Brave Warrior of the Sky
Jul 19, 2018 23:16:42 GMT
Post by Manchee on Jul 19, 2018 23:16:42 GMT
Author's Note: Well, I finally did something. It has been years since I posted any kind of Pokémon fic writing, and I am very excited to get back into it. This is my attempt at the Rock the Block challenge for July. It started as a totally different idea, but I'm much happier with what it ended up as after a change in perspective and concept. I'll stop rambling, and I hope you all enjoy this!
It happens late one afternoon during a downpour. Rain slaps at the treetops with a ferocity that scares you. The rumbling thunder is distant, but it reminds you enough of the things that come in the night, the things that you must hide from. Even from where you sit, huddled on one of the tallest tree branches, you must hide. You must listen. That’s what you’re told, or else they will take you away.
You’ve never seen them, but the stories are enough. Big, shadowy things that scream and fight and tear families apart. It happened the other day to that family not far from here. Thought they were in the clear, but they did not listen. They did not survive.
When it’s really bad – when you can hear them right underneath where you hide – it is paralyzing. Will this be the final moment of waiting, of listening? Maybe, so you must keep listening. You’ve made it this far, which means you’ve done something right. And then when they are gone, your parents are there to wrap themselves around you and hum the noises that make you forget about who you were just hiding from. It’s the song of your convocation, of the others like you who make you know that you are home.
Once you and the others are old enough, you’ll be able to leave and go to unfamiliar places. The sky’s the limit. Places that might have even scarier things that come through at night or maybe these places will be free of anything dangerous, and no one will have to worry. That’s what the group is always searching for, but no matter how safe they feel when they settle down and bring forward a new generation, the shadows always follow. What will they do if there is no one left to follow? What will your family do if there is no one left to hide from?
Questions you are told not to worry about. The answers will not change what is happening right now, and right now you must wait – and listen to the storm.
Even with your eyes shut, the lightning is so bright that it hurts. The rest of your body is in pain, too, from holding on to your spot in the tree, trying to stay as high up as possible. But the gusts are relentless and each one is another push against your already weak body. If your parents were here they would be supporting you, but they thought they would have enough time to hunt for food before nightfall. They did not expect a storm to hit so quickly. It’s been a long time now since they left, and you could really use their calming noises, because what was that? Was it thunder following the lightning strike that just flashed in the sky or was it something shadowy running below?
Slowly, heart beating out of your chest, you open one eye to see your surroundings as best as you can. But the wind doesn’t let up, and there is more lightning and maybe this storm is actually getting worse, because what you see is scarier than when you last opened your eyes, with everything swaying in all directions and shadows being cast in places that you are not familiar with, places that are obscured enough that you can’t tell if it’s a natural shadow or something waiting for you to move around so it can grab you, and you-
There’s a sudden crack of lighting so bright you’re sure it happened right in front of your face. The sound that follows deafens you momentarily and leaves a ringing in your ears. It makes you feel weightless, like your stomach is trying to come out of your mouth, but no, that’s not right, you realize, because the wind is now blowing directly down from the top of your head, which it’s not actually doing because wind doesn’t do that, not really, and you don’t have to open your eyes to know that you’re about to hit the ground. On instinct, you wave your limbs and try to catch yourself, but all that does is throw you sideways into the mud.
It’s too much to try to stand immediately, and fear has glued your eyes shut, so you listen, and you hope beyond anything else to not hear anything besides the rain hitting the wet grass around you and the wind overhead. The sounds are completely different down here, and none of them are distinguishable enough with the storm howling through the entire forest. And the pain- it took a moment for your body to catch up with the impact from the fall, but now you feel it right there next to the ringing in your ears. Surely something is broken. You can’t remember feeling anything like this before and you want to call out, but you know that something is bound to hear you and consequently come running.
Maybe if you can hold-
And then there is nothing.
The rain disappears, and with it so does every other noise around you. The weightless feeling is back, but you can’t be falling again because that already happened. Where would you fall to? But then, you notice, not only do you feel weightless, but you can’t feel your body at all. That’s enough of a shock to make you shake yourself around, and suddenly it’s all back – the storm, the pain, and when you open your eyes in shock, the shadows. Both familiar and unfamiliar, but you know that the one rising up in front of you, the one calling out and coming closer, is going to get you. Its presence is petrifying.
You shut your eyes, and a moment later everything is gone again. You return to the weightless silence and this time you remain there. Are you safe from the shadow? It can’t be decided for certain, but you wait until a vibrating noise echoes all around you.
That’s when the sounds begin to return, but softer. The downpour is reduced to a light tapping and the wind is nothing more than a puff of air, but you can’t feel either of them. A strange voice fills your ear and is an unwelcome replacement to the prior ringing.
It shouts, “YES! Did you see that, Sean?! I caught it!”
It is not until much later when you awaken again. The world returns in a blinding flash, but not as you remember. It is not a world of trees and sky and family, but one of cold metal and bright fluorescent lights. Two figures stare down at you with wild interest, and you think that this is the time that they get you, but… they aren’t the shadowy things you imagined in the stories. These two are shaped like the shadows, yes, but they are very much un-shadowy. Surprisingly, the one on the left looks like a misshapen version of your parents – a white face topped with spiky hair, with long, red limbs on the upper-half of its body and blue legs supporting it. The figure on the right looks very similar, but with unusual colors on its body.
“It’s so small,” the one on the right says. His mouth twists to the side as his eyes narrow. You feel that he is displeased by your size. The figure next to him doesn’t seem to hear the comment, or maybe doesn’t care, because the look on his face remains unchanged.
He says, “Hi, Bain!” enthusiastically while staring at you with his tiny eyes.
You will be called Bain more times than you can count and come to understand that it is now your name. You will learn that the boy still staring at you with a smile across his face – the boy who people will call your trainer – is named Zane, and that the boy aside him is his brother, Sean. Even though you will meet many more figures like these two, they are the ones you always find yourself bound to, even as you grow larger and have the strength to move more freely, you can never go far enough to get away. And those times when you think you’ve finally escaped, the red light fills your vision and you return to the silent place until the next time you hear, “Bain, let’s go!”
But for now, you hear Sean scoff and say, “Bain? Like in Batman?”
That makes Zane make a twisted face like his brother did a moment ago and say, “No, like Zane. But spelled with an I-N instead of an N-E.”
“Whatever,” Sean says. “Let’s battle and see what it can use.”
“You’re just jealous that I caught it and you didn’t,” Zane tells him. They glare at each other and then Zane says, “And the nurse said he can’t battle right away until his wing is healed.”
Sean rolls his eyes.
“He has to say that so he doesn’t get in trouble. I’ll use Torb so it’s fair.”
“No, Sean, I said I don’t want to,” Zane says. His attention is back on you, his eyes curiously examining every inch of your ruffled feathers.
“C’mon, I’ll even go easy. I just want to see what attacks-”
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because I don’t want to!”
Zane’s raised voice startles you and a yelp escapes through your beak. Sean scoffs and walks away.
“Whatever… rufflet are lame, anyway.”
Once he’s across the room, Zane quietly tells you that he doesn’t think your lame, he thinks you’re awesome, and Sean is just mad at him for throwing a poké ball at you after you broke out of the one that Sean threw first. Apparently, Sean only has a pansear named Torb that their dad bought him as a birthday present a few months ago and Bruno, a blitzle that he recently captured. All of it makes no sense to you, but you have to sit there and listen because there isn’t anything else for you to do.
When he tells you to “make yourself at home,” he walks over to his bed and starts going through his backpack. You aren’t sure what to do in this unfamiliar place, so you stay where you are and watch the two boys. They are not the shadows that you have always been afraid of, but you have a feeling that they are somehow worse. Your insides start to feel like they are sinking into the hard, cold tiles beneath your talons and suddenly the lights on the ceiling seem way too bright. With hesitation in your steps, you shakily make your way under the metal bed that Zane is sitting on. He doesn’t even notice when you slip into the shadows underneath him and close your eyes, wishing this was all some terrible dream.
Once your wing is healed, you are introduced to battling over and over again. No matter how many times you win or lose, Zane expects you to keep fighting other pokémon. Sometimes he uses Wilbur, his drilbur, to battle you and sometimes you battle against his brother’s pokémon. Not so often with Bruno the blitzle, but on some occasions Sean wants an easy win and talks Zane into making you get shocked until you pass out from the pain. For as much as it hurts you, it must make Sean and Bruno feel better about themselves.
The brothers travel to many places with you and their other pokémon. You relish the time spent in forests between the sprawling cement cities that look nothing like your home. For a while you are only able to hop from branch to branch and flutter across short distances here and there, but the more you practice the better your flying becomes. With this, however, comes more required battling. Even when Zane catches a basculin and deerling, you are expected to fight when called on.
If you ever refuse to fight, Sean instructs Bruno to electrify you. At first this seems like punishment for not sharing the same love of fighting that they do, but as Bruno’s electricity increases in power the more often he practices it, you start to realize that in order for you to be able to defend yourself, sometimes you must try to fight. With a bit of careful movement and some learned instruction from Zane, you manage an occasional win. Sean still finds some way to inflict pain on you when this happens, however it is not so much out of spire anymore. He does the same to his own pokémon, and while it hurts and scares you, there is no denying that over time the initial pain lessens as your body becomes stronger.
For a while you think this is a normal interaction between trainer and pokémon, but the further your travels with Zane and Sean take you, the more you see others step into the line of fire to protect their pokémon rather than inflict intentional damage onto them. It would be wonderful if Zane would take an electric attack when Bruno sends one your way, but you see Sean push and hit Zane enough to know that your trainer would never stand up for you in front of his brother.
You wonder if Sean’s method of fighting is worth it. The more that he pushes his pokémon, the quicker his pokémon become stronger. Even new ones that he catches surpass you in strength before long due to Zane’s more relaxed approach to battling. His basculin hardly gets the chance to fight, so it is constantly being battered around, and the timid deerling isn’t called upon often enough to practice either. Each time they are taken down by an opponent, you are filled with a desire to fight harder. It’s not for yourself, though, it’s for them. They may look different than you and come from other places, but just like you they were taken from their homes and probably their families. If you aren’t able to make it back to your convocation, the least you could do is try to help them escape at some point.
There’s a fine line, though, when it comes to Sean’s pokémon. They grow much faster and seem to relish in their newfound strength. Part of you hopes that they long to return to the wild, but even if they did, they would become part of t he shadows that hunt rather than protect. The same can be said for Sean, who becomes more confident in his abilities as a trainer and often forgets to look out for his own family traveling by his side. It makes his challenges against gyms more often successful, and it is in this success that he does not notice Zane’s failure. Or, he notices it, but he laughs at it and does not notice the impact it has on Zane as the brothers continue to the next city before Zane can earn the badge he is after.
This strain pushes Zane by the time you all make it to a city surrounded by moors. You and the other pokémon in his ownership fail to defeat just one of the gym leader’s pokémon, while Torb the simisear on Sean’s team nearly wins the challenge all on his own. Zane’s loss is pitiful, and he can’t hide his emotions as Sean is being congratulated after his win. You are held in his arms, shivering and weak from your fight, and you feel his body start to shake. Gross noises come out of his mouth and quickly fill the entire room. Many people turn and stare and it makes Sean quickly collect his things, grab Zane by the collar of his shirt, and dash outside.
In the mid-afternoon sun, a blanket of snow makes the entire city look like a white dreamland. Small flurries sprinkle from the sky and if you weren’t already freezing from the vanillish that took you out, you might enjoy flapping around in it. But Sean’s anger quickly takes over the scene and escalates to pushing very fast. Zane drops you into the snow and continues to sob while Sean yells at him. You aren’t sure if anyone stops to stare like they did inside because your vision starts to move back and forth on its own.
“What are you crying for?” Sean yells.
In between sobs, Zane tries to explain that all he wants to do is win a badge. For some reason this makes Sean angrier. Whatever he yells next sounds muffled and unfamiliar to you. In your dancing vision you see Sean push your trainer again and you try to get up to protect him. He might be weak, yes, and so are you at the moment, but if you have learned anything from traveling with Sean and his pokémon it is that sometimes you need to push through the pain in order to fight harder next time.
Unfortunately, going past your limits is too much, and the world goes black before you hit the ground. When you come to later on in the night, Sean has left his brother behind and moved on to the next destination. Zane collects you and his other pokémon from the nurse at the center and does not speak for many days. At one point he returns you to your poké ball and you aren’t sure how much time has passed before you are called out again. You try many times to break free of your containment, filling yourself with thoughts of home and your family to give you the strength to run away and return to them. It never works, but it is in this struggle that you make a promise to yourself to become strong enough to some day enjoy the freedom of the forest once more.
The next time you see the outside world is in a place much warmer than the snowy city you last remember. Your legs and wings have trouble keeping your body upright and Wilbur and Esso (the deerling) struggle in a similar fashion. The smell of the wild and the air that blows through your feathers is invigorating despite how sore your body feels. You can’t help but let a few involuntary squawks escape from your beak. This startles Wilber and Esso, but they understand and make their own noises to express their excitement.
Before long, Zane begins to speak to all of you in apologies and promises that are meant to bring you all together. His tone is not to be confused with weakness, though, as he speaks with authority and confidence. You can’t speak for the others, as much as you would like to, but after being trapped for so long all you want to do is have the chance to stretch your limbs and begin building your strength back up.
It is not long before you all start walking down a dirt path and into a forest thinned by many campsites being used by other trainers. When you come across a lazy river, Zane lets Opal out of her ball as well and gives her a condensed version of the speech that he gave to the rest of you earlier. She seems more interested in the water that she has spent so much time away from, but you can tell that she will do whatever her trainer says as long as she does not have to return to the void of her poké ball.
The five of you continue to travel for a while until you come across some wild pokémon. Sometimes another trainer comes along and challenges Zane to a battle. He is never the one to do the initiating, but his spirit is stronger during these fights. This ignites a collective drive to win by everyone on the team, despite all of you being unfamiliar to battling after so long. It is many weeks later when the number of victories surpasses the losses, but that does not seem to matter anymore. You feel the muscles in your body take shape and notice growth in Zane’s other pokémon as well. Wilbur’s head starts to grow into a metal cone at the same rate that his claws become harder and sharper; Esso loses the fur on the top of their head where two small antlers begin to protrude; Opal just gets larger and more vicious.
Wilbur is the first one to evolve. It is during a battle against a thick, mobile mass of rocks – Wilbur burrows under the ground as a drilbur and emerges as an excadrill to deliver a striking blow against the opponent that actually sends it a few feet into the air. When it comes crashing down, it does not get back up. Whether it is the excitement from such a good battle or seeing his starting pokémon evolve, something in Zane breaks that day. He starts to look like the person he was when you were first captured even though he is now taller and his features have become more defined. The stoic persona that he put up during battles starts to soften, but he does not lose the determination to improve.
It is not not long after when Esso rapidly increases in size during some training against wild pokémon. The light emanating from their body is blinding, and you can understand why after it fades: everything about them is bigger, including the large antlers that they proudly feature on top of their head. They try to look intimidating in their new form, but the bushiness of the leaves growing from the antlers does not make you afraid of them in the slightest. With their new power, though, Zane begins favoring them during fights. Wilbur and Esso hardly lose, and it feeds the wrong desires inside Zane. Instead of wanting to grow stronger in order to fight alongside each other, he begins to care more about winning and defeating opponents as fiercely as possible. You try to not think of Sean when you see Zane turning into the unforgiving commander that shocked you until your limbs were numb.
With the team’s strength constantly increasing, the journey continues. Zane’s apprehension shows in the way he walks through familiar paths, but he walks with a purpose to prove wrong those people who stared. The first gym he comes across stands no chance, and with little struggle the next one falls as well. There is a sense of urgency to continue moving forward, as if any hesitation will throw off the winning streak. A few chances in between cities arise where you get to practice fighting, but not enough for you to feel confident when during the third gym challenge both Wilbur and Esso fall against the leader’s final pokémon and Zane must call upon you to finish the battle.
His beginning commands to you are strong, the kind that radiate certainty towards victory. You follow through with equal certainty in your attacks, wanting more than anything to win for him. During this battle, you think about your family and the shadows and the forest that you came from. You think of Wilbur and Esso and Opal. Even Sean and the terrifying power that his pokémon carry with them. The battle becomes more than just winning for Zane because now there are others relying on you to do well and finish what they started. If you do not, there might be another period of being trapped inside your poké ball, uncertain of the next time you will get to spread your wings.
You lunge yourself over and out of the way of attacks as hard as you can and still manage to deliver blows that slowly whittle your opponent down. It does not come free of cost, though, and you can feel your body giving out enough that if you don’t finish the fight soon, you won’t physically be capable of continuing. When the gym leader calls out an attack you know is hard to dodge, you brace yourself and call upon the resolve that has been slowly building inside of you.
This is the moment when you take the form of your parents after all of the training you have received. A raw power spreads through your frame and pushes every part of your body to its limits. Your legs become thick and help to support a longer body. When you open your mouth to call out, you feel your beak expand and can hear your voice become louder. And when the force of it all fades away, you flap two magnificent wings against the ground and propel yourself into the air. Zane makes a sound that matches your triumphant call as you circle around in the air, feeling lighter than you ever have even though you must be three times larger.
The battle does not last much longer. Even with new attacks at your disposal, all you have to do is use the size of your body to throw the opponent off balance enough that your strikes hurt that much more. By the time it is finished, you must rest against your trainer’s side as he receives a badge from the gym leader. But this time, Zane is okay with your fatigue. As long as you continue to win for him, he does not mind the blows that throw you off or the ones that leave you with scars. From this point on, you are his aerial soldier brought out to scare opponents into submission.
In a way that scares you, fighting becomes an exciting passion. It makes the memories of home feel ever more distant, but the physical power you have gained squashes your old fear of shadows at night and of never returning to that forest. Battling alongside your teammates becomes a moment of pride, because now all of you share a desire to succeed. Even when you come across another braviary for the first time and have a fleeting desire to escape, fighting for the team pulls you back into focus and shrouds any guilt for making it faint.
Besides, you do not know that braviary personally.
It was not part of your convocation as a child.
Or was it?
Something you learn while fighting for Zane is that curiosity and always wondering what could be often leads to unfulfilled expectations. The want to know more as a rufflet does not trouble you any more, you like to tell yourself. As long as you can keep battling, you don’t need to worry about what else is out there.
And then, all at once, everything that you have been fighting for gets thrown sideways, because there he is: Sean, suddenly right in front of the path ahead.
He is larger now, like his anger has filled him enough to make his arms larger and his legs longer. But his face has hardened, even more than Zane’s ever could. He is different enough to look like a new challenger, but recognizable enough that you feel as if you are a small bird again and are about to receive a paralyzing shock. The thought makes you twitch your wings uncomfortably. And the worst part about the whole thing is that he’s smiling, because when Sean smiles, it is never for a good reason.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” Zane says back.
You can’t remember if anything else is said before the battle begins. And a battle it is.
Sean has clearly not wasted the time since you last saw him. You notice more pokémon have been added to his team and they are all even more vicious than you remember any of his previous pokémon to be. One beast is small, but it is covered in armor and when it hits, it hits hard. Zane keeps his calm as best as he can and uses Wilbur to take care of it. Their bodies clash in clangs! and skrees! until finally the tiny bastard is knocked out. Sean isn’t fazed, or at least he doesn’t look fazed, which unsettles you to think about. Even when a member of Zane’s team faints, he at least shows some bout of frustration or determination to improve with whoever is called on next. But this battle is different, you know that. Both brothers hold all of their respect to this one, knowing that once it is over, something will be determined about them.
Pokémon are sent out and recalled left and right. One second you’re being told to fight, and the next Zane wants you to hold back so Wilbur or Esso can try their best. Even Opal gets called upon a few times despite having no water to use to her advantage. This is what you live for now, battles like these. The family drama being fleshed out right now is not in your power to understand, but you know that you fight for Zane and would love to see Sean fail in this moment.
But then it’s you who has to be called on because Esso has fainted, and Wilbur just put up an insane fight against Torb the simisear. Sean doesn’t look like he cares that Torb lost. As you keep yourself midair, he fingers a poké ball in his hand, relishing the anticipation. Human emotions are not fully lost on you, but you are not sure why he is waiting until he casually throws the ball into the air- then you understand what you are up against. Of course you do.
Bruno, now twice as large and donning a spiky mane, huffs and stomps the ground. There is no turning around from this fight, there never has been, and then you and Bruno are charging at each other over and over, one powerful move after the next. But you are both built for this. Your new forms have muscles and stamina that were not present before. You could continue this war for as long as it needs to go on.
The shrieking calls you both make while trying to land attacks has attracted a handful of other trainers who cheer when appropriate. How could they not? This road is the apex of trainers in the region and everyone at this point loves a heart-racing fight. Normally, you would not be expected to win this one, but your species is not meant to lose easily. Taking you down is going to take time and calculated effort. Bruno is definitely strong, and fast, too. But he is limited to the ground, and the range on his thunderbolt attacks is not accurate enough to knock you out of the sky. Sean figures this out quickly enough and begins to wait for you to either come close or tire yourself out.
It comes down to your own mistake, after Zane tells you to divebomb Bruno. It’s an attack you have not fully mastered, but what you are able to do with it is enough. Brave Bird – a high-powered attack delivered close to the ground to deal maximum damage and throw your opponent off balance. Sometimes you miss, but this time you can’t. The stakes are too high, and Bruno won’t forgive you for it. So, you circle in the air a few times to quickly gather your strength, and then it’s straight down to the ground in front of Zane. Just before you’re about to slam and break your neck, you change direction to gain momentum and then you’re a missile in the air, wings tucked back and aimed right for Bruno.
He’s ready, and once you’ve cleared halfway across the battling space, Sean gives him a command that you do not hear. Bruno’s fur begins to spark, and he charges forward, igniting an array of electricity from all sides of his body. Closer and closer you two become. It only takes seconds for the entire round of attacks to happen, but for you in the moment, it is drawn out, calculated.
And then you hesitate. Are you moving too fast? If you hit too hard, one or both of you could have lasting damage done to your body. Bruno has never been someone you care for, but he is not someone you want to see severely injured. You can fight for your team and you can fight for your trainer, but you do not want to become like the blitzle that tormented you just because a human told them to.
Something in your chest freezes and you let yourself slow, just a fraction of what you had going, and everything is thrown off. The energy surrounding you is gone in no time and you’re just a bird heading straight for an electrified zebra.
It goes as well as anyone would expect.
You don’t know how the rest of the battle goes. You are not aware of anything until there is a flash of light and you are released from the seemingly eternal stasis that Zane can control. It is bright out; the sun is hot on your feathers. Wilbur, Esso, and Opal are next to you, all looking equally relieved to be free of their containment. You forget about the battle with Sean, and without the immediate pressure to fight, it does not seem to matter where you are. This place is different than the dark, harsh mountains from before.
“I’m sorry,” Zane says. He is looking down at the ground, but speaking to all of you. “I can’t do this anymore… it’s not worth it.”
He pauses, wiping away at his face. There is a long silence before he speaks again. You wonder how long Opal can stay on the ground, but then Zane walks over and picks her up.
“This is where I caught most of you, so… I thought it would be good if I brought you back.” Silence again, and then, “I’m just… really sorry.”
He walks over to a nearby stream that you only just notice. Opal is dropped into it with a plunk! and then Zane pulls out a poké ball from his pocket. Instead of enlarging it like usual, he places it on the ground and quickly stomps on it. There is a satisfying crack and the water in front of him flashes. Then he comes over to where the rest of you stand and repeats the process. First is Esso, who gets stunned when the light flashes around them. They are gone and into the woods before Zane pulls the next ball out. You watch him hold it for a while, twirling it around. Impulsively, he enlarges it, and, in a flash, Wilbur disappears.
“Um, I’m not really sure what to say,” he starts, but as he continues to talk it sounds like he definitely knew what to say. “I think that a lot of this started with you… I shouldn’t have thrown that poké ball at you after Sean threw his, but… you know how he is. I’ve had to deal with him my whole life and, I guess, I just wanted to feel better than him.”
There is hesitation, but you cannot return any words to him, as your noises and squawks are only understood by other birds. And he is definitely not a bird, no matter how many times he and Sean imitated your infantile chirping before you evolved.
“I know that he always hated you for belonging to me and… I’m sorry for that.”
He starts to continue, but his words become distant and then he stops mid-sentence. He places your ball on the ground, crushes it like the others, and it is done.
It comes to you a long time later, after you have made a new home for yourself among the forest. In the tall trees, just like the ones you remember from when you were newly hatched, you make your home. At first, it is just you and those on the ground who have their own homes, their own families. Small rodents that scurry out of sight whenever someone or something passes. Other things, larger things, that sometimes climb onto the same branches you use. There is usually an initial fright when they notice you and your scarred face, the feathers that will never grow in the right away again. But then it passes when you look away to let them know you are not bothered by their presence.
There are those is the rivers, much like Opal, who splash around and sometimes poke their abnormal heads above the water for some air. A few of the smaller creatures on the ground join them in the water when it is particularly hot, sometimes causing a small commotion, but it always settles down before long.
All of them become your family, whether or not they are aware of this fact. You watch over them like clockwork, soaring into the sky or swiftly threading around the tall branches keeping an eye out for possible threats. Sometimes larger pokémon come around and try to take the territory that does not belong to them and you swoop down, never missing with your aerial blows. They always run in the end, no matter how much they put up a fight. The occasional human passes by, too, and though you are wary of those that remind you of Sean, you let them carefully explore in case they are like Zane - the Zane from before, filled with wonder and excitement at being on the road alongside so many wonderful creatures.
When it becomes frigid and most of the trees drop their leaves onto the forest floor, a committee of mandibuzz swarm the area. You do not bother them, and they eye you with clear suspicion. Many of them lay eggs that before long hatch into smaller, condensed versions of their mothers and hold onto their eggshells like armor. When they see you guarding those on the ground, their suspicion dissipates and a silent agreement forms between you and them – you will protect those in the forest as usual, like you have been doing, and when you want to sleep, they make sure to follow your lead and keep out any dangers during the night. It works, because many of the dangers that come through begin to remind you of the shadows from your youth now that you have lost the safety of a poké ball. But the mandibuzz are not afraid. The darkness feeds them, and it is the time when they can hunt and be in their prime.
It is nice to have the company, but before long, the skies begin to warm and small buds push through the ends of the barren branches. Some internal signal inside the mandibuzz orders them to move along, and they are gone one morning when you awaken. It is no trouble to you, it just means that you must return to hoping the shadow creatures remain at bay while you sleep.
A covey of unfezant and their offspring join you for the springtime, but they sleep at night as well and stay on the farther side of the forest, unsure of what you hope to achieve in your protective goals. As the weather continues to warm, you see less of them as a group and more often just a few that didn’t seem to want to leave. They fill the air with their calls and cooing songs; it is comforting to be around.
But then, one day, it comes to you. It is distant at first, and the noises from the other birds gets in the way. As it gets closer, louder, the other noises quiet down. Your bones tense when you recognize the calls – they are your calls, the ones of your family. The calls that mean home.
In a mess of leaves and feathers and excitement you launch yourself into the sky, above the trees, and there they are. A formation of red, white, and blue, headed your way.
The convocation has returned to you, and you to them.
Brave Warrior of the Sky
It happens late one afternoon during a downpour. Rain slaps at the treetops with a ferocity that scares you. The rumbling thunder is distant, but it reminds you enough of the things that come in the night, the things that you must hide from. Even from where you sit, huddled on one of the tallest tree branches, you must hide. You must listen. That’s what you’re told, or else they will take you away.
You’ve never seen them, but the stories are enough. Big, shadowy things that scream and fight and tear families apart. It happened the other day to that family not far from here. Thought they were in the clear, but they did not listen. They did not survive.
When it’s really bad – when you can hear them right underneath where you hide – it is paralyzing. Will this be the final moment of waiting, of listening? Maybe, so you must keep listening. You’ve made it this far, which means you’ve done something right. And then when they are gone, your parents are there to wrap themselves around you and hum the noises that make you forget about who you were just hiding from. It’s the song of your convocation, of the others like you who make you know that you are home.
Once you and the others are old enough, you’ll be able to leave and go to unfamiliar places. The sky’s the limit. Places that might have even scarier things that come through at night or maybe these places will be free of anything dangerous, and no one will have to worry. That’s what the group is always searching for, but no matter how safe they feel when they settle down and bring forward a new generation, the shadows always follow. What will they do if there is no one left to follow? What will your family do if there is no one left to hide from?
Questions you are told not to worry about. The answers will not change what is happening right now, and right now you must wait – and listen to the storm.
Even with your eyes shut, the lightning is so bright that it hurts. The rest of your body is in pain, too, from holding on to your spot in the tree, trying to stay as high up as possible. But the gusts are relentless and each one is another push against your already weak body. If your parents were here they would be supporting you, but they thought they would have enough time to hunt for food before nightfall. They did not expect a storm to hit so quickly. It’s been a long time now since they left, and you could really use their calming noises, because what was that? Was it thunder following the lightning strike that just flashed in the sky or was it something shadowy running below?
Slowly, heart beating out of your chest, you open one eye to see your surroundings as best as you can. But the wind doesn’t let up, and there is more lightning and maybe this storm is actually getting worse, because what you see is scarier than when you last opened your eyes, with everything swaying in all directions and shadows being cast in places that you are not familiar with, places that are obscured enough that you can’t tell if it’s a natural shadow or something waiting for you to move around so it can grab you, and you-
There’s a sudden crack of lighting so bright you’re sure it happened right in front of your face. The sound that follows deafens you momentarily and leaves a ringing in your ears. It makes you feel weightless, like your stomach is trying to come out of your mouth, but no, that’s not right, you realize, because the wind is now blowing directly down from the top of your head, which it’s not actually doing because wind doesn’t do that, not really, and you don’t have to open your eyes to know that you’re about to hit the ground. On instinct, you wave your limbs and try to catch yourself, but all that does is throw you sideways into the mud.
It’s too much to try to stand immediately, and fear has glued your eyes shut, so you listen, and you hope beyond anything else to not hear anything besides the rain hitting the wet grass around you and the wind overhead. The sounds are completely different down here, and none of them are distinguishable enough with the storm howling through the entire forest. And the pain- it took a moment for your body to catch up with the impact from the fall, but now you feel it right there next to the ringing in your ears. Surely something is broken. You can’t remember feeling anything like this before and you want to call out, but you know that something is bound to hear you and consequently come running.
Maybe if you can hold-
And then there is nothing.
The rain disappears, and with it so does every other noise around you. The weightless feeling is back, but you can’t be falling again because that already happened. Where would you fall to? But then, you notice, not only do you feel weightless, but you can’t feel your body at all. That’s enough of a shock to make you shake yourself around, and suddenly it’s all back – the storm, the pain, and when you open your eyes in shock, the shadows. Both familiar and unfamiliar, but you know that the one rising up in front of you, the one calling out and coming closer, is going to get you. Its presence is petrifying.
You shut your eyes, and a moment later everything is gone again. You return to the weightless silence and this time you remain there. Are you safe from the shadow? It can’t be decided for certain, but you wait until a vibrating noise echoes all around you.
That’s when the sounds begin to return, but softer. The downpour is reduced to a light tapping and the wind is nothing more than a puff of air, but you can’t feel either of them. A strange voice fills your ear and is an unwelcome replacement to the prior ringing.
It shouts, “YES! Did you see that, Sean?! I caught it!”
***
It is not until much later when you awaken again. The world returns in a blinding flash, but not as you remember. It is not a world of trees and sky and family, but one of cold metal and bright fluorescent lights. Two figures stare down at you with wild interest, and you think that this is the time that they get you, but… they aren’t the shadowy things you imagined in the stories. These two are shaped like the shadows, yes, but they are very much un-shadowy. Surprisingly, the one on the left looks like a misshapen version of your parents – a white face topped with spiky hair, with long, red limbs on the upper-half of its body and blue legs supporting it. The figure on the right looks very similar, but with unusual colors on its body.
“It’s so small,” the one on the right says. His mouth twists to the side as his eyes narrow. You feel that he is displeased by your size. The figure next to him doesn’t seem to hear the comment, or maybe doesn’t care, because the look on his face remains unchanged.
He says, “Hi, Bain!” enthusiastically while staring at you with his tiny eyes.
You will be called Bain more times than you can count and come to understand that it is now your name. You will learn that the boy still staring at you with a smile across his face – the boy who people will call your trainer – is named Zane, and that the boy aside him is his brother, Sean. Even though you will meet many more figures like these two, they are the ones you always find yourself bound to, even as you grow larger and have the strength to move more freely, you can never go far enough to get away. And those times when you think you’ve finally escaped, the red light fills your vision and you return to the silent place until the next time you hear, “Bain, let’s go!”
But for now, you hear Sean scoff and say, “Bain? Like in Batman?”
That makes Zane make a twisted face like his brother did a moment ago and say, “No, like Zane. But spelled with an I-N instead of an N-E.”
“Whatever,” Sean says. “Let’s battle and see what it can use.”
“You’re just jealous that I caught it and you didn’t,” Zane tells him. They glare at each other and then Zane says, “And the nurse said he can’t battle right away until his wing is healed.”
Sean rolls his eyes.
“He has to say that so he doesn’t get in trouble. I’ll use Torb so it’s fair.”
“No, Sean, I said I don’t want to,” Zane says. His attention is back on you, his eyes curiously examining every inch of your ruffled feathers.
“C’mon, I’ll even go easy. I just want to see what attacks-”
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because I don’t want to!”
Zane’s raised voice startles you and a yelp escapes through your beak. Sean scoffs and walks away.
“Whatever… rufflet are lame, anyway.”
Once he’s across the room, Zane quietly tells you that he doesn’t think your lame, he thinks you’re awesome, and Sean is just mad at him for throwing a poké ball at you after you broke out of the one that Sean threw first. Apparently, Sean only has a pansear named Torb that their dad bought him as a birthday present a few months ago and Bruno, a blitzle that he recently captured. All of it makes no sense to you, but you have to sit there and listen because there isn’t anything else for you to do.
When he tells you to “make yourself at home,” he walks over to his bed and starts going through his backpack. You aren’t sure what to do in this unfamiliar place, so you stay where you are and watch the two boys. They are not the shadows that you have always been afraid of, but you have a feeling that they are somehow worse. Your insides start to feel like they are sinking into the hard, cold tiles beneath your talons and suddenly the lights on the ceiling seem way too bright. With hesitation in your steps, you shakily make your way under the metal bed that Zane is sitting on. He doesn’t even notice when you slip into the shadows underneath him and close your eyes, wishing this was all some terrible dream.
***
Once your wing is healed, you are introduced to battling over and over again. No matter how many times you win or lose, Zane expects you to keep fighting other pokémon. Sometimes he uses Wilbur, his drilbur, to battle you and sometimes you battle against his brother’s pokémon. Not so often with Bruno the blitzle, but on some occasions Sean wants an easy win and talks Zane into making you get shocked until you pass out from the pain. For as much as it hurts you, it must make Sean and Bruno feel better about themselves.
The brothers travel to many places with you and their other pokémon. You relish the time spent in forests between the sprawling cement cities that look nothing like your home. For a while you are only able to hop from branch to branch and flutter across short distances here and there, but the more you practice the better your flying becomes. With this, however, comes more required battling. Even when Zane catches a basculin and deerling, you are expected to fight when called on.
If you ever refuse to fight, Sean instructs Bruno to electrify you. At first this seems like punishment for not sharing the same love of fighting that they do, but as Bruno’s electricity increases in power the more often he practices it, you start to realize that in order for you to be able to defend yourself, sometimes you must try to fight. With a bit of careful movement and some learned instruction from Zane, you manage an occasional win. Sean still finds some way to inflict pain on you when this happens, however it is not so much out of spire anymore. He does the same to his own pokémon, and while it hurts and scares you, there is no denying that over time the initial pain lessens as your body becomes stronger.
For a while you think this is a normal interaction between trainer and pokémon, but the further your travels with Zane and Sean take you, the more you see others step into the line of fire to protect their pokémon rather than inflict intentional damage onto them. It would be wonderful if Zane would take an electric attack when Bruno sends one your way, but you see Sean push and hit Zane enough to know that your trainer would never stand up for you in front of his brother.
You wonder if Sean’s method of fighting is worth it. The more that he pushes his pokémon, the quicker his pokémon become stronger. Even new ones that he catches surpass you in strength before long due to Zane’s more relaxed approach to battling. His basculin hardly gets the chance to fight, so it is constantly being battered around, and the timid deerling isn’t called upon often enough to practice either. Each time they are taken down by an opponent, you are filled with a desire to fight harder. It’s not for yourself, though, it’s for them. They may look different than you and come from other places, but just like you they were taken from their homes and probably their families. If you aren’t able to make it back to your convocation, the least you could do is try to help them escape at some point.
There’s a fine line, though, when it comes to Sean’s pokémon. They grow much faster and seem to relish in their newfound strength. Part of you hopes that they long to return to the wild, but even if they did, they would become part of t he shadows that hunt rather than protect. The same can be said for Sean, who becomes more confident in his abilities as a trainer and often forgets to look out for his own family traveling by his side. It makes his challenges against gyms more often successful, and it is in this success that he does not notice Zane’s failure. Or, he notices it, but he laughs at it and does not notice the impact it has on Zane as the brothers continue to the next city before Zane can earn the badge he is after.
This strain pushes Zane by the time you all make it to a city surrounded by moors. You and the other pokémon in his ownership fail to defeat just one of the gym leader’s pokémon, while Torb the simisear on Sean’s team nearly wins the challenge all on his own. Zane’s loss is pitiful, and he can’t hide his emotions as Sean is being congratulated after his win. You are held in his arms, shivering and weak from your fight, and you feel his body start to shake. Gross noises come out of his mouth and quickly fill the entire room. Many people turn and stare and it makes Sean quickly collect his things, grab Zane by the collar of his shirt, and dash outside.
In the mid-afternoon sun, a blanket of snow makes the entire city look like a white dreamland. Small flurries sprinkle from the sky and if you weren’t already freezing from the vanillish that took you out, you might enjoy flapping around in it. But Sean’s anger quickly takes over the scene and escalates to pushing very fast. Zane drops you into the snow and continues to sob while Sean yells at him. You aren’t sure if anyone stops to stare like they did inside because your vision starts to move back and forth on its own.
“What are you crying for?” Sean yells.
In between sobs, Zane tries to explain that all he wants to do is win a badge. For some reason this makes Sean angrier. Whatever he yells next sounds muffled and unfamiliar to you. In your dancing vision you see Sean push your trainer again and you try to get up to protect him. He might be weak, yes, and so are you at the moment, but if you have learned anything from traveling with Sean and his pokémon it is that sometimes you need to push through the pain in order to fight harder next time.
Unfortunately, going past your limits is too much, and the world goes black before you hit the ground. When you come to later on in the night, Sean has left his brother behind and moved on to the next destination. Zane collects you and his other pokémon from the nurse at the center and does not speak for many days. At one point he returns you to your poké ball and you aren’t sure how much time has passed before you are called out again. You try many times to break free of your containment, filling yourself with thoughts of home and your family to give you the strength to run away and return to them. It never works, but it is in this struggle that you make a promise to yourself to become strong enough to some day enjoy the freedom of the forest once more.
The next time you see the outside world is in a place much warmer than the snowy city you last remember. Your legs and wings have trouble keeping your body upright and Wilbur and Esso (the deerling) struggle in a similar fashion. The smell of the wild and the air that blows through your feathers is invigorating despite how sore your body feels. You can’t help but let a few involuntary squawks escape from your beak. This startles Wilber and Esso, but they understand and make their own noises to express their excitement.
Before long, Zane begins to speak to all of you in apologies and promises that are meant to bring you all together. His tone is not to be confused with weakness, though, as he speaks with authority and confidence. You can’t speak for the others, as much as you would like to, but after being trapped for so long all you want to do is have the chance to stretch your limbs and begin building your strength back up.
It is not long before you all start walking down a dirt path and into a forest thinned by many campsites being used by other trainers. When you come across a lazy river, Zane lets Opal out of her ball as well and gives her a condensed version of the speech that he gave to the rest of you earlier. She seems more interested in the water that she has spent so much time away from, but you can tell that she will do whatever her trainer says as long as she does not have to return to the void of her poké ball.
The five of you continue to travel for a while until you come across some wild pokémon. Sometimes another trainer comes along and challenges Zane to a battle. He is never the one to do the initiating, but his spirit is stronger during these fights. This ignites a collective drive to win by everyone on the team, despite all of you being unfamiliar to battling after so long. It is many weeks later when the number of victories surpasses the losses, but that does not seem to matter anymore. You feel the muscles in your body take shape and notice growth in Zane’s other pokémon as well. Wilbur’s head starts to grow into a metal cone at the same rate that his claws become harder and sharper; Esso loses the fur on the top of their head where two small antlers begin to protrude; Opal just gets larger and more vicious.
Wilbur is the first one to evolve. It is during a battle against a thick, mobile mass of rocks – Wilbur burrows under the ground as a drilbur and emerges as an excadrill to deliver a striking blow against the opponent that actually sends it a few feet into the air. When it comes crashing down, it does not get back up. Whether it is the excitement from such a good battle or seeing his starting pokémon evolve, something in Zane breaks that day. He starts to look like the person he was when you were first captured even though he is now taller and his features have become more defined. The stoic persona that he put up during battles starts to soften, but he does not lose the determination to improve.
It is not not long after when Esso rapidly increases in size during some training against wild pokémon. The light emanating from their body is blinding, and you can understand why after it fades: everything about them is bigger, including the large antlers that they proudly feature on top of their head. They try to look intimidating in their new form, but the bushiness of the leaves growing from the antlers does not make you afraid of them in the slightest. With their new power, though, Zane begins favoring them during fights. Wilbur and Esso hardly lose, and it feeds the wrong desires inside Zane. Instead of wanting to grow stronger in order to fight alongside each other, he begins to care more about winning and defeating opponents as fiercely as possible. You try to not think of Sean when you see Zane turning into the unforgiving commander that shocked you until your limbs were numb.
With the team’s strength constantly increasing, the journey continues. Zane’s apprehension shows in the way he walks through familiar paths, but he walks with a purpose to prove wrong those people who stared. The first gym he comes across stands no chance, and with little struggle the next one falls as well. There is a sense of urgency to continue moving forward, as if any hesitation will throw off the winning streak. A few chances in between cities arise where you get to practice fighting, but not enough for you to feel confident when during the third gym challenge both Wilbur and Esso fall against the leader’s final pokémon and Zane must call upon you to finish the battle.
His beginning commands to you are strong, the kind that radiate certainty towards victory. You follow through with equal certainty in your attacks, wanting more than anything to win for him. During this battle, you think about your family and the shadows and the forest that you came from. You think of Wilbur and Esso and Opal. Even Sean and the terrifying power that his pokémon carry with them. The battle becomes more than just winning for Zane because now there are others relying on you to do well and finish what they started. If you do not, there might be another period of being trapped inside your poké ball, uncertain of the next time you will get to spread your wings.
You lunge yourself over and out of the way of attacks as hard as you can and still manage to deliver blows that slowly whittle your opponent down. It does not come free of cost, though, and you can feel your body giving out enough that if you don’t finish the fight soon, you won’t physically be capable of continuing. When the gym leader calls out an attack you know is hard to dodge, you brace yourself and call upon the resolve that has been slowly building inside of you.
This is the moment when you take the form of your parents after all of the training you have received. A raw power spreads through your frame and pushes every part of your body to its limits. Your legs become thick and help to support a longer body. When you open your mouth to call out, you feel your beak expand and can hear your voice become louder. And when the force of it all fades away, you flap two magnificent wings against the ground and propel yourself into the air. Zane makes a sound that matches your triumphant call as you circle around in the air, feeling lighter than you ever have even though you must be three times larger.
The battle does not last much longer. Even with new attacks at your disposal, all you have to do is use the size of your body to throw the opponent off balance enough that your strikes hurt that much more. By the time it is finished, you must rest against your trainer’s side as he receives a badge from the gym leader. But this time, Zane is okay with your fatigue. As long as you continue to win for him, he does not mind the blows that throw you off or the ones that leave you with scars. From this point on, you are his aerial soldier brought out to scare opponents into submission.
In a way that scares you, fighting becomes an exciting passion. It makes the memories of home feel ever more distant, but the physical power you have gained squashes your old fear of shadows at night and of never returning to that forest. Battling alongside your teammates becomes a moment of pride, because now all of you share a desire to succeed. Even when you come across another braviary for the first time and have a fleeting desire to escape, fighting for the team pulls you back into focus and shrouds any guilt for making it faint.
Besides, you do not know that braviary personally.
It was not part of your convocation as a child.
Something you learn while fighting for Zane is that curiosity and always wondering what could be often leads to unfulfilled expectations. The want to know more as a rufflet does not trouble you any more, you like to tell yourself. As long as you can keep battling, you don’t need to worry about what else is out there.
And then, all at once, everything that you have been fighting for gets thrown sideways, because there he is: Sean, suddenly right in front of the path ahead.
He is larger now, like his anger has filled him enough to make his arms larger and his legs longer. But his face has hardened, even more than Zane’s ever could. He is different enough to look like a new challenger, but recognizable enough that you feel as if you are a small bird again and are about to receive a paralyzing shock. The thought makes you twitch your wings uncomfortably. And the worst part about the whole thing is that he’s smiling, because when Sean smiles, it is never for a good reason.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” Zane says back.
You can’t remember if anything else is said before the battle begins. And a battle it is.
Sean has clearly not wasted the time since you last saw him. You notice more pokémon have been added to his team and they are all even more vicious than you remember any of his previous pokémon to be. One beast is small, but it is covered in armor and when it hits, it hits hard. Zane keeps his calm as best as he can and uses Wilbur to take care of it. Their bodies clash in clangs! and skrees! until finally the tiny bastard is knocked out. Sean isn’t fazed, or at least he doesn’t look fazed, which unsettles you to think about. Even when a member of Zane’s team faints, he at least shows some bout of frustration or determination to improve with whoever is called on next. But this battle is different, you know that. Both brothers hold all of their respect to this one, knowing that once it is over, something will be determined about them.
Pokémon are sent out and recalled left and right. One second you’re being told to fight, and the next Zane wants you to hold back so Wilbur or Esso can try their best. Even Opal gets called upon a few times despite having no water to use to her advantage. This is what you live for now, battles like these. The family drama being fleshed out right now is not in your power to understand, but you know that you fight for Zane and would love to see Sean fail in this moment.
But then it’s you who has to be called on because Esso has fainted, and Wilbur just put up an insane fight against Torb the simisear. Sean doesn’t look like he cares that Torb lost. As you keep yourself midair, he fingers a poké ball in his hand, relishing the anticipation. Human emotions are not fully lost on you, but you are not sure why he is waiting until he casually throws the ball into the air- then you understand what you are up against. Of course you do.
Bruno, now twice as large and donning a spiky mane, huffs and stomps the ground. There is no turning around from this fight, there never has been, and then you and Bruno are charging at each other over and over, one powerful move after the next. But you are both built for this. Your new forms have muscles and stamina that were not present before. You could continue this war for as long as it needs to go on.
The shrieking calls you both make while trying to land attacks has attracted a handful of other trainers who cheer when appropriate. How could they not? This road is the apex of trainers in the region and everyone at this point loves a heart-racing fight. Normally, you would not be expected to win this one, but your species is not meant to lose easily. Taking you down is going to take time and calculated effort. Bruno is definitely strong, and fast, too. But he is limited to the ground, and the range on his thunderbolt attacks is not accurate enough to knock you out of the sky. Sean figures this out quickly enough and begins to wait for you to either come close or tire yourself out.
It comes down to your own mistake, after Zane tells you to divebomb Bruno. It’s an attack you have not fully mastered, but what you are able to do with it is enough. Brave Bird – a high-powered attack delivered close to the ground to deal maximum damage and throw your opponent off balance. Sometimes you miss, but this time you can’t. The stakes are too high, and Bruno won’t forgive you for it. So, you circle in the air a few times to quickly gather your strength, and then it’s straight down to the ground in front of Zane. Just before you’re about to slam and break your neck, you change direction to gain momentum and then you’re a missile in the air, wings tucked back and aimed right for Bruno.
He’s ready, and once you’ve cleared halfway across the battling space, Sean gives him a command that you do not hear. Bruno’s fur begins to spark, and he charges forward, igniting an array of electricity from all sides of his body. Closer and closer you two become. It only takes seconds for the entire round of attacks to happen, but for you in the moment, it is drawn out, calculated.
And then you hesitate. Are you moving too fast? If you hit too hard, one or both of you could have lasting damage done to your body. Bruno has never been someone you care for, but he is not someone you want to see severely injured. You can fight for your team and you can fight for your trainer, but you do not want to become like the blitzle that tormented you just because a human told them to.
Something in your chest freezes and you let yourself slow, just a fraction of what you had going, and everything is thrown off. The energy surrounding you is gone in no time and you’re just a bird heading straight for an electrified zebra.
It goes as well as anyone would expect.
***
You don’t know how the rest of the battle goes. You are not aware of anything until there is a flash of light and you are released from the seemingly eternal stasis that Zane can control. It is bright out; the sun is hot on your feathers. Wilbur, Esso, and Opal are next to you, all looking equally relieved to be free of their containment. You forget about the battle with Sean, and without the immediate pressure to fight, it does not seem to matter where you are. This place is different than the dark, harsh mountains from before.
“I’m sorry,” Zane says. He is looking down at the ground, but speaking to all of you. “I can’t do this anymore… it’s not worth it.”
He pauses, wiping away at his face. There is a long silence before he speaks again. You wonder how long Opal can stay on the ground, but then Zane walks over and picks her up.
“This is where I caught most of you, so… I thought it would be good if I brought you back.” Silence again, and then, “I’m just… really sorry.”
He walks over to a nearby stream that you only just notice. Opal is dropped into it with a plunk! and then Zane pulls out a poké ball from his pocket. Instead of enlarging it like usual, he places it on the ground and quickly stomps on it. There is a satisfying crack and the water in front of him flashes. Then he comes over to where the rest of you stand and repeats the process. First is Esso, who gets stunned when the light flashes around them. They are gone and into the woods before Zane pulls the next ball out. You watch him hold it for a while, twirling it around. Impulsively, he enlarges it, and, in a flash, Wilbur disappears.
“Um, I’m not really sure what to say,” he starts, but as he continues to talk it sounds like he definitely knew what to say. “I think that a lot of this started with you… I shouldn’t have thrown that poké ball at you after Sean threw his, but… you know how he is. I’ve had to deal with him my whole life and, I guess, I just wanted to feel better than him.”
There is hesitation, but you cannot return any words to him, as your noises and squawks are only understood by other birds. And he is definitely not a bird, no matter how many times he and Sean imitated your infantile chirping before you evolved.
“I know that he always hated you for belonging to me and… I’m sorry for that.”
He starts to continue, but his words become distant and then he stops mid-sentence. He places your ball on the ground, crushes it like the others, and it is done.
***
It comes to you a long time later, after you have made a new home for yourself among the forest. In the tall trees, just like the ones you remember from when you were newly hatched, you make your home. At first, it is just you and those on the ground who have their own homes, their own families. Small rodents that scurry out of sight whenever someone or something passes. Other things, larger things, that sometimes climb onto the same branches you use. There is usually an initial fright when they notice you and your scarred face, the feathers that will never grow in the right away again. But then it passes when you look away to let them know you are not bothered by their presence.
There are those is the rivers, much like Opal, who splash around and sometimes poke their abnormal heads above the water for some air. A few of the smaller creatures on the ground join them in the water when it is particularly hot, sometimes causing a small commotion, but it always settles down before long.
All of them become your family, whether or not they are aware of this fact. You watch over them like clockwork, soaring into the sky or swiftly threading around the tall branches keeping an eye out for possible threats. Sometimes larger pokémon come around and try to take the territory that does not belong to them and you swoop down, never missing with your aerial blows. They always run in the end, no matter how much they put up a fight. The occasional human passes by, too, and though you are wary of those that remind you of Sean, you let them carefully explore in case they are like Zane - the Zane from before, filled with wonder and excitement at being on the road alongside so many wonderful creatures.
When it becomes frigid and most of the trees drop their leaves onto the forest floor, a committee of mandibuzz swarm the area. You do not bother them, and they eye you with clear suspicion. Many of them lay eggs that before long hatch into smaller, condensed versions of their mothers and hold onto their eggshells like armor. When they see you guarding those on the ground, their suspicion dissipates and a silent agreement forms between you and them – you will protect those in the forest as usual, like you have been doing, and when you want to sleep, they make sure to follow your lead and keep out any dangers during the night. It works, because many of the dangers that come through begin to remind you of the shadows from your youth now that you have lost the safety of a poké ball. But the mandibuzz are not afraid. The darkness feeds them, and it is the time when they can hunt and be in their prime.
It is nice to have the company, but before long, the skies begin to warm and small buds push through the ends of the barren branches. Some internal signal inside the mandibuzz orders them to move along, and they are gone one morning when you awaken. It is no trouble to you, it just means that you must return to hoping the shadow creatures remain at bay while you sleep.
A covey of unfezant and their offspring join you for the springtime, but they sleep at night as well and stay on the farther side of the forest, unsure of what you hope to achieve in your protective goals. As the weather continues to warm, you see less of them as a group and more often just a few that didn’t seem to want to leave. They fill the air with their calls and cooing songs; it is comforting to be around.
But then, one day, it comes to you. It is distant at first, and the noises from the other birds gets in the way. As it gets closer, louder, the other noises quiet down. Your bones tense when you recognize the calls – they are your calls, the ones of your family. The calls that mean home.
In a mess of leaves and feathers and excitement you launch yourself into the sky, above the trees, and there they are. A formation of red, white, and blue, headed your way.
The convocation has returned to you, and you to them.
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