Chương 44: 44-Embark

Tanya sighs as she stares at the wall across from her in the darkened room, waiting for sleep to come. Since she evolved, and more obviously as her body pushes toward its fully developed state, it's clear that she's most comfortable sleeping sitting up, simply relaxing upright until she falls asleep looking like an overstuffed beanbag.

This product of her biology doesn't bother her too much, but it can cause some friction with past lived experience making it difficult for her to fall asleep in a configuration that has lifetimes of memories saying she should be awake. But it's not just that minor tension between her mind and body that's keeping her up.

It's a great number of things, the leftover excitement from the burning building and robbery, the sight of Combusken battling Wattson that brought her mind back to breaking down her fight with him, and the mystery of why a criminal organization would steal research from a volcanology lab then burn it down afterward to cover their tracks. To her left, Taillow chirps in his sleep, ruffling his feathers slightly atop his perch before settling.

Tanya allows her eyes to linger on the 'mon for a second before shrugging off the thin futon blanket with a huff and walking over to the computer their guest room shares space with. Powering it on, she realizes the instant the power light illuminates that this will probably wake the others up. Quickly, the thick padded futon glows purple and flies across the room, draping itself over both her and the computer to muffle the sound and light of the machine as it softly chatters to life.

Thankfully there's no sound of stirring in the room after the computer completes its bootup sequence, so Tanya uses a significantly more precise version of telekinesis to press the keys on the keyboard, minimizing the sound as she opens the internet browser and tries to figure out how to begin. The internet here is…

older, individual people create their own websites to post blogs and there's no less than fifteen separate video hosting sites, almost all of them dominated by videos of pokemon battling in different gyms and leagues across the world. Likewise, access to news is scattered and limited, if a newspaper even has a website there's a good chance it's either a picture of that day's newspaper or a digital copy hidden behind a paywall with no archive to speak of.

There are exceptions, but for almost every source of news that's the rule. There's also no chance a library has digitized its archive yet, from some searching. Academic research is… technically more accessible, but every college and university creates their own bespoke website for their papers, even the ones that are funded by the government and forced to publish their work like Mauville University. Said bespoke websites have all the quirks and eccentricities expected in a system like that.

It almost makes Tanya almost wish there was a paywall, because at least then the wall she's banging her head into would be intentional. Thankfully Mauville University's staff list was easy to find, and while they've got several professors focusing on geology on staff, there's only two focusing specifically on volcanology since Professor Clast left… sometime last year if the date of the farewell article is to be believed.

Leaving only Professor Igna and Professor Dacite tenured at the time of the robbery, the latter of which she recognizes as the person who was in the lab at the time. The 'mon squints, trying to remember how she did this last time she was looking into scientific papers, and switches a colon to a dash in the search bar tag filter.

Thankfully that seems to do the trick and the papers released by MU appear in chronological order, this time with social sciences filtered away atop the other subtractive filters she'd slowly added. Either she's an idiot or there's no whitelist filter for volcanology, similarly it seems that no one's added a tag for new professors in the past three years, so there's no way to filter for either Igna or Dacite.

Also, unless she's missing something obvious with this bespoke filter system, a paper under multiple tags will get filtered out by the whitelist exclusion if a paper has even a single tag not on the list, which is objectively the worst way to… The train of thought is discarded as she scrolls past a few extraneous articles and finds what she thinks she's looking for. It's a preliminary paper from some undergrads, co-authored by Dacite, talking about concentrations of type energy in the natural world.

Quickly scanning the paper, she barely understands anything past the abstract, but from what she can tell it's jumping off of the assumption that type energy does naturally form in the world in certain areas and interact in the same ways as any other natural force. It doesn't take much more searching to discover that the phenomenon is well known, it's the proven origin for 'elemental' stones, followed by old papers describing several methods of artificially creating fire stones.

The volcano is the keystone for most of those methods, the largest congregation of type energy on the island, composed of fire, earth, and ground. A lead perhaps? She's not sure exactly when she learned this, but fire stones have a high sell value. If the research was for a method to create fire stones more cheaply there might not even need to be a buyer, Team Magma might just create and sell fire stones to undercut the market and make a massive profit.

Back to the papers, Tanya continues digging into the sparse and near incomprehensible research material until she yawns though blurring vision and sees it's five minutes till four in the morning. The 'mon tightens her face, looking over the fifteen scattered academic papers she's trying to decipher, then sighs as she downloads the files and resolves to print them when everyone wakes up in three hours.

Turning off the computer, the futon flies back to where it started and she settles into her bedding with another yawn. Tanya finds that sleep comes much more easily this time. —-- –_– —-- Amelia blinks slowly in tired amusement as she looks up from her slightly barebones breakfast of toast with strawberry jelly and scrambled eggs, courtesy of Aunt Vee's partner. Across from the trainer, her partner releases long blissful chirps as she takes another sip of coffee.

Chansey really likes coffee, which seems rather at odds to her other –near equally intense– love for any kind of sweet, but after the initial surprise, the trainer can only smile and shrug it off. That and buy a bag for their trip up Mt. Chimney. Finishing off her toast, the lack of cereal a result of yesterday's… events leading to a week's worth of groceries left scattered on the sidewalk. The nurse in training grabs her plate and walks it over to the sink to rinse it off.

She'd offered to pay Aunt Vee back for wasting the food, but the woman just smiled and refused in the way Amelia quickly learned meant her mind was made up. As she puts the dish in the dishwasher, her eyes linger on the telephone in its way though her field of view. Last night her Mom was mad. But the anger was a kind of ambiguous undirected rage that's almost more worrying than it being targeted.

The phone call lasted almost an hour, and in that time her Mom switched between being mad at Amelia, to Aunt Vee, to the police, to Team Magma, back to Aunt Vee, the city of Mauville itself, the concept of police, Amelia again, the fact that she's on a journey in the first place, Sylveon, the police again, and Aunt Vee one last time. At the end of her forty five minute tirade, she'd asked one final time whether Amelia was alright, then hung up after telling her to call her in the morning at eight.

The daughter glances at the clock on the wall, it's seven fifty nine. She looks back at the phone, then at literally any other part of the apartment before her gaze settles back on the device once more with a sigh. The noise prompts Aunt Vee to look up from the couch, it's her day off so she's still here, watching from across the room while pretending she's not.

Placing the dish into the washing machine, Amelia pulls the handset from the receiver and punches the long memorized number into the keypad, toying with the ringlets of the telephone cord as the dial tone disappears with a click. The phone has barely enough time to get out half a ring before there's a loud clattering from the other end of the line as the call connects with a crackle." Amelia." Her mom's voice buzzes, sounding slightly out of breath. Amelia swallows.

"... Hey Mom–""You're alright?" She interrupts.

"You had your lungs looked at for smoke inhalation? I've read what the news said about those thugs, and the police had no right holding you for that long! They didnt–" Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Mom, I'm fine." Amelia says carefully, trying to defuse the situation before it can blow up again..

"Officer Lary said they had to call y–""I know the law!" She shouts, last night's anger flaring back to life.

"I drove to the damn library and looked it up myself! They're obligated to hold you for a ' reasonable period' while they make a ' best effort' to call me and keep you safe! Not to arrest you without cause like a bunch of power drunk thugs!"" Mom!" Her daughter interjects, holding the phone away from her ear.

"I'm fine! I didn't get to the front steps of the building, and the Magma guys didn't even look at me, and the cops just needed to ask some questions! That's it!" She takes a breath, looking for more words to ease her mother's worry.

"The worst thing that happened to me was that I dropped the groceries I was carrying." She pauses to take a breath in the silence that follows. That's not… entirely true, if she's being honest with herself. Last night she had some rather intense dreams. Not exactly nightmares, but her own mind replaying and amplifying parts of the event. In them, instead of the layer of ash hiding the fact that everyone was mostly fine, when the ash was removed it showed that everyone had rather severe burns.

Which led to a seemingly endless crowd of burn victims pressing in from all sides, begging for help. But even in the dream she worked together with her partners and Sylveon, triaged the people, and the rest of the dream was just her organizing and directing everyone to be healed most effectively. That sort of undercut any potential horror. On the other end of the line, her Mom takes a few deep breaths.

"Alright… if you're sure. But I can drive down if you want to talk in person?" Amelia makes an affirmative hum, and there's a moment of silence before she remembers the date.

"Wait, aren't you supposed to be at work?" The trainer asks.

"I took the day off."

"Oh. Well… thanks?" She says hesitantly, releasing the telephone cord.

"But seriously, I'm fine. I'm starting the hike up to Lavaridge in like thirty minutes. I'll call you when I get there. Oh! Did my battle with Wattson get uploaded to the Mauville Gym website yet?" There's a longer pause, then her Mom lets out a slightly bemused laugh.

"Light of my life, I... Yes, I did watch the gym battle yesterday morning." She answers, tone losing most of its… intense tinge.

"Seemed like Wattson was going pretty hard on you." Amelia smiles as the topic change softens the mood, and as the minutes roll on, the conversation turns much lighter by the time she needs to hang.

Focusing back on her surroundings, she sees that the mood of the room has also become far less intense, Aunt Vee sitting on the couch with Sylveon in her lap, quietly talking about a second grocery trip later today as her other partner squints at two random nicknacks taken from the walls, focused eyes shifting to pleasure when both flare purple at the same time and rise into the air.

Amelia's partner isn't here, but Chansey left the room soon after the call started, and she could hear the sound of a printer from the guest room, so it's not much of a guess to what she's doing. Placing the phone back on the wall, Aunt Vee looks up at her and smiles.

"Everything good?"

"Yep." Amelia nods.

"Up to Lavaridge I go." She'd scheduled her hours at the Lavaridge pokecenter through email a few days ago. It's a much smaller operation than Mauville, but Aunty Lilly seemed happy to have her. Aunt Vee starts rising from the couch, picking up Sylveon to remove him from her lap, but as she does he wraps a ribbon around her wrist and mutters something, prompting the woman to slap her forehead with her other hand.

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe I keep forgetting." She groans, reaching down and scratching her partner behind the ears.

"Thanks." The 'mon mutters something else, then slowly releases his partner's wrist as she speeds around the corner into her bedroom.

"Oh hey, it's wrapped already!" She calls from the other room, and at the surprised proclamation Sylveon gives a long sigh as he curls into the spot Aunt Vee just vacated and closes his eyes. Then Aunt Vee comes back around the corner, holding a moderately sized rectangle wrapped in brown wax paper.

"Lilly and I are actually first cousins, so we grew up together, and the last time we met up she mentioned remembering this big quilted blanket Great Grandma Gee had." She says holding up the package with a grimace.

"Well Grandma Gee… passed about three years ago and Lilly thought the blanket was long gone. But I saved it from the donation bin and kept it with the rest of this mess." She says, waving around at the covered walls. Amelia opens her mouth but can't figure out the appropriate words for the situation.

"Well… I'm sorry…?" She offers slowly, and thankfully Aunt Vee just waves it away.

"Thank you, but it's alright, I got all the tears out years ago." She says with a slightly wistful smile, but it fades quickly.

"I keep wanting to give it to her on some holiday, but I forget then it gets too close for it to be mailed in time, so I delay. But now her birthday is about a month away and I've got a perfect excuse not to wait until it's too late." The trainer nods, seeing where this is going, and mentally eyeing the rather large package to see where she could fit it in her kit.

"Oh sure! I can play courier, I'll just strap it on top my bag." She says, taking the package and confirming it's as light as she expected.

"Yea, easy." Aunt Vee grins at the confirmation before wrapping her niece in a hug." Hng– You're a peach." She laughs.

"I'll let you get your shoes on and get out of here then, you're burning daylight!"

"Right!" Amelia calls back, the excitement infectious as she extracts herself from the hug and hurries back to the guest room where their stuff is already packed. Burning daylight is certainly true, thankfully because Lavaridge is so much smaller than Mauville she only seriously needs to give a vague indication that she's coming, but she'd rather not waste Aunt Lilly's time or fall behind on her badges because she couldn't scale the mountain fast enough.

Entering the guest room, she sees Chansey finish zipping up her bag, the white flash of freshly printed paper just before the zipper closes. … Probably something to do with her stock portfolio. Amelia shakes her head with an amused huff. Wasn't that an odd thing to learn about. Chansey had been perfectly open with how she'd gotten the portfolio, a gift from one of the caretakers working under her batch's matron.

She'd also told her, after some probing questions, that Chansey hadn't invested even a single cent of this money herself. It only took an email to Aunt Zoe to figure out that it was Aunt Claire's partner who'd gotten into the stock market. Another quick email and Aunt Claire told her that her partner made the money betting long on… medicine?

Admittedly it seemed like her aunt was pretty confused about the entire enterprise herself, but the point being that the 'mon made boatloads of money, after which she'd given all of the hatchlings under her care a sizable seed fund. Amelia smiles softly and sits down, grabbing her hiking books as her partner straightens to her full height and turns to look at the trainer, having to look down slightly to meet her partner's eyes.

It doesn't take much thinking to figure out where her partner got her fascination with money if she grew up in that environment.

"Ansey?"

"Ready." Amelia nods as Taillow hops across the bed toward her.

"Just let me lace up my hiking boots and we're out of here." She cannot express how thankful she is for these boots, it's a shame she has to wear her work shoes when not on the trail. It doesn't take long for the trainer to lace up, tie her package to her bag and throw her kit onto her shoulders. But she exits the guest room and makes her way into the tenement hallway, she sees that they're being followed by the rest of the apartment's population.

"Oh. Sorry, I won't keep you. Chansey just wanted to say goodbye too." Aunt Vee says, followed by her partner's eyes glowing purple before, from behind her egg inside her pouch, three little baubles come floating out and toward each of them.

"Cha ansy." The 'mon says with a smile as Amelia takes the gift from the air. It's… She's not sure what it is, It's a piece of woodwork, curved arcs expertly carved and inlaid with patterns that are stained in such a way parts of the wood grain almost seem elevated from the surface, despite it being completely smooth to the touch.

Holding it, her first thought is to marvel at the craftsmanship, but her immediate second thought is to wonder how in the world this was found or purchased, because she cannot imagine this thing looking like it belongs where it is in literally any circumstance. Glancing at her partners, she sees a similar situation happening with Chansey, as she holds… what looks like half an hourglass, but buried in the sand are also loops of wire with tiny beads on them.

Taillow also got a piece of glass, about the size of his beak and cut in a way that refracts incoming light into a bunch of little rainbows. Taillow is the most visibly excited for his gift. The thing had been hanging on the kitchen window actually, now that she's looking at it. From there the goodbye is admittedly quite short. Unfortunately that goodbye happens about ten times, so it's another twenty minutes before Chansey is released back out of her pokeball and grabbing her bags as Amelia exits the elevator."

Cha ansy chans." She mutters, reclipping her backpack.

"Well… they're family." Amelia says weakly, because –quite frankly– it did take a lot longer than they'd planned. But with the first hurdle out of the way, they're off, hopping onto the subway to the stop nearest the entrance to the route, then walking to the… Both trainer and 'mon stare at the trolley. Before Chansey sighs and starts unbuckling her backpack.