Chapter 11
EXNativo
Write Hand Supremacist
- Location
- Australia
I've got something extra for you all today.
Stepping out of my comfort zone, I actually tried to exercise a skill I haven't used in... a very very long time. Today, I spent a few minutes drawing for you, Team Poképals.
Really, I just wanted to try my hand at a Riolu that looked pissed off.
Yeah, there's a reason I stick to writing...
-Chapter 11-
I ended up sleeping for almost two days.
Let me tell you, waking up after close to forty-eight hours of not doing anything but lie there? Not the most fun I've ever had. My muscles still ached, my stomach was in the process of eating itself, and long story short, never had my bladder been in direr straits.
The sun had been getting a little low in the sky by the time I opened my eyes, the lack of her presence telling me that Skitty must have been out on a job. With the other occupant away, the room was devoid of life except for me, something I pondered for a few seconds before a stabbing pain in my side dictated for me my next action.
People waved and smiled at me as I stumbled towards the toilets (how this world had heard of indoor plumbing was beyond me, but I was too happy with the revelation to bother questioning it in the first place), which only gave me something to contemplate as nature took its course with me. Judging from the snippets of conversation I could make out through the walls, word had somehow gotten out that I had gotten stomped into the ground by a Moltres, whatever that was.
Apparently my continued survival was impressive. Oh well, it was a better adjective than what I had heard be directed in my direction before now.
How big would a bar of soap have to be before it could effectively cleanse Loudred's mouth?
Clearly I only ever asked myself the most important of questions.
Relief was the only thing on my mind by the time I was stumbling out of the bathroom and down some of the Guild's few poorly lit corridors. There were no windows, and thus nothing to crack open in order to get rid of the smell, but the little luminescent mushroom things they had lining the walls were far cooler to look at than any clouds.
There were three regular apples and one big apple in the bag I had left in my shared room. The regular apples were demolished, seeds and all, in record timing. The big apple would go on to accompany me as I wandered out into the main area of the Guild.
People spoke to me. That was something I hadn't been expecting. There were holes in the usual ranks, to be filled later by those who were currently out on jobs, for which I was intensely grateful. It seemed every present had something to discuss with me, and being the tired and hungry young man that I was, I kept myself quiet as they yammered on, silently marvelling at how there could be so much apple in the palm of my hand in that moment.
Chatot had stopped by briefly to congratulate me and had been off before I could swallow the piece of apple I'd been chewing and get a single word in. Loudred had left a few Pokemon at the gates as he pointed out the scar that ran down one side of my face, which according to him looked like a crescent. Corphish may have been drunk when he accosted me on the stairs and babbled about… something. The rest of the afternoon had gone towards people I didn't know and had no interest in meeting, but did so anyway for lack of anything else to do.
Bidoof at least managed to smile at me. How he did so with my intimidation factor being multiplied by an alleged scar was anyone's guess.
Maybe he was really some sort of psycho who relished other people's pain.
Hmm… nah.
The sun had sunk and the insides of the Guild were stained orange by the time I finally managed to disengage from my latest conversation, my head spinning with useless gossip and numerous requests for me to retell the story of my suffering. I'm not sure how many people ended up believing me, but with nothing left to do and nobody left to talk to, I decided to hunker down next to Croagunk, silently dropping a small pile of pilfered blue berries on his counter to share as I waited out the rest of the day.
"It's because you look a lot happier, meh heh heh," he'd told me after I'd expressed my confusion, the berries and other Pokémon that had been occupying the room long gone. It had become impossible to see the opposite end of the room by then, and Skitty still hadn't returned from wherever it was she had disappeared off to, "something good happen between you and that little partner of yours?"
I'd tossed a random pebble from the ground beside me into his cauldron, which earned me the most indignant noise I'd ever heard the amphibian make. He'd then proceeded to flip me off as I bade him goodnight, muttering about trades and 'blue furry assholes' all the while as I stumbled my way down the corridor and entered the room I shared with Skitty.
Checking to make sure there was still a decent pile of blue berries in my bag, because those things worked spectacularly as a painkiller despite showing up every time I turned a corner in every single dungeon I entered, I fell backwards into my straw, turning to the window with the intent of waiting the moon out until Skitty returned.
It couldn't have been five minutes later that I was asleep. A real sleep this time, not whatever healing coma I'd been left in before.
"THREE, SMILES GO FOR MILES!"
My unenthusiastic voice was entirely drowned out by the raucous cheers around me, my eyes too busy searching the crowd to actually notice the finger I had been twirling in a way that could only have been labelled sarcastic. The spot next to me was empty; Skitty hadn't been in bed when I had been woken up that morning, and Loudred had claimed ignorance of her location after I had asked him.
Given how early he was up and about, that had burned away my best chance of gathering info pretty quickly.
Everyone had started moving away, no doubt to follow along with whatever orders they had been given while I was distracted. I remained where I was, keeping one eye on the ladder in the case of my exploration partner returning as Chatot hopped towards me.
"Skitty has not yet returned?"
I shook my head. The words had been somewhat… clipped. Perhaps he was in a hurry.
"Please go and locate her. She hasn't taken any jobs within the last two days, so I would suspect she is nearby."
I opened my mouth to respond, but Chatot was already making his way back to where he usually spent his days, huddled close to the wall as he worked through his paperwork that probably should have been done by Wigglytuff or answered the questioned asked of him.
The dismissal was loud and clear in my ears. Scaling the ladders back to surface level, I hooked my hands around the gate, pulling it up far enough to have sufficient room to roll under. It normally worked well to annoy anyone who had anything to do with maintaining the gate, but it was far quicker than waiting for it to open on its own and I… wasn't necessarily in a hurry, but I was getting a little anxious.
Skitty could take care of herself, and presumably, she had Krabby with her. Even so, the question of where she could have gotten to while I was unconscious hadn't yet been answered, not to mention the blow to her already insufficient self-confidence over the fact that I, her partner, had gotten the shit kicked out of me on two occasions while she had been elsewhere. Not the best track record for a rookie team, I assume.
Still, where would she have gone? Into town was one possibility, the beach was another. The prospect that she was lost in the surrounding wilderness also presented itself, which I went out of my way to ignore; I had more faith in her than that. The town offered more ground that I would have to cover, but it would also provide witnesses. The beach had less room to manoeuvre and no permanent residents, but it was also closer than town and now I was worried that Skitty had managed to go ahead and get herself caught in the waves. Could Skitty even swim? My only experiences with her in water was when one of us was in danger of drowning.
Shit.
Beach it would have to be. Then it would be town, and then… raise the alarm and send out the search parties, I guess.
With that plan of action, I set out.
The path down to the beach hadn't changed in any of the few occasions I had taken it, leaving me time that would usually go into observing my surroundings. That time immediately went into observing my surroundings, because like a hypocrite would, the first thing I noticed upon turning the final tree along the route was a series of wooden frames, laid out in an approximation of a cabin's foundations. A very small cabin's foundations, granted, but a cabin nonetheless.
And sleeping among the construction, curled up on an unstable looking wooden beam with her tail in her mouth, was Skitty.
Well, that didn't take very long.
Taking a moment to marvel at the structure and how secure it did not appear one bit, I set forth, trying to map out some sort of path that would lead me to the nest that Skitty had made for herself. It wasn't the easiest task I had ever given myself – the whole thing kind of looked like that painting that had stairs on the ceiling and doors that probably led into an alternate dimension; I think it may have been called
Relativity? Whatever, the point was that the building I was now scaling looked, sounded, and probably acted like an asshole.
The process of getting to the top of the winding framework was long and arduous. No shit, I think at one point I may have started walking upside down. A five minute walk along one never-ending wooden beam had led me back to the front of the Guild with the beach nowhere to be seen, and the look Krabby gave me after I passed him the fourth time could only be called pitying. Or maybe he was stuck in here too and it had been a desperate call for help; all I knew for certain was that I hadn't seen the sun in a while.
Eventually, I stumbled across Skitty.
I turned a corner, she stuck her foot out, and I tripped over it. Good news, though, my face broke my fall.
"Come on, up ya get." I mumbled into the wood before painstakingly peeling my head away, righting my nose with an obnoxious crack and spitting out a mixture of saliva, blood, and a tooth that I probably didn't really need in the first place anyway. It was just slowing me down,
yeah.
Skitty didn't stir.
I swiftly kicked her in the side before pretending that I had only just arrived.
Skitty stirred.
"Haa… Luke?" I think I saw one of Skitty's ears disappear into the abyss as she stretched, the empty space reoccupying itself as Skitty's back popped and tail swished. I didn't move as a line of saliva whipped across the ground beside me, to move in here was apparently to lose.
"What time is it? Did I miss the morning cheer?"
Something behind the wood to my left groaned. I did my best to ignore it.
"Luckily enough for you, yes you did." I took a single step back the way I had come; big mistake. Staring down into the hole that had been opened in the wood before my foot could actually touch it, I shivered as the hundreds of rocky spires along the bottom of the vertigo-inducing drop all seemed to shine in unison, looking far too thirsty for blood to possibly be any form of natural occurrence. "So what's… uh…" gesturing into the hole, I glanced back at Skitty, who was busy looking all around herself and frowning. Great. "What's all this about?"
Something behind the wood to my right cackled. I did my best to ignore it.
"Huh? Oh… well, you said you wanted to recruit more Pokémon to the team, so I decided to get started on building some new homes for whoever we come across." I think Skitty may have been pretending to not have heard the scream that echoed from down one of the perpetual corridors. She started walking, her head down and eyes on the ground, a series of actions that I mirrored perfectly. I mean, who knew what the next patch of existence that would try to end mine would be?
"I mean, it's not much, but…" I may not have been able to see her face, but I could tell that the conversation we were about to have was in the entirely wrong place at the entirely wrong time. "Can I ask you something, Luke?"
When has that question ever been asked by someone not related to you and not been life-altering in some way, I mean really? The last time I had been part of a conversation that had opened up with that line, I had woken up half a day later, face down in a ditch and with my favourite dictionary missing. True, it was also my only dictionary, but I used to read that thing every night before I went to sleep. It was calming, something you typically didn't come across in those conditions.
The point is that nothing good ever came from hearing that line.
"Go for it." It was probably through the virtue of the dead tone my voice would generally take regardless that I managed to choke the trepidation out of auditory range. It certainly wasn't helping that none of the wood around me seemed very familiar, nor that this was the third time that Skitty had walked into something that should have been easy enough to avoid. I don't know where the source of light was, but it was bright enough in here to see where you had to go if you didn't want to break your own nose.
Skitty had pulled ahead of me, somehow making it twenty steps down an adjacent corridor even though I had only been two behind her when we turned the corner. I had to jog to catch up, and it was only when I was directly behind her again that she chose to continue the conversation.
"…Why did you agree to make a team with me? Pokémon that want to take over the world don't become explorers, they hide out in dungeons and make life worse for everyone else. So… why become an explorer?"
I almost tripped over a dent in the floor. The hand I used to steady myself against the wall sunk a few inches in before I managed to yank it back. Hopping to the side to avoid the log that came swinging at me from above, I turned on my heel and shuffled back three steps, not feeling my back impact the wall as I fell through it and landed directly at Skitty's feet.
All the while, I was thinking.
Why had I decided to become an explorer in the first place? It felt like the initial decision had been so long ago, the alternatives spurned by confusion and what was likely some amount of fear. I mean, I had literally fallen into another world; I still had no idea to return to where I came from. I didn't want to go back, not by any means, but the finality was absolutely terrifying.
There were those few things that I would miss, either people or items. I would treasure the few months I got to talk to that one veteran who had decided to pass through the park I had chosen that night to sleep in. I had actually been reading my dictionary by the light of the street lamp beyond the fence when he had sat down next to me, and we'd talked. We'd laughed, at the world and at the prospect of one day running it.
He was an adventurer, I could recall him telling me in his somewhat broken English.
An explorer.
Looking up at Skitty, it was easy to see she wasn't some elderly man who had crooked teeth when there just wasn't a complete gap. Obviously, she was some form of cat, but she… she was good memories. She carried the same spirit as the weathered man whose name I had never been told.
"I guess… because you asked me to." Rolling to my feet, I stumbled slightly as the wood around me shifted, until I was looking out upon an endless stretch of blue. I have no idea how or why we were so high right now; I think I would have been able to touch the clouds through the window the building we were in had just decided to make if I tried really hard, but I didn't feel like trying in that moment. I don't think either of us had ever been that high up, so instead we side by side stood in silence, looking out across the waves far below us.
Somewhere far to the side, a bird trilled. For once, I could approve of the distraction granted by this bizarre place.
"Skitty, back where I come from, there isn't really much of a chance of realising any dreams. You would have to fight if you wanted to get anywhere. Granted, it wasn't like that to that extent for most people, I was just one of the less fortunate ones, but now I have a chance. I've got a chance to look at the ocean and decide I want to own it; I've got the means of accomplishing that if I want to."
Skitty glanced up at me, something I noted from the corner of my eye. That was some impressive willpower she was putting on display; my eyes were glued to the water below and nothing I did could convince them to move.
"You didn't answer my question."
The wood on either side of us closed once more. A sigh escaped me as breathtaking blue was replaced with irritating brown, returning me to the second labyrinth I had been forced to traverse in all my time in this world.
"Yes I did. I decided to become an explorer because you asked me to become an explorer with you." It wasn't the full story, not even close, but it was still true. Skitty was entirely unconvinced, a single look at her expression told me that much, and together we set off once more, me falling back a few steps to allow Skitty to take the lead. "And I hope you're not having second thoughts, because I've already decided that you're going all the way to the top, even if I have to drag you."
Turns out letting Skitty lead the way was a mistake. She froze, and I continued walking until I slammed into her back, which would have sent both of us tumbling if I hadn't managed the get a grip around her waist and use her own weight to balance myself and, consequently, her out.
"…But why me?" I heard from the enclosure that was my arms, a voice too meek to belong to a species as proud as a feline, "How can you be so confident that I'll make it?"
I couldn't help it, I snickered. Inappropriate, rude, dissonant, I'm well aware. It was just so easy to overlook your own good qualities sometimes, I knew that well enough from experience.
It was a common question that everyone asked themselves, wasn't it? Did they have what it took to pursue their dreams? The talent or the passion or simply the motivation? I honestly didn't know if I did, but my little partner here was plenty passionate when it came to the idea of exploring. She was surrounded by people who would actively work with one another like a self-sustaining, mechanized motivation machine.
And how much talent did it seriously take to walk around places, really? The closest you would need was the ability to fight, and I'd watched Rock Types be Tackled through solid walls with nothing but a skull and two meters to build up momentum.
Some things were just inevitable. Like the drinking problem I would develop after eventually retiring and figuring out where this place kept all its liquor.
"Well, it was more of a first come first serve kinda deal. I mean, I'd probably be helping those two assholes who stole your stone back when we first met to be the best criminals in the world if they'd come across me first. I'm kind of easy like that." Skitty's tail came up to slap me over the head. The smile on her face didn't disappear from my view just because she tried burrowing her face into my arm, I knew that I'd managed to lighten her mood. "But seriously, I guess the reason I'm so confident can't exactly be put into words. Sometimes you just look at someone and you can tell they're going to go on and do great things, you know?"
"…Not really, no."
I chuckled and pushed her away from my chest, dancing around her in the narrow corridor to take up the leading position and continue the conversation over my shoulder.
"Yeah, me neither. Anyway, forget the analogy, because I happen to know a specific dojo that comes equipped with some freaky time-space fuckery. You know what that means? You'll eventually be the best there ever was, because if worse comes to worst and you're incapable of making any progress, then we can just keep crawling along until you get there!" My enthusiasm was pretty much an complete farce, in the event that did happen then it would suck the life and soul out of both of us, but the pout on Skitty's face made the thought process more than entertaining enough to be worthy of continuation. "Don't worry about that, though, you've got potential. Maybe. Hmm, maybe we should just wait until I usurp leadership of the planet, so I can send some people out and they can map the world out, thus fulfilling your dream by proxy?"
A fluffy tail flicked me on the back of the head. "Jerk."
The tunnel of wood curved around in what I could have sworn was a complete circle before I blinked, and we were back on the beach. If I had been paying more attention to the sky and not the building when I arrived, I probably would have been able to tell you for certain if the sun had moved at all since the last time I had seen it, but I can tell you that it was a close thing.
"Hey, Luke?" I tilted my head to the side, not taking my eyes off the contemporary abstract art of a building that we had just stumbled out of, lest it leap forth and swallow us whole once more. "Where is it that you come from? It sounds like you've… you haven't really had an easy life, have you?"
I barely stopped myself from heaving a sigh. Too soon, there were still limits to my comfort. Not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed in myself for how quickly I decided to dodge the inquiry.
"Well, I'm still alive, so it couldn't have been too difficult." That wouldn't be enough, no matter how much I wished that it would be, Skitty deserved at least a little more than that. "I promise, one day I'll tell you about where I come from. Given how freakishly trusting you are, I have no doubt you'll buy whatever I tell you, but it's a long story and I don't have all the pieces. 'Fact, I probably never will."
That was a fairly pretty way of saying 'I don't want to talk about it', if I do say so myself.
"Well, whatever." Yeah, I could only wish it would continue to be that easy. Spoiler, it wouldn't. "You've got a new home now, right? Your old one doesn't need to matter. Let's get back to the Guild, we can get some work done and then afterwards I'll-"
"Get some sleep." I cut in, crossing my arms. As soon as she was asleep I was taking a Force Palm to whatever was holding the thing behind me up, because if I did it while she was awake it might upset her.
"But I'm building-"
"I'm not gonna become Overlord overnight, Skitty, don't worry too much about it." Please, don't worry about it. Nobody would ever join my enterprise if that was what they had to come home to every evening. I'd have protests within a week. "We'll grab a job, then you'll take a load off and I'll go ask around town about construction. How much sleep did you get last night?"
Skitty yawned, her jaw opening far enough for the crack of bone to be audible. I'm pretty sure I heard her mumble something about a few minutes as she was closing her mouth.
"That's what I thought, come on."
"So, a suspicious waterfall, huh? At least my interest in this one shouldn't… stagnate. Eh? Eh? Skitty, don't you walk away from me without some form of acknowledgement! Krabby, how dare you follow her?! ...Where did you even come from?"
Stepping out of my comfort zone, I actually tried to exercise a skill I haven't used in... a very very long time. Today, I spent a few minutes drawing for you, Team Poképals.
Really, I just wanted to try my hand at a Riolu that looked pissed off.
Yeah, there's a reason I stick to writing...
-Chapter 11-
I ended up sleeping for almost two days.
Let me tell you, waking up after close to forty-eight hours of not doing anything but lie there? Not the most fun I've ever had. My muscles still ached, my stomach was in the process of eating itself, and long story short, never had my bladder been in direr straits.
The sun had been getting a little low in the sky by the time I opened my eyes, the lack of her presence telling me that Skitty must have been out on a job. With the other occupant away, the room was devoid of life except for me, something I pondered for a few seconds before a stabbing pain in my side dictated for me my next action.
People waved and smiled at me as I stumbled towards the toilets (how this world had heard of indoor plumbing was beyond me, but I was too happy with the revelation to bother questioning it in the first place), which only gave me something to contemplate as nature took its course with me. Judging from the snippets of conversation I could make out through the walls, word had somehow gotten out that I had gotten stomped into the ground by a Moltres, whatever that was.
Apparently my continued survival was impressive. Oh well, it was a better adjective than what I had heard be directed in my direction before now.
How big would a bar of soap have to be before it could effectively cleanse Loudred's mouth?
Clearly I only ever asked myself the most important of questions.
Relief was the only thing on my mind by the time I was stumbling out of the bathroom and down some of the Guild's few poorly lit corridors. There were no windows, and thus nothing to crack open in order to get rid of the smell, but the little luminescent mushroom things they had lining the walls were far cooler to look at than any clouds.
There were three regular apples and one big apple in the bag I had left in my shared room. The regular apples were demolished, seeds and all, in record timing. The big apple would go on to accompany me as I wandered out into the main area of the Guild.
People spoke to me. That was something I hadn't been expecting. There were holes in the usual ranks, to be filled later by those who were currently out on jobs, for which I was intensely grateful. It seemed every present had something to discuss with me, and being the tired and hungry young man that I was, I kept myself quiet as they yammered on, silently marvelling at how there could be so much apple in the palm of my hand in that moment.
Chatot had stopped by briefly to congratulate me and had been off before I could swallow the piece of apple I'd been chewing and get a single word in. Loudred had left a few Pokemon at the gates as he pointed out the scar that ran down one side of my face, which according to him looked like a crescent. Corphish may have been drunk when he accosted me on the stairs and babbled about… something. The rest of the afternoon had gone towards people I didn't know and had no interest in meeting, but did so anyway for lack of anything else to do.
Bidoof at least managed to smile at me. How he did so with my intimidation factor being multiplied by an alleged scar was anyone's guess.
Maybe he was really some sort of psycho who relished other people's pain.
Hmm… nah.
The sun had sunk and the insides of the Guild were stained orange by the time I finally managed to disengage from my latest conversation, my head spinning with useless gossip and numerous requests for me to retell the story of my suffering. I'm not sure how many people ended up believing me, but with nothing left to do and nobody left to talk to, I decided to hunker down next to Croagunk, silently dropping a small pile of pilfered blue berries on his counter to share as I waited out the rest of the day.
"It's because you look a lot happier, meh heh heh," he'd told me after I'd expressed my confusion, the berries and other Pokémon that had been occupying the room long gone. It had become impossible to see the opposite end of the room by then, and Skitty still hadn't returned from wherever it was she had disappeared off to, "something good happen between you and that little partner of yours?"
I'd tossed a random pebble from the ground beside me into his cauldron, which earned me the most indignant noise I'd ever heard the amphibian make. He'd then proceeded to flip me off as I bade him goodnight, muttering about trades and 'blue furry assholes' all the while as I stumbled my way down the corridor and entered the room I shared with Skitty.
Checking to make sure there was still a decent pile of blue berries in my bag, because those things worked spectacularly as a painkiller despite showing up every time I turned a corner in every single dungeon I entered, I fell backwards into my straw, turning to the window with the intent of waiting the moon out until Skitty returned.
It couldn't have been five minutes later that I was asleep. A real sleep this time, not whatever healing coma I'd been left in before.
XxX
"THREE, SMILES GO FOR MILES!"
My unenthusiastic voice was entirely drowned out by the raucous cheers around me, my eyes too busy searching the crowd to actually notice the finger I had been twirling in a way that could only have been labelled sarcastic. The spot next to me was empty; Skitty hadn't been in bed when I had been woken up that morning, and Loudred had claimed ignorance of her location after I had asked him.
Given how early he was up and about, that had burned away my best chance of gathering info pretty quickly.
Everyone had started moving away, no doubt to follow along with whatever orders they had been given while I was distracted. I remained where I was, keeping one eye on the ladder in the case of my exploration partner returning as Chatot hopped towards me.
"Skitty has not yet returned?"
I shook my head. The words had been somewhat… clipped. Perhaps he was in a hurry.
"Please go and locate her. She hasn't taken any jobs within the last two days, so I would suspect she is nearby."
I opened my mouth to respond, but Chatot was already making his way back to where he usually spent his days, huddled close to the wall as he worked through his paperwork that probably should have been done by Wigglytuff or answered the questioned asked of him.
The dismissal was loud and clear in my ears. Scaling the ladders back to surface level, I hooked my hands around the gate, pulling it up far enough to have sufficient room to roll under. It normally worked well to annoy anyone who had anything to do with maintaining the gate, but it was far quicker than waiting for it to open on its own and I… wasn't necessarily in a hurry, but I was getting a little anxious.
Skitty could take care of herself, and presumably, she had Krabby with her. Even so, the question of where she could have gotten to while I was unconscious hadn't yet been answered, not to mention the blow to her already insufficient self-confidence over the fact that I, her partner, had gotten the shit kicked out of me on two occasions while she had been elsewhere. Not the best track record for a rookie team, I assume.
Still, where would she have gone? Into town was one possibility, the beach was another. The prospect that she was lost in the surrounding wilderness also presented itself, which I went out of my way to ignore; I had more faith in her than that. The town offered more ground that I would have to cover, but it would also provide witnesses. The beach had less room to manoeuvre and no permanent residents, but it was also closer than town and now I was worried that Skitty had managed to go ahead and get herself caught in the waves. Could Skitty even swim? My only experiences with her in water was when one of us was in danger of drowning.
Shit.
Beach it would have to be. Then it would be town, and then… raise the alarm and send out the search parties, I guess.
With that plan of action, I set out.
The path down to the beach hadn't changed in any of the few occasions I had taken it, leaving me time that would usually go into observing my surroundings. That time immediately went into observing my surroundings, because like a hypocrite would, the first thing I noticed upon turning the final tree along the route was a series of wooden frames, laid out in an approximation of a cabin's foundations. A very small cabin's foundations, granted, but a cabin nonetheless.
And sleeping among the construction, curled up on an unstable looking wooden beam with her tail in her mouth, was Skitty.
Well, that didn't take very long.
Taking a moment to marvel at the structure and how secure it did not appear one bit, I set forth, trying to map out some sort of path that would lead me to the nest that Skitty had made for herself. It wasn't the easiest task I had ever given myself – the whole thing kind of looked like that painting that had stairs on the ceiling and doors that probably led into an alternate dimension; I think it may have been called
Relativity? Whatever, the point was that the building I was now scaling looked, sounded, and probably acted like an asshole.
The process of getting to the top of the winding framework was long and arduous. No shit, I think at one point I may have started walking upside down. A five minute walk along one never-ending wooden beam had led me back to the front of the Guild with the beach nowhere to be seen, and the look Krabby gave me after I passed him the fourth time could only be called pitying. Or maybe he was stuck in here too and it had been a desperate call for help; all I knew for certain was that I hadn't seen the sun in a while.
Eventually, I stumbled across Skitty.
I turned a corner, she stuck her foot out, and I tripped over it. Good news, though, my face broke my fall.
"Come on, up ya get." I mumbled into the wood before painstakingly peeling my head away, righting my nose with an obnoxious crack and spitting out a mixture of saliva, blood, and a tooth that I probably didn't really need in the first place anyway. It was just slowing me down,
yeah.
Skitty didn't stir.
I swiftly kicked her in the side before pretending that I had only just arrived.
Skitty stirred.
"Haa… Luke?" I think I saw one of Skitty's ears disappear into the abyss as she stretched, the empty space reoccupying itself as Skitty's back popped and tail swished. I didn't move as a line of saliva whipped across the ground beside me, to move in here was apparently to lose.
"What time is it? Did I miss the morning cheer?"
Something behind the wood to my left groaned. I did my best to ignore it.
"Luckily enough for you, yes you did." I took a single step back the way I had come; big mistake. Staring down into the hole that had been opened in the wood before my foot could actually touch it, I shivered as the hundreds of rocky spires along the bottom of the vertigo-inducing drop all seemed to shine in unison, looking far too thirsty for blood to possibly be any form of natural occurrence. "So what's… uh…" gesturing into the hole, I glanced back at Skitty, who was busy looking all around herself and frowning. Great. "What's all this about?"
Something behind the wood to my right cackled. I did my best to ignore it.
"Huh? Oh… well, you said you wanted to recruit more Pokémon to the team, so I decided to get started on building some new homes for whoever we come across." I think Skitty may have been pretending to not have heard the scream that echoed from down one of the perpetual corridors. She started walking, her head down and eyes on the ground, a series of actions that I mirrored perfectly. I mean, who knew what the next patch of existence that would try to end mine would be?
"I mean, it's not much, but…" I may not have been able to see her face, but I could tell that the conversation we were about to have was in the entirely wrong place at the entirely wrong time. "Can I ask you something, Luke?"
When has that question ever been asked by someone not related to you and not been life-altering in some way, I mean really? The last time I had been part of a conversation that had opened up with that line, I had woken up half a day later, face down in a ditch and with my favourite dictionary missing. True, it was also my only dictionary, but I used to read that thing every night before I went to sleep. It was calming, something you typically didn't come across in those conditions.
The point is that nothing good ever came from hearing that line.
"Go for it." It was probably through the virtue of the dead tone my voice would generally take regardless that I managed to choke the trepidation out of auditory range. It certainly wasn't helping that none of the wood around me seemed very familiar, nor that this was the third time that Skitty had walked into something that should have been easy enough to avoid. I don't know where the source of light was, but it was bright enough in here to see where you had to go if you didn't want to break your own nose.
Skitty had pulled ahead of me, somehow making it twenty steps down an adjacent corridor even though I had only been two behind her when we turned the corner. I had to jog to catch up, and it was only when I was directly behind her again that she chose to continue the conversation.
"…Why did you agree to make a team with me? Pokémon that want to take over the world don't become explorers, they hide out in dungeons and make life worse for everyone else. So… why become an explorer?"
I almost tripped over a dent in the floor. The hand I used to steady myself against the wall sunk a few inches in before I managed to yank it back. Hopping to the side to avoid the log that came swinging at me from above, I turned on my heel and shuffled back three steps, not feeling my back impact the wall as I fell through it and landed directly at Skitty's feet.
All the while, I was thinking.
Why had I decided to become an explorer in the first place? It felt like the initial decision had been so long ago, the alternatives spurned by confusion and what was likely some amount of fear. I mean, I had literally fallen into another world; I still had no idea to return to where I came from. I didn't want to go back, not by any means, but the finality was absolutely terrifying.
There were those few things that I would miss, either people or items. I would treasure the few months I got to talk to that one veteran who had decided to pass through the park I had chosen that night to sleep in. I had actually been reading my dictionary by the light of the street lamp beyond the fence when he had sat down next to me, and we'd talked. We'd laughed, at the world and at the prospect of one day running it.
He was an adventurer, I could recall him telling me in his somewhat broken English.
An explorer.
Looking up at Skitty, it was easy to see she wasn't some elderly man who had crooked teeth when there just wasn't a complete gap. Obviously, she was some form of cat, but she… she was good memories. She carried the same spirit as the weathered man whose name I had never been told.
"I guess… because you asked me to." Rolling to my feet, I stumbled slightly as the wood around me shifted, until I was looking out upon an endless stretch of blue. I have no idea how or why we were so high right now; I think I would have been able to touch the clouds through the window the building we were in had just decided to make if I tried really hard, but I didn't feel like trying in that moment. I don't think either of us had ever been that high up, so instead we side by side stood in silence, looking out across the waves far below us.
Somewhere far to the side, a bird trilled. For once, I could approve of the distraction granted by this bizarre place.
"Skitty, back where I come from, there isn't really much of a chance of realising any dreams. You would have to fight if you wanted to get anywhere. Granted, it wasn't like that to that extent for most people, I was just one of the less fortunate ones, but now I have a chance. I've got a chance to look at the ocean and decide I want to own it; I've got the means of accomplishing that if I want to."
Skitty glanced up at me, something I noted from the corner of my eye. That was some impressive willpower she was putting on display; my eyes were glued to the water below and nothing I did could convince them to move.
"You didn't answer my question."
The wood on either side of us closed once more. A sigh escaped me as breathtaking blue was replaced with irritating brown, returning me to the second labyrinth I had been forced to traverse in all my time in this world.
"Yes I did. I decided to become an explorer because you asked me to become an explorer with you." It wasn't the full story, not even close, but it was still true. Skitty was entirely unconvinced, a single look at her expression told me that much, and together we set off once more, me falling back a few steps to allow Skitty to take the lead. "And I hope you're not having second thoughts, because I've already decided that you're going all the way to the top, even if I have to drag you."
Turns out letting Skitty lead the way was a mistake. She froze, and I continued walking until I slammed into her back, which would have sent both of us tumbling if I hadn't managed the get a grip around her waist and use her own weight to balance myself and, consequently, her out.
"…But why me?" I heard from the enclosure that was my arms, a voice too meek to belong to a species as proud as a feline, "How can you be so confident that I'll make it?"
I couldn't help it, I snickered. Inappropriate, rude, dissonant, I'm well aware. It was just so easy to overlook your own good qualities sometimes, I knew that well enough from experience.
It was a common question that everyone asked themselves, wasn't it? Did they have what it took to pursue their dreams? The talent or the passion or simply the motivation? I honestly didn't know if I did, but my little partner here was plenty passionate when it came to the idea of exploring. She was surrounded by people who would actively work with one another like a self-sustaining, mechanized motivation machine.
And how much talent did it seriously take to walk around places, really? The closest you would need was the ability to fight, and I'd watched Rock Types be Tackled through solid walls with nothing but a skull and two meters to build up momentum.
Some things were just inevitable. Like the drinking problem I would develop after eventually retiring and figuring out where this place kept all its liquor.
"Well, it was more of a first come first serve kinda deal. I mean, I'd probably be helping those two assholes who stole your stone back when we first met to be the best criminals in the world if they'd come across me first. I'm kind of easy like that." Skitty's tail came up to slap me over the head. The smile on her face didn't disappear from my view just because she tried burrowing her face into my arm, I knew that I'd managed to lighten her mood. "But seriously, I guess the reason I'm so confident can't exactly be put into words. Sometimes you just look at someone and you can tell they're going to go on and do great things, you know?"
"…Not really, no."
I chuckled and pushed her away from my chest, dancing around her in the narrow corridor to take up the leading position and continue the conversation over my shoulder.
"Yeah, me neither. Anyway, forget the analogy, because I happen to know a specific dojo that comes equipped with some freaky time-space fuckery. You know what that means? You'll eventually be the best there ever was, because if worse comes to worst and you're incapable of making any progress, then we can just keep crawling along until you get there!" My enthusiasm was pretty much an complete farce, in the event that did happen then it would suck the life and soul out of both of us, but the pout on Skitty's face made the thought process more than entertaining enough to be worthy of continuation. "Don't worry about that, though, you've got potential. Maybe. Hmm, maybe we should just wait until I usurp leadership of the planet, so I can send some people out and they can map the world out, thus fulfilling your dream by proxy?"
A fluffy tail flicked me on the back of the head. "Jerk."
The tunnel of wood curved around in what I could have sworn was a complete circle before I blinked, and we were back on the beach. If I had been paying more attention to the sky and not the building when I arrived, I probably would have been able to tell you for certain if the sun had moved at all since the last time I had seen it, but I can tell you that it was a close thing.
"Hey, Luke?" I tilted my head to the side, not taking my eyes off the contemporary abstract art of a building that we had just stumbled out of, lest it leap forth and swallow us whole once more. "Where is it that you come from? It sounds like you've… you haven't really had an easy life, have you?"
I barely stopped myself from heaving a sigh. Too soon, there were still limits to my comfort. Not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed in myself for how quickly I decided to dodge the inquiry.
"Well, I'm still alive, so it couldn't have been too difficult." That wouldn't be enough, no matter how much I wished that it would be, Skitty deserved at least a little more than that. "I promise, one day I'll tell you about where I come from. Given how freakishly trusting you are, I have no doubt you'll buy whatever I tell you, but it's a long story and I don't have all the pieces. 'Fact, I probably never will."
That was a fairly pretty way of saying 'I don't want to talk about it', if I do say so myself.
"Well, whatever." Yeah, I could only wish it would continue to be that easy. Spoiler, it wouldn't. "You've got a new home now, right? Your old one doesn't need to matter. Let's get back to the Guild, we can get some work done and then afterwards I'll-"
"Get some sleep." I cut in, crossing my arms. As soon as she was asleep I was taking a Force Palm to whatever was holding the thing behind me up, because if I did it while she was awake it might upset her.
"But I'm building-"
"I'm not gonna become Overlord overnight, Skitty, don't worry too much about it." Please, don't worry about it. Nobody would ever join my enterprise if that was what they had to come home to every evening. I'd have protests within a week. "We'll grab a job, then you'll take a load off and I'll go ask around town about construction. How much sleep did you get last night?"
Skitty yawned, her jaw opening far enough for the crack of bone to be audible. I'm pretty sure I heard her mumble something about a few minutes as she was closing her mouth.
"That's what I thought, come on."
XxX
"So, a suspicious waterfall, huh? At least my interest in this one shouldn't… stagnate. Eh? Eh? Skitty, don't you walk away from me without some form of acknowledgement! Krabby, how dare you follow her?! ...Where did you even come from?"
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