“Why is he coming with us?” I said, seething, to Sunny. She stretched and shrugged and looked some ten paces behind us where Joey stood with unfocused eyes and the perpetual frown on his face. We had decided to stay one more day in Crescent to avoid the worst of the traffic as the entire town seemed to be funnelling through Meloetta’s Bridge. Instead, Darren was trying to get his Wishiwashi to school, and the rest of us had joined a clean-up crew. Sunny and I stuck close together, making light conversation as we worked. Joey, for his part, had not gone further than twenty metres away from us all day. When he wasn’t sending suspicious glances our way himself, his Espurr would be staring unblinking.

  “He’s free to go where he wants,” said Sunny. “Besides, he’s a little gloomy, but other than that he’s been fine. At least since he joined.”

  “I don’t trust him,” I said.

  “You don’t like him,” Sunny corrected. “He’s fifteen, Calla. What’s he going to do? Besides, it looks like he’s travelling alone, and some company might be good for him. Dahlia would probably want us to take him with us.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “Who?”

  “Dahlia? The league officer who put you in contact with us?”

  “Oh, I remember. Fine, he can come along. But I’m not being nice to him.”

  “What happened between you two anyway?”

  “He didn’t like my drawing,” I left it at that, which didn’t satisfy Sunny, but she pushed no further.

  Crescent and its surroundings were a very different place without the crowd, or the ships blocking up the horizon. I would say it was beautiful it I wasn’t dragging a half full bag of rubbish half my size. It wasn’t how I initially planned to spend my day, but after seeing the locals start cleaning up after the abandoned campsites, we figured it would be rude to stand around doing nothing. We volunteered, and they were extremely grateful some trainers stayed behind taking care of the mess they made. They said it was such a good thing to see that there were still young people with manners around, then handed us a bunch of plastic bags and disposable gloves and pointed us to the area that needed taking care of.

  We had a bit of a friendly competition going, seeing who could gather the most rubbish. Sunny’s was winning by a fair margin, reason being, while all of our Pokémon were helping in some capacity, only Caviar was making a significant impact. Two or three times a minute, he would swoop down with another bottle, or plastic wrapper in his claws, giving me a scare as he did so. I would get used to it eventually.

  Joey, for all that he looked like he despised what he was doing, was actually helping more than both Sunny and I combined. More precisely, his Pokémon were. Aside from Espurr, he had his Hattrem out levitating every piece of rubbish straight into his bag as he ambled moodily around the field. Whether or not Espurr was also working was something I’d been unable to tell.

  When we finished for the day, an old couple helping to organize the volunteers wanted to thank us with something more than words. They invited us to dinner in their house and the temptation of hot food in a warm kitchen was much too powerful to resist. We told them about Darren, and they said of course it was fine to bring him along.

  We found him where we left him. He hadn’t moved from his position crouching by the shore.

  “Come on, Wish,” he was saying. “I know you can do it. You’ll get some more peas if you school.”

  “Is that his name, Wish?” I asked as we approached.

  “Seems fitting,” he said, stiffly standing. “I can only wish he would school. What if I am wrong after all, and he wasn’t the cause it. Maybe it’s just a coincidence the bridge is clear to cross today.”

  “Get that out of your head already,” said Sunny. “You’ll get him to school, you just need to get him to understand you.”

  “Easier said than done. Besides, if I’m right, schooling is in large part driven by fear. Getting him to school without scaring him could be a significant challenge, and I don’t want to scare him.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Joey. “You’re actually telling me that little thing was causing all that trouble. I thought you were joking before. Ow!”

  He bent over clutching his head.

  “Are you okay?” asked Sunny. “Espurr, try taking it easier if you want to communicate with him.”

  “It’s fine,” said Joey, waving her away. “Let’s just go eat.”

  Teal and Amethyst used to be Pokémon trainers themselves in their youths and the louring Charizard occupying most of the small dining room proved it. Slouching against the terrifying creature was a Cacturne looking far too chill for my own mental sanity.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Tell us of your travels,” said Amethyst, a lady with eyes the colour of her name and an imperious presence despite her diminutive size.

  “Well, we’ve only just set off,” said Sunny. “So I don’t know if we’ve much to tell yet.”

  Charizard snorted a plume of flame that tickled the ceiling. I jumped, almost knocking over my food. I assured everyone I was okay due to the looks I got. I hadn’t told our hosts of my fear and was determined to get through dinner without it affecting me.

  “Anything at all?” asked Teal, getting back on track. Tall, skinny, and bald, he reminded me of Grandad before he died. He had the same steel in his eyes too. Darren, Sunny and I exchanged uncomfortable glances. Joey didn’t even bother looking up from poking moodily at his food.

  “You know, Silín has always been a nation of storytellers,” continued Teal. “Way back before everyone started lodging in Pokémon Centres, people travelled the region trading stories for a place to stay. It was the trainers currency at the time.”

  “Not like we had anything else to pay with,” chuckled Amethyst. “Remember the one we had about the Greenforest, dear? We got good mileage out of that one.”

  “Of course. How did it go again?”

  “We had just started our journey. Coal was only a little Charmander and you were all excited because of the Cacnea your father had caught for you in the Stormwind Desert. We went into the Greenforest with little more than a handful of pluck and a sackful of naivete. How we survived the first part was a miracle. We got good at running, I’ll tell you that much. Along the path, halfway to the river, there is a small shrine. It was long forgotten, even then, who or what the shrine was for, but you’ll find it in a lush clearing which never changes. The grass grows high around it and the aura of peace there, especially after the ordeal of the deep forest, makes it a popular resting spot.

  “We arrived there, beat up and tired. Coal was cuddled up in Cacnea’s arms after having protected us all from a swarm of Ariados. We lay on the ground, and because we were young and inexperienced, we fell asleep out in the open. When we woke up, the plants looked different. Not only that, but the Pokémon were different. Voltorbs rolled past, and it was scary enough that there really shouldn’t be any in a forest, but also they looked more wooden than they’re usual pokeball finish. Having no other ideas we continued on, perturbed by the unfamiliar trees. We spent days in that forest. Longer. We lost track of time, barely surviving on luck and the goodwill of some Pokémon who were curious about two strangely dressed humans in their territory.

  “We were terrified of course. Especially when we became convinced that we should have left the forest by now, but there was no end to the trees in sight. We crossed several rivers (a series of tasks which require a whole story to themselves given there were no bridges whatsoever), the largest which must have been the Eskew, connecting Orangefall Lake with Lake Rin, but still the forest went on. Eventually, we reached the foot of the Earthfire Mountain, where Bagatelle is now. There, our luck ran out. We encountered a Pokémon, built like a golden Scyther with massive stone axes instead of blades. It chased us up the mountain. Coal, a Charmeleon by this point, shot Flamethrower after Flamethrower at it as we ran, but it batted them all away. Cacnea’s Bullet Seed did less.

  “As if the thing chasing us wasn’t bad enough, a roar sounded up ahead. Out of a cave in front of us, an enormous, mutant version of an Ursaring crawled out and bounded straight at us. We barely dodged out of the way. It ignored us, and in another enraged roar, it crashed into the Scyther-thing and the two began fighting, destroying the side of the mountain in their battle. In a panic, we ran into the cave the Usaring-thing had come from, and subsequently, got lost in the Bagatelle Caves.

  “With no way of telling if it was night or day and only the flame on Coal’s tail for light, it was impossible to know how long we spent in there. By the time we were so tired and hungry we were sure we were going to die there, we stumbled upon an altar. It was in a room lit with torches, which gave us hope as we entered, but quickly our attention was taken up by what stood on the altar. Rather, it floated above it – an earthy orange humanoid Pokémon sitting on a cloud. We were in such a state, that often times I’ve questioned if I hallucinated this whole part of the story because I swear he spoke to us. It looked at us and said four powerful words: YOU DO NOT BELONG. The earth shook and we fell. When we looked up, it had vanished. A moment later, as if a charm had been placed upon us, an intense drowsiness came over us and we lost consciousness.

  “We were woken by three monks who found us lying on the smooth stone of their underground temple. You cannot imagine the relief we felt when they led us down the path to Bagatelle city. The air itself was both nostalgic and welcoming. It took us a longtime to fully understand that we had traversed half the region in another era.”

  Amethyst finished her tale leaving me a little freaked out. I had prepared myself for a lot of things when I resolved to go on the journey, but i didn’t know if I’d be able to handle all they went through.

  “Is that all really true?” asked Sunny.

  “Not according to most of the people we told,” said Teal. “But it still paid for our travelling. And it’s not even the craziest story I’ve heard.”

  “Not even top five,” said Amethyst. “It’s an exciting world out there. For anyone brave enough to step off the beaten path, they are almost always immediately thrust into an adventure.”

  After we finished supper, the couple said they had a two spare rooms if we wanted to stay the night in a real bed. We wanted to head out early the next day, so we accepted and left to pack up the tents to be ready to go as soon as we finished breakfast.

  Sunny and I shared a room, while the two boys took the other. She released Hector and Coral and they cuddled up to her in bed.

  “Do you always sleep with your Pokémon?” I asked.

  “Usually,” she said. “Normally I have Caviar out too, but, well, you know.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “You?”

  “I mean, Comfey doesn’t really leave my neck most of the time. Sometimes I have Mareep out too, especially when it’s cold, but she enjoys staying in the pokeball too. She likes her alone time.”

  “I get that. You did really well today with that Charizard there. Even I was terrified.”

  I pulled up the sheets on my bed to conceal the surge of pride within me.

  “Thanks. Mostly, I just didn’t look in his direction. Goodnight?”

  “Goodnight Calla.”