The Path of Destiny Part 62

The Path of Destiny

Chapter 62 - Change of Heart

At the foot of the mountain, Cyclone’s army waited for their leader and his small group to return. Through the nighttime darkness, none of the pokémon could be sure exactly what had taken place on Articuno’s terrain. They had seen the storm clouds gather, the way they did when a pokémon used rain dance, only much bigger. But now, they had cleared, and all activity from the mountain birds seemed to have stopped. They could make out areas where the snow seemed to have melted, but none but the scouts were close enough to see what had become of Articuno.

Already, some of the scouts were flying back and forth, but the only pokémon who had received any information yet were the higher-ups. The rest of the army was left in the dark.

But not all the pokémon had been stunned into silence. Quiet whispering passed through various groups huddled together as they waited, some sounding worried, others hopeful. There were a few shouts as some demanded information from the commanding pokémon, but the cries went ignored.

“I can’t believe they managed to kill him already,” Ashend whispered quietly as the scout who had given her and Yenn the information flew off, leaving them almost alone in the field of towering rocks. The few pokémon who were currently waiting in their clearing were well out of earshot, and the misdreavus caught a few of them looking at her and the yanmega hopefully, as if thinking they might actually stop what they were doing to tell them something.

“I do hope Itora’s all right,” Yenn replied, looking toward the mountain. Even with his excellent vision, he couldn’t make out the spot where Articuno supposedly fell. It was swallowed in the shadow of the mountain’s looming peaks, seeming even darker now that it was well into the night.

“Cyclone wouldn’t let anything happen to her,” Ashend replied, but her expression was unreadable as she looked toward the snowy mountain as well.

“Something about this isn’t right,” the yanmega said tensely, flying up to a higher spur of rock to get a better view. “We should be fighting humans, not killing legendaries.”

“Cyclone knows what he’s doing,” the ghost type responded. “At least after this, we can leave. You want to use your Attack, don’t you?”

“Of course.” The yanmega shivered, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or not. “I just can’t wait to get out of here.”

The misdreavus didn’t answer, instead casting her ghostly gaze into the clearing around them, the large swath of grass surrounded by ominous rock. “I wasted years of my life being Team Rocket’s slave, at the mercy of both them and the trainers who often tried to stop us. I’ve waited a long time to make them pay for it. It’s not even about Cyclone’s goal. But if helping him will get me to where I want…I’m willing to go through with anything he says.”

“I know,” Yenn sighed. Trying to calm himself, he forced his wings to lie flat and curled his tail around the rock he rested on. “Come to think of it, these ‘Team Rocket’ humans were the ones that had Solus too, weren’t they?” he pondered. “That’s where his collar with that red symbol comes from?”

“Oh, don’t compare me to that miserable fleabag,” the misdreavus responded, but there was a lighthearted, almost jesting tone to her voice, one that she reserved only for Yenn and Itora. “From what I understand he was nothing but a spoiled Team Rocket brat of a pokémon, who ran crying to Cyclone when he got abandoned in a damaged building.”

At this, Yenn laughed in response. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“He’s not like you and me,” Ashend continued, the somber tone in her voice returning. “If I were in Cyclone’s place I’d have kicked him out of the army ages ago.”

“You and me both!” Yenn laughed, tucking his legs beneath him as he settled down on the rock.

Ashend didn’t give him such a joyful response. “I wanted to wring that scrawny rat’s neck after he threatened you this evening.”

“Aw, you don’t have to do that,” Yenn replied with a small smile, realizing that Ashend’s mood was starting to dampen. “I wouldn’t want you to get tired wasting your ‘ghostly powers’ on that little runt.”

“I guess you’re right,” Ashend replied with the hint of a smile. “It would be a waste of my time.”

The two of them shared a small laugh, but they quickly grew more solemn as they waited for Cyclone’s party to return. Ashend was beginning to become unnerved herself, wondering if maybe Yenn was right to worry for Itora. And it did, in spite of what she believed in, feel a little unnerving that Articuno was actually dead. She had to admit that Cyclone had gone a lot farther than she thought he would, but she knew that their leader believed it would pay off in the long run.

“You know…” Yenn began, trying to break the silence. “Getting rid of Solus for real wouldn’t be a bad idea. Maybe we could convince Cyclone to banish him or something. It doesn’t really sit right with me that he tortures pokémon, even if they are traitors. Whatever he does in those ‘torture rings’ of his…well, all I want to know is what sort of horrible thing you’d have to do to get sent to him.”

Ashend sighed. “Yenn, don’t worry about it. Cyclone’s got it under control and he wants to protect us all. Besides, we’ll never have to see it.”

“You’re defending Solus?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying that Cyclone knows what’s best, and he runs this army for a reason. I’m all for getting rid of Solus, if that ever becomes possible, and bringing in a new pokémon to deal with the threats. But for now we’ll just let them handle it. It has nothing to do with us.”

“I just don’t like it, okay?” Yenn replied sharply. “After all the time I spent being tortured by humans in that lab, I really don’t like the idea of pokémon in this army becoming humanlike.”

He looked like he was about to go on, but instead he went silent, just noticing that he could see movement through the nighttime gloom at the mountain’s base.

“Are they coming back?” Ashend asked, noticing that something had stolen her friend’s attention. She peered into the night, but her vision was nowhere near as good as the yanmega’s, and she couldn’t see them.

“I think so,” Yenn replied, before turning his attention to a noibat who was passing by, headed toward a bored looking nidoqueen who he recognized as one of the commanding pokémon. The noibat was probably on an errand for the large poison type.

“You! Noibat!” Yenn cried, and the small purple bat came to a halt, fluttering her wings to stay airborne. Yenn uncurled himself, standing on all six legs as his wings started to hum. “Go find Cyclone and bring us back the news.” The small bat looked confused, as if she wasn’t sure whose orders to follow – Yenn’s or the nidoqueen’s. “Now!” Yenn shouted, and she hurriedly flew off, in the direction of the mountain.

“Let’s hope she actually has the sense to do what you told her,” Ashend remarked disdainfully. She knew that Yenn was worried, but Cyclone didn’t want either of them leaving the clearing in the rocks until they could be sure there wasn’t going to be any trouble from Articuno’s followers.

They watched the small pokémon leave, and the nidoqueen who had been waiting for her got up in a huff and went off to find some other pokémon to get whatever she wanted. Having nothing to do but wait, they settled down on the rock ledge again, both of them too tired from all the excitement the past few days to do much else, especially considering they had stayed up all night and the previous day. Even the nocturnal Ashend was looking exhausted.

Although the rock walls blocked much of the cold air, the night was still chilly, and Yenn found himself edging closer to Ashend, even though he knew the ghost type could provide no warmth to him. Still, even just being close to one of his only friends was comforting.

He looked up at the mountain, seeming gray and haunted under the light of the moon and the stars. Earlier, he had been able to see the shapes of many bird pokémon blocking out the stars around the mountain, but now, there was nothing. “This place gives me the creeps,” he muttered. “Ever since we got here, something’s just felt wrong. I don’t like it.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sweetie,” Ashend replied. “The mountain pokémon won’t dare attack us. Not after they’ve seen what Cyclone can do.”

“Let’s hope not.” It still felt strange, thinking that Cyclone’s Attack was powerful enough that even Articuno could not stand up to it. Yenn wondered just how strong the vaporeon was.

He saw the noibat returning long before he heard the fluttering of her wings. He and Ashend waited silently until the small pokémon reached them. “Well?” Yenn demanded as the purple bat-like pokémon flew up to their rock ledge, looking worn out.

“Cyclone wants both of you to follow me,” the tiny pokémon squeaked. “No one else!” she then cried at the other pokémon milling about the clearing, who had all moved closer to the noibat out of curiosity. “Just you two.”

“Hey, I told you to tell me-”

“They killed him!” the pokémon cried fearfully. “They killed Articuno.” Obviously she had no idea that the scouts had informed Yenn and Ashend of this already, and she looked a little shocked at the complete lack of surprise on their faces. “They found the…stone they were looking for. The electric one.” She could see that both the misdreavus and the yanmega were looking impatient, and blurted out, “No one was harmed, though! Your friend…the manectric…wasn’t harmed.”

She settled down into silence, and Yenn and Ashend relaxed. The noibat, relieved that she’d stumbled upon the thing they’d both wanted to hear, turned and began to wearily fly toward one of the gaps in the rock walls. “I’ll take you to Cyclone.”

Yenn just nodded, and Ashend sighed as she drifted through the air to hover beside the noibat. “We’re quite capable of finding him ourselves,” the ghost type began, her voice full of disdain, “…but if you must, then at least try to show us some respect.”

Yenn gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh, forget it,” he muttered. “Let’s just follow the stupid bat to Cyclone and find Itora already.” He was already moving, taking to the air and beginning to follow the frightened noibat. Although the smaller flying creature moved at a pace far too slow for him, he held back, not wanting to leave Ashend behind.

“No need to be rude,” the misdreavus responded, a little annoyed. Despite her small size and strange way of moving, she managed to catch up with them and match the noibat’s pace quite easily.

“Yeah, sorry,” Yenn mumbled. “I just hope Itora actually found what she was looking for.”

It didn’t take long for them to reach the place where Cyclone and the pokémon who had come with him had gathered. They could fly above the majority of the crowd, and any flying type army pokémon quickly got out of the way and made a clear path for Yenn and Ashend through the air.

It didn’t take them long to realize that every single member of Cyclone’s small party had returned mostly unscathed. Cyclone himself did not have so much as a single scratch on his body, and Itora was proudly carrying a glowing orange stone in her mouth.

But the gathering group of army pokémon coming to welcome them back was focused on something else entirely. Further back, in the shadow of the rocks at the very base of the mountain, was Articuno’s body, solid proof that Cyclone had kept his grisly promise. Somehow, one of the pokémon in the group had managed to drag the legendary’s corpse down from the mountain to where it lay in front of them. Most of the body was in shadow, but what he could see of the burns that ravaged the ice type’s body, from where the acid had struck, made Yenn freeze.

He was sure his wings were the only part of his body that moved for several seconds. Beside him, even Ashend stiffened, looking as if the sight disturbed even her, despite her feelings about Articuno. But there was also a coldness in her eyes, a calm resolution that what had been done had been done for a worthy cause.

To Yenn, it was different...seeing Articuno dead. He had never seen a legendary before. Articuno had been little more than a concept in his head. Something he knew existed but never thought would have anything to do with him. But now here he was...real...and lifeless.

Yenn could only think of the fact that they – that the army – had killed him. Something about it was so wrong…legendaries like Articuno sometimes protected pokémon, and from the looks of it, the pokémon on the mountain had been living peacefully under his reign until they’d arrived. Was Articuno really standing for the humans when he guarded that stone, or had he had other reasons, other beliefs, that had made him do it? Surely Cyclone would have tried talking to Articuno if he believed that could have at all helped?

He couldn’t imagine what other motive the ice bird might have had…but killing what had appeared to be the guardian of countless wild pokémon? He hadn’t imagined Cyclone would have been willing to do something like that.

As he thought these things, he suddenly realized that he didn’t want to be there anymore, that all he wanted was to get away from the sight of Articuno’s body. He couldn’t even pinpoint exactly why he felt so strongly about it, but at the moment he didn’t care. Without saying anything, he tore away from the astonished crowd, and sped back toward the area where he and Ashend had been waiting before, toward the big rocks and where their own personal shelters had been arranged.

He didn’t stop to see if Itora or Ashend reacted to him leaving. He noticed several other pokémon glance at him as he zipped by, but they knew better than to question him.

He quickly entered the rock maze and flew past the clearing, keeping low to the ground so as to not attract too much attention; even if the other pokémon wouldn’t bother him, he didn’t particularly like being stared at. Turning away from the place where he and Ashend had been resting minutes before, he headed down a narrow passage. It was flanked on either side with rock walls, almost like a miniature canyon. Once there he slowed down, aware that he couldn’t be seen by the main body of the army there.

Cyclone hadn’t just killed Articuno, but the wild pokémon that had been protecting him. In spite of everything Cyclone stood for, Yenn felt a surge of anger take hold of him. They were supposed to be protecting the wild pokémon, not killing them. Wasn’t that what this was all about? The type of violence the army leader had unleashed on that mountainside should be reserved for the humans who deserved it.

If Cyclone had killed the mountain pokémon for prey, he would have felt differently. But this wasn’t an attack driven by the need to survive. This was wrong.

And Cyclone had murdered a legendary. He almost couldn’t believe he’d actually done it, even after seeing the body.

He was told Articuno had chosen to take the humans’ side, but had anyone actually confirmed it? Did Cyclone even really know what he was doing?

“Okay, calm down…” he told himself, feeling a hint of panic start to rise within him. Luckily it was small, and he managed to push it away. “Cyclone has to know what he’s doing-”

He paused, for he had reached the end of the path formed by the walls of the ‘canyon,’ and realized that there were two large bird pokémon perched above him on the rock wall, a talonflame and a staraptor. He tensed, annoyed that he hadn’t even noticed them until just then; yanmega were supposed to notice their surroundings at all times. He didn’t like that they’d caught him at such a vulnerable moment, but the two flying types only bowed respectfully to him as he flew past.

If the bird pokémon had noticed his odd behavior, they hadn’t said anything, and Yenn knew they wouldn’t dare. Once the initial unease had faded away, he felt oddly satisfied with it, in spite of the situation. Cyclone made sure that he was treated like a king here. Seeing bird pokémon bowing to him was so different, so much better than his fearful days as a wild yanma or what had seemed like an eternity of torture at the hands of humans. He remembered his days before he evolved, when he was very young and still small enough to need to fear predators. Those same predators that hunted him as a yanma and fled from him as a yanmega would now serve him the moment he demanded it.

He soon reached the makeshift shelter that had been set up for him. It was a cave of sorts in the rocks, though it was open on two sides, providing an entrance in both the front and the back. A crude drawing of a yanmega was painted in smeargle ink on the rock above it. Several vines had been hung over both entrances, an attempt to keep out the cold. Even with the measly protection, his shelter was still far warmer than anywhere else in the army’s current camp.

He made his way inside, instantly greeted by the tantalizing smell of blood from fresh prey that had been laid out along a rock ledge on one side of the room. In his current mood, he was in no hurry to eat it, but he knew that it would be given to other pokémon in the army if he left it alone for a few hours, so he wasn’t worried.

A persian and an audino stood on one end of the room, the persian holding a starly in his jaws, obviously having come there to provide more food in case Yenn didn’t want the ones that were already offered. The audino had probably come bringing more fresh water, but at the moment Yenn didn’t care about either of them. He had come there to be alone, but he knew that even if he sent those two away, he’d just have to order another set to leave when they inevitably came to check if he needed anything a while later.

“Did we…did we do something wrong?” the audino asked nervously, obviously sensing something was amiss, but trying to sound cheerful and helpful at the same time. “Do you need anything?”

Yenn didn’t bother answering. He flew straight past them and out the other side of the shelter, finding himself beneath open sky again. To his annoyance, there were a few other pokémon milling about in this area, some of them looking a little lost. He resisted the urge to yell at them for wandering around where they shouldn’t be and flew on, into another narrow canyon-like path created by the rock walls around him. He knew from exploring earlier that day that it led to a dead end. No one was likely to be lurking around there.

As soon as he turned into the canyon opening, he could see that something had been painted on the far wall. It was another one of that weird smeargle’s murals. Yenn had no problem seeing the details from a distance, and he paused to look before moving closer. It was a huge circular drawing, almost reminiscent of a human’s painting. Lining the outer edge were pictures of pokémon, one of every type. There was a smaller drawing next to each of them, what looked like a jewel with a symbol representing the type. At the top was a houndour, and instead of a symbol, the houndour was spouting a white flame, streaks blue and black and purple twisted into it. What the smeargle had used to paint that part of the drawing, Yenn didn’t know, but it was the only part that was colored something other than green. In the center of the painting was Cyclone, standing beneath a rain Yenn knew must represent his secret Attack.

He flew closer, wondering just what had possessed the odd smeargle to create such a detailed painting in a dead end in the middle of a bunch of rocks. It struck him as a bit weird, and he flew right up to the base of the painting. It was taller than he was long, and a part of him had to admire the smeargle for whatever tactic or skill he had used to reach the higher places on the rock wall.

There was a drawing of a yanmega on the makeshift mural, and a manectric, and a misdreavus. Him, Itora, and Ashend. He figured they simply had symbols drawn beside them instead of actual attacks because their Attacks had not been used yet. No one seemed to be sure of what their attacks would do exactly, not even Cyclone. But the top drawing…that was the lost houndour. The one Cyclone had tried to recruit but who had refused and attacked, threatening to burn them all with Shadowflare.

The houndour was a dangerous threat to the army, but as far as Yenn knew, no one knew his whereabouts. Yenn had never seen the houndour; that had all happened a bit before he’d joined the army. But Cyclone had told him everything.

A part of Yenn worried that the reason the houndour had refused so adamantly was because he was allied with the humans, maybe even trainer owned. Blazefang, they’d said his name was. Yenn suddenly grew more concerned. If the humans had a pokémon with one of the secret Attacks on their side, the army was in trouble.

“Yenn?” a familiar voice called from close by, and he spotted movement to his right as Ashend phased through the rock wall, letting her transparent body float toward the yanmega before becoming solid again. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you think Cyclone really needed to kill Articuno?” Yenn asked instead, dodging the question. For a moment there was no sound between them save for the dull humming of Yenn’s wings. “Do you?”

“There was no other way he could have gotten the stone, dear,” Ashend said sadly. She kept her gaze downcast as she moved closer to him. “I know you didn’t like them killing wild pokémon. Cyclone says we need to trust him for now. It will all work out.”

“That was a high price to pay for his plan to work, then,” Yenn muttered.

Ashend seemed confused. "You see the bodies of the pokémon you eat every day. Why is this any different?"

“I don’t kill anything I’m not going to eat. And no one will be able to eat Articuno after what-”

“This is for our survival, Yenn.”

Yenn paused. When she put it that way, something did start to make a bit more sense.

“For the survival of us pokémon,” Ashend continued. “If we continue to let humans run everything, pokémon are going to suffer and die until we stop them. And if this is what it takes…”

“We have to do some pretty nasty things, don’t we?” Yenn finished.

“You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Ashend continued. “I’ll admit this is hard for me to understand…but if this really bothers you, you don’t have to be a part of it. Cyclone will take care of it. But you want to fight with us, don’t you? Want to help us take the lands that belong to pokémon back?”

“Of course I do!”

“And you want to make the humans pay for what they’ve done,” the misdreavus continued, her eyes involuntarily flashing to Yenn’s scar before she quickly averted her gaze, looking into Yenn’s eyes instead.

“Trust me, thinking about it is the only thing that’s been keeping me sane,” the yanmega replied, and the light of anger in his eyes returned. “I’m not giving that up regardless of who Cyclone goes after. I just wish he’d…”

“Articuno’s dead and it’s time to move forward,” Ashend continued, trying to choose her words carefully so as not to upset him. “You don’t have to agree with everything Cyclone does. But we promised Cyclone we would fight the humans, and I want you to be there beside me when we do.”

“And I will be,” Yenn replied sincerely, but Ashend could tell that he still doubted, still wasn’t sure if he truly believed what she was saying.

“We’ll make Articuno’s death worth it in the long run,” the misdreavus continued, a smile beginning to form.

Yenn watched as Ashend began to head back down the narrow path, waiting for him to follow instead of taking a shortcut through the wall again. He knew that, regardless of how uneasy he was about the whole thing, he’d come too far to back down now. Even if he’d wanted to, it would be such a waste.

He took one last look at the smeargle’s odd drawings, the light from the red gem on his amulet casting an eerie glow on the dark gray rock, before he turned and flew after Ashend. The sooner he found something to take his mind off of what Cyclone had done, the better.

Maybe he would feel better when they got to the caves where he could practice his Attack. Though that would take them uncomfortably close to Stonedust City, Cyclone had assured them that he would make sure there was no human contact with the army. As much as he wanted his revenge on the humans, he knew the army wasn’t ready yet, and when he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he was ready yet either.

                                                                                         -ooo-

Morning seemed to bring a sense of unease over the group of trainers and pokémon sheltering in the clearing. Most kept to themselves, either resting or taking short walks in the forest. They had quickly discovered that they didn’t need to spend much time foraging for food; Katie could bring back all the supplies they needed from the city.

Scytheclaw sat half slumped against the tree, finally tiring of his poké ball enough to stay out in the clearing. However, this meant he had to endure being around the other pokémon, which he wasn’t too keen on. To his relief, they had left him alone so far. He still felt weak, but his strength was returning. He already felt much better than he had the previous day. Perhaps it helped that his healing power didn’t actually injure him when it caused him so much pain.

“How’s Nightshade doing?” he heard Rosie ask. The ninetales walked over to where Snowcrystal was waiting beside the heracross.

“He’s fine,” the white growlithe said. “He fell asleep again.”

Scytheclaw looked in Nightshade’s direction. Despite his injuries, the blue bug type looked peaceful. He knew that Katie had brought back the best pokémon medicine she could buy, and it seemed to be working like a charm as far as keeping infection at bay and pain under control. The scizor felt a little strange as he looked at Nightshade, remembering that the heracross had saved his life down in the underground. A part of him felt like he should thank him, but he knew there was nothing he could do at the moment, so he put it out of his mind.

“Oh, well that’s good,” Rosie replied. “So, uh…wanna go find some berries with me and Spark?” She looked over her shoulder at the jolteon who was waiting by the line of trees on one side of the clearing. “I know we’ve got lots of food, but I thought that we could do it for, you know, fun. Maybe it’ll cheer us up.”

Snowcrystal perked up immediately. “That’s a great idea!” she said happily. “Let’s ask Wildflame if she wants to come.”

Rosie and Snowcrystal bounded across the clearing together to where Wildflame was resting, and Scytheclaw leaned his head back and sighed. At least he could relax fairly comfortably; the injuries he had received from the machamp would have still hurt quite a lot if he hadn’t been given the pain medicine. Luckily Katie made sure they had plenty of it.

“Hey!” a voice by his side whispered excitedly, and he jumped in alarm.

“What the-”

It was Alex. The floatzel had somehow crept up on him without his noticing, and was crouched beside his tree. “I was wondering if you’d want to come look for berries with me. We don’t have to go with the others if you don’t want to.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Scytheclaw growled.

“We could bring some back for Damian, maybe?” Alex asked.

Scytheclaw didn’t understand why, but suddenly anything sounded better than waiting in the clearing, thinking about how much trouble his trainer was in or what they were going to do about the Forbidden Attacks. Even the thought of his healing power was bothering him, and he realized that he needed a distraction. “I can’t believe I’m doing this…” he sighed as he sat up.

“Great!” Alex said with a grin. “I’ve walked around the nearby forest a few times. Thought I saw some lum berries. Do you like lum?”

Scytheclaw sighed again, rubbing his sore neck. “All right, whatever, let’s just go.”

They headed off into the forest, and Scytheclaw soon found that, in an odd sort of way, the floatzel’s upbeat attitude was a pleasant change from everything that had happened recently. Perhaps he only thought so because he was just so shaken. But at the moment, he found himself almost enjoying her company. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he felt similar to the way he did when Damian had first found him, lost, confused, and wanting to be around someone who liked him without expecting him to act strong.

Alex moved slow enough to allow him to keep pace with her, but she never once mentioned Scytheclaw’s injuries and weakness, which he was glad for. They traveled in near silence for a short while, enjoying the warm sunlight that flickered through the leaves of the trees. At least it was a pleasant early summer day.

They soon stopped at a small stream, pausing to drink while watching a couple of linoone scampering through the undergrowth. Scytheclaw could barely remember what it felt like to be a wild pokémon with nothing to worry about other than getting enough food. Before Forbidden Attacks, before humans like Mausk…

But at least he had Damian now, and he hardly even thought about his lost leadership anymore. It seemed so long ago, and the pokémon in the canyon now just seemed unpleasant to him when he thought back to them. He figured that getting away from them was probably a good thing in the long run. In the end, they hadn’t seemed to have cared much about him.

Three months ago, he would have thought the idea of joining a human was absurd, appalling even. He hadn’t expected to bond with Damian. When the trainer had stumbled across him in the wilderness, however, it had been at a time when he had nothing anymore, nothing to lose. He had first agreed to join Damian purely because he had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. He had assumed Damian wanted him because he was a rare evolved pokémon. But he had been wrong. Damian soon showed that he cared about Scytheclaw, in the way even his most loyal followers in the canyon hadn’t. It had made him see the trainer in a whole new light very quickly. It had even changed his mind about humans, made him realize that they weren’t all thoughtless and selfish the way his old trainer was.

“Hey, Scytheclaw, I found the berries!” came Alex’s voice, and Scytheclaw cringed, suddenly wondering why he had been desperate enough for a distraction to agree to wander the forest with her.

He didn’t move from where he was, and there was no need, because he could see the berry trees through the underbrush across the stream. Alex didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t coming to join her, and set about plucking every berry she found from the branches.

He focused on something else until he heard her shout from the berry trees, “Um…Scytheclaw? Can you help me carry these back?”

“Don’t feel like it,” he muttered loud enough for her to hear.

“Okay, fine! I’ll bring them back myself!” the floatzel cried, and Scytheclaw turned his head away again, ignoring the frantic scraping sounds as Alex tried to gather up all the berries.

A minute or so later she emerged, and Scytheclaw could only stare at her. Unable to hold all the berries in just her paws, she had piled them around her neck, using her arms to hold them between her head and the yellow floatation device that circled around her body. The berries were piled so high that they covered half of her face.

Scytheclaw almost laughed. “You look ridiculous,” he said.

“I do not!” Alex retorted in a mock-angry voice. “I’m only doing it this way because you wouldn’t help.” She staggered over to the stream’s edge, trying to find a good place to jump across without dropping the fruit she carried. As soon as she reached the water, she stared down at it, then burst out laughing. “You’re right! I do look ridiculous!”

In spite of himself, Scytheclaw had to admit that it was refreshing to see someone laughing after everything they’d been through. Although he tried not to let it show, he was starting to think that maybe having Alex around wasn’t so bad. At least she wasn’t angry at him all the time like some of the others were. In fact, for whatever reason, she seemed to enjoy his company, and he admitted reluctantly that perhaps he shouldn’t be so mean to her.

He sighed as he reached down to pluck a few berries from the stream, which Alex had inevitably dropped. “Here,” he muttered, dropping them onto the pile she was carrying once she reached his side of the stream. “Let’s take these to Damian.”

As they walked back, Scytheclaw was a bit annoyed about the whole thing, feeling in some irrational way that he should still hate all these pokémon. Yet Alex herself hadn’t been around when Nightshade and the others had come to his canyon, so perhaps he didn’t need to blame her. If he could get along with Arien, he could get along with her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered under his breath as they headed back to the camp.

                                                                                         -ooo-

By mid-afternoon, the tension in the air seemed to have faded, and the pokémon seemed less worried about what they would do next, many just grateful to have a rest. Scytheclaw sat on the edge of the clearing, tuning out most of them, but catching bits and pieces of conversation here and there.

“Well, the obvious thing to do is find a legendary,” Katie was saying. “Apart from Articuno, I mean. And well, you know how easy that’s going to be. But if any pokémon is going to know about the Forbidden Attacks…”

“So how do we go about finding one?” Justin asked.

“That I don’t know. There’s all sorts of rumors of roaming legendaries, but we need to find one that’s staying in one place. Maybe wild pokémon further from the city would know.”

“Yeah, well there’s a reason legendaries make their homes in places humans don’t know much about,” Justin said hopelessly.

“We’ll figure something out,” Katie insisted.

Scytheclaw stopped paying attention to what the two younger humans were saying. He leaned his head back, wondering if he should head out into the forest again to try to find a quiet place to take a nap.

“Scytheclaw?” a concerned voice sounded from somewhere to his left, and the scizor quickly opened his eyes and turned to see Damian looking at him. “Something’s wrong, I can tell. What is it?”

If anyone else had asked him something like that, Scytheclaw probably would have just yelled at them. But seeing that it was his trainer, he relaxed. He shook his head, wishing – for what seemed like the millionth time – that he had a way to speak to Damian that didn’t have to involve a psychic type like Arien.

“Are you worried about what happened down there?” Damian said, quietly enough that no one else in the clearing would be able to hear him. “With your healing power?”

Scytheclaw hesitated, but he shook his head again. As much as he hated recalling the image of his trainer bleeding out in that underground hellhole where the scum of Stonedust City gathered…that wasn’t what was bothering him. It was more that he was just uncertain of his future, of Damian’s future…

Yet something about what Damian said distracted him from the anxiety. Something he’d almost forgotten amidst all the commotion. And it brought him back to the pain he’d felt while trying to heal Damian down in the underground. That horrible pain, that had to be like…

Suddenly he decided that he wanted Arien there. He shot an urgent look at Damian, who seemed to understand instantly, and called the alakazam over.

“You have something you want me to tell him?” Arien asked calmly, giving the scizor a respectful nod.

“Yes,” said Scytheclaw, “but we need Katie. Go get her. And…well, I guess everyone else is going to have to know too. But I don’t want to announce it to them. You deal with it.”

“Scytheclaw, what’s going on?” Damian asked as Arien went to fetch Katie. He knew the scizor couldn’t give him a clear answer until he was ready to tell the psychic type, but he couldn’t help asking all the same. “You’re acting weird. Is something…”

“I’m here,” Katie said, standing beside Damian with Arien at her side. “What did you guys want me for?”

“Well I’m…I’m not sure,” Damian stammered, and he glanced at Arien, who looked to Scytheclaw expectantly.

“Okay, here’s my message,” Scytheclaw began, standing up straight in spite of his exhaustion as he faced the alakazam. “First of all, I want everyone to know that I’m aware of how weird I’m acting. But before anyone starts mocking me about it, I’d like to know how they expect any pokémon to act normally after what I saw down in that city.”

Arien just stared at him with a baffled expression. Damian and Katie seemed to pick up on his confusion as well, because they both gave the scizor puzzled stares.

“I didn’t see everything,” the scizor continued, “but I know a lot of pokémon died in horrible ways down there. And while I don’t particularly like other pokémon…” He paused, making sure to give Arien a look of annoyance as he did so, causing the alakazam to sigh. “…I don’t really like to see them suffer like that. I have to admit that the world is a pretty awful, nasty place.”

At this, Arien looked about to object, about to correct him or dismiss his pessimistic attitude by pointing out that not every city was like Stonedust. Scytheclaw didn’t give him a chance.

“…And…well, I guess I’d like to make it a little less awful and nasty.”

Arien looked genuinely surprised, and even Katie, who was completely out of the loop, knew something very unusual was happening. Scytheclaw had paused, as if struggling with a decision, and Damian quickly whispered to her the gist of what he’d said so far.

“He wants to make the world a better place? What, does he want to give me a hug or something?” she joked. She couldn’t imagine anything more ridiculous or unlike Scytheclaw than that, but at a glare from the scizor she fell quiet.

“Tell them this…” Scytheclaw instructed Arien. “And tell them they need to get moving fast because I want to get this all over with as soon as possible, and I’m sure everyone else does too.”

“All right…” Arien began, a sudden respect for Scytheclaw beginning to form in his mind.

“Tell them,” Scytheclaw continued, “tell them that I’ve decided to heal Stormblade.”

To be continued…