Chương 78: 78-Party foul

The mood in the air as they walked down from the 'shrine' in the forest hasn't gotten any less intense. It's only gotten harder to detect as Chansey's unusual mood and Amelia's distracting energy covers her paralyzing fear. He would know, Swellow is very familiar with fear. Ruffling his still slightly unfamiliar feathers as he stands on a table, the 'mon continues trying to ignore the awkward air as he sees Amelia walking back out of the… human food place… restaurant with a variety of brightly colored things.

Since they came down from the forest and that feeling of someone watching them finally went away, they just started wandering aimlessly, looking at things for long enough the sun was approaching the horizon when Amelia seemed to abruptly remember that Swellow had evolved recently and gained a direction of finding something to celebrate that. Apparently humans celebrate evolutions too, despite the fact that Swellow's… pretty sure humans don't evolve.

Their way of celebrating is weird too, instead of letting him be the song leader for the day, human evolution celebrations seem to be all about eating good food. As Swellow has come to learn, a lot of human things are about eating food.

"DaDaDaaa! Here you go Swellow!" She says after the odd call, placing a flexible white bowl down in front of him full of brown spheres.

"Sorry we didn't get to celebrate your evolution sooner, but here we are now!" The sight and smell alone confirms that he managed to describe the delicious foodstuff correctly, so as the trainer places her own strangely floppy plate full of food in front of her and slides the final plate to Chansey, she watches Swellow launch at his bowl own with fervor before before gesturing at the 'mon and continuing in an inquisitive tone.

"... You're sure this is what you wanted? I mean… how do you even know what fried cheese balls are?" Before she's even finished the question, Swellow has already eaten two of the hot balls of food and takes a second to work the muscles in his throat to get the third ball to his stomach before answering.

"I stole it from some humans… before you caught me." He answers, adding the lie belatedly. He'd actually discovered this delicious food when he was out flying around Mauville while Amelia and Chansey were doing their nurse things. He was hungry and saw some humans eating them. They didn't keep a good enough eye on their food, so it's their own fault. It took a while for him to explain what it was from taste and appearance, but Amelia got it eventually.

Answer given, another cheese ball is halfway down his throat before Chansey gives an emotive exhale, looking up from her own food.

"I'd suggest moderation when it comes to that, humans are essentially the only species that can properly digest cheese." She says, gesturing at his meal as he eats another ball.

"In small amounts it's harmless to most 'mon, but larger amounts can cause digestive discomfort." Swellow pauses with another ball in his beak, glancing at Amelia as she doesn't refute the claim.

"... Discomfort?" He chirps, slightly distorted as his throat strains to form the words with his beak wide open. Amelia waves off the concern with slightly strained energy." Chansey, don't scare him, it's his evolution! He's fine, it's not like he's a slakoth." She says with a slightly stilted laugh as she bites into her own food.

The large 'mon seems like she wants to say something else, a moment of anticipatory silence that fades with some emotion flashing across the 'mon's eyes, before she slowly sighs and looks back at Swellow.

"... With the amount you've eaten, whatever's going to happen will happen. I'd suggest drinking a lot of water." With that ominous statement given, the 'mon returns to her food, leaving Swellow to look at the half full bowl of delicious balls. He tilts his head, trying to imagine what 'digestive discomfort' means. Then grabs another ball and throws it down his throat. He'd already eaten this stuff, and he felt fine, so he'll deal with the potential consequences later. There are delicious cheese balls now.

The food is good enough it distracts him from the weird silence in the group, unfortunately his bowl has a bottom, and his enthusiasm means he's finished before the other two even manage to get halfway through their own meal. The 'mon glances at both of them as he pecks at crumbs at the bottom of the bowl, eating them with deliberate slowness to have something to do in this atmosphere.

Over the course of today, since the moment he'd been called out of the peaceful almost sleep of the pokeball to deliver some paper, he'd watched Amelia's decline and her weird fake smile covering it. He's never really seen something like that before, so he wasn't sure what to do, and while Chansey's arrival managed to break most of the weird smile it's clearly still there as she forces herself to be energetic and celebrate his evolution.

But he recognizes the fear that caused her to do that, he was feeling that fear as he slowly realized what everyone was freaking out about after he woke up from his pokeball. He's still not sure what exactly a 'volcanic eruption' is, but he can't imagine being trapped like that, whatever was going to happen was obviously very dangerous, and the idea of being trapped, unable to fly away from an approaching threat would be… The thought trails off as Swellow takes it to its conclusion and realizes what he's thinking.

… Could he have flown away? Amelia couldn't run, and Chansey ran toward the danger. If the 'volcanic eruption' happened, would he have flown away? Swellow pauses, then resumes pecking at the crumbs. Apparently he can imagine being trapped like that, he just was. The 'mon glances back up at his partner and she offers a quick smile. Swellow understands that fear of a coming danger, and he knows Amelia, she's way more brave than him, she'll handle her fear and get rid of that weird fakeness even faster than he will.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. But… Swellow glances at Chansey just as Amelia looks up from her nearly empty plate to a nearby wall and winces.

"Oh, that's kinda late, we should probably get back to the hotel." She mutters, pulling out the brown thing she holds her 'fiat currency' in and throws a few into the table before getting up and brushing something off of her. As she stands, Swellow hops over then flutters up to land on her shoulder, struggling to find purchase with his increased size for long enough that Amelia starts walking before he can settle.

By the time he manages to perch properly the outdoor table they ate at is out of sight, and just as he starts to lower himself to a rest he feels something in his stomach shift ominously. The 'mon glances down at his stomach, then tries to ignore the slowly rising sense of dread as Amelia continues her strange lumbering walk back to the hotel, watching the other humans around them.

Normally humans are always moving like they've got somewhere to be, or if they're sitting around it's at these weird designated areas humans decide are for sitting at. But for some reason, every time something scary happens, instead of getting more busy, humans seem to just stop and decide to stand around outside. He'd noticed it when that building was on fire and it keeps happening after every earthquake. Humans just seem to like standing around near danger.

This behavior, in his opinion, seems like the exact opposite of what they should do, but it seems to work for them. Right now is no different, the path between buildings is full of people just… standing around, when there's no danger almost everyone moves like they're going somewhere, but the second an earthquake or a near 'volcanic eruption' hits it seems every human decides it's the right time to go outside and stand around, crowding the almost perfectly smooth rock path.

Then they turn a corner and fall into shade, leading Swellow to glance up at Chansey as she blocks the sun with her almost normal expression of flat calm. Almost normal. Because just beneath it is something Swellow recognises better than anyone, but never believed he would see in her. Fear. Swellow looks away, back toward where they're going as the hotel comes into view.

Before today he'd thought Chansey was incapable of fear, that the emotion would bounce off of her just like every other time something tries to attack. It's why he didn't question the idea that she could see the future, one of the biggest parts of fear is not knowing what's going to happen, it's harder to be afraid of something that he knows is coming, and he knows Chansey well enough that she'd be too busy trying to solve whatever the problem is to be afraid of it.

But when that phone call came in, and that chansey came out of that transfer machine, Swellow saw fear in the eyes of his teammate. Of course the way she dealt with it doesn't surprise him– A flash of memory at what he saw on the top of the volcano has him shiver. –but no matter the response, Swellow recognizes that fear, he understands that fear. But now, as they walk through the door into the hotel, Swellow thinks about the fear he saw on Chansey's face just before they left the shrine.

A fear more powerful than what he saw when she'd learned about the volcano, powerful enough that it not just made her flinch, but freeze. And he doesn't recognise it. Swellow has no idea what she's scared of, he can't think of anything in the world that could frighten someone like Chansey. But the thought that something does exist that could frighten her like this? Swellow shivers, stomach uneasy at the thought. That's horrifying.

—-- –_– —-- Standing with hands tightly clasped behind her back, Major Tanya von Degurechaff keeps her posture upright and firm despite the deck moving beneath her in the rolling ocean waves. All around her, the pale blue of the sky falls uninterrupted to the horizon where it abruptly changes hue to the deep blue of the ocean, not a cloud disrupting the smooth hue. No cover, no way to retreat in the event of overwhelming force, and at least seven hundred kilometers between this convoy and reinforcement.

She'd made her objections to this plan known several times over, arguing to the point of near insubordination of her better utility to the war effort if her and her men were posted on any of the other fronts she'd proven her success in, but it's as if command is trying to kill her. The spray of the ship cutting though a wave has salty sea foam splash against her defensive formula, the water sliding frictionlessly off her shield, half a centimeter raised from her body.

If she's being honest with herself, the conversation she'd had with Lergen a few weeks ago on the tactical and strategic utility of assigning aerial mages to ships as a form of primitive 'aircraft carrier' to counter the Allied Kingdom's dreadnought advantage probably had something to do with her reassignment. But they were given no training, no new doctrine as the battlefield environment changes how battles must go, they were just reassigned with nothing more than some papers and a salute.

Tanya finishes her sweep of the sky and sea, then reaches up to adjust her officer's cap before starting again. Command's lack of logic is a known factor, and their fallacy of believing her success in one field of war will directly translate to success in another has struck again. It only seems to have gotten worse as time goes on.

She understands the necessity of this convoy, the government tries to keep the dire state of their supplies a secret from both the soldiers and the public, but one only has to go out onto the streets in any city or town to see that they're running out of food. The career soldier sighs, squeezing her clasped hands before loosening them again. She'd like to think the enemy is having similar supply issues, but she knows better.

No matter how great a land power the Empire is, Albion rules the waves, and the Allied Kingdom's empire means supplies like food or raw materials are never in short supply. But no matter how much raw iron and wheat they can import from across the oceans, their lower population and refusal to industrialize their colonies means manpower and refined goods are their weakness.

Yet regardless of either side's terrible strategic position, those awful fallacies of honor, patriotism, and sunk cost make it so this war cannot end until one side or the other is incapable of continuing the fight.

"Major!" Visha's voice cuts through the wind and waves as she marches up beside her and salutes.

"Capitan Schnelnekoff requests you join him in the officer's mess for an early lunch, before a storm has a chance to roll in." Tanya's lips twitch to a frown. Ah. Schnelnekoff, the highest ranking officer yet she's met who is uniquely… interested in her. Command's propaganda and her continued successes even as the strategic situation worsens has given her a reputation that, while useful in many situations, has just as many drawbacks.

Drawbacks such as interacting with people who buy into the propaganda wholeheartedly, seeing her as some kind of celebrity instead of just another soldier. Tanya nods, unclasping her hands from behind her back as she floats gently into the air.

"Thank you Lieutenant. The flagship is still at bearing 225?"

"Yes Ma'am." Visha nods, floating up behind her as they shoot off toward the flagship of the convoy. As they climb to a comfortable cruising height, flying toward the plume of black smoke from the flagship's engines, Tanya sees some dark clouds come up from just below the horizon. At this new height the soldier does one more scan for enemy forces before her mind turns to whatever lunch has been prepared for her.

If nothing else, the officer's accommodations on the ocean are leagues better than even the best on the front.