to face Curio while she talked, but also to be pet by his trainer. He wasn’t above a bit of pampering.
“This is feeling kinda weird already,” Curio said, crossing her arms. “So how does this work? Do I just talk into a camera, is that all? Doesn’t make for a very good flick if it just has a Lucario staring into a screen. Maybe if this was an art house film or something, like that one shot of Jubilife Tower that went on for eight hours.”
“I’m surprised you know about that. But, this is standard for what other documentaries do. We’ll be shooting some B-roll footage and other clips to go along with the shots, like outdoor scenes, plus we can always edit what we need to so there’s more variety.”
“If it helps,” Shine said, “treat the camera as if it’s not there and just look at him or me when you’re talking. I used to get nervous before Tony told me that.”
“I guess.” She fidgeted in her seat, trying to find the most comfortable position where she wasn’t squashing her tail, and relaxed. At last, she took a deep breath and smiled. “I’m ready.”
Tony nodded and held up three of his fingers in one hand with his other on the REC button. Silently, he counted down, and the camera beeped.
“This is interview B, first few questions, take one. Who are you?”
“Well, my name is Curio, and I’m a Lucario, I guess.”
“And what do you do?”
“What do I do? Well, what do Pokemon usually do? I don’t think lots of people ask that about me. I travel a lot, meet a lot of people and Pokemon in between, teach a few Pokemon how to speak if I need some grub, watch a lot of movies, and make stuff sometimes.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“Hah, well it’s kinda dorky, but I guess I can show you somethin’.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a model of a Noctowl, similar to the Magikarp Barley had, except in full scale. She turned it around in her paw.
“I was sleeping rough in Hearthome at one point. Don’t ask how, but that ain’t exactly my proudest moment.” The slightest frown spread across her lips. “Anyways, one of the things I did during the day was visit the local scrapheap for anything I could find. You find lots of interestin’ stuff humans just dump there, you know, like whole bits of furniture and all sorts of valuable scraps. You humans sure do waste a lot. I guess that’s what Muk are for.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, I made friends with this wild Noctowl that browsed through the trash there, and I wanted to make this for him using the stuff I found there. I think it took me a few days, but when I finished it, he only looked at it once and said his farewells, so I just kept it, I guess.”
“That looks good,” Tony said.
“Yeah,” she said with a sarcastic chuckle, “for a Pokemon, you mean. That’s what people always say.”
“No, I’m actually impressed. I might not look it, but that’s how I feel. It’s just nice meeting someone creative, that’s all. I like knowing what makes them tick.”
Curio paused, glaring at him with that same look she gave before. Then, she leaned back, satisfied.
“Alright, I believe you.”
He nodded and stopped recording. Curio shoved the curio back into the bag, which despite looking as big as the bag itself, fit perfectly into it.
“That was it?”
“No,” Tony said, “I’m just separating each question per video. It saves me a lot of time by doing that instead of going at it all at once.”
“Shouldn’t we try that again though? I rambled a little bit.”
“It’s fine. Edit it in post, as they say.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She shrugged it off. “But this was nice, actually. I can see why it’s been helpin’ you, Shine.”
The Luxray smiled.
“Alright,” Tony said, “tell me when you’re ready and I’ll ask the next question.”
“Ready.”
He clicked the REC button again and announced the second shot to the camera.
“Now, what was your life like before you were brought to GeL?”
“Well, nothin’ too spectacular, that’s kinda what brought me there in the first place. My parents made whoopee, I got squeezed out, and hatched onto a little island only me and my family inhabited. The end. Nah, I’m just kidding. There’s a lot more to it than that.
“Where I want to start is how my interest in humans began. You’re all such weird creatures. You can grow facial hair, you can walk on two legs, well-- we can, but not every other Pokemon-- and you have completely different rules to what Pokemon have. No Pokemon could’ve come up with a society where they make us lesser beings fight, after all. Probably, don’t quote me on that. But that’s what I found so delightful about you humans. The way you moved, the way you acted, it was all strange, and I wanted to see how it all worked. That’s what’s led me to where I am now.
“You could say its my own fault I ended up this way, and you’d be right. But, that’s life, I guess, and life’s messy, complicated, and well, sometimes, kind of shit. But it’s also got good stuff in it too. And if this is going to be the story about my life and how it all began, I should probably tell you about Mom first."
“Alright, I understand.” Tony put his plate to the side and clasped his hands together. Despite Curio’s glass-shattering gaze, he wasn’t intimidated, but confronted her with a confident gaze of his own. “You want to get to the point already. Shine already told you about the project, so you’ll probably want to know when to start.”
But that’s what I found so delightful about you humans; the way you moved, the way you acted, it was all strange, and I wanted to see how it all worked. That’s what’s led me to where I am now.
oh no oh god she killed people to dissect them and see what makes them tick* *This is the second joke I have made about Curio being a serial killer so I think that makes it a genuine theory now
Shorter this time, but short and sweet. Straight to the point, but showcases the emotions and stances of the two leads well. Curio is being a DAMN BRAT and I hope part of her character development includes learning to not be such a DAMN BRAT.
As said, Tony seems incredibly chill. I'm interested to hear more about his aquarium endeavors.
I owe a lot to Mom for leading me to this path. Of course, said path was formed with my blood, sweat and tears, but if it wasn’t for her or my brother, I probably wouldn’t have had any interest in human life at all. She had her own baggage, sure, but aside from being the one who wore the blue pants in the family, she was also my friend and a great storyteller.
If I am going to talk about my history and the road I’d go down later in life though, why not start it off with a story she told me? Not to derail what I said earlier about how I got here, but it’s important to me personally, you know.
Telling a story before we turned in for the night was a tradition of Mom’s. She’d either read from one of the books she brought with her to the island, or tried her hand at making her own. Most of them weren’t really that impressive, so I have a hard time remembering them all at the top of my head. This story she told one night, however, really stuck with me, and to this day, I remember what she said, word for word.
The night it happened, we were huddled around a campfire in our little nook of the island. I say we, but I really mean me and my three brothers while Mom was on the opposite side. Li-- I mean, my Dad had actually lit the fire, and what a strong fire it was, since it burned brightly and crackled loudly with all of the wood he gathered. Though Mom asked him to help her with that one, he disappeared into the forest after that without a word, so he didn’t stick around for our story, unfortunately.
“Where’s Daddy going?” Stumpy, asked. He was the second youngest Riolu of our bunch.
“Off,” Mom said with a bit of a grim tone. “He has to protect the island again.” From what, I didn’t exactly know.
“Miss him,” Twig, the youngest Riolu said. “Miss him.”
Stumpy held onto Twig for comfort, rocking him back and forth in case he suddenly decided to throw a wobbler.
“Yeah,” I said, “doesn’t Papa like your stories?” I was a Riolu by the way, if that wasn’t obvious already.
“He does.” Mom smiled. “Even when he goes away, he still listens in with his aura.”
“Really?” Stumpy said, stroking the runt’s head. “Good.”
“You should know Dad does well to protect us,” Trunks said, who was my eldest brother, a Lucario. “One day, all of you will be able to grow strong like him.”
“And you, don’t forget that, dear,” Mom said, looking to big bro. “I’m proud of your own strength as well.”
Trunks tucked his arms in his legs, fidgeting a little uncomfortably. There was something about them that struck me as weird, but I didn’t think much of it in the end. Just a side note, we didn’t really give each other names, since it wasn’t usually a thing for us Pokemon. It’s not like you could smell or hunt a name, after all. I thought I’d call them that now since they deserved more than just being Riolu A or B.
With that out of the way, Mom stood up and announced the name of this new story: ‘Wild Brides and Shifting Tides.’ As she did, she held out her arms and sparks flew from the flames, as if she was channelling the power of the blaze. It glowed a bright orange, bathing everything in a warm light, and the fire reflected in both her green and red eyes on both sides. This marked the start of her tale.
Keep in mind that some of the stuff she said translates poorly to the human tongue, so think of this as my version, creative liberties and all.
“Firstly, there was a wild bride,
with multi-coloured eyes and an unkempt hide.
She would venture into alien territories
and listen to those smooth-skinned beings’ stories,
Of those who wished to be the best and most wealthy,
those who wanted to travel and those who wished to be healthy.
She would listen for days, enthralled by their song,
and wished deep down that she could become one.
“Secondly, there was the melancholic groom
eyes a dull red, but fur fine as a bundled broom.
He had lived amongst those alien creatures
who once acted as his guardians and teachers,
only to be released into the wild yonder,
and with no one to care for him, he left to aimlessly wander.
He would hunt alone with a void growing in his heart,
and wished to find someone to bond with; to make a new start.
“One day, the bride met one such alien up close,
face furious and frightening, and clad in dark clothes,
he summoned a beast, one devoid of compassion,
as it clawed at the poor bride in such a ruthless fashion.
It overpowered her and left her in a state of rapture,
bruised and cut, she was doomed for capture,
then the wanderer heard her cries,
and dashed as swiftly as a Wingull to the skies.
He stood between the bride and the beast,
warding it and the alien off, at last she was at peace.
“When she next awoke, her body felt anew,
as if a spell had been cast on her, it ended all so soon,
the wanderer stood before her, offering his paw,
and for the rest of their days, they ventured together forevermore.”
We were stunned. It was more like a poem than a story, really, but even in her own tongue, it flowed in such a way that it felt like a song. I repeated the lines in my head, trying to process was she had said, but I got the gist of it.
Then Stumpy broke down sobbing.
“Nnph,” he spluttered, “t-that was, t-that was...’ He cried into Twig’s shoulder, which ended up setting him off as well, like a line of gobby dominoes. Poor Trunks had to comfort them both, rubbing each of their backs as they let it all out. Through the power of aura, and all, I felt a little of their emotions trickle over to me, and I ended up getting misty eyed as well, being just another poor sod caught in the domino line.
“C-c’mon, you guys,” I said, sniffling, “it wasn’t scary or anythin’. I loved it.”
“I d-d-did too!” Stumpy said. “B-but, it was just so sad, and, and…”
“Sad! Sad!” Twig said.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Trunks whispered in that soothing tone. Both of them piped down after a while, sniffling every so often. A minor improvement if you ask me.
“Well,” Mom said, sitting back down. “I think we should call this a night. You lot must be tired.”
We all agreed on that one. Mom went off on her own and kissed us all on the forehead, wishing us good night. Trunks was there to settle things down, smoothing out the grass beds for us to sleep in, and we all laid there, turning in for the night. Everyone else went to sleep before me, first Twig, then Stumpy. Before Trunks’ aura signal dampened, there was a bit of sadness there too, but also anger. Why anger? Then, he went to sleep, while I had my eyes closed, trying to follow in his pawprints.
It didn’t work. Sure, my body tried, but my mind was still alert. So I tried to lull myself to sleep. There was one other story Mom told me of this cat-like creature called a Skitty, who became good friends with a creature much bigger than it called a Wailord. Or were they more than friends? It was weird, but I liked thinking about that one. Yet, Mom’s ‘wild brides’ story kept coming back to me.
If the lines didn’t have so much rhythm and flow, it wouldn’t have been stuck in my head so much. Well, not only that, but I kept thinking about what the lines meant. Although most of my siblings didn’t question the meaning of the story as far as I knew, I was curious about the aliens she talked about. I could tell she meant the alien wasn’t a Pokemon, but if that was the case, what was it? The sort of things she talked about like the smooth skin and the clothes were new to me, so naturally, I was curious. I tossed and turned for what felt like an hour before I decided I had enough.
I opened my eyes again, staring at the swaying leaves that blocked the sky for a minute. Aside from the snoring from my brothers, the whole island was still. All sleep and sound. I stood up, slinking past my sleeping siblings and taking care not to trip over their tails. My goal was to get through the forest to the shore, where Mom probably was.
I weaved through the winding branches and rocky terrain, trying not to trip up in the darkness of the night. Granted, my eyes were good at seeing in the dark, but there was always the chance of stubbing your freaking toe on a rock. If table legs could do that to humans, who’s to say Pokemon were safe from it? What guided me through the woods, however, were my parents straight ahead. Their auras only appeared as basic shapes, probably the size of a tennis ball at most, but that was enough to link me to them. Besides, we were never too far away as the island wasn’t particularly big; you could’ve hiked around the whole thing in the morning and there would still be plenty of sun left after you were finished.
I ran towards their wavelengths then crept behind a tree as the two rough-housed on a rocky stage. They were neck and neck, pushing each other as they tried to make the other one lose their footing.
“You’re getting sloppy there,” Dad said in a somewhat serious tone.
“Ha!” Mom yelled, nudging her foot against his, “you’ve seen nothing yet!”
She squeezed his hips, making him laugh and fall back on his ass. Nice one, Mom. I had to laugh at that one as well; Dad hadn’t been that cheerful in a while. Seeing him enjoy himself at last, I ran towards the fray while he was charging up an aura sphere of his own.
“Dirty tactics.” He smirked. “Wouldn’t expect anything else from a wild--”
I pounced on him, stopping him dead.
“H-hey, you little--” he said, trying to catch me.
“I’m on Mom’s side, so I can’t let ya win, Papa!”
Finally, he picked me up by the skin of my neck like some ragdoll, leering at me. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Well,” I said, “ya looked like you were havin’ fun, so I thought I’d join ya!”
Dad shook his head, turning me over to meet my mother’s gaze.
“How should we punish her then?”
Mom, always the one to come up with stuff on the fly, flashed that toothy grin of hers.
“Throw her in the ocean and have her sleep with the fishes?”
“No please!” I pleaded in mock horror, “anythin’ but that!”
Dad threw me without warning, dropping me onto the hard ground. You know, because dropping me down onto a jagged surface was apparently a good idea. I yelped in pain, nursing my tail as Mom tugged on Dad’s aura sensors.
“Was that necessary?” she grumbled. “A bit hard on her, don’t you think?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She released her grip, letting Dad kneel down to my level. He held a paw out, like he was gonna hug me or take my hand, but instead, he just kept his paws on his own lap.
“Seriously, pup, you shouldn’t be here at this time of night. Why are you up?”
“Ngh,” I grunted, clutching my poor back-buddy, “I can’t stop thinkin’ about the story Mama told me.”
“That’s it? I didn’t think it would’ve given you nightmares; you’re supposed to be tougher than that.”
I stood up, waving my paws in the air as I tried to let it out.
“No, no! It wasn’t scary or anythin’, I loved it! I can’t stop thinkin’ about the lines and I can’t rest cause of that, and it won’t let up ‘til I find out what they’re about and—“
“Okay.” Mom stopped me. “I see what you mean. What did you want to ask?”
“The aliens and such. I know the rest actually happened to you two, but it hurts my head to think about what they’re supposed to be.”
At that moment, a sharp change of emotions emanated from Dad’s aura. He usually radiated a negative energy, the kind of thing that comes with unpleasant memories, but that time, it was even more potent than before. It showed an awful mix of fear and sadness, although his face didn’t change. What he actually thought about, I had no idea, at least at the time anyway.
Mom picked me up and held me in her embrace as she stroked at my ears. That was nice. And don’t get any ideas, Tony, that’s not my favourite spot..
“Honey,” she said. “I’d like to talk with her alone for a bit.”
She set me down, gently I might add, to the side so she could whisper in Dad’s ear. I tried to lean in to listen, but they pulled away before anything could reach me, then Mom held my paw and walked with me towards the sea. So, it was just us two, hand in hand, strolling along the shore. The rocks were gritty, crunching under our paws, but it was the finer kind than the more cliffy parts of the island. Since it was colder at night, it had a nice cooling effect on my feet. Walking with her though was even nicer.
“So,” she said, “how much do you know about both our pasts?”
“Well, not a lot, you never chatted to me about it, but I know bits. I know there’s more out there too, with all kindsa Pokemon with different looks from ours, not just on this rock. Those Magikarp had to come from somewhere.”
“Well spotted, dear.” She faced the ocean; waves illuminated by the moonlight. “We’re in a series of islands known as, well, it’s not easily explained.” She meant an archipelago. “Even bigger than that, we’re in the region known as Sinnoh, a large cluster of land. That’s where the aliens live.” She faced me again. “Well, that’s a little bit of a lie.”
“Aw, why?” I eyed her with scorn, as lying was something Dad told us to never do as a future Lucario. Not that I listened to him half the time, but that was still something I held true to.
“It’s mostly to do with your father.” She frowned. “He has some memories he doesn’t want to dig up. But let’s say aliens aren’t the correct word for them. Rather, they’re humans.”
I won’t go through every detail of what she said as it’s common sense to any Pokemon who hasn’t been living under a rock, but she explained what they were like: Smooth skinned, wore clothes, grew facial hair, could mostly walk on two legs, yadda yadda yadda. Then she went on to explain how the world worked and what Pokemon were to them. You know the score already.
“Why do they want to capture us?” I said.
“So they can train us and take us along with them on their quest to be the best, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Doesn’t sound fun.”
To that, Mom laughed, playfully tugging at one of my sensors.
“I never thought it would be much fun either, and I’m glad I never took that route. Your father, however, was born into it, so he didn’t really have much choice.”
At that point, a light switch went off in my head, or whatever the equivalent of that was back then. I thought back to the story and the info she gave me on the true nature of those aliens, or rather, humans.
“So I shouldn’t trust them?”
“It’s complicated. Maybe if things were different, but let’s just say you should avoid them for now. They shouldn’t come anywhere close to this island, and if they do, your father will chase them off, you hear? He works hard to protect this place when he’s alone.”
“Isn’t he always alone, though? At least, when he’s not tellin’ us what stuff to do?”
Mom sighed, and another part of her aura pulsed. It was an unknown feeling; something that wasn’t happy or sad. I didn’t know what to make of it, but she must’ve seen my face though, since she knelt down and put both paws on my shoulders.
“Yes, I’ve noticed that, and I don’t want that to become a habit of his.” She looked towards the sea. “He’s… not well, as in, he’s still got a lot of things on his mind and he finds it hard. So he has to think on his own sometimes.”
“Alone?” I cocked my head. “Isn’t bein’ with someone better?”
Her gaze quickly turned to me again. “For some people, yes. But I know he loves you, even if he doesn’t show it. Does that make sense?”
I hummed in reply. It was a lot to take in. Something else about her aura felt wrong though, like it didn’t match what she actually said, but her true thoughts were tucked away behind a lock, not allowing me to reach out to them. Before I questioned her, she pulled me in for a hug, scritching behind my head.
“We can talk some more about this later. Just know that we both love you and we want the best for you.”
“I know...” It was hard to argue with those head pats and that soothing voice and that aura of hers, and, well, in general, I just felt safe with her. Like her soul gave off a warm glow. “Sorry for gettin’ in the way of you guys playin’.”
“Don’t be sorry. We’ve still got plenty of time tonight. For the meantime, I would get some sleep. I wouldn’t bring this up in front of him or your brothers, though. This human thing can be our secret for now.”
I was speechless. My gut still told me to ask more, but I took the hint, so I pulled away from her and nodded. I also covered my mouth for good measure, just to say I could keep a zip on it. Before I went, she pulled me in again for a kiss then let me make my own way back to our den. Thankfully, no one else was awake to ask me what I was doing up so late, so I curled up back into my spot and rehearsed the story again in my head. I was satisfied, for now, and yet, there was a little pang of anger inside me. With what Mom said, it seemed like life was pretty bad outside that island. No wonder Dad sought out such a closed-off place. But that couldn’t have stopped any other Pokemon coming in, could it? What would happen if one of those humans came down to our island?
Trunks tucked his arms in his legs, fidgeting a little uncomfortably. There was something about them that struck me as weird, but I didn’t think much of it in the end. Just a side note, we didn’t really give each other names, since it wasn’t usually a thing for us Pokemon. It’s not like you could smell or hunt a name, after all. I thought I’d call them that now since they deserved more than just being Riolu A or B.
This makes sense, but then also kind of doesn't. How is an individual referred to when they're not present? In terms of the family's father, they refer to him by his title of father, but what about siblings? Is it then by their age in comparison to the others, like Curio introduced his brothers? Do different packs or families distinguish themselves by some characteristic or the place where they live? Because at that point it... kind of starts being names. Humans got their surnames through those and professions. I'm not implying you don't have the answers to these questions, but I am saying that they could be addressed here, especially as Curio is explaining other things as she narrates already.
The sort of things she talked about like the smooth skin and the clothes were new to me, so naturally, I was curious. I tossed and turned for what felt like an hour before I decided I had enough.
This does raise the question of how she knows about clothes if she's never even heard of humans. Well, she kinda has pants, but you know what I mean. Do wild mon make clothing for themselves sometimes?
oh no curio they're not roughhousing turn around close your eyes!
---
Somewhat short again, but it does seem to be a theme for the interludes - and I'm not complaining, it was started and ended at good spots in the continuum. We learn about Curio's family and upbringing, how her parents came from different worlds and how her dad's kinda crappy and likes being alone when he protects the island from the government that's trying to make him pay his taxes. I do wonder how different mon species get along in the wild if most of them can become sapient, and what determines if that sapience emerges or not, but I have a feeling it's going to be explored sooner or later with how virtually every chapter brings us more worldbuilding.
I guess the other big reason my interest in humans grew was Trunks, my big brother, though that might not become apparent just yet. If Mom wore the blue pants in the family, then he was the butt that held those pants in place, if that makes sense. He was usually the one looking after me and my brothers, making sure to play with us if Mom wasn’t around and attending to our needs if we ever got injured or needed his advice.
If there’s one memory that stuck out to me around that time, there was one day when he gathered us little monsters together for a morning training session on a rocky area somewhere near the forest. It was a particularly nice day where the skies were a true blue, yet the wind was strong, with leaves flying everywhere and the scent of sea salt wafting in the air. Trunks was in the middle of all of this, standing atop a rock where the leaves flittered around him, making him the centre of attention. Young me thought he looked awesome, so I was wanted to do my best for him.
“You three,” he said, “today is an aura training day, so you should follow my movements and try to imitate me as best as you can.” He stood on the balls of his feet and balanced himself on one leg in a stance. He cupped his paws in the shape of a ball around his belly.
“Remember, aura is an extension of your body. Your spiritual essence made manifest… I think.”
“You think?” I asked.
“Mmmaybe.” He smiled. “But I think of it like I’m drawing something out of my body. Like I’m tapping into my life force and channelling a little bit out of it. Just a little bit. Now, you three, copy what I did.”
So, it was basically glorified yoga with glowing energy balls involved. I got on fine, as I was good at balancing myself atop of tree branches, but Stumpy wobbled as he tried to stand on the tips of his paws, and Twig, well, Twig did what Twig did and struck a random pose. Bless him. He was a hatchling, after all.
“Good work, sis.” Trunks said. “You two, focus.”
“I-I’m trying!” Stumpy said, “can’t we just stand on both legs?”
“Stand on both legs! Stand on both legs!” Twig called.
Trunks didn’t break from his position, but still stared at the two.
“We could, but the point is to copy what I do so you can learn how I channel my aura.”
“Aw, why?” Stumpy said, breaking from his position. “It’s not like we fight anythin’ anyway!”
“How about Magikarp?” I chimed in.
“T-that’s nothing!”
“Perhaps,” Trunks shot back, “but you should still train anyway. Dad wants you to be strong, so you can be like him one day and take over for him after time has passed.”
That struck me as odd. I had to break away from my own perfectly matched pose to express this.
“Hey, bro,” I said. “You’re strong as well. Mama says as much. Why can’t we be like you?”
He smiled, probably humbled by my comment, but still kept his pose.
“You can do that too. But I mostly do as he asks by looking after you along with Mom, so, you should follow his example.”
“But Papa rarely sees us. Why can’t he just, ya know, come out and teach us himself?”
“N-never mind that,” Trunks said, slightly wobbling. That must’ve struck a nerve as his wavelength changed slightly. That moment of weakness didn’t last long as he straightened his back again. “We should get back to practising.”
Trunks took a deep breath and honed his aura energy into his paws. He told us to do the same, and so, I drew in my own energy as well, as a hot glow emanated from inside my body and manifested into something physical.
I can’t really describe how I did it all that well, even now. How do I make you understand what aura is when I can’t make you use it yourself? I wouldn’t say it’s rocket science, but I don’t know jack about rocket science myself, so that leaves the both of us at a dead end. So let’s just say it’s magic for now. Well, it would’ve been magical if that bit of aura I drew out wasn’t the size of a pea. Still, the rest hadn’t even gotten to that stage, so in my case, that was considered a breakthrough, which he applauded. In the end, Trunks shot his sphere into the air while I shot my pea, and all was well.
I should really stop saying pea. That sounds wrong when I say it in this situation.
We were in the middle of the next exercise, which was basically more of the same except with another weird pose. Variety clearly wasn’t Trunks’ speciality. But Stumpy brought up Dad again when he asked what he thought of this type of training, and speak of the devil, the blue Mon appeared before us. We immediately stopped, going up to him as if he was a Legendary Mon.
“Papa!” I called.
“Come see what we’re doing!” Stumpy said.
“Yes! Yes!” Twig said, being one of many words.
“Enough.” Dad stepped back, leaving us three to wonder what he was doing. Trunks just stood by the side, calmly observing all of this. “You lot have got work to do today. It’s hunting time again.”
Our ears immediately shot up at that. Hunting fish was perhaps the least favourite part of our day, or my day at least, but it had to be done. If we were to stay fit and strong and healthy and, you know what, you get it. But as soon as he appeared, he starting walking away.
“Make me a proud Mon today,” he said, and left, disappearing into the forest again. Like I said, he was like a Legendary. Each sighting of him during the day was an event of its own, if you ever caught him.
“Alright, you three, you heard him,” Trunks said, kneeling down to pat our backs. “I’ll come with you to help. Just remember your training.”
We weren’t really that enthused, but we nodded anyway. It was our duty, and we were pleased to do anything to help out the family. Or, well, I was pleased anyway. So, we headed over to the shore as we had our separate jobs to fill out. Twig just sat on the sidelines, waiting in a safe zone of his in case we had any catches for him to carry. He was still basically fresh out the egg, but we had to start him out somewhere.
The rest of us waited at the edge of the island, looking for any signs of those Magikarp swimming around. Now, they were big buggers that flapped around a lot, so we never really struggled to find them. Even on a bad day, we found at least one, so that usually tided us over for that night’s meal. Finding anything more than that was just a bonus.
We waited as the wind blew around us and the water lapped at our feet. After a while, Stumpy leaned into my shoulder, eyes half open, looking as if he was about to fall asleep. His aura wasn’t on guard that time, and his tail was planted flat behind him. He might as well have had a bunch of billboard-sized Zs floating above his head.
If you’ve ever had a sister, you can probably guess where this is going. I reached out to little bro’s tail, about to tug on it, when Trunks cleared his throat.
“Don’t be annoying,” he said.
I pouted. “He can’t just doze off like that, bro.”
He grunted and looked off into the distance. He peered at something, staring into the water, or rather, staring through the water. I knew that aura-detecting look instantly. Then, he turned and smiled.
“Go on.”
And with that, I yanked Stumpy’s tail, making him yelp as he stood straight up.
“W-what’d you do that for, sis?!”
“Sorry,” I said, barely containing myself.
“You’re not sorry.” He crossed his arms. “You’re laugh-- hey, bro, that’s not on!”
Trunks snickered as well, though as quickly as it appeared, he stopped, bringing Stumpy and me closer to him in a hug. “Never change, you two.”
Stumpy couldn’t help but join in the laughter as well. I felt kind of bad for leaving Twig out of it as well, but he was probably just doing his own thing. We didn’t keep him too far away anyway.
Then, Trunks pointed to a bunch of red fins splashing on the surface. Now it was time. We jumped into the water, which was shallow close to the shore, so we didn’t even have to hold our breaths. Our aura senses picked out this splashing figure, which of course, was a Magikarp, and we all ganged up on it, grabbing it together. Once we were sure we had a grip on it, we hauled tail to the island again, heaving and ho’ing until we reached the rocks again. Stumpy got into a bit of trouble as the Magikarp’s fin smacked him across the face, knocking him to the ground, but big bro was there to pick up the pace. Then, well, a Lucario has a metal spike. A Magikarp has a tender neck. I think you can do the math.
I didn’t feel particularly bad about it. Trunks often reached into their minds and told us there was nothing there, so we didn’t need to be ashamed of our catch. Still, that got me wondering, if we were able to think and fend for ourselves, then why weren’t those Magikarp doing the same thing? I’ll leave that for another time.
Once we were sure that fish was no longer moving, we tended to Stumpy, who sulked as he nursed his cheek.
“U-ugh,” he whimpered, “t-that hurt.”
“Yes,” Trunks said, stroking his head, “they can be a paw-full. Still, we’ve got our catch for the day.”
If it was just one catch, that meant one Magikarp had to be shared between the rest of the family. My stomach was already rumbling, so having a little morsel of a Magikarp wouldn’t have satisfied me. Then, I thought of something. Why did Dad walk around as if he had a spike up his butt the whole time? Well, I didn’t literally think that at the time, but it was something close to it. I connected certain dots that weren’t there to begin with and cooked this up:
“Say, if we catch more, bro, do you think Papa will spend more time with us?”
That won me a weird look from Trunks.
“That not the reason he’s on his own so much.”
“W-well,” I said, putting my paws on my hips, “maybe he’s hungry and has to hunt more after! No no, wait! Maybe he wants us to prove we can catch more stuff, like he said!”
Big bro huffed. “You think so?”
“Y-yeah, c’mon!” I grabbed Trunks’ paw. “Let’s make him a proud Mon! We can catch more!”
“Well, I’m sitting out!” Stumpy said.
“No pressure, bro.” In turn, Trunks squeezed my paw and cupped it in his own. “Are you sure? You don’t have to if you don’t feel you need to. And, hey, listen,” he lowered his head to whisper, “to be honest, Dad’s just Dad. He won’t change, not for this island or anyone else.”
That struck me as a bit odd. His sour expression didn’t really help things, though I wanted to prove him wrong, so I gave him a huge, beaming smile. “Well, I wanna try!”
“Okay, let’s do it.” Returning the smile, big bro picked me up, carrying me back to the shore to do some more work. It was simple: I’d catch it, he’d finish it off, and we’d bring it back. Rinse and repeat. We ended up with several of them by the time our shift was over. Me and bro fist-bumped at the end of our hunt. We’d have a good dinner on our paws that night.
Well, maybe not as good as an Octillery. One time a while ago, we caught a pure feral one and made a meal out of that. Those tasted even better than the Magikarp. Now that I mention it, I could murder an Octillery right now.
Wait, that came out wrong, didn’t it? Kind of makes me sound like a bloodthirsty killer, but whatever, I’m getting sidetracked.
So we all worked together to bring the rest of the Magikarp over to where my parents were. Even though carrying the fish over was a bit of a load, I kept my grip on it, thinking about what Dad’s reaction would’ve been when I got there. Maybe I could’ve gotten him to crack a smile for once, which was rare for him, at least around me.
Once we navigated the dense forest, we arrived at the base again. Mom wasn’t there, though we detected she was getting something else from another place, but Dad was, and he beckoned us over with our catches for the day. One, two, three, four, five, six: a plentiful meal for all of us. Surely, that would’ve impressed him, right?
Nope. He just grunted and told us to drop the fishes off.
“Now then, wait here while we cook. Pup--” he looked to Trunks-- “you can help us two out. The rest of you, go play together.”
“I keep saying I’m not a pup anymore,” Trunks said with a sigh. He looked back at me with an apologetic smile, trying to find something else to say.
“Don’t keep me waiting.” So that was settled. Him and Dad disappeared into another part of the woods with the catches in tow, and my brothers were just fine clowning around for the moment. I wasn’t though. To be honest, I felt kind of crappy.
After all that effort, Dad didn’t even spit in my direction. Again, he just left us to our own devices. Not that I should’ve expected that much; even a part of me knew Dad wouldn’t have reacted any different. So, why? Young me didn’t know how to express it at all. Without my brothers noticing, I wandered off into the forest for no particular reason other than to clear my head.
You know those moments where you just need to be left alone for a bit? Even though you might’ve called me a pack animal, I still needed my own company every once in a while. Maybe to swim around the island or watch some of the different fishes I didn’t know the names of splash out of the ocean. Or sit by myself, looking up at all the birds that swooped over the trees. I wondered why they didn’t come down there. Better yet, I wondered what it would’ve been liked up there, flying high and all that.
Again, sidetracked. Not even the sights of the winding trees and the colours of the leaves calmed me down. I felt unwanted, unloved, unneeded, and all those other words for feeling cast aside. I don’t know, I’m not a walking thesaurus. But anyway, I eventually made my way out of the forestry. When I entered the shore area, though, guess what I saw?
No guesses? Alright, one heck of a crowd we have here tonight. I saw a human for the first time.
I froze at the sight of the girl and her Prinplup. Again, I didn’t know at the time what species it was exactly, but with that beak and that deep blue body, it does kind of narrow it down in retrospect. But yeah. I don’t know what I expected humans to look like, even when Mom gave me an idea of their alien appearance, but she made it sound like they were monsters. To me though, they just seemed like another species, like a Pokemon. Although I didn’t know it yet, she was a trainer, and just like Mom said, she grew hair, wore clothes and had smooth skin.
For that moment, time stood still. When she saw me, she whispered something to that blue Pokemon of hers and they stood in front of her in a battle stance.
I realised the kind of situation I was in rather quickly. I was about to get into a fight and I stood there, dumbstruck. If that happened anywhere else, I would’ve been dead. At the same time though, there was a chance they only looked to defend themselves from a wild Pokemon and only acted out of survival instinct. I had questions as well, and being attacked was the last thing I wanted to happen. A friendly approach seemed better than a pointless fight after all. As miserable as I felt before, I snapped out of my headspace and called out to them, waving a paw in the air. The Prinplup eased their stance a little and I slowly approached them, but the girl’s expression was still a little unsure.
“I’m not gonna harm y’all,” I said, “I just wanna talk, okay?”
The Prinplup held their paw out to the trainer. It could’ve been a ceasefire or a command to attack, but thankfully, she smiled, letting me know we were at peace with each other. She crouched so she could be at my level.
Her mouth moved, and while I couldn’t understand a word of what she said, her voice was reassuring and warm in a way you wouldn’t get from a Riolu or Lucario. In my opinion, when we speak in our own tongue, it mostly sounds like we’re hacking up hairballs. But the human chuckled and petted my head. Those hands. Wow, they were smooth. Joy overtook reason and I growled the same way I would've with Mom. Then that squawky voice had to ruin the moment.
"Ugh, I'm going to vomit."
Yeah, screw that bird. In any case, I couldn't hear what the human said, but the way they went back and forth with each other as if they understood each other seemed strange to me.
"Wait," I said, "can you understand her?"
"Yeah, duh."
"No duh! Can she understand you though?"
"Nope. She just has a good ear for disapproval."
That was a let down. Even if Mom told me beforehand, I wasn't used to being ignored like that. Still, that wouldn't stop me from getting my way if the Prinplup relayed what I said back to her, who continued petting me.
"How'd you get here?" I asked.
"Surfed here."
"Surfed?” Then, something popped into my head. “Never mind. Say, what’s the world like out there? Is it nice?”
He shrugged. “Nice as in you see a lot of interesting things. Nice as in I get to mooch off of my trainer for food, and sometimes, watch the sort of shows she likes together. Human programming is weird.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but that’s beside the point. Sure, I thought about what the world was like outside for some time, but having someone there who actually experienced it, with a human no less, enticed me to check it out myself. Before then, I wasn’t really desperate, but at that moment, flashing through my days spent on the island, with Dad absent for a lot of it, something inside me flicked on, like a light switch. Now, my vague interest turned into a burning resolve.
“Can you take me with you for a bit? Just for a little, tiny bit. I wanna come back here though."
The Prinplup put his flipper on the girl's shoulder and pointed to her belt, then back to me. I looked up to see several shiny balls coloured red and white. No points for guessing what their purpose was. I didn't know at the time so I just stared at them until the trainer pulled away from me and smiled, saying something else in that same warm tone, then pulled out on of those balls and held it in front of me. She looked at me expectantly, pointing to the Pokeball she held up, and I raised my paw to it.
I wonder what would've happened had I touched that Pokeball and went with her. She seemed nice, after all, and I probably would've avoided all the stuff that happened at GeL beforehand. At the same time, I probably would’ve lived a mediocre life for a Pokemon if I had, and since I had gotten a taste of that lifestyle later on, I don’t think I would’ve traded what actually happened for anything else, looking back.
"GET AWAY!" Dad screamed. The trainer broke off from me and in turn, he dashed towards the two. Not knowing what else to do, I ran away from them, getting as far as I could’ve from the ensuing battle.
Without prompt, Dad threw an aura sphere at the Prinplup's head, which he blocked with a flipper, knocking him back several paces. The trainer ran to his side and pointed at Dad, shouting a command of some sort, and the penguin Pokemon spouted a stream of water from his mouth. It was quick, but Dad was quicker, dodging to the side as he threw a punch at his face, which connected. Even when the Prinplup fell to the floor, Dad still didn't stop. Taking on punch after punch, the Prinplup could’ve only shielded himself from the onslaught. Then, the girl stood between them.
I saw how fearful she was through her pained expression and her aura. When you're faced with a creature that has freaking spikes on their paws, you're pretty much at their mercy. Nevertheless, she spoke in a calm voice to him, although I wasn't sure how much good it did. Would he have understood her if I didn’t?
"Get out," he said in human tongue. Those were the first words I understood in human; said so plainly, yet from his aura, it hid a massive amount of anger, so it left an impact on me.
She helped the Prinplup to his feet and departed not long after, setting sail on the penguin’s back to surf across the sea.
I stood in silence. I hadn't seen Dad act like that before, if I ever did, not even when he told us off. Then, he walked towards me, still having that raging look on his face, and my heart quickened a bit as he approached. Would he have shouted at me again, like he did whenever I broke one of his rules? Or just brush me aside like he did just a moment ago?
My fears melted away as he picked me up, cradling me in his paws. That was the first time he did it like that in a while, and it was nice. His body was warm, though he stank of fish. Still, being close to him like I did with Mom, that gave me a warm feeling too.
"Sorry, pup. I let my guard down.”
"U-um, okay.” I didn’t know what the heck happened.
“I was… foolish.” His voice trembled, but he cleared his throat before he continued. “Your mother… she told me you were upset. She’s perceptive, that one. Can sniff out a bad feeling from a mile away.”
“Mmm hmm,” I agreed, not that I knew what a mile was at the time.
Dad gently lifted me down to the rocky floor and I saw his expression relaxed, although those red eyes still stared into my soul. “Do you see why I spend so much time on my own? To search the island and make sure this doesn’t happen.”
“D-Dad,” I said, trembling under his gaze. “W-why?”
“Because if they do, if those...” he snarled as he said the next word, “things take you, they will make your life misery. They’ll strip everything you love away from you. You must never go up to them again. If you see one, run. Run.” He grabbed my shoulders. “Do you understand, girl?”
It was a lot to take in at once. First, the fight that happened, then being told something like that, I just wanted stuff to go back to normal. So, I nodded and went along with it.
“Good. Good.” Dad hugged me once more, again, giving off that warm feeling, though it wasn’t so much of a hug as it was an awkward embrace. Still, an A for effort, I suppose. “Now, let’s have dinner together. I’ll stay with you for a bit, and then we can listen to one of your mother’s stories. Would you like that?”
“Yeah!” I said with a big smile. I realised he did love me, in his own special way.
Feh, so I thought, anyway. But I digress.
We ate dinner in the base together. Unlike what a lot of other wild Mon did, according to my parents, Mom would de-bone the fish first, then cook them over an open fire on a wooden skewer. It’s not like we couldn’t have eaten them raw as our immune systems were built for it, but honestly, it was freaking delicious like that. If we were like cavemen discovering fire Mons or something, that would’ve been the end of it.
This time though, Mom took out a metal pan with water in it, and put that over the fire as we ate our grilled Magikarp. She added the bones to the broth, then watched as the water boiled, making a thicker kind of liquid for what we’d later find out was a soup stock.
That was new. In the middle of my meal, I had to dig my teeth into this new invention. Not literally, of course, else it would’ve freaking hurt.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked. “No actually, why do you cook stuff? It tastes better, I know, but I’m just wonderin’.”
Mom just smiled. “It’s a secret. Isn’t that right, you two?”
“Yes,” Trunks said, while Dad just grunted.
After they were done and poured the fish into the broth, they dished out the soup into wooden bowls, which we all got a taste of. Unsurprisingly, that was delish, but also something unexpected. You have to spice things up if you’re living off of a diet of fish, after all. Though, I also wondered where they got those ideas from. Maybe some of the same ideas Mom got when reading out from her book, another seemingly alien invention.
Speaking of which, while we slurped from the soup bowl, Mom took us over to that story spot once more and told us a new poem she had been sitting on for some time. It was a little more free verse than her other stuff, and I didn’t really know what to think of it at the time, but I still accepted it like any other, so I thought I’d share it here. Again, it’s not exactly a direct translation, so take it with a grain of salt.
“So sings the sea serpent,
please, hear his song.
His children, a choir,
harmonise in the deep blue.
“The entire ocean is his school,
and the fish that swim there, his pupils,
dancing with the Mantine and
brushing against the Corsola.
“So sings the sea serpent:
“I’ve lived for thousands of years!
My blue crown stands tall!
My verse lives through millions of Magikarp!
I split the skies with beams of light!”
“He lurks beneath the surface,
warning his students not to stray too far,
lest they be caught by bigger predators in singles
or captured by aliens in thousands.
“So sings the sea serpent.”
After giving her a round of applause, we settled down for the night with a bunch of full bellies. I had a good meal, Dad actually sat with us for once, I got to understand him a bit better, and all seemed well. Well, sort of. Despite what Dad told me, meeting a human for the first time wasn't even a bad experience, a far cry from what Mom had made it out to be. My thirst to see the world hadn’t been quenched yet. That itch inside still nagged at me, and it was something that could’ve only been scratched by meeting another human again.
I watch a single Anthony Fantano video and suddenly over a month has passed. Have I learned anything from this experience?
I’m feeling a low 7 to high 6 on that question.
Chapter 8: Cherrim learned lucky chant while I was typing this and I got so distracted that I forgot about this for like 15 minutes / Shine at Boston Market, what he gonna order
One afternoon worth of english is worth a round trip to another county with no added expense for a second traveler. These backcountry dragon breeder bumpkins would put Ryanair to shame. I suppose this is the type of farm where no one locks their doors either. The alternative option is that Shine was so unbelievably pathetic that they gave him the economic equivalent of pity sex. Count your blessings man, you made off like a grifter that steals individual batteries on black friday.
How long can Shine use his built in x-ray goggles anyway? Shouldn’t that all inclusive GeL boarding school taught him how to read a map? Yah, interests of convenience and all that, but do it too much and your eye will get stuck like that.
Shine knows Tony trusts him, and yet he is fearful of repercussion of his leaving, despite having explained himself. This is what the youth today would respond to as thus: “mood”. Curio, still angry over the fact that Shine has both a god and a master (contrary to what he had asserted sometime in the past according to lore) detests Tony’s use of the dutch angle for her dramatic entrance, and accordingly acts like an ass. Despite acting generally dismissive, she does let on that she’s at least a bit cultured. Arthouse films are very nice, though they can’t hold a candle to greats like Mike Gravel.
A few questions later and she’s into it. Guess this is the part where we all que Baba O’ Riley.
9 Chapter: Alright that was fun and all, but it’s time for the Tarantino biopic origin story
Oh, so Curio’s mom is to blame for all this. If it hadn’t been for her being a global citizen, then Shine wouldn’t have lost an eye and would be living happily somewhere as some GeL manchurian candidate. Much more thrilling than the lap dog of a film major. Hey, maybe Shine can be in the Andalusian Luxray.
We’re here in our new setting in medias res of an in medias res situation. Beginnings are boring, so we cut to the chase. Oops, almost called your dad by his first name. We can’t let the audience know that they’re a loser yet.
I don’t know poetry, verse and rhyme bounce off me like blood off a duck’s back. That being said, ‘alien’ is a totally unromantic word. If Robert Frost had to make a poem about aliens, he would break his pen and retire to become a longshoreman. After writing one last poem about fresh winter snow over the gentle rill of course. The accompanying picture is nice too, but the ears keep looking like they have compression artefacts. I guess I just can’t appreciate detail, I like my pokemon smooth like ice.
Stumpy and Twigz cry at the literary version of How I Met Your Mother and they spread the sadness to Curio (who was back then known as Riolu 3). Unregulated emotional leak, maybe Curio’s mom should have just told the story about the white god inventing supermarkets again.
Curio can’t sleep because the poem got stuck in her head like the mainframe song from borderlands and finds her parents on the beach. She gets the lowdown on the human problem and how her valiant father defends the island daily from cruise ships and anthropologists. Stay strong little Riolu 3! The world outside your island is indeed scary, you need a permit to start a campfire in public.
Chapter 10: If Riolus were nekos then they would be sugoi
Since her father is so busy playing tower defense, the duty of training the youth falls to the prodigal son Trunks. Awful metaphor by the way from Curio, I take back what I said about being cultured. Unfortunately since aura is an innate ability, he can’t just say become the ball and be done with it. Everyone else is so bad at yoga that they shift the conversation to implying that Curio’s dad is the Charlie Sheen of Lucarios. The myth himself proves this point by emerging from the forest in a ghillie suit to tell them to get dinner before disappearing again.
The magikarp method is basically hugging it to death. Don’t know why, but that kind of evokes something like the Native Americans, giving thanks to their prey and all that. Another day in the midwestern riolu county saga. Curio’s dad calls her older brother young, which makes him angry (maybe he’s into the rugged fashion look). And so Curio goes off to be sad and maybe advance the plot.
She encounters human and learns of the horrible world where the saxophone was invented. Her dad is barely in time to save her (that’s his opinion), and for a moment he’s nice, but not really. Every action in the past is one that helped lead to the present so thus it’s all wrong.
Another poem as it was. Perhaps the interplay of commercial enterprise and evocative prose is not to be and pokemon poetry can never thus be appreciated. Beats me.
Now for a retrospective! We turned back the clock to the beginning because Curio doesn’t know that Tony is going to cut most of it out in post. Sure it’s therapeutic, but this is a GeL expose, not Koyaanisqatsi. There’s not enough stock film in the world for your life story. While I don’t mind, there’s almost a feeling that having the entire first arc be essentially the setup for a framing device would come off to some people as devious and unexpected. But whatever, some people will think and others will think too, what we got in the end is what we got.
Retrospective allows us to establish information in a non-chronological manner that allows us to lay out facts that can make things more tense or poignant in the moment. Here it’s used to signal us like a plane taking off that Curio’s dad is >N O G O o D<. Curio’s dad ruined her first chance to see the world (though it’s probably a good thing for that girl, two steel types on one team?? Disaster in the making). He doesn’t appreciate the hard work they do and spends all his time playing mobile games. He rescued his child because his wife said so.
Should have used protection. Now who’s the idiot for eschewing human practice.
How will Curio solve the problem of living on a desert island with no cable television? Did Tony remember to plug in his camera before filming? Will Shine fall asleep before the Dr. Phil story?
Today’s vibe is “If Children Were Wishes” by Wye Oak. Except Curio and her siblings are not very good ones.
All done. Be back next decade (｡◕‿‿◕｡)
EDIT: Wow, my 30th post overall is also the 30th post on this thread. This must be a sign!
Oh, so Curio’s mom is to blame for all this. If it hadn’t been for her being a global citizen, then Shine wouldn’t have lost an eye and would be living happily somewhere as some GeL manchurian candidate. Much more thrilling than the lap dog of a film major. Hey, maybe Shine can be in the Andalusian Luxray.
"You see, my hatchlings, one place the aliens worship their flying spaghetti monsters at is a square building filled with sugary foods and workers that hate their jobs..."
I guess I should respond to the retrospective as well. I do get that some might be disappointed with this shift in tone as well as narrative, since this is essentially a self-contained story on its own. Another part of me wants to just write TCATS in the present, but without the stuff being answered from the past, the plot can't really progress. So yeah, therapy time.
The assessment about Dad playing mobile games instead of spending time with his fam does sound plausible, tho.
Chapter 11. Bottoms Up, Bro
After that bit of excitement, everything fell into a routine as we hunted Magikarp as normal, played as normal, told stories as normal, slept as normal, repeat and repeat. Although I was satisfied with the answers I got and faced every day as it came, over time, a pit grew in my stomach. It was something I couldn’t quite put my paw on, and it certainly wasn’t hunger, since our hunts went well and I ate my fill. But rather, it was a hunger for something I hadn’t known yet.
At least, not until one small encounter. I saw a bird Pokemon perch itself atop the trees as I walked across the shore one morning, just on a leisurely stroll. Again, I often wondered what they saw flying high up there, but more than that, I wondered what sights they saw beyond the island, beyond the sea. It probably knew there was more out there, and that’s what I felt was missing, the sense of being connected to the rest of the world.
I sprang towards the forest, climbing to the treetops in no time where the Pokemon sat a few trees away, preening its feathers. I balanced myself on one of the highest tree branches and jumped from tree to tree in an effort to get close to it. Again, some details are fuzzy, but I believe it was a Wingull. It had the same blue streaks across its body, after all.
Anyway, it eyed me cautiously, and suddenly, I felt giddy. This was my chance to find out my escape route. Another chance to talk with something else other than Riolu and Lucario.
“Hey, er, can you tell me what’s out there?” I said.
It just sat and stared, cocking its head. “Why?”
“Well, because! I wanna know what else there is to see! Ooh!” The more I talked, the more excited I got. “Can you fly me there? Please?”
It warbled, then took flight and fluttered above me. Yes, I thought. This was going to be my chance to do a bit of sightseeing. Maybe it could’ve grabbed my ears with its talons, then flown me there that way.
Nope. A white runny liquid hit the top of my head and ran down my face. I don’t need to mention what it was.
In a panic, I lost my footing and fell off the branch. Thankfully, a bush broke my fall, but then again, I fell onto several branches on the way down, also breaking it somewhat. To say I was sore afterwards was an understatement. I got away with my bones intact, thank his holy ass, but I was bruised and battered all over. To add insult to injury, I stank. I had to get the acrid stench off of me as soon as I could, so I limped to the closest stream I could find in the forest running from the lake and dunked my head in it several times to wash it off. Even after I rinsed off the droppings, a whiff of it still lingered.
Just so you know, if you talk to any unknown Pokemon unannounced, especially flying Pokemon, they probably won’t stick around for the conversation. At best, you’ll get a face full of bird seed.
I ran my paws through my coat to find all sorts of splinters sticking to it. I tried to pick most of it off but I wasn’t sure if it had gotten in places I couldn’t reach. I had to get them out or they probably would’ve gotten septic, even though I had no idea what ‘septic’ meant at the time. It was something Trunks told me after all.
Lo and behold, his aura wasn't too far off; straight from the path of the stream into the lake. Although my legs were sore, I found my way there without trouble. He had already occupied himself, meditating by the lake at the edge of the bank. It was something he used to do to clear his head, apparently, but I never saw the point in it. I’d either fall asleep or get bored and leave. Once I stepped into the clearing, he turned around and scoffed.
“Alright,” he said, “what trouble have you gotten into now?”
I scratched my back.
“I got splinters in my butt.”
“Seriously? Well, come here then.”
I sat on the bank beside him, dipping my paws into the water, and Trunks started combing through my fur.
“You don’t always need to climb so high, you know.”
“And what’s the problem? I was just takin’ a peek up there.”
“Yes, but you’re going to break your neck if you keep falling.”
I winced as he pulled out something brambly behind me.
“And you could use a long bath too.”
I sat in silence while he kept checking for splinters.
“Tell me, why do you want to get off the island?”
That caught me off guard. His tone seemed different that time, since he was a lot more serious then, though I didn’t think much of it.
“How’d you know?”
“Your aura, of course.”
“Well, why not?” I said, kicking the water, “I wanna see the world out there. It’s not like I wanna leave this place forever.”
“It’s a tough world outside. You don’t need to know.”
The moment I heard that, I immediately turned, pulling myself away from his grasp. “Wait, what? So, you were out there?”
Letting out a grunt, he nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
“Why? That’s great!” I stood up, shaking his paws with enthusiasm. “You can tell me stories about it! Like what Mama does!”
“N-No.” He brushed my paws aside, looking off into the distance. “I’d rather not.”
“Aw, c’mon!” I gave him those little Riolu eyes. “I won’t tell anyone else! Mama told me about humans and stuff, like the aliens she told in her story once! So she knows! And I wanna know more! Please?”
He brushed a few more shavings off my coat, then leaned in closer to the point where his muzzle touched mine, gazing at my with those familiar blood red eyes. I saw a little bit of Dad in him at that moment.
“Alright, you want to know how the world out there works? You’re completely on your own, with the threat of death lurking all around you. Other Pokemon out there are much more violent. More uncaring. So, you must always be on alert, never letting your guard down for a moment, or else...”
He clapped, snapping me out of my trance.
“You’re gone.”
He stared into the lake ahead of us, at the rippling waters and the leaves falling onto the surface.
“I was a Riolu too. Mom and Dad, well, we hunted together, and the catches were a lot more risky than they were here. I saw some things I’d rather unsee today. Have you ever heard of poison?”
“I think so? It makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?”
“Worse. Dangerous Pokemon carry it, and I saw one prey who had fallen into the trap of a predator. There were… spikes, ones that oozed strange liquids, and, well, the spikes had gotten into that prey. It was slow, but from what I saw of its body, well…”
Trunks’ voice trailed off and he rubbed his eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath. I looked on, wanting to get closer to him, but pulled away at the last moment. I didn’t really know how to comfort him in times like that, but even as a young Riolu, that didn’t have the scary effect bro thought it would’ve conjured up.
“So, the world out there sucks, basically?”
He pulled himself together, and in time, he looked at me once more, resting his paw on mine.
“Yes, in a sense. Over here, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You have a constant food source. There are no tall creatures with poisonous claws lurking about. Dad worked so hard to get us here, and now here we are, living in peace. You should be grateful towards him.”
That, I was. Again, it wasn’t like I wanted to pack my bags and take a train to the highlands, I just wanted to know what I was missing out on.
“Yeah, I am. Say, did you ever see humans?”
“Y-yes.” He blanched at that. “Stay away from them. End of story.”
I paused, catching a whiff of something foul about his aura, and it certainly wasn’t the guano. It was like his feelings fought against what he said.
“That’s not the end, though. You don’t actually think that, do you?”
He squeaked in surprise, but he regained his composure and leered at me. “Of course I do. Now please don’t make such things up.”
“But, your aura...”
“Enough of that, sis, now please, drop it.”
I knew I wasn’t going to get any further from that, so I changed the subject.
“Besides, isn’t every day here kinda the same? Don’t you get bored?”
“Well…” He hesitated, and I felt a tinge of sadness in his aura if I didn’t already. “I would be lying if I said this isn’t boring, but I’d rather be bored than in some other creature’s stomach.”
I opened my mouth to say something but decided against it. I knew he was right. From the stories Mom told and all that, I thought of myself in his shoes. Well, you know we don’t wear them, but you know what I mean. I imagined myself on my own, defending myself from creatures much faster, stronger and vicious than me, as I would later find out first hand. Still, there was that itch to find out, like sticking your paw in a Combee’s nest.
Mercifully, he let me go and patted my back, letting me know it was okay to move on before he got stuck in another one of his rants. He smiled to me.
“There, it should be fine now. Make sure to clean those wounds or else they’ll get infected.”
“Okay,” I said, and took a dip in that lake. I closed my eyes and let myself float on the surface, water lapping gently at my face, with Trunks meditating in the background. Another peaceful day, another long period of nothing happening. During that time, the weather got hotter as we often had to cool off by the lake, as living on an island in the summertime got humid after a while.
---
Another day some time later, me and Stumpy brought our findings to Mom and Trunks from our daily fish hunt. They thanked us and let us run off to wherever, so we visited the lake again where a tire swing awaited. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that before since I didn’t think it was worth bringing up, but there was a swing hanging from one of the tree branches. It was one of the island’s curiosities, since you know, tires don’t grow on trees, but this day, I kind of question how Dad managed to bring all the stuff there, like the bowls and pans and such. Young me didn’t care, since tire swings weren’t for pondering on. Tire ponders weren’t a thing, after all. I sat in between the hole and held onto the rope as Stumpy pushed me up, letting me swing for a bit.
That brings me back to a simpler time, as it sort of felt like flying. But with the thoughts of escape lingering on, as well as the bird Pokemon that flew carefree in the air already, it was close to being free, and yet, so far. Wait, I did say it wasn’t for pondering on, didn’t I? Well then, forget what I said.
Stumpy must’ve noticed a little bit of my aura, just a little as he wasn’t any better than me at reading emotions, so he moved out the way, slowing me down.
“I didn’t say stop, did I?” I said, spinning around on the rubbery donut.
“Yeah, I know, but why’re you feeling so sad lately?”
“Aw, it’s nothin’ to lose sleep over.”
“It’s not that alien from before, is it?”
“What?” I waited for the right moment to jump, then leapt off to the land where Stumpy stood. “No, not at all. Really, that was the most interestin’ thing I’ve seen on this rock.”
“They’re not interesting, they’re dangerous. Daddy doesn’t want you going near them.”
I groaned. Stumpy often repeated something along the lines of ‘Dad doesn’t want you doing this’, which was fair enough. Hearing it repeated several times over got annoying, and seeing how little brothers generally behave over the years to others, they tend to get under your skin. If I wanted a lecture, I would’ve gone to Trunks.
“So what does Papa want you to do?”
He put his paw on his chin as if he was seriously thinking hard about what I just said. “Um, he wants me to be good, and strong, and stuff.”
“Would you eat his dung if he told you it tasted nice?”
“Ew, no!” He laughed.
“Well then,” I reached down to him, locking him in a hold and knuckled his head. “Don’t do everythin’ he tells you to do.”
“Stop!” He pulled away, rubbing his head. “You hurt, sis.”
“Oh, you baby.” I thought back to the conversation we had a while ago. “It’s not like he sees you or anythin’. You said he never plays with you, so why’d you listen to him so much?”
“He just scares me, sis. His aura’s so, so, so scary.” He got misty-eyed again. “He n-n-never has time for m-me, or big bro, or little bro, or you. What’s he d-doing all d-day?”
He sniffled, and sensing he was about to throw a wobbler again, I patted his shoulder and pointed to the tire swing that idly spun in place.
“At least you have us.” I smiled. “Want me to push you?”
“Yeah.” He wiped away his tears and slowly climbed on top of the swing. “Not too hard, though.”
And so, it was my turn to do the rounds. I kicked once and watched the tire fly up with Stumpy hanging onto the rope for dear life. He was clearly not meant for big heights as he howled in the air, but he needed a bit more excitement in his life anyway, so I kept going. I stepped back whenever the tire swung towards me, as one wrong move would’ve knocked me on my ass, and continued kicking, sending it further into the air.
Stumpy must’ve called me to do something, but since he was so far up, I didn’t hear him, so when he came down once more, I kicked again, only for Stumpy to fly off and fall into the lake. Face first, flat on his front. Ouch, even I felt that one. Surface tension is a bitch. I waited for him to swim back, and he did, only to start wailing as he climbed up the edge of the bank.
“I told you to slow down! I’m telling Mommy about this!”
I tried to calm him down, but he ran, disappearing into the forest. I shrugged and made my own way to the shore in an attempt to cool off. It was best to leave him be during one of his fits, after all. Brothers, eh?
I wandered through the stony shore again, which must've been the tenth or twentieth time since I met the last human. The summer rays often bored down on the rocks, so it used to burn my paws on the first hundred paces, but it felt nice once I got used to it. Since then, I had been around the island enough times to know where the landmarks were, what little it had, and could've mapped it out if you gave me a pencil and a pad.
Problem was, it was nice and all knowing where everything was in your head, but being able to make it a physical thing would've helped me understand the terrain more. Another problem was marking and remembering each island that looked the closest, which sounded easy. One thing I learnt was that if you put the end of your paw on the horizon and flexed the end of the other to where the height of the island ended, whichever flexed the farthest was the closest. But with no way to mark where each island was in relation to this one and what point you had to be on the shore to be the closest to a neighbouring island, it was just guesswork. Still, it would’ve been worth a try. I often thought about swimming there and how long it would’ve taken, though I never acted on it. Still, my own body never betrayed me in the sea, even after swimming for a few hours, so it was possible.
I must've walked for an hour or two on the edge of the shore, and in the midst of it, I got the sense I was being watched. I didn’t actually see the perp, but I just felt it, like I felt another aura of something a hundred times bigger than my puny Riolu body. It might’ve come from the sea, but it was as silent as always, so I ignored it and went on my way until eventually I saw two human-like shapes. I wasn't even sure of what they were from that distance; they could've passed for a couple of tree branches for all I knew, but once I got within a rock throwing distance of them and saw what they truly were, just a young couple sunbathing on the rocks, I retreated back into the forestry.
Despite how much I wanted to stick it to my old Mon, his nagging voice telling me to run drilled into my head and followed me around like a swarm of Combee. Still, I wanted to see what they were up to, even though my heart pounded. I crept carefully through the forest, tip-toeing behind a tree while I watched my movements. They weren't really doing anything you'd consider interesting, just lying in the sun and talking to one another. Even for our own kind, that was something we naturally did, except we couldn't get a tan. Poor us, I guess.
So I tried to get close to them, but long story short, the girl screamed when she saw me and ran away, while the guy shouted at me and ran after her. I considered chasing after them to try and calm them down, but I sensed something else that piqued my interest.
My eyes wandered over to their belongings, which all looked new to me. It was some sort of basket on a blanket with two clear, bowl shaped objects. Of course, not knowing what purpose they had, I couldn't resist picking the shiny clear thing up. The moment I gripped it, it shattered in my paw, leaving shards of light to clatter onto the rocks. They were glasses all along. It's a wonder I didn't cut myself there.
Next, I dug inside the basket, and when I opened the lid, something warm-smelling wafted from its contents. It was food. I licked my lips and stuck my paw inside it, feeling around for the morsel, and when I touched it, I pulled out a half eaten sandwich. The bread had a spongy feel to it, filled with a yellowy sort of substance, which I had to try for myself. I remembered the taste was quite strong, but in a different way from the fishy taste of the Magikarp we were used to having, but either way, it was delicious, and I practically inhaled the rest. It was disappointing to see there wasn't more of it, but then I noticed something else unusual.
It was a larger glass bottle, except with actual liquid inside of it. I lifted it off the ground, except it was a bit heavier than I expected, so I held it in both paws and bolted for the forest with the bottle in tow.
After wandering for a little while, I picked up the aura of all three of my brothers and went to meet them, and Trunks was the first to approach me.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, crossing his arms. "You know you shouldn't have gotten near those hu--aliens."
"Never mind that," I said, ignoring bro’s self-correction, "look what I found!"
The rest huddled around me, observing the loot.
"Whattisit?" Twig asked.
"Well obviously, it's some sort of drink," I said.
"It could be dangerous!" Stumpy said, looking better from his face-flop into the water.
"How so? The guys I got it from were drinking it."
"Still, you shouldn't have taken it! Oh…" he tugged at his aura sensors. “What’re we supposed to do about this?”
I wrung my paw around the bottle of the neck. "Only one way to find out!"
Of course, not knowing how to open it, I struggled with the cap for a bit before it popped and made the two youngest jump. I didn't even hesitate to drink, but when I took a swig from it, I immediately spat it back out.
I might as well tell you it was white wine, and you'll probably find it's not the last time alcohol comes up as a topic of discussion, but we might get to that at some point later.
Anyway, it tasted horrible. Even when I spat it back out, the sting of it lingered on my tongue. Now I genuinely questioned whether or not it was poison. To my surprise, Trunks snatched the bottle and took a big swig out of it, scrunching up his face as he did.
"Tastes alright to me, don't know what you're spitting it out for." He gave me a big smile, the first time in a while I ever saw him do that. There was a slight change in his aura, though nothing too noticeable at first.
Stumpy looked expectantly at the bottle.
"Can I try?"
"Naw, it makes ya do weird things,” Trunks said, clutching it in his paws. By then, it started to affect his speech, but that didn't bother him as he took another swig. Then another. And another. At that point, he was struggling to stand still.
"C'mon, whattare y'all looking scared fer? Just join da fun, hehe!"
I can't say I was scared by a lot, but even I backed away when he let go of the bottle and danced in place. It rolled on the ground, spilling some of its contents. Stumpy and Twig joined me in their fear, who both held onto my arm.
"What's happening? Is he okay?" Stumpy said. I just looked on at the scene as Trunks span around, cackling to no one in particular.
I never thought I'd say it, but thankfully, Dad intervened and stormed into the area, picking up the loot.
"Who brought this?" he asked in a serious tone. Pipsqueak and runt both pointed at me, even though they still cowered from behind, the rats.
"Hey!” I yelled. “That's not fair, you two!"
"Enough!" Dad shouted. "You idiot, I told you not to go anywhere near them, and you disobeyed me just like that!"
I just croaked a response, too shocked for words. I had never heard him so riled up at something I did before. Granted, breaking the rules kind of warranted that, but still, it was a tough pill for me to swallow.
"Never mind, now we've got a bit more trouble on our paws, thanks to you." He held up the half empty bottle. "They'll come looking for this, you know, and they're nothing but trouble. All of you, go hide out with your mother. I'll sort this out myself."
"Hol' up!" Trunks said, stumbling into Dad. "Ish' no big deal, I shaw you drink it a few timesh! Help yourshelf if you want!"
"That's enough, pup. Consider this your lesson."
"Wait!" Trunks glared at him. "Shtop calling me that, I shaw what'sh out there, I'm big now, I can take care of theshe cubs!"
“No, you can’t. Not enough to control yourself here.”
“Ssshut up!” Trunks pointed at him, his face turning from vacant to seething in a flash. “What do you do all day? I hunt! I teach! I play! All for them! One night after dinner ishn’t enough! Whatsh your problem?”
“I’m the one protecting them from invaders all the time, you insolent—”
“Stop fighting!” Stumpy cried, standing in between them with tears streaming down his face. “Stop it!”
It didn’t take long for Twig to join in the crying game. So, I was caught between two angry Lucario, two sobbing Riolu, and a hard place. At least with all the unrest, Dad had relaxed his stance, tightening his grip around the wine bottle.
“We’ll talk about this when you’re sober.”
Not that I knew what that meant, but Dad walked off with the bottle in tow. I looked back at Trunks who supported himself on some tree bark, then back to the other two who were still sniffling. I felt like joining in with them too.
Basically, I had screwed the pooch on that one. One curiosity taken from outside the island had caused a fight, the first one I had seen between Trunks and Dad. Were things always like that between them? That, I didn’t know, but all it took for that mask to slip was one swig of the forbidden fruit juice. Wanting to get out of there and to calm them down, I looked around for signs of Mom, then detected the aura back in the base.
"Mama's close, I can feel it. Follow me!"
With some difficulty, making sure Trunks didn’t bonk his head on a branch on the way, we headed back to that safe space. Mom was fiddling with some kind of box when she saw us urchins coming in.
"What's happening now?" she said. Trunks didn't waste any time showing off his drunken self as he attempted to cartwheel over to her but ended up falling on his ass. Mom instantly attended to him, abandoning the box as she lifted him up.
"Are you alright?"
"Yesh, yesh I'm fine, mama! I drank a bit of that shtuff Dad used to drink!"
Her eyes grew wide. While this happened, not knowing what Trunks was going through, my heart sank. It was rare for me to worry about him as he usually carried himself fine, if a bit overbearing, but seeing him like that, I wasn't sure what to expect. I ran up to her, misty-eyed.
"Oh no, is he gonna die? Please tell me he's alright. Mama? Mama?”
Out of nowhere, Mom laughed and pulled me up close to her.
"Oh, he’s just tipsy, that’s all.”
"Tipsy?" I asked, wiping the dust from my eyes.
"Drunk, I mean. Well, it's a bit hard to explain if you weren't with me, but it's what happens when you drink too much of what they call alcohol: your mind gets all fuzzy. It's usually quite toxic to a lot of Pokemon, but we can take it finer than most. How much did he drink?"
"I dunno. A few sips? Or more than that, maybe?”
Her smile faded, but otherwise, she was still calm about the situation.
"Ah, well,” she said with a shrug, “he won't be used to that much right now, but otherwise, he'll be fine. He'll just have to get it out of his system, that's all."
"What's that mean?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
We crowded around the two, staying close to Trunks in particular, who held his paw to his stomach and started to groan, then curled up on the grassy floor.
"I don't feel sho hot."
"Alright, alright," Mom repeated, rubbing his head as he laid down. He looked to me and smiled weakly.
"Shorry 'bout all thish. I know I'm annoying shometimesh, barking at you all the time, repeatin’ what Dad shaysh like a Chatot. You musht think I'm boring."
I never heard him speak as honestly as he did. I knew this wasn't his usual self, but judging by his aura, I knew it was his true self.
"No, bro. You're great. I know you're just looking out for me, like you do everyone else. And I really like the training and the hunts we do. Just spending it with you is enough."
"Thanksh." He fumbled around before he sat up, looking down at his feet. "I hate thish. Shtaying here all day, all night, nowhere to go. Shorry Mom, I'm grateful for everything we did to come here, but I can’t shtand much longer here."
Mom held onto him, hugging him tighter.
"No need to apologise, you’re not the only one that thinks that here. Don't you prefer it to having to survive out there, though?"
"Yesh." He paused, then tugged at the appendages at the back of his head. "No. Shure, it'sh miserable. Shure, we losht a lot of friendsh. But we went into the citiesh ash well. We had sho much fun there. We watched a lot of good filmsh. People liked ush as well. What happened to that? Wheresh that in the wild, or on thish rock?"
Mom only smiled, rubbing him reassuringly. Trunks, in his hazy state, pointed to me.
"Thish island'sh not big enough for you, shish. There'sh sho much out there you're misshing. No Pokemon deshervesh this. I--."
He then proceeded to blow chunks all over the floor. Such a pleasant image. Mom nursed him from behind and I looked on, thinking about everything Trunks had said. Even he had my back in this, as hard as it was to make out what he said half the time. My other brothers crept up to me, asking me what he was talking about. I said I didn't know and kept my eyes on getting out of the island as soon as this was over. Even through his slurred speech, it’s like he was giving me the go ahead to try and leave.
Trunks calmed down long enough to doze off beside Mom, although his breaths were raspy from all the fluid he hacked up. Even if it wasn't severe, there was still a pang of guilt in my gut. She turned to Stumpy.
"Please get your eldest some water from the lake, and fetch a bucket out of the box. Make sure to take your youngest with you, alright?"
Stumpy nodded. I'm sure he was just relieved to get out of this situation. He got the wooden object out, which was a round shaped thing with a hole in the middle, and went off with the bucket in one paw and Twig's own paw in the other. I turned back to Mom who smiled at me.
"So you stole the bottle off those humans, huh?"
"How did you--"
"Your thoughts don't lie, dear."
"Am I in trouble?"
"Oh, dear, it's no big deal. It's only natural for you to be curious, after all."
"But I went close to those humans after you told me not to. Everyone else chewed me out for it, so yeah."
"Well, like I said, it's complicated. It's mostly your father who wants nothing to do with them, so I will respect that.” Mom sighed. “But look, if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have the sort of stuff we do right now. Why do you think we cook our meals instead of eating them raw?"
"Because it tastes better?"
"Exactly. Plus, that tire swing didn't come from nowhere, we brought it here with us. You see what I mean?"
I shook my head.
"Alright, Pokemon don't usually come up with this stuff, you see. As much as your father hates them, we rely on them for these nice things. If only he didn’t act like such a stubborn old Mon sometimes."
She lifted the lid of the box she toyed around with earlier and drew out a tattered block-shaped object, with bits of paper in it surrounded by a hard leather case.
“Besides, where do you think I get my ideas for stories from?”
I looked at it and put two and two together. “From there?”
“Well spotted, my dear. This is a book written by humans from many different ages, called Sinnohan Myths and Fables. Humans have a lot of talents, and making up all sorts of different stories is one of them. These live on for ages, and get passed on from generation to generation. You could say they transcend time itself.”
That part lost me, but I was still interested in the rest. She flipped through a few of the pages and while the human writing there was illegible to me, since I couldn’t read, I was interested in the pictures, of course. One picture in particular caught me interest, of His White Badness himself, Arceus. Of course, I didn’t know much of who he was, although Mom hinted at him in her stories. The one that brought light to the world. The one that carved mountains and created seas. With that divine glow behind him and that otherworldly look of his, he had a very powerful presence, even on a flat surface. She closed the book and put it to one side.
“But my point is, you shouldn’t take what Dad says to heart. He means well, but he could do with eating a slice of humble pie every once in a while.”
I cocked my head. “Pie? Is that nice?”
"Oh it is, especially the Cheri ones, but that’s not the point.” She smiled and held my paws. “While I don’t want you to break Dad’s other rules, I don’t agree with him on this one. You’re right to ask questions, especially about the outside world. Your big brother can tell you more about it when he’s up to speed again. For now--” she patted the top of the box-- “take a look in there. That thing’s full of human possessions you might like.”
I pawed through each of the human oddments there. If I remember correctly, it had stuff like bits of paper, various shiny tools and other loose bits of soft and sharp things. I must've pricked my paw on one of those objects since I drew it out of the box only to find out I cut it. I sucked at the wound and continued to look inside, and what drew my attention the most was a notepad. I picked it out of the box out of all the items there and shook it around a little as sheets of paper waved in the air. I closed it and brought it to her as she smiled.
"You can draw on that, dear."
"Draw? Like with the stones on the rocks?"
"Exactly, though you'd tear through the paper if you did it with those. You can use lots of other things to draw on it as well. We actually have crayons if you want to use them; you'll find them in the smaller box, dear."
She held it for me as I got the crayons out, and I looked at them for a bit. They had all sorts of colours there I had never even seen before, like purple, would you believe I never saw purple before? All of them were so bright and kind of appetizing. Without thinking, I placed one in my mouth before spitting it back out.
"They're made of wax dear, that's not edible. We don't need another sick Pokemon tonight."
Again, I never said I was a smart kid, but still, you see something like that and you just want to eat it even though you probably shouldn't. Oh well. Natural selection will weed that out eventually when a dumber Riolu ends up choking to death on one.
Anyway, I took out more of the other colours I liked and placed them next to the pad. I didn't know what to do next. Mom threw me a bone and showed me what to do by taking one of the crayons and making a squiggly blue line with it on the paper. It wasn't much, but to my young eyes, it was impressive. I snatched the crayon out of her paw and drew whatever came to mind: a scribbly blue sky that filled the entire page. Seemed simple, but to me at the time, it was like magic. Then she put everything back and handed it over to me.
"I was saving this for when you were older, but really, you should have something else to do on this island. It's sad seeing you wandering around after the hunts without a purpose." She let it go in my paws and I must've looked at her as if I saw Arceus' face on a piece of tree bark.
"Can I keep it?"
"It's all yours."
I jumped over to her, dropping everything I had in my paws to hug her. It was a much needed bright spot in the endless stretch of days that went nowhere. She returned it, squeezing me tight, and I made random scribbles as I stayed with her until my other brothers came with their water. The rest of the night passed with ease as I watched my brother come to his senses, albeit groggily. After dinner, some of his energy restored, but after that, we decided to leave storytelling for another night and settled down.
I slept clutching my new present like a pillow. It was the first thing I had to call my own, really.
The next day, Trunks woke up with a groan and felt physically exhausted all day, so we had to do most of the work for him. When asked about last night’s incident, he distanced himself from the subject. Strangely enough, when I saw Dad next, his breath smelled of the same stuff Trunks drank.
Shine sighed with relief. Hearing Tony’s reassuring voice again took a bit of pressure off of the past few days, and he curled up beside his trainer’s legs, waiting for his hand to stroke his head. He did so as Shine purred affectionately, lost in the moment.
“Don’t care.” She casually tossed the frame onto the table.
“Careful!”
It clattered against the wooden surface, yet still maintained its pristine image. Shine could’ve turned white; it was a miracle the glass hadn’t broken.
Okay but what if someone's name was like Shartmouse or something.
I guess the other big reason my interest in humans grew was Trunks, my big brother, though that might not become apparent just yet. If Mom wore the blue pants in the family, then he was the butt that held those pants in place, if that makes sense.
Hey Trunks, your little sister just called you a butt.
Still, the rest hadn’t even gotten to that stage, so in my case, that was considered a breakthrough, which he applauded. In the end, Trunks shot his sphere into the air while I shot my pea, and all was well.
I should really stop saying pea. That sounds wrong when I say it in this situation.
The rest of us waited at the edge of the island, looking for any signs of those Magikarp swimming around. Now, they were big buggers that flapped around a lot, so we never really struggled to find them.
This makes me think of how I was surprised when WCT put out their magikarp figure and it was in the sort of medium-sized range instead of one of the small figures, which they were right to do. Magikarp is definitely one of those pokémon whose actual size is easy to forget for some reason.
Well, maybe not as good as an Octillery. One time a while ago, we caught a pure feral one and made a meal out of that. Those tasted even better than the Magikarp. Now I mention it, I could murder an Octillery right now.
Wait, that came out wrong, didn’t it? Kind of makes me sound like a bloodthirsty killer, but whatever, I’m getting sidetracked.
Of course, not knowing what purpose they had, I couldn't resist picking the shiny clear thing up. The moment I gripped it, it shattered in my paw, leaving shards of light to clatter onto the rocks.
But alas, its days are numbered. Well, I mean, presumably they still are.
Curio's backstory is good reading in general, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that she has such a fun narrative style. Really entertaining and engaging personality on that one. :D
Still, that got me wondering, if we were able to think and fend for ourselves, then why weren’t those Magikarp doing the same thing? I’ll leave that for another time.
That struck me as a bit odd. His sour expression didn’t really help things, though I wanted to prove him wrong, so I gave him a huge, beaming smile. “Well, I wanna try!”
I feel like the "nevermind" should be at the start of the second quote - it doesn't seem like Curio to brush aside some new concept without something more urgent overriding it.
Very interesting and fun two chapters! I like the tropical island Lucario family sitcom. Babby Curio is very cute and it's very telling to see her so innocent and naive in contrast to what she's like now. Happy for her that she's got the sketchbook, but already worried about what'll happen when Dad inevitably finds it. It also really works to make Curio question her status quo when the human she meets isn't in any way terrible - honestly, I was scared she'd be forcefully captured and that's how she'd end up in the human world. But we got a happy(?) ending for now.
I know I was hesitant on the story with the first arc, but with this one, I'm definitely on board. Looking forward to the next chapter.
Your grasp on pacing is really incredible. I'm always excited to read what's coming next, always involved in what's happening, with well timed light scenes so it's not exhausting. (A particularly enjoyable bit being the Pikachu Café, though that might be a bit of personal bias on my end. One-shot about the pikachu showing off speaking human to his friends please and thank you.) You end 3 with them finally reuniting, and just before we get any answers, Shine's out like a light. It's great. There's pay off, but there's still more to keep reading for.
Shine's struggles are honestly starting to hit really hard. It's well described, but not dwelt on too long to the point that it's egregious, so I can really feel his struggle. Especially impressive is how often it happens without feeling like you're belaboring the point.
I'm not sure the twist was intended, or if my reading comprehension's just that bad, but it was a neat surprise to find out Shine was actually the one reading to Curio, when I'd assumed the opposite.
That Curio named Shine is a very clever way of instilling how deep their relationship is. She gave him his identity, reflective of how he's defined himself with his search for her.
This slow trickle of info on GeL is spicy. The myth, then Curio's opinion on trainers has me thinking it's some kinda pokémon revolutionary group. That's my theory, at least, excited to see how wrong that is.
Sorry for being so complimentary, but I just don't really have any gripes here. It all just works so well. I really can't think of any problems with these two chapters. I'm just loving it so far.
(A particularly enjoyable bit being the Pikachu Café, though that might be a bit of personal bias on my end. One-shot about the pikachu showing off speaking human to his friends please and thank you.)
Soon enough, I made my own maps with the paper Mom gave me, so I walked through and started marking any island I saw. I flexed my paws to measure it as I explained before, and moved onto the next one, marking each one as a 2D object on a flat surface without actually knowing any of the concepts. Somehow, I knew, even if I didn’t fully understand it. Primitive, sure, but think back to when you were a kid and there was that same magic of discovery. I’d do anything to capture that magic as an adult now, but oh well, I try. I must've been halfway done, occupied in my own little world before Stumpy came out of the forest and threw me off whack.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
"Drawin’ this place." I showed him the progress I made.
"That looks nothing like here."
"Well duh, it’s like it’s flat, y’know."
"No, I don’t know.” He squinted. “You're not up to something again, are you?"
"Of course not." I didn’t want to outright shoo him away, but I didn’t want him following me around either. Not sure what to do, I just walked for a while. I guess he must’ve gotten bored since he disappeared into the trees, so I was left to my own devices again, sketching the day away. Sometimes, I’d stop and draw a rock or a little patch of grass, wanting to see how it would look on paper.
Once the sky turned a dusky red and I had filled up a few pages, I was satisfied with my findings and got back to base to quell the beast in my stomach.
I don't need to mention what I ate. Hell, I think at that point, I ate so much fish I was ready to grow gills soon. Afterwards, Trunks and Stumpy crowded around me to look at my findings, and I figured it would shut Stumpy up if I went through it with him, so I shared my process.
"Still doesn't look like an island to me," he said. I just blew a Razzberry at him.
"Well," Trunks said, tracing his paw over the paper. "It's impressive you managed to do this. I actually saw maps back at the..." He trailed off, looking at Stumpy. I guess he remembered he wasn't supposed to tell anyone else. "You know what."
"What do you mean by that?" Stumpy asked, never afraid to ask the bleeding obvious.
"Never mind. Still, keep going at it."
He handed back the pad with a smile.
"What else have you drawn?"
My maw hung open as I stared back at the pad. I had built up quite the gallery since then, but I didn't think to show it to anyone else. It was my secret. Well, not so secret considering I had nowhere else to hide it, but my family hadn't really asked what I did inside it. Trunks was different though, as he generally took more notice of me since that incident. I flicked through the pages and showed him each drawing I made. I don't remember a whole lot of it aside from what I sketched of the sorts of rocks and trees I passed by. None of it was particularly good, even for a Pokemon, and it probably would've had more worth being used as toilet paper, but they were my own trashy drawings to claim and no one else’s. I created them, so that’s what gave them their power.
Seeing this, Trunks patted me on the back and told me they were all good. Now, lil' me couldn't really tell the difference between a master's painting and a messy clash of colours, but I knew from his aura he was being genuine. Then, what he suggested next took me off guard.
"Do you think you could draw me?"
And so the stage was set. Me and Trunks went to our usual hangout spot by the lake, and he sat down in a cross-legged pose by the bank while I sat away from him, crayon in paw. His ability to sit still for hours on end made him the perfect subject. I looked at him and paused. There was going to be a little bit of trouble getting him on a flat surface. Maps were easier to draw as it was abstract, but since I had to draw a living, breathing thing, I had the same problem as I did before translating it onto paper.
Out of impulse, I held the crayon in front of him, measuring him with the wax stick, and marked two spots on the paper where I started with the ears and end with his bottom. I squinted my eyes, trying to make sense of his form, and drew three circles on the paper: one for the head, one for the body, and one for the bottom. Then I drew a few lines connecting each of them together. When I put it like that, it sounded like I knew what I was doing, but trust me, I didn’t.
You know when you start out, you draw what you think you see instead of what you actually see? It’s kind of like that. I don’t remember who said that, but anyway, the limbs looked broken, and Trunks ended up looked like he was missing a few chromosomes. I compared my drawing to the actual thing in front of me and frowned.
“Are you done?” he said. I nodded, and he came over to peek at my disasterpiece.
“That doesn’t look half bad.”
“Really?” I said, pointing to all my mistakes. “I made you look kinda goofy.”
“Well, er...” He nervously smiled. I could tell he wanted to avoid criticising my work.
“I know it looks pretty bad, bro, you don’t hafta lie to me.”
He gave a relieved sigh and patted me on the back.
“Okay, you’re right, it could use some work, but it’s better than anything I could’ve done. I could barely draw a stick figure.”
I cocked my head, trying to figure out what he was talking about, but shrugged it off.
“If you keep at it,” he said, “I’m sure you can make something good.”
“You think so?”
“It all comes with practice. Think of it like training your aura, when you eventually get to that stage.” Trunks stood in that familiar battle stance. “You exercise your body like you’d exercise your mind when drawing, and when it comes to using it, you channel the world’s energy inside you like the references you’ve collected, like so.” He clapped his paws together and closed his eyes, casting a blue glow around him. “Then, once you feel like you’ve gathered enough energy, or enough of an understanding of what you’re looking at...”
At last, he presented an aura sphere and shot it at the tree, creating a blast that sent the leaves flying like knives in the air.
“Of course, mine was only the size of a pebble when I started out, just like yours, so like I said, it all comes with practice. You understand?”
I set the pad to the side and nodded. Actually, a lot of it flew over my head, as I couldn’t understand what he was trying to relate to. The fundamentals of art are much different than shooting magic spheres out of your hands like some sort of wizard. But I felt the sentiment anyway. Then, something else came to mind.
“Hey, bro, Mom said I could talk to you a bit more about the humans. I know you told me it was hard out there, but...”
I didn’t really know what else to say, though Trunks got the gist of it and his expression softened.
“Yes, ask me anything.”
“So...” I grabbed the pad again and turned it over in my paws. “Humans made this as well, right? Why? I like doin’ it, but… do lots of humans draw? Is that why they make them? They don’t need it to survive, do they?”
“Well, we don’t need a tire swing to survive either.” He pointed at the rubber donut that swayed back and forth in the wind. “And yet it’s a part of our life here. We need play as much as any other human would. Same with that.” He meant the sketchpad. “Some humans like to draw and sketch out the ideas they have in their head. Some can even get so good, they can survive off of the art they make alone.”
That was entirely new to me. So, they hunted by drawing stuff? What sense did that make? It was all new to me, but maybe humans had more survival techniques than I thought. They didn’t need Pokemon to do the dirty work for them by hunting and gathering.
Wow, I sound like a caveman there.
“Could I do that too?” I asked.
That took him by surprise. In fact, he seemed saddened by it, from the way his aura projected itself, and his face said as much as he frowned.
“I’m… not sure.” He sat down and sighed, looking through my sketches again. “I don’t know if any Pokemon has done it before.”
That would’ve brought me down if he hadn’t recovered and passed the pad back to me.
“But,” he said, smiling again, “if there is a way, then I’d love to find out and teach you how. I’d teach you everything if it wasn’t--”
He cut himself off and looked to the side, aura intensifying. So, I had hit a sore spot, but didn’t know why or how. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but still, out of guilt, or at least some sort of sympathy, I hugged him, and he hugged me back. We didn’t talk any more after that, but we were at peace with one another.
–-
You could say Trunks inspired me since after that, I went on my own to draw again, just doing random scribbles that didn’t mean anything, but nonetheless felt important. When you have nothing else, you tend to use it as an escape, after all. My memories drifted off to the speech Trunks gave me, to the time Mom gave me that pad in the first place on the night I pilfered that wine off those humans. It had been a while since I saw one of them, so I got the idea to draw one completely by memory.
I remembered they had tiny heads, and clothes, and hair, and all sorts of stuff, but without a visual reference, in the end, they looked more like the aliens Mom talked about in her poem than anything resembling an actual human. I was completely on my own until Dad appeared from behind the trees, and when I saw that hardened, permanently-frowning face, I closed the pad.
“Hello, pup,” he said as he approached. “What are you up to this time?”
With anyone else, I probably would’ve shown them without hesitation as they would’ve been respectful about it. With Dad however, something was… different. I didn’t know how to put a paw on it at the time, but since that wine incident, things weren’t exactly the same.
“N-Nothin’.”
His face turned more sour. “You must never lie to a Lucario. I’ve let you be on your own with that sketchpad for a while. Now show me what you’ve been doing.”
He played that card whenever we hid something from him. I’d find out later that it’s a common saying in the mainland, and a rule even you humans should follow if you don’t want a spike shoved up your rear end. Nevertheless, I clutched the pad, not wanting him to look, but at that point, Dad growled with fury, grabbing me with those meaty paws of his while I struggled in his grasp.
“Let me go!”
“I’m having none of that, thank you.” At last, he snatched the pad off me and flicked through it, page by page. He said nothing, ignoring my attempts to snatch it back, then his eyes dilated at one of my drawings. He turned the pad over, presenting that botched drawing.
“Pup, what is this?”
“Um...” I stared at the page, figuring out what to say next. “It’s a human. It doesn’t look anythin’ like it though, I kinda messed up the body. I—“
RRR-IP! My heart stopped when Dad tore the page out the pad then crumpled it up in his paws, casually tossing it behind him.
“No more drawing from now on. I’m taking this thing away, understood?”
I didn’t understand. Even for him, that was out of the blue, but my heart drove me forward. At that moment, I pounced on him.
“Give it back!” I shouted.
“Don’t be so daft, girl! It’s for your own good!”
He pulled it even further away and I tried to climb up, hoping I would get to it that time. Nope. He picked me up, and out of nowhere, just tossed me to the ground, head first. Now that hurt. In a quick daze, I crawled away from him like the kicked Riolu I was. It was probably because of the shock of being thrown to the floor, but I bawled. He approached me with that murderous look in his eyes again. Clearly, I had already ticked him off and there was no way out, so I ran to the shore, wailing like there was no tomorrow.
So yeah, that went well. Wah-wah. Looking back on it, the whole thing was stupid from both sides. He never needed to go that far with confiscating my stuff, though I didn’t need to react the way I did either. There were worse things I could’ve cried over than a crumpled up drawing, like nearly losing a loved one to an infected leg, for instance. Again, I wasn’t a smart kid, and kids are generally stupid and emotional, but as a word of advice, if you ever plan on having them, that’s something you shouldn’t do to a kid, punish them when they haven’t done anything wrong because of your own personal issues, or chuck them around like a football.
Look at me, giving parental advice. Is this what I’ve come to these days?
But yeah, I ended up running to the shore, stewing in my own self-pity. Dad snatched away the one thing I took pride in doing, so I had nothing to express myself with, no map to find my way out of the island, nothing. I considered everything that happened up until that point, with the way Dad behaved around humans and how everyone else seemed to be against that.
Another island sat further away from the shore. Even through my misty eyes, I identified that island was the one I marked as the closest on the map, or maybe the second closest, but I didn’t care, so I stood up anyway. Being on that rock was suffocating. I wanted to escape.
With nowhere else to run to, it was sink or swim.
It probably wouldn't have been the last time I saw them. If I could’ve made it across there, I probably could've gotten back, after all. Still, I put a paw on my chest, feeling each beat and waiting for the right time to leave. Once it slowed down, with calmed nerves, I took the first dive.
Although I was only told to swim a certain distance, I knew I could’ve endured it for a long time without stopping. I mean, what could I say? I was a bored kid. If things were different and I didn't have this damn arm dragging me down, I'm sure I could swim even longer now.
I kept a steady pace, going slow enough to keep my breathing in check while fast enough to see some progress. Eventually, the far away islands came into view, and I even saw a few Pokemon travelling through the sea. I knew I wasn't completely isolated then as many other Pokemon were travelling the same way I was. I was getting closer and closer to the other island in front of me, I felt it.
Something nipped my paws. I didn't stop to check out what it was as it felt like a little nibble at first, then it almost pulled me underwater. I stopped, kicking whatever clutched onto my leg off my feet and continued my venture forward. Then it dragged me into the sea.
Around my feet, through the eye-burning salt water, a school of Magikarp swarmed around my legs, sucking my skin and swishing their tails in the water to pull me further downward. I couldn't even hold my breath; it took me that much by surprise. I needed to get back to the surface. I punched at them in an attempt to ward them away, and it succeeded as I socked one Magikarp in the face and a few dispersed, although some still stuck onto my legs. That gave me leeway enough to rise above, and I gasped for air. I knew at that point I was screwed. In my panic, I screamed for help, splashing out to make a scene while I could still swim. I didn't know how it would help as I couldn't see anyone or anything around me that could come to my rescue.
Then even more mouths pulled me downwards, and the only thing I could've done to save a bit of time was hold my breath. What dragged me down was less like a school and more like a university, if that's even an expression you humans use. I struggled to move as they dragged me deeper underwater. I couldn't hold my breath for much longer. I saw a huge shadow from far away, but couldn’t make out what it was. Slowly, I opened my mouth, and eventually my thoughts drifted away as I slept with the fishes.
You know, I managed to get my paws on a trivia book in GeL once I learned how to read. Apparently, it takes a minute and a half for a small Pokemon, particularly a Riolu like me to drown. Even if you survive by some miracle, you're lucky if brain damage doesn't set in around that time. When I look back at all the close calls I've had in my life, sometimes, I think about that random fact and that feeling still hasn't left me whenever I remember the time I almost drowned there. With no one around to help in the middle of nowhere, I was sure I was dead. Maybe I did die and I could've been a ghost this whole time. Plot twist.
Oh, that joke didn’t land? Alright then, I'll continue.
Next thing I knew, I wasn't entirely awake, but something clamped down at my chest and bitter water rose from my throat. It kept punching at that area, although I couldn't piece together why until I coughed up a stream of water. Suddenly, I could breathe again. The fresh air tasted much sweeter after almost losing it forever. It took a while for me to find my bearings as I caught my breath, but once I came to, I opened my eyes and saw two figures in front of me. It was an Azumarill, although I didn't know it yet, and a human. Another human! Before I could really get a glimpse of his features, the Azumarill came up to me first and held my paw.
"Are you alright?" he said.
I wasn't too sure about what just happened, although I could speak.
“Yeah, thanks.”
He just nodded and repeated what I said in the human tongue, which I didn’t understand at first. Okay, that was odd to say at the least. I let the situation play itself until I understood where I was, and in that time, the human talked back to him, although I could only piece together a few sounds, and the Azumarill nodded.
"He says you're breathing fine anyway. Do you need a paw?"
"Please," I said. He helped me up to my feet and I got a better understanding of my surroundings. We were on some sort of metal contraption, which I now know as a boat, sitting between two islands. The next thing I noticed was that my teeth were chattering. A gust of wind blew through me and I cuddled myself in an attempt to feel warm. In response, the Azumarill gathered a few towels for me to wrap myself in, which helped a little, although I was still dripping wet.
“Would you like some cocoa?” that blue rabbit asked.
"Cocoa?" I repeated, confused.
"Yeah, it's a hot drink. It'll help you keep warm. You'll see."
I nodded and the rabbit spoke to the human, who prepared something from some sort of flask.
"Are you lost?" he asked, wrapping a paw around me for comfort. I shook my head and pointed back to home.
"That's where I live, over there." Then it dawned on me. "Aw, crud. They're probably thinking I drowned or somethin’."
"Don’t fret, we'll get you back safely. I did wonder what a Riolu was doing in the middle of the ocean." He chuckled and relayed the information back to his trainer. That's when I prodded him in his side, getting his attention back.
"How are you doing all of this? Mama said it's usually the trainers that order their Pokemon to do stuff, not the other way around."
He just smiled and flicked one of his ears back.
"I've been speaking human for years."
"Can you really do that though? I know Papa could speak a few words, but I didn't know you could speak that well through it."
"Why of course. It's a skill you can learn like any other."
"Then how come I can't understand half of what he says?"
"It's a little complicated, but it takes some getting used to if you haven't lived around them."
I just mumbled in reply. He looked to the far-away island.
"It looks like a nice place."
"Well, kinda. It's pretty boring, to be honest. That's kinda why I swam away, ya know, to see if I could get to the mainland. Plus Papa was kind of a jerk."
"How so?"
"Well, he crumpled up my drawing just because it had a human on it."
"You draw?"
"Yeah. I suck at it though."
"Well, no one starts off like a Smeargle."
I didn't know what that meant, although I gathered it was a compliment, so I nodded. It wasn't long after that the human knelt in front of me and offered me a cup of that cocoa. It was weird for me to look at as it wasn't like anything I had seen before: brown with a bit of white at the top, but I guessed it was safe to drink. It was warm like sunshine in a bottle.
The human made a blowing sound, gesturing towards the mug, which told me the thing was hot. We’d used to blow on those kebabs whenever they got too hot as well, so I understood his expressions. Knowing dumb lil' me, I probably would've chugged it if he hadn't told me that way, so I carefully held it to my lips, trying not to drop it as I took a sip. It was unlike anything I tasted before: smooth and sweet. Warmth coursed through my body as that cocoa flowed through me.
"Thanks a bunch," I said.
"You like it?" The Azumarill said.
"Do I ever!"
From there, he asked me a bit more about my predicament and I talked about wanting to escape the island and find out what the humans were up to, in between sips of that cocoa, of course. Again, Azumarill went back and forth with his trainer, so most of it was lost on me. It seemed friendly though, not like the sort of way Dad made them out to be. After a moment, he turned to me and smiled.
“Do you know what a school is, miss Riolu?”
I rubbed my chin. “Sorta? Mama said somethin’ about it once in one of her stories, like a school of fish, or Magikarp.” That last word sent a chill down my spine, considering I had nearly shuffled off the mortal coil thanks to them.
“That’s right. It’s where people teach each other things, like how to read or draw. It’s what most humans like my trainer here experienced when they were young like you. And we want to do the same for Pokemon. Pokemon like you.”
Here it comes. The Azumarill outstretched his paw and held mine in his.
"Miss Riolu, would you like to learn these things as well?”
I was, well, let’s just say flabbergasted. “Wha?”
“We want to teach you Pokemon how the world works.” He looked to the sea where a bunch of Finneon fluttered from the surface of the water. “Most wild Pokemon don’t get the chance to, but we see your potential. You seem smart, naturally curious and eager to learn.”
Was I? I didn’t want to give myself too much credit yet.
“You’ll get to see the rest of the world as well as stand alongside humans as equals. If you come with us, you’d get the chance of a lifetime.”
"I..."
I itched to say yes. It was my chance to venture the world like I had planned for months, to hang around the humans and see what my brother had seen, but then it struck me. If I took that offer right then and there, then what? It seemed too easy, as if the two had appeared out of thin air to take me out on a silver carriage, or boat as it were. Plus, there was still my family. My father could've gotten stuffed if he didn't agree with me, but what would the rest say? Would it mean not seeing them again? I pulled away from the Azumarill and gulped the last of the drink down, which had turned lukewarm. My heart kind of skipped a beat there, and then, I was a bit scared, clutching the cup for comfort.
I was away from everyone else with two strangers. They could’ve done anything to me. They could’ve whisked me away right then and there. And yet, Azumarill must've seen the hesitation in my face as he frowned.
“Sorry. I realise this is too much to ask at this moment. You have family on the island, don’t you?”
I slowly nodded.
“Well, I think it would be better if we returned you there for now. We can talk about it the next day, possibly with the rest of your family to see what they think. I’d rather everyone be happy here.”
That eased my nerves a bit. Gradually, I relented and looked back to my island again.
“I do wanna learn, like Bro said, but I hafta think about it.”
“Fair enough.”
He gestured to the human who took control of the wheel and the engine whirred, making me drop my empty cup.
"No need to fret," Azumarill said, "that's just what powers this boat you're standing on."
I nodded, feeling myself flush red.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "How rude of me! Ahem." He stood in the middle, ears proudly sticking up in the air. "I'm an Azumarill, but you may call me Azzy, and here's my partner, Mack!"
Mack, the human, just waved his hand as he steered the boat. Again, names were an odd thing for us Pokemon, and hearing the Azumarill repeat his own name got me thinking about what I would call myself. Nothing came to mind. I couldn't think of anything that would fit me as I was just Riolu. That was what I always was.
I've actually been intending to drop a read/review on this for a long time, and man, am I glad I finally got off my butt and did it. First chapter only for now because wow they're quite large + filling. I don't really have much to say for first chapter and this is older work, so I think my feedback in general is gonna be a bit more sparse, but I really enjoyed what I've read so far.
Some quick dumb things:
Surely, one person must’ve seen his condition and stopped to help, but nobody did. They blitzed through the road, which even he couldn’t catch up with in his faltering condition.
Overall your prose is rock solid. There are a few quick instances where things don't fully make sense, like here -- for me it's the focal switch between the cars/vans/trucks back to humans, back to ambiguous "they" (which I think is meant to refer to cars/vans/trucks, since it's a bit hard for people to blitz). An the second sentence struggles a bit with focus too, since the "which even he couldn't catch up with" phrase is actually modifying "road", when presumably it's meant to attach to the "they" above.
"Maw" I think is technically correct (although usually I think it refers to the rear teeth/throat area, so less of what Shine might be using to carry things), but the connotation of it here is really harsh for a quiet day of reading things in the park. I'd use something calmer like mouth/teeth.
It was pointless to explain to someone of Bauble’s fleeting interest all the intricacies of the judicial system, and how there was essentially none for Pokemon, allowing the police or trainers to take matters into their own hands, for better or for worse.
I feel like the topic of justice for Pokemon is going to get pretty big later in the fic (you drop great hints with GeL, all the sideye Shine gets, and how people talk about Curio), but here it does feel a bit unrelated just because Shine starts answering about freelance pay for humans (instead of journalistic libel/slander rules or something that would tie more to the justice system).
And some quick unrelated thoughts!
They attended to his needs, retrieving a fantasy book for him to sink his teeth into
Yeah this is gonna work out perfectly with no hitches, isn't it?
Overall what I like about this fic doesn't really quote easily -- you've got a great knack for good worldbuilding and character development. Shine's discouragement/borderline depresssion is presented in a believable way, Tony's supportive but not wrapping his entire character around Shine's existence is he gonna be mad that Shine stole all his money tho, Bauble's fun but not just a one-trick klepto ponybird. And your side characters have such fun concepts and personalities -- Petri's adorable and probably my favorite one-off(ish) character I've read in a while.
And your additions to the world so far seem really solid. GeL is an interesting concept and I'm curious (heh) to see where you'll end up taking semi-evil-ish-sounding science labs given how much more grounded this fic feels than other stories that usually focus on that. And little details like the newspapers and Dragonite flight farms are things that aren't explicitly in the Pokemon world, but the way you write them into the canon here makes them feel like they've always been there! I really love it. You have a great knack at keeping things sort of relaxing in tone while still sketching out a living, breathing world; even though this chapter was really long wordwise, it never felt like I was slogging to get through anything. I do feel like a lot happened in this chapter -- Shine almost died, flashforward to the future, slice of life, conflict hook with Curio, more slice of life, slice of life on the Dragonite farm, fly to the conflict hook -- but at the same time, I don't know where you'd divide it up more cleanly, so I think the longer chapters work in your favor here.
Really looking forward to catching up on this! I've heard so many good things and for me they were definitely all true; great work here!
Around my feet, through the eye-burning salt water, a school of Magikarp swarmed around my legs, sucking my skin and swishing their tails in the water to pull me further downward. I couldn't even hold my breath; it took me that much by surprise. I needed to get back to the surface. I punched at them in an attempt to ward them away, and it succeeded as I socked one Magikarp in the face and a few dispersed, although some still stuck onto my legs. That gave me leeway enough to rise above, and I gasped for air. I knew at that point I was screwed. In my panic, I screamed for help, splashing out to make a scene while I could still swim. I didn't know how it would help as I couldn't see anyone or anything around me that could come to my rescue.
“That’s right. It’s where people teach each other things, like how to read or draw. It’s what most humans like my trainer here experienced when they were young like you. And we want to do the same for Pokemon. Pokemon like you.”
Curio's dad beats his kids and I will cancel him. Anyway: not much to critique this time here, just engaged by the story. I will admit, though, that the end seemed kind of abrupt narration wise - the name thing is introduced just before, so it feels like a stray thought rather than something more profound. See ya next chapter~
I flicked through the pages and showed him each drawing I made. I don't remember a whole lot of it aside from what I sketched of the sorts of rocks and trees I passed by. None of it was particularly good, even for a Pokemon, and it probably would've had more worth being used as toilet paper, but they were my own trashy drawings to claim and no one else’s.
Oh now there's a thought. Imagine if it were true.
I’d find out later that it’s a common saying in the mainland, and a rule even you humans should follow if you don’t want a spike shoved up your rear end.
He pulled it even further away and I tried to climb up, hoping I would get to it that time. Nope. He picked me up, and out of nowhere, just tossed me to the ground, head first.
For real, he is such an ass that I half expect him to evolve into a mudsdale at any moment.
I thought it was pretty realistic, the way Curio was hesitant to just go off on that boat and never look back. Uprooting is a big deal; I think under most circumstances, a lot of people wouldn't be too quick to accept it without sorting things out with the people in their current life and/or themselves.
real talk, i'm a bit behind here, but i'm gonna review where i'm at for now. sorry i've sort of fallen off the wagon!
i'm a sucker for opening hooks like the storybook one you've done here, and this one is particularly engaging. it would be cool enough as a reading of the story, but when you sprinkle in curio's take on it, it's even more fun... you're great at injecting personality through these little dialogue snippets, and it almost feels like we're opening the chapter on Bonus Clip or a podcast or something. it's almost video game-ish, in a way? whatever the case, lots of fun, i don't see it too often in pokémon fics so i'm glad to see it here.
seeing shine get beat down was weirdly satisfying... i love shine, and his conflicts are real and valid, but he lives in his head so much that seeing him get his ass beat by curio was sort of nice in a way. it has a grounding effect, maybe? the action sequences in this fic have been few and far between so far, but they're really great when you write them, so it was nice to be sort of thrown into the thick of it again. however, hearing shine finally get his feelings out rather than just keeping them bottled up, after all this time, was much more satisfying. we've spent a lot of time seeing shine's head abuzz, and yet he still can't bring himself to just say how he's feeling goddamn it, so the payoff there was big. i wasn't sure what to make of curio at first, but she's proven herself an interesting character, and i'm excited to see where she goes from here, and how she interacts with tony after all the shit she's talked about him.
Shine rose at that, flashing back to a certain tidbit he read on the news. "Yes, right, Galar's doing an apprenticeship programme for Pokemon, aren't they? And their government's funding that!"
"Yup." Curio crossed her arms. "And we can't do jack about it cuz' we're not allowed there."
hey, not so! curio is totally allowed in galar. shine, on the other hand... well, maybe he wouldn't want to go anyway, right. curio can have a little vacation, as a treat.
chapter six is short but sweet, and it does a good job kind of tying up the arc and setting us up for the next one. seeing arcs explicitly delineated in written fiction is a new one for me, but i guess it makes sense in serial fiction like this, huh? i'm not fully sure what to expect, but you've set up a few things for us at least: teaching humanspeak at the dragonite farm, figuring out some GeL shit with curio and tony, etc etc. pretty exciting on its own, although something tells me you won't stop there...
ok, that's enough ruminating about the stuff i've already read. let's move onto chapter seven!
“Might as well be going to a goo spa,” Curio said.
“Heh, I know,” Adele said. “I mean, Goodra are well known for being friendly, and people are lookin’ at new ways to bring them out of combat, so, yeah. Whatever works for me.”
haha, aw, this is a really cute detail. "bringing them out of combat" isn't really something i've thought about before, as in, like, how a pokémon would fair in battle relative to its general disposition as a species... goodra is a powerful pokémon, so it makes sense that people would want to use them in battle, but you're right, they are known to be friendly, huh? this is a cool little piece of worldbuilding that really checks out with what we know in canon. your writing tends to have a lot of these, and it's part of what makes it stand out to me.
"when it becomes sunset" is kind of clunky wording. maybe "Just feel free to report to the house beside the barn at sunset" or "once it's sunset" would work a bit better?
“Well, nothing advanced like that, I just play it by ear. All he does is read aloud from a book aimed at human children learning to talk and tells me to go through each exercise. It gets the job done, I guess, although it kind of makes me feel like a hatchling again.”
"Ah, I see what the issue is now. You have a bad teacher."
"I do?"
"He doesn't explain the basics and expects you to skip to sentences already. It's not just bad, it's inefficient. Me and Curio learned a lot more in the time he taught you the simple stuff. Does he even know how our own language system works?"
"I dunno. He just told me it didn't need explaining."
man, this is so real. if you'll humor an anecdote, i co-taught a computer science class in my last year of high school with the official teacher of it... but, halfway through the year, a THIRD teacher entered the mix. he was this guy with his doctorate in computer science, so like... this really highly-experienced guy with a ton of content knowledge. he was going back to college to become a high school teacher, and wouldn't you know it, the class they slotted him to student teach in order to acquire his new degree was the ONE class in the school that already had two cooks in the kitchen. it was a bit hectic, but one thing i noticed about this guy was that like... he knew SO much about the topic that he actually had an immensely difficult time teaching its most fundamental aspects, maybe because they were so obvious to him. it seemed that he couldn't put into words these concepts that were second nature to him, and he got frustrated really easily with kids who weren't quite grasping it because to him it's so apparent he couldn't really wrap his mind around why someone wouldn't get it... anyway, a lot of words here to say that i found myself really nodding along with this section, and it's not something i've seen come up in fiction before. teaching is an art and one that's dear to my heart, so i'm excited to see where this next arc goes!
this is a funny line, but also reads sort of strange at the same time. maybe italicizing "splat" and punctuating it with an exclamation mark would make it more clear that it's an onomatopoeia?
it was sort of hard for me to interpret this. the meaning came through after a few read-overs, but i think maybe the prepositions were making it unclear. perhaps something like "He laughed. Since he probably needed a bath to clean the gunk off, he figured he might as well join in the fun anyway" or something like that?
i'm kind of surprised they understand this! i guess maybe the fact that curio's language is kind of obtuse to a non-native speaker might make her students more resilient... or maybe it just makes them speak with the same slang as she does, hahaha. guess we'll find out.
Shine couldn’t take his eye off it until they were out of his sight, knowing full well what purpose it had, but Curio didn’t bat an eye. They were livestock Pokemon specifically bred for eating, fattened up in both body and mind until they were essentially walking entrees. Though he knew it wasn’t something to be changed, just the thought of what went on in those factories sickened him. Not sick enough to forgo dinner completely, but still uncomfortable.
... oh! this is not what i thought was meant by "feeding time can get a little violent." i thought maybe the dragons sparred over scraps or something. jeez, that's pretty gruesome! but the Food Question is one that's pretty much inevitable in any pokémon fic, and this is a fair way to handle it.
arrrgh, sponge boy me bob! i've hired a rancher to play accordion at me restaurant, and she's sicced her dragons on me in retribution for my extortionate menu prices! argh argh argh argh argh argh!
this was a cute chapter. now that curio and shine are together, it seems the plot is really rolling, and this interlude chapter seems to do some setup for the incoming arc roughly how i expected it to. seems like we're going to get more of the language-teaching plot here, but some other plot threads are opened as well—what's accy's secret? what's going to come of shine's bad feelings about the dragons' feeding? curio's been a lot of fun, but she's also a bit of an ass and it seems like that's causing some tension between her and shine, so i'll be curious to see where that goes. overall, this is a quieter portion of the story, it seems, but you're doing some good buildup for the rest of the plot, and i'm excited to see where it goes. your worldbuilding is as fun as ever, and hopefully we'll get to see more of it between the cast at the ranch and what i assume to be the incoming revelations about the nature of GeL.
one thing i thought i'd point out is that this chapter reminded me a lot of the name of the wind! not sure why honestly, maybe it's the little world details, the banter between curio and shine, or the musical themes of the final scene. but i know you've said that that series is a major inspiration for you, so i thought i'd let you know that i really got similar vibes from it here.
anyway, that's it! i'm still a bit behind obviously, so i hope to catch up soon. keep up the good work!
Since I previously read and enjoyed Outside the Frame, I figured I should get to this eventually, and now seems like as good of a time as any!
Wow, now that a pretty good prelude. It has just enough intrigue to hook the reader in right away and leaves a mystery to solve throughout the course of the story.
1
Can I make a pun with depression and luxray? … nope, can’t think of any. Regardless, it definitely feels like poor Shine here is down in the dumps. Guess I can’t blame him there.
Anti-static gear?- nice worldbuilding. This is probably the most noticeable early example (other than establishing that some pokemon can learn to speak the human language) of many, but you do a good job of fleshing out little things here and there that make sense.
I think “Which will be a few months” would have read better, and been more clear. “Which won’t be a few months” could come across as saying “it will be two months or less.” Alternatively adding the word “for” so that it reads “which won’t be for a few months” might also make things more clear. I don’t know why this stood out in particular, but it really caught my eye.
The yelling. The fights. The eye. The arm. The mask. The taste of oxidation.
Feels like “he had ever seen in one area” would make more sense.
Okay, I know I had a lot of nitpicks on this chapter, but I still really liked it overall. It gave us a nice introduction to Shine and what a typical day would be like, but still manages to delve right into the plot. The only other thing I can critique is that I wish it was clear whether Tony was the person who rescued Shine, or if he adopted him afterwards, but I figure that will come up at some point.
2
Leafeon amused me.
I like that they have a special room in the cafe that’s more suited for pokemon, from the look of things. That was my understanding at least.
He slammed the Gardevoir, or in this case, Sirknight, over the opponent’s Bisharp.
Ohho! Clever. I’m loving the chess set here, especially pulling from other names so that they work.
3
Was it established that the Claws are all cats (or seem to be) before? If not, it paints the wariness of some of the townsfolk in a new light, with Shine also being feline. I’m not sure if that was intentional, but it’s still neat.
Catnip? Well, that’s one way to deal with things, though I wonder if they’re as dealt-with as it appears since there are still three more chapters to the arc, excluding the interlude.
And this seems like a good place to cut things off for now, since Curio has now made an appearance. Overall, I really liked it! It’s been a fun read, has a hook that gets me invested, and Shine has a distinct personality. I want to read more before I make any other judgements, so I’m just going to leave things at that. Until next time!
