Chương 40: 4.5 Fish

Aaron's Pokemon - Artoria (Kirlia) - Jeanne (Flaaffy) - Durvasa (Mankey) Fish 4. 5 Aaron Fulan Petalburg City The sun had begun to set and many of the booths were starting to pack up shop. With my obligation to Mulaney's Sporting Goods finished, I was free to enjoy what was left of the block party with my pokemon. The four of us walked along the beach, laughing along with some baby pokemon who got to ride inside a pelipper's mouth.

A sentret was currently dangled in the not-pelican's beak pouch and showed not a whit of fear. I wondered how long it'd taken for the trainer, a warm, elderly woman, to teach the bird not to automatically swallow prey-sized items that voluntarily crawled in its pouch like that. Pelipper were intelligent, true, but instinct was instinct and couldn't always be ignored or suppressed. Then again, maybe that was the beauty and duty of being trainers, to teach pokemon to rise above predator-prey dynamics.

Or perhaps the pelipper simply liked younglings.' Or perhaps the pelipper was merely fed judiciously a few minutes prior,' Artoria pointed out wanly.' True. The simple answers do tend to be correct.' The relationship between pokemon and humans never ceased to wow me even after thirteen years on this world. It was paradoxical, at times predatory and exploitative, yet also cooperative and benign, sometimes simultaneously.

It was like people and pokemon had come to a mutual understanding that relationships between individuals ought to take precedence over the dynamics between species. People sometimes ate one miltank but raised another as a starter. They treated some pokemon like tools and others like dear friends, sometimes even akin to spouses or siblings. This paradox flowed likewise for pokemon.

I'd heard of houndoom packs that'd happily run down and feast upon foreign trainers but protect local lumberjacks, wild mareep herds that would willingly go to towns to get themselves sheared while otherwise acting territorial and hostile when encountered at all other times. Utterly baffling. Where did instinct end and relationships begin?' I do not believe there is a clear answer, my liege,' Artoria said.' You're right of course. I'm sure it differs based on species and individuals.

Or maybe I'm thinking of it all wrong and instincts are such an ingrained part of our relationships that there is no separating the two.' We chatted idly about whatever caught our fancy. Artoria broke off briefly to chide Durvasa when he threw sand at Jeanne as a prank, only for Jeanne's retaliatory Thunder Wave to strike her. The resulting three-way brawl left me apologizing to nearby beachgoers for the hassle.

Rather than try to stop them by force, I walked over to one of the booths that were still open and ordered a pretzel. Tearing it into three, I called, "Quit fighting, you lot, your snack's getting cold!" If there was one thing I could trust about my team, it was that they'd all adopted Artoria's mantra: Hunger was the enemy. Knight, idol, sage, it mattered not. Not one of them could deny their stomachs. When one ate, the other two pouted until they got their shares as well.

Truly, they weren't much different from children in that regard. After a quick snack, the four of us continued on our way until we reached the pier. There, we found a familiar face, Larry. He was the man who battled Durvasa with a fresh-caught corsola before. Now that I thought of it, he did mention having a lapras and giving rides to tourists. I decided I may as well say hello.

"Larry, right? How's it going?" I called. The daytime heat had long since died down but the old sailor still had his sunhat.

"Hey, you're that kid with the mankey. Here for a ride?" I glanced behind him. He had a lapras and a blastoise as well as what could best be described as a plastic raft. It looked like any other sailboat, if the boat had been squashed until the edge of the hull was only three or four feet above water. Everything save the rudder that belonged on a typical boat had been scooped out, replaced with seats that lifted up to reveal lockers and coolers.

Instead, a large harness was bolted onto the front, where either the lapras or blastoise could use it to easily drag the raft along. Inside the raft, I could see a mother and two children, boy and girl, as well as a young couple who seemed to be using the raft as a way to cap off their date. At their feet was a skitty chasing its own tail, delighted with the way the raft bobbed on the waves.

"A ride, huh?" I glanced at the pokenav. It was a bit past six, dinnertime, but with all the snacks we'd been nibbling on throughout the day, I didn't think any of us would be hungry anytime soon.

"Where's the raft go?"

"Nowhere special, just a lap around the city shoreline and then out to sea for two hours. Feel free to bring food along for a moonlit picnic. You just can't throw anything overboard."""Sure, why not? Sounds like a good way to close the day. I have this voucher. Will it cover it?"

"250 credits per person, 100 for small pokemon." He looked over the voucher Frankie gave me.

"Yeah, that'll do just fine instead. No fishing, you hear? The tentacool bloom is in season right now. Looks real pretty, but they're not too keen on people disturbing them."

"Is it safe to go out there then?" I asked. I remembered reading that in Australia, people closed the beaches because of jellyfish blooms. The most poisonous animal in the world was a damn-near invisible jellyfish, or something to that effect.

"Yeah, it's fine. They leave lapras and blastoise alone. Both are natural predators so if anything, I'm going to let them grab a snack or two. It's just dangerous if you dive in. Don't dive in."

"Gotcha, I do like not getting poisoned." I handed over the voucher for us to reserve our spots and wandered off to buy four sandwiches for dinner later. By the time I returned, the raft had filled up a bit more with people and smaller pokemon. Most didn't catch my interest, but a wingull kept glancing at my sandwich so I kept a close eye on it. The four of us took our seats nearest to the back ramp, with Jeanne to my right and Durvasa to my left. Artoria, I placed comfortably on my lap.

She stiffened slightly and I could feel the waves of embarrassment from my ever-proper knight. She then looked around, found that no one was paying us any attention, and promptly sagged with relief. I hugged her close and began to absentmindedly run my fingers through her hair. She let out a humm of contentment, somewhere between a happy sigh and a musical trill. Her two crests pulsed gently with crimson light. She used to really enjoy being petted just at the base of her ruby horn when she was a ralts.

Unfortunately, now that she'd evolved, she'd reached the "hugs aren't manly" phase all teenage boys seemed to go through. Though, granted, with her it was more "hugs aren't knightly" and she'd never been the type for public displays of affection. She wasn't fooling anyone though. The ralts line was biologically hardwired to delight in affection, quite literally drawing sustenance from positive emotions.

Even when Jeanne slobbered all over her, there was a significant part of my starter that relished the attention, no matter how much she tried to hide it under flustered outrage. I blamed Alice. Quinn too, but that was just the natural consequence of one helpless chuuni raising another chuuni. Alice though? She knew exactly what she was doing. Then, the peaceful moment was shattered by the excited squeal of a little girl.

She'd been leaning up over the edge at the front of the raft, stroking Larry's lapras with a look of wonder. She'd been at it for a while, at least as long as it took us to grab sandwiches, and the novelty of a lapras must have worn off because she looked around and found a new source of amusement: Artoria.

"Oh, momma, look! She's so cute!" she cried as she ran across the raft over to us. That did it. The moment was irreparably shattered. The contented haze that had surrounded my little knight dispersed like the morning mist. Her eyes shot wide open, darting about for an avenue of escape. Teleporter or not, she wasn't about to just hop for shore so there was no escape. We were on a raft and Larry had made it clear that only three people were allowed on the lapras or blastoise at a time for spatial reasons.

Those seats were already occupied. The girl, a brunette who looked to be a year or two older than the twins, ran over as fast as she could on a swaying vessel. She held her arms out wide with a big, cheerful grin like she expected Artoria to jump into her arms.

"Come here, cutie! Ooh, I want to give you a hug. I have a pretty hair clip that'd look perfect in your hair!" I wasn't the only empath. By all metrics, Artoria was naturally better than me. She could feel the raw amusement bubbling up from me; she once said it tasted a bit like bubblegum. She looked at the girl, then back at me. She knew my answer before she voiced her protest. I smiled down at her and sent her waves of affection and love. For once, the banquet of positivity only filled her with dawning horror.

Naturally, I picked up my two feet tall starter by her armpits and placed her in the girl's arms like a doll. I pulled out a comb, Jeanne's mostly but Artoria did occasionally use it, and handed it over. Reaching over, I plucked the silver spoon from Artoria's hands before she did something unwise in her frustration.

"Here, she likes being brushed just between her crests," I told the girl, ignoring the look of supreme betrayal Artoria sent me.

"Thanks! I'm May!"

"Aaron. Have fun, okay? But you should go back to your mom before you fall. And Artoria, no teleporting away," I shut her down preemptively. Beside me, my two pokemon snickered with barely suppressed mirth. This was the real reason Artoria hated being held in public: If I did it, people seemed to take it as an open invitation that it was somehow okay for them to pet the adorable kirlia as well. At least May had the courtesy to ask first.

I usually had no problem telling people no, but messing with Artoria was worth it once in a while.' This is betrayal, my lord. This is treachery of the highest order,' she chimed in my mind as she sent murderous glowers towards her teammates. She'd make them pay for laughing later. They knew that and she knew they knew, but that just meant they'd get their licks in while they could.' Have I not served faithfully? Why have you handed over your faithful knight to this monster?'

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.' Oh, don't be so dramatic. She just wants to pamper you.'' She is a ruthless beast of cuddles and positivity.'' She's just a little girl. A kirlia is like every little girl's fantasy. What's the harm in letting her indulge a bit?'' My dignity. It dies a thousand deaths with each pass of the comb.''

You know Alice plays with children occasionally too, right?'' That's because mother is the picture of grace and poise. And she is not being manhandled like a dress-up doll.'' Fine, if you stop pouting and put up with it until she gets bored, I'll buy us a parfait after the gym battle tomorrow.'' I will not be bribed with food…'' A parfait and that poffin brand you like. A full six-pack, just for you.' She was silent for a long minute, which was how I knew I'd won.' Oh, very well...

But I suffer this indignity under protest!' I chuckled quietly. On the other side, the mother sent me a grateful nod. Artoria had opted to become as stiff as a board, refusing all attempts by the children to engage her. I could still hear her quiet grumblings in my mind, rendered all the more ineffectual by the small bursts of satisfaction when May brushed her hair just right. X Children being children, their attention spans weren't exactly impressive and they let Artoria go in short order.

Artoria herself being the equivalent of a tween, she of course treated the half hour as though she'd been sealed in solitary for a century. The moment they were distracted, she teleported to my lap and plopped herself down with a sulky huff.' Have fun?' I teased.' I serve a cruel master.' I chuckled and turned my attention to the horizon. The sun had just begun to descend behind the horizon and orange and purple clouds drifted with the sea breeze.

It was that magical time when the sun, moon, and stars shone under the same sky. There was something impossibly soothing about this moment. The raft and everyone on it ceased to matter as I bickered back and forth with my dearest friend. Next to us, Jeanne was seated on the rim of the ship, dangling her tail overboard in a futile attempt to touch the water. She hummed a tune under her breath that sounded a bit like the melody we'd seen people square dance to earlier.

I half expected a carvanha to leap out and take a bite of her butt with the way she was waving the bulb back and forth. Next to her, the tranquility and vastness of the sea and sky had put Durvasa in a meditative mood. His gaze flickered from the setting sun to the west, the rising moon to the east, and the boundless sea that stretched between them.

"Mankey…" he gasped. I didn't need a translator to hear the wonder in his voice. He'd seen sunsets before of course. He'd seen the sea for a few days now too. But there was something indescribable about being out in the ocean, out past the waves, that put things into perspective.

"Yeah, it's beautiful. It's something that should be routine. It happens twice a day after all, like clockwork, as the world spins around the sun and the moon spins around the world," I said softly. I placed a hand on Durvasas's head and tousled his fur lightly.

"Man… mankey…"

"But maybe that routine is part of what makes it beautiful? It's constant. This dance of celestial bodies has been here before you and me and will be here long after. The beauty is in knowing we are part of a grand design." I hadn't been much for religion in my past life, most Japanese people weren't and my family on dad's side could be best described as "Chreaster" Christians, the sort who only attended church on the important holidays.

But here, here in the pokemon world where I knew Arceus created the multiverse with his thousand hands, where Time, Space, and Distortion had tangible avatars that could be interacted with should one feel particularly suicidal, here, I was a religious as the pope. Not quite pious, there was no such thing as the Church of Arceus in modern times, but at least cognizant of forces that had shaped this universe and so many more like it.

Durvasa growled lowly, a rumble that sounded like it should have come from something larger than a mankey. It was the sound he made when he was deep in thought, somewhere between a whine and grumble. I wondered what normal pokemon knew of the Legends. Did they have some oral tradition about how Kyogre and Groudon shaped the world? Or were they all aware of certain truths of existence the moment they were born? Some kind of ancestral memory maybe?'

The truth, as it so often does, varies by species, my lord,' Artoria said softly.' I know not how other pokemon learn, but my mother taught me about the Many-Handed One and the Three Primordials. She sang to me hymns about the Earth, Sea, and Sky, how the Sky quelled their feud. These stories resonate in us, and by the resonance of our souls we know them to be true. But their names, those, I learned from you.'' Did you?' I asked, half in surprise.' I would have thought you had some kind of archive.''

We do, but our knowledge is incomplete, partly out of reverence, partly out of carelessness. Perhaps the stories you remember about the past are just as important as the stories you remember about the future, my lord.'' True. I guess, if we are part of some grand design, if the old llama is still watching from the Hall of Origin, what would he make of me? Why me?''

You were born to receive my fealty, to teach me and lead me and love me, just as I was born to receive your instruction, to love you, and to pledge myself to your service,' Artoria spoke with absolute conviction in her voice. It was the surety of someone who felt no need nor desire for clarification.' Don't you hate not knowing? To know that gods exist, but won't tell you why you exist at all?'' There is beauty in knowing you are part of a grand design, my lord. As you said, there is purpose in that.

But I feel that there is just as much beauty in not knowing, the mystery of it all. I know not why I was born female, though female I am. My dream would be so much more achievable had I been born male. And yet, I care not, for I have my master to guide me and my sword to sharpen.'' Is that right?'' It is, my lord. Is it not wonderful? To chase the horizon and face each mystery as it appears? Not to understand, but simply in the pursuit of our dreams?

No matter what may pass, to greet the end knowing we have achieved what we set out to do?'' You're right, Artoria. It is what we do with the gift of life that defines us,' I paraphrased.' What the Legends want isn't as important as the lives we choose to lead.' We smiled at each other as the raft drifted along. The moon rose into the sky and the night breeze left me feeling refreshed. Something passed between us, an understanding, a promise.

Artoria held up her spoon, almost like a flag, and the silver metal caught the moonlight with a dazzling glimmer. Aura pooled into the bowl of the spoon, a shimmering white pearl in the night. Then I saw it.

I thought the sunset glimmer was playing tricks on my eyes, but there was the faintest hint of pink. It began as a spark, a single glitter of rose amidst a cloud of silvery-white. Then two. And three. Until her spoon was dyed pink with fae aura. It was as Alice had once described to us; it had an indescribable, unknowable quality to it, as though I could see it a thousand times and come up with a thousand and one answers. Artoria offered me a delighted smile.' I do not need control, nor to understand all mysteries.

Come what may, I will seek my dream and make it real with this blade of mine.'' How selfish of you, Artoria,' I sent back with a wide grin of my own.' Of course, my lord. Fae are exceedingly selfish creatures. We are mysterious and unknowable, carefree and whimsical, but also so, so selfish when it suits us.'' Aren't knights supposed to be selfless?' I teased.' I seek to be a knight and therefore my selflessness is inherently selfish.''

You know that barely made sense, right?'' But my lord, fae are also creatures of paradox.'' When did my Artoria get so smug?'' I learned from the best.' Our moment was disturbed by the sound of Larry's whistle. He'd put on a jacket with LED lights embedded into the sleeves, one green and one red, so he could be seen from atop his lapras in the night.

"Right, everyone, we're hitting tentacool breeding waters now," he said.

"Off to our left, you can see the way their biogems glow beneath the waves." The sight drew a gasp of wonder out of all of us. Below the sea, countless red orbs lit up the water like millions of crimson stars. It looked mysterious and magical, like something out of this world. Out of all my pokemon, Jeanne was the one who found it the most enchanting. I just knew she'd want to replicate the effect in a performance sometime later, maybe with a myriad of floating Electro Balls.'

It's beautiful, my lord,' Artoria whispered.' It's also proof that we're floating through a sea of jellyfish sperm right now,' I quipped back dryly.' Why must you be this way? Who hurt you?'' Reality must intrude sometime.'' But not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes, just appreciating the mystery is better for the mind.'' Heh, true that.' I smiled and leaned back, relaxing as my team enjoyed themselves. Artoria wasn't wrong; despite my words, it really did look gorgeous.

The haunting beauty of a moonlit night, the gentle waves that scattered the crimson lights, it was all very poetic. I took the chance to snap some pictures of my pokemon so I could upload them to the chatroom. If one of Artoria looking constipated as May brushed her hair got included, well, that was just an oversight, really.' If that pokenav goes missing tonight, it is surely not I,' my starter pouted.' Don't worry, it's all on a cloud anyway. I can just get a new one,' I assured her with a shit-eating grin.

The tranquility of the moment was shattered by the sound of something heavy falling into the water.

"MAY! MAX!" I heard the mother shout in alarm. She leaned out over the ledge, eyes wide in desperate panic. I didn't think. I wasn't sure what made me move, but move I did. I tossed Artoria off my lap and followed them into the water with one motion. The ocean enveloped me with an icy chill as I did my best to ignore the salt in my eyes. I'd never been more than passable at swimming but I was in the water already; there was nothing to do but to make it count. The ocean glowed red around me.

It looked so achingly beautiful from the surface, but now that I was in the water with them, I couldn't help but compare them to eyes that glowed in the dark. They did help in one regard: I could make out the silhouette of someone, about half my size, thrashing in the water, desperately trying to break the surface. Unfortunately, he was swimming down, not up; he'd gotten himself turned around in the confusion. I grabbed the little boy by the waist and started to drag him upward.

He couldn't have weighed more than seventy pounds, but that was a lot when he was thrashing in a panic. My thirteen year old body couldn't do more than keep our current depth.' My lord!" I heard Artoria cry out. Right. Aura. I had aura. Not a lot, I was no master, but I had enough to maybe count here. Harnessing what I could, my body became coated in a faint, blue glow. Power filled my body as I shoved the boy's head above water. I felt us moving up, away from the blood-red lights.

I'd soon be able to take a breath. The two of us broke the surface. As we took in greedy gulps of air, I felt a blazing line of fire wrap itself around my leg. I gasped automatically as shooting pain spread throughout my body. Saltwater flooded into my mouth, making me gag in disgust. I remembered what I'd told Artoria; I just ate a mouthful of tentacool sperm. My muscles seized as the mother of all cramps paralyzed my leg.

Once, in college, I'd been dared to smoke a yellow jacket hive with a burning textbook, like how those beekeepers did it. I was very, very drunk at the time and the experience and subsequent trip to the ER taught me to pick my friends better. That couldn't compare to this. One tentacle, a split second of contact, was all it took for my entire body to involuntarily freeze up in agony. I'd thought I had decent pain tolerance; I was wrong. Not like this.

Not the venom of a magical creature used to hunting things a lot more dangerous than some thirteen year old kid. In hindsight, it probably wasn't even intentional, probably just a few tentacles waving in the current. It didn't matter. My leg was on fire and I could feel the pain spreading. I tried to keep treading water, but I couldn't move at all, as though I'd been trapped in a waking dream. What tenuous grasp I had on my aura shattered with the pain.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a linoone, bigger than any I'd ever seen, swim up out of the water with the sister in its jaws. The tentacool let go of my leg, but drifted to the surface to see what it had snagged. Then Artoria was there in a flash of blue, spoon blazing with righteous wrath.

"KIR-LI-AAA!" I heard her scream out a battlecry, still cuter than fierce, before scooping the tentacool out of the water and chucking it a good fifty feet into the air. The psychic energy behind her Mana Edge left a visible trail that glittered with the ocean spray. I saw both children get hauled back to the boat. I felt hands grab me by my arms, then the pain caught up to me again and my world went mercifully black. Author's Note Durvasa isn't the only one who can reach breakthroughs through contemplation.

Artoria now has rudimentary access to fairy type aura. In other news, Aaron goes for a swim with Japan's mascots cultural mascots. Did you know? May had a bad experience with tentacool when she was younger. As far as we know, she went swimming and wore a tentacool-shaped swim cap, but her mom threw a pokeball at her because she thought she was a pokemon. Stupid reason to hate pokemon until she met Ash. So I'm giving her a better reason lol. Right, animal facts… Bird-vamps exist.

The vampire ground finch, native to the Galapagos Islands, drinks the blood of blue-footed boobies (I swear that's a real name). This happens mostly during the dry seasons when food is scarce, but the boobies do not put up much resistance to being pecked at. Scientists think that this behavior evolved from the way some finches peck at and clean other birds of parasites. So it's basically grooming behavior that ran wild. Thank you for reading.

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