Chương 46: 46-Steel

They make good time to the waterfall they'd stopped at the last time they'd walked this trail, despite walking uphill most of the way they passed the turn off in two days instead of the expected three, and by the afternoon of the third they're walking in the valleys of tall rocky cliffs and scaling steep slopes as they enter the beginnings of the lava bed.

It was in the back quarter of the third day that Taillow stops practicing his air slash mid-dive and flutters down to shouting distance.

"Hey!" He calls, slowly circling above them.

"There's another human coming this way!"

Tanya looks up from her –admittedly rather embarrassing– attempts to figure out minimize by just trying to use every muscle in her body to squeeze inward while simultaneously shoving energy into every part of her flesh and also trying to compress it further into her core.

Amelia on the other hand, staggers to a stop in the enhanced gravity and takes a long swig of water before looking up at the 'mon.

"... There's someone coming?" She shouts back, breathing heavy, but not desperate.

"How close?"

Taillow flits higher, then circles back down.

"They're walking down the next big hill! They'll be here in uh…" He pauses, flight leveling out in thought.

"... five uh… sec– minutes!"

Tanya nods at the information, inwardly pleased by the 'mon's use of minutes.

Teaching Tallow literacy is extremely slow going, compounded by the lack of appropriate reading material and limited time, at this rate teaching him to read is a project of years.

Thankfully he'd picked up on numbers and units of time much more readily.

Amelia, after taking a second to puzzle out her partner's words, gives a long groan."

Another hill?" She mutters before looking back up at the 'mon.

"Thank you Taillow! Also, your double team keeps flickering when you open your wings from a dive! Try a few more shallow dives and really focus on keeping the double team up!"

Taillow crows in affirmation before flying back higher as the trainer looks back to Tanya as she starts tucking her hair and braid into a large sun hat, but the 'mon pre-empts her question with a sigh and a nod.

This is not the firsttrainer they've met even today, and seeing a trainer isn't a problem in and of itself. But every time someone sees the pink hair and Tanya they ask the same series of questions that Amelia has quickly grown to hate and Tanya finds herself rapidly following behind.

Because every single one starts with 'nurse joy' and ends with 'what are you doing here?'"

Then it turns into a long explanation justifying their presence here, every time.

This morning they'd come up with a simple solution.

"Yes. I know. Back into the pokeball for me." Tanya grunts, unbuckling her backpack and dropping the gravity around her partner.

"Be ready to carry my stuff at the top of the hill."

Amelia hums in affirmation, taking deep breaths and ever slower breaths as they approach the crest of the hill.

When they do, Tanya floats the bag into her partner's outstretched hand then taps her arm on her pokeball's aperture.

Thankfully, with repeated exposure, the disorienting effect is almost completely gone, though the pressure to go into stasis remains constant.

Through the ball she's aware of time passing in a kind of distorted manner, seemingly speeding through moments she would otherwise ignore and slowing down whenever something catches her nonexistent eye.

In that state time seems to disappear before they're face to face with the other trainer. Some words are exchanged, too muffled to hear, then a battle starts with Taillow fighting another of his line.

Even without the use of air slash it's clear that the 'mon is the better flyer, turning tighter and climbing faster. But when Taillow uses that greater climb rate to win the energy war and turn that dive into an air slash it knocks his mirror clean out of the sky. His next opponent is a geodude, which he struggles with, but by keeping distance and using several air slashes he eventually chips the 'mon to the ground.

Unfortunately his next opponent is also a geodude which, after trying his hardest to make a dent, Taillow is recalled and–

"Chansey gravity!" Amelia calls, breaking through some minor confusion as Tanya blinks, realizing she's out of the ball, then beginning the equations for gravity.

Geodude manages to charge a little toward her before the move comes into effect and his floating body crashes into the ground.

"Geodude! Get up!" The other girl calls, but Tanya just pumps more energy into the small space surrounding the 'mon, amplifying the gravity further as she pulls an egg from her pouch.

She stares unblinkingly at the 'mon as it's pressed further into the dirt by gravity and its struggles get ever more desperate, calmly pushing power into the egg as she estimates a safe maximum yield with the 'mon's trainer so close.

But as the egg starts to glow from within and she lifts the egg in preparation to throw, the 'mon disappears in a flash of red and their opponent's voice screams from the other side.

"I forfeit!" She calls, taking a few steps back.

"Stop stop!

You win!"

Tanya freezes and, after confirming what she'd heard, the egg is gripped in telekinetic force and fired into the air to detonate safely.

Looking back at her partner, she sees that Amelia looks… somewhat guilty, sheepish almost.

"Hey well uh… good battle." The trainer starts, coughing into a fist.

"I really like how your Taillow–" She's cut off by the egg exploding in the sky with a flash and a crack, making everyone but Tanya wince.

Their former opponent huffs as she pulls out her wallet, counts off some bills, and shoves them into Amelia's hand before walking off.

"Yea, 'good battle.'" She grunts.

Amelia takes a step after her, reaching out with her mouth open as if about to say something, then drops it and continues on the way they're supposed to be going. After a few minutes and the other trainer being well out of earshot she leans over and begins muttering near Tanya's ear.

"Do… do you mind going a little easy on the next people we meet?" She asks, sounding embarrassed.

"I feel like a battle hustler right now."

Tanya tilts her head as she considers the idea.

It doesn't take a lot of context to understand the idea of a battle hustler, it's just a pool hustler in a different medium, it's likewise easy to see how their behavior could be confused for one.

"... I see." She nods, looking back at where the other trainer disappeared below another hill.

"I'll see what I can do."

Amelia sighs in relief and pats her partner on the back."

Thank you Chansey." She says before adjusting her backpack again.

"Just like… turn it down by half? Let them move around a little?"

"Yes." The 'mon grunts.

"I understand the concept of 'going easy.'"

Admittedly, she can't think of a time she wasn't giving it her all in a fight, pulling her punches to avoid injuring someone? Sure. But pretending to be worse at combat than she is? She can't think of a time she's done that for longer than a few seconds to make an opponent overextend.

But it can't be that hard.

With that thought, Taillow is released from his ball and healed, then their walk continues on in silence for a few minutes. But it's broken by Tanya, clearing her throat and looking back at her partner as a thought occurs.

"Wont me pretending to be worse than I am be behaving more like a hustle–"

"I'm trying not to think about it."

—-- They don't meet another trainer as they continue down the trail and the day turns to dusk, the setting sun casting the entire sky in half a rainbow, a pale blue shifting through every shade of purple, then to orange, ending at a vibrant red that makes the horizon look like it's on fire.

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Tanya struggles to keep her breathing steady as they hike up the steep switchback the trail has become to get over a steep cliff of black and grey stone. As the days have gone on, they've climbed the plateau that Mt. Chimney sits upon faster than they've acclimated to the thinning air.

They've not gotten even close to passing the tree line, but the ascent from sea level has magnified an already draining hike.

The 'mon adjusts both her own and Amelia's backpack from where it hangs off of her and the movement has Taillow chirp and shift from where he's resting on her head.

But finally, after a solid half hour of walking uphill within the same hundred metre area, they crest the long switchback atop the hill, and Tanya inadvertently pauses at the sight.

Because the landscape below looks like it belongs on another planet.

Below are hills of bare stone and gravel that overlap each other, crowding space, their tops flat like an inverted meteor crater. The formations, while she knows they should be simple shades of grey, are painted in exotic and vibrant oranges and black shadows by the fading light. Light cast by a setting sun as it sits just to the left of the abnormally tall and slender ridge of Mt. Chimney, for which it gets its name.

A volcano that is so far away the atmosphere has tinged the distant rock a whitish blue, faint smoke billowing from the top.

"Alright…" Amelia pauses to take a few breaths, pulling on a handle on Tanya's backpack to drag herself the final few steps to the top of the hill.

"What's the… holdup…"

She trails off with a gasp, coming to a stop right next to her partner as they look at the scene before them.

Tanya tears her eyes away from the scene and looks around at what's surrounding them.

The top of his hill turns out to be a slightly malformed version of one of those inverted craters, a half circle with a flat top the size of a football stadium. In front of them there are some metal poles hammered into the sheer rock leading to a small pile of stones near the middle of the plateau.

Next to those stones is a metal fire pit retaining wall hammered into the rock and a metal construction the size of a telephone pole painted a cheery red and white, covered in retroreflectors, and a sealed box emblazoned with the ranger service's logo mounted to it.

Taking it all in, she shoulders both the bags she'd somehow ended up carrying and takes a step forward, the action seeming to snap Amelia out of her daze.

"...

wow." She mutters, then yelps as she sees Tanya leaving her behind and staggers forward to catch up.

"Hold up!"

Catching up, Tanya hands back her bag and they make their way to the provided fire pit. Arriving, she looks at the pile of stones consideringly and, after noting some pre-cut fire wood left in the shadow of one of the rocks, turns back to her partner.

"These rocks barely constitute a wind break, if the wind gets too strong in the night or comes from an unexpected direction things could get…" She trails off as Amelia nods.

"Yea." She agrees, looking around at the ground until she kneels down and puts a finger through the hole in a loop of metal, several of which had been embedded into the rock in a square.

"I don't think it's going to get too cold, and I trust my sleeping bag more than I trust my ability to attach my tent to these tie downs. The thing would just be a big sail."

Tanya grunts in agreement and they get to work, setting up a fire using the provided wood and heating up some canned food for the human while Tanya wakes up Taillow. Soon enough dinner is served with methodical efficiency, everyone is munching away while they watch the sun dip below the horizon, leaving the ambient light of dusk and their roaring fire.

After eating his pokechow and berries, Taillow almost immediately falls back asleep on his perch where it had been set up, nearly pressed against the side of one of the windbreak stones to keep safe. A decision that's proven wise, as it's now sheltered from the odd gust of wind which had picked up after the sun set.

Amelia scrapes her spoon along the bottom of her bowl, once full of some kind of pasta, then grabs their water and gets up before walking a little into the dark to rinse off the bowl. Stepping back into the light of the fire, she shakes most of the moisture off of the bowl and tosses it at her open bag.

"Well! Our first ranger waystation." She says with a clap as she sits back down.

"Glad it was here, things would have been a pain otherwise."

Tanya nods, finishing off her bowl of pokechow.

"Yes. At minimum we would have gone down the other side of the hill and made camp in a valley."

"I was talking more about the firewood." The trainer chimes in, looking out at the silhouettes of the flat-topped hills in the dark.

"I saw photos of the valley of steel, but it's..."

"Stark." The 'mon chimes in as she nods again.

After that, there's a long silence between them, broken by her partner roughly coughing into a fist and staring into the fire for a few moments.

"Chansey?" Amelia asks, glancing up to confirm that the 'mon's gaze hasn't moved from her than looking back down.

"I– I've got a few questions to ask you, and I think you're not going to like them."

Tanya blinks, surprised at the sudden turn, doubly surprised at Amelia's assessment of her character.

"I assure you. I will not interrupt or argue with anything but reasoned debate." She assures.

"If you offer the same courtesy, you are welcome to ask any question and argue any position."

Amelia gives a slightly strained laugh.

"No… No I don't think you'd start shouting at me. But if I don't say this right you'll…" She trails off, waving at her partner.

"... you'll do that thing you do, you'll give me the look that says 'I'm mentally recategorizing you as the kind of person who doesn't make any sense.'" She says, trying to laugh off the observation and failing then continues, more quietly.

"I know I was in that category when we first met, and I'm still not sure how I got outof it."

Tanya finches slightly at the… frank assessment of an internal process she wasn't aware could be perceived.

Looking at her partner as she refuses to meet her eyes, something twinges inside.

It's clear denying this won't work.

"I– Amelia," She stumbles, staring at the firelight reflected in her partner's eyes.

"I assure you, no matter what you say, I will not do 'that thing' as you so put it."

She cannot imagine anything her partner would want to say that would make her want to reassess the girl in such a drastic way.

Amelia, finally, looks away from the fire and into her eyes.

"Alright…" She sighs, then continues, louder.

"Alright. My questions then." She reaches into her bag and pulls out her notebook, opening it to the already marked page.

"First; why do you use gravity the way that you do?"

Tanya nods, considering the question fully despite having answered it just a few short days ago.

"To save energy, trading some added compilation for exponentially greater efficiency and accuracy."

Amelia carefully watches her partner as she speaks, only nodding a second or so after she's done speaking.

"There is a move called psychic, it's a line of sight attack where you gather a mass of psychic energy and launch it at the opponent. With your proficiency and amount of psychic energy you are certainly capable of using the attack. But you have not, even when fighting Combusken where it would be at a type advantage. Why?"

This time Tanya is forced to consider the question more completely, but the answer is again quite obvious.

"I have not practiced such a move, I cannot use a move I don't know." The 'mon says after a pause.

"But I have done some unrelated testing using telekinesis. The closer my psychic energy gets to an opponent, the harder it is to control and the weaker it becomes. I would assume such a move would be similarly inefficient with energy."

Amelia takes a breath that's slightly deeper than it needs to be, as if she's the one being questioned.

"So, you would say that if the move takes as much energy as you suspect, you would not use it?"

"Yes, I would say that." Tanya says, working to keep the sigh from her voice, because she can pretty easily figure out Amelia's argument at this point, opening her mouth to hasten the end of this slightly uncomfortable–

"Have you ever felt tired?" Her partner asks, inadvertently cutting her off.

"Have you, even once, felt like you used all the energy you could and ran out?"

Tanya closes her mouth, looking across the fire at the girl.

"... No. I have not." She says eventually.

"But an excess of energy is no excuse for wasteful expenditure."

"It– You–" Amelia starts, stammering over herself. But just as quickly she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again.

"Chansey, you keep trying to fight like someone you're not."

The 'mon blinks, caught off guard by the argument, mind starting to race as Amelia continues.

"Whenever you talk about what you want to train and how you want to fight, even when you get in a battle, you treat yourself like you're someone else." The girl says, closing her notebook and bouncing her knee.

"Whenever you plan or strategize for a fight you assume you're… fragile. You want speed, and to figure out how to use your egg to block. You treat getting hit at all like it's something to be avoided at all costs, even when it means giving up opportunities. But you're not!"

Amelia cuts herself off, taking a breath as she'd begun to raise her voice, then looking back across the fire.

"You're not." She continues.

"You're not fast, you'll never be fast in comparison to an opponent of equal strength. You're tough, you're alreadytaking hits that would throw off a four badge 'mon without flinching, but when you try to fight like dodging is the most important thing, you're throwing away the advantages you do have."

Tanya forces a rebuttal down for now, as it's clear Amelia isn't done speaking. Regardless, she's incorrect. Relying too heavily on defences is a crutch, not a skill, it wastes energy that can be better spent on maneuver or attacks, and it only takes one attack to get throug– Amelia abruptly stops bouncing her knee with a small stomp before aggressively pulling her notebook open and thumbing through pages.

"It's the same with how you attack." She says with carefully restrained emotion.

"You like to treat your energy like you have a fixed amount when we both know half the point of training is to improve capacity and throughput. Instead you wast– spend so much time looking for ways to shave even the smallest bit more energy from an attack."

"Orders of magnitude is not negligible." Tanya cuts in, irritation locked behind clenched teeth.

"You're also making sweeping assumptions based on at best scarce data–"

"I've seen your Auragraph! Youuse telekinesis more than you use your arms all day, every day, then you create a five metre gravity zone for hours and never run out of energy! You have so much energy you can't heal properlybecause you're literally overflowing with it! But then you decide to use a version of gravity that can miss!" Amelia shouts, pointing at the ground.

Tanya's face hardens slightly at the raised voice and, seeing this, Amelia pauses to take another few deep breaths before continuing in a more subdued tone.

"Yes, it feels like this is working right now because you keep winning, but that's just because you are very, very good at fighting like someone you aren't." She says, blinking her eyes rapidly and looking back at the fire, now reduced to rippling coals.

"I've spent my entire lifestudying and thinking about this kind of stuff. So I know, and while I don't know for sure how you should fight exactly, I know that if we don't change something soon we're going to hit a wall someday, and then we'll be stuck."

With those words, Amelia seems to sag like she's run out of steam, slumping where she sits and not moving as Tanya stares at her, mind working through everything she'd heard.

It's…

not nonsense, if she distances herself from the situation she can see where the girl is coming from. Though her argument does presume several things, Tanya can follow the logic. Her ideas seem sound on the face of it, but the conclusions…

An entire way of looking at things, separate from her own doctrine, separate from how she'd been trained, those skills forged in the fire of the most horrifying and violent moments of any life.

They work.

They kept her and her men aliv– Memories, loud and bright, try to crowd out her mind. Instead, Tanya takes a breath, and stares at the eyes of the girl across from her.

…She has relied a lot on her training in the aerial mage corps to inform her tactical decisions hasn't she? The first lesson, which had practically been engraved into her skull, being that speed is life in a fight. That lesson holds true here as well, it just makes sense. She needsto be fast in order to…

Unless…

Her mind flashes through every fight she's had in this life, every time she's been forced to take a hit and immediately countered, then the thought is forcibly discarded.

She got hit, regardless of how much natural armor she has, that's spending a finite resource. That fact makes the reality thatshe's spending more energy to dodge now irrelevant.

But it's a resource that can be spent on an advantage…could she have gone too far in one direction? Amelia's points do make sense with their own internal logic, despite hinting at a separate doctrine of combat.

Her constant practice to conserve energy… was also that a mistake?

Tanya blinks at the thought, turning it over in her mind from every perspective.

No. It can't be. Regardless of how much she has and the fact she can gain more with training, the fundamental truth is that it's also a finite resource that needs to be rationed. To hold as much in reserve as she can, force the opponent to expend as much as possible to achieve their objectives, then expend those reserves in a single strike to achieve victory quickly and efficiently.

But to the degree that she's doing it?

Time is a limited resource too, perhaps there's some truth to the idea that she'd been focusing too much on– Tanya's eyes snap to the gir– her partner as she looks up from the coals of the fire. It's those eyes that prompt her to try and say something.

"Well… you're given me something to think about." The 'mon says calmly, masking the frenetic assessment in her mind.

"I'm interested to speak about it further tomorrow, I'd recommend you write a somewhat detailed list of suggestions as a starting point so–" She's interrupted by her partner rushing around the fire pit and throwing herself into the 'mon's bulk, arms unable to make it more than halfway around as she buries her face into her side with a sniff.

Tanya stands still as she's embraced, slightly confused by all the heightened emotions surrounding this entire conversation.

Thankfully Amelia releases her a few seconds later and wipes her eyes with a thumb.

"Thanks." She says calmly, a silhouette against the almost completely dark sky.

"Now, it's late."

Tanya nods, rising from her spot and walking over to her bedding as her partner kicks off her boots and unzips her sleeping bag.

Soon enough, the sounds of rustling cloth fall silent and the former soldier is left alone with her thoughts.

As she thinks, her eyes slowly drift upward into the night sky to take in the multicolored blanket of stars covering the world.

…It's beautiful.

Sleep does not come quickly.