It took a while to return from my little memory dive. I quickly looked around me to see if any of my pokemon noticed only to see them all staring at me, concern evident in their eyes. I reached out to hug them all as I spoke to assuage their worries.
“It’s okay everyone. Just remembering a bit of my life before all this.” I gestured widely with my arms to them and our surroundings in general. “I’m fine now. You don’t need to worry.”
I hugged them tightly and whispered a few more assurances as I held them close. They all either rested their head on or rubbed up against me in a startling show of support. It seemed they decided to have Storm speak for them all because she lectured me with only a few words.
“We yours. You ours. Share” Just five words, yet so much meaning within them. I was theirs just as they were mine. The Lords had decided, so we must accept it. That meant we must share and be open with each other. We could not count on anyone besides each other, so we should be all the closer for it.
“You are right. And you aren’t human, so you won’t have the same failings that humans do. In my old world, you all were loyal to a fault, and the knowledge I gained of this world says the same.”
“Trust.” She spoke once more, this time without any prompting from my other pokemon. She wanted me to trust them. To trust that the knowledge given by the Lords was not wrong and that they would not abandon me.That they would never abandon me.
I could feel it crumble. Any resolve I had to keep them at arm's length was shattered as I heard echoes of my lost wife in Storm’s words.
They were both right.I needed people I could be close to. I knew myself enough to know that. If I had no one to trust I would be miserable and my wife wouldn’t have wanted that. The me with all my memories didn’t want that. He wanted to be free of his fears and memories. So I made a decision. “Let me tell you a story.”
I spoke at length about my first life. I told them about what I had tried to do. How I had tried to save everyone and how it cost me everything. How companions turned on me and how I failed to save anyone in the end.
They listened quietly the entire time, and when I finished they hugged me all the tighter. It felt good to tell them, to trust them. We stayed that way for a while, in that one big hug. But eventually we had to go.
“Come on guys and gal. We have a town to reach and a quest to complete. If we don’t leave soon, we will have to finish our travels in the night. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see much of anything in the dark.”
My pokemon released me easily enough, but they stayed next to me as we continued our trek to Clearsky Town. As we drew closer to the town, we noticed an uptick in pokemon activity that increased the closer we were to our destination.
“I wonder why there are more herds and flocks of pokemon the closer we get to human civilization.” I let my musings reach my lips and was surprised by Storm’s answer.
“Symbiosis.” It took longer than usual to understand the meaning behind her word, but that was just because of how much she managed to say with it.
The wild pokemon groups would travel to a town when multiple of their numbers were to give birth soon. Trainers vetted by both human and pokemon would be allowed to try and convince the new parents about why they should be allowed to catch the newborn.
In exchange, the babies that remained uncaught would gain experience fighting any new trainers the town had while benefiting from the protection and deterrence a town full of trainers and pokemon would provide. Another benefit for the pokemon was the availability of a Joy clan member to heal any lasting injuries or fix any wounds that hadn’t healed properly.
Additionally, higher level pokemon from within the herd or flock would be challenged by the veteran trainers of each town as well as any gym trainers with free time. Fighting strong opponents without the stress of a challenge made for a nice break for higher leveled trainers. The wild pokemon, on the other hand, appreciated the fact that the experience gained came from a relatively safe environment, one with a trained healer on standby in case of any accidents.
This information fascinated me. The relationship between humans and pokemon displayed by such an interaction was different from how the games displayed it in his previous life.
Either way, he was glad to find new opponents for his companions to face. Yasashi had gotten so used to battling rattata that his first fight against a different pokemon, a tauros, was almost disastrous. The bull pokemon was more than happy to fight in close range. With the bulk to take a few of Yasashi’s hits, the tauros charged forward.
It pushed through my pokemon’s Scratch to land its own Tackle and it was all downhill from there. As Yasashi was recovering, the tauros’ tail began to glow and was used to smack my pokemon in the face. Distracted by the followup, Yasashi failed to dodge a second Tackle.
I called the battle there. I had no interest in making my pokemon’s loss and injuries any worse.
Sure, we could get him healed in a Pokecenter once we reached the town, but we were still a few hours away from that town. There was no way I would force any of my companions to travel with great injuries for any length of time if I could help it.
