FR Nuzlocke V1-08

Alizara sat at the base of a tree, face buried in her arms.  Azure couldn’t really be surprised.  She was a little… odd.  Liz was the type of person who’d probably be able to catch a ralts if she went to Hoenn, Azure thought.  He sent Phyton and Tornado out to keep watch and sat next to his sister.  “You okay?”

“Yes.”  She had stopped crying, but still didn’t seem like she wanted to move just yet.  The twins sat in silence.  It was late afternoon, but they could probably get a few more miles in before they had to set up camp.  He brought Liz to her feet and continued to walk.  Phyton fell in line with Tornado on Liz’s command, though he was more sullen than usual.  A pokemon would reflect the mood of its trainer – that was one of the first things a prospective trainer was taught.  

“Trainers!  I challenge you,” came the call of a young teen, likely from Pewter City.  Pewter’s Gym gave trainers their licenses at 14, rather than waiting until 18 like Professor Oak did.  He wore the same blue-banded straw hat that Rick had.  That meant he was part of a group called the Bug Catchers.  

Most people had a special affinity or connection to a single type.  Like other League trainers, they would only catch one pokemon per route, but would generally trade their caught pokemon for their favorite type.  Azure wondered if he’d develop such an affinity, and just hadn’t found the right pokemon type yet.  He liked fire, but… his mind was wandering.  No time for daydreaming.  He had a challenge to accept.  

“I’ll fight you,” Azure said.  Finally, a chance to battle.  He relished the opportunity to really fight rather than simply hunt.  Like the trainers on television, every time he watched a tournament or footage from important gym battles.

Tornado destroyed the weedle.  Azure’s team might not be as strong as Alizara’s, but they were more than up to the task of fighting bugs.  A single gust was enough to fling the tiny caterpillar into the air and flay the exoskeleton, green ichor spurting around in an artistic arc as the bug fell to the ground.  

“Yeah, good job Tornado!”  Azure cheered, jumping up with his hands in the air.  

“(That was nothing,)” Tornado chirped, as the trainer, Doug, sent out another weedle.  It, and the Kakuna that followed, were taken on just as easily.  The Kakuna was sent into a tree trunk so hard that it split open, revealing partially formed beedrill wings.

That looks like something Liz would want to examine, Azure thought, then looked at his sister.  She was watching him, but staying back rather than cheering him on.  He turned his attention back to the bug catcher, who was currently running.  Doug was visible for only a moment before vanishing from view behind a turn in the path.  Azure wondered if they were afraid of them or just wanted to get to the safety of a town.  

As they reached the center of the forest, they didn’t see any more trainers.  Most people had been walking towards the exits for the coming of night.  “Tired out?” he asked Tornado.  The pidgey sat on Azure’s shoulder now, instead of flying in circles around the group.  He wasn’t injured, it had just been a long day.

“(This forest is just too dark to properly showcase my skills,)” Tornado sniffed, taking a bow as the red light of the pokeball engulfed him.

“Come on out, Inferno.”

“(It’s so dark,)” Inferno whimpered.

“Your tail can light up the forest,” Azure said.  “We’re about to stop for the night, so we’ll also have a small campfire.”

“(I guess.)”  Inferno held his tail as high as he could, but it didn’t do much to dispel the gloom.  Apparently there was a special move he’d have to learn to really be effective at that.  Still, it did stop them from tripping over branches while they looked for a suitable place to camp.  

They stumbled up on a clearing that had been used as a campsite many times in the past.  Fallen logs were arranged in a loose wall on two sides.  The fire spot wasn’t a proper circle of same-sized stones, but a makeshift one of mixed river stones, bricks, and rough rocks of differing sizes.  Luckily, it looked abandoned for the moment.  

“Well, let’s get a fire started,” Azure said.  In a short while, their camp was fully set up.  

“I’ll take first watch,” Liz said.  Azure knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while.  Until then, Azure closed his eyes, confident that Inferno and Murinae could handle anything that appeared.  

-----

Murinae kept guard on the top of a massive fallen log.  The thick forest canopy kept moonlight from coming through.  Beyond the light of the small fire and Inferno’s tail, the forest was pitch black.  Darkness wouldn’t affect her hearing or sense of smell, however.  

Alizara had been worried about pokemon attacking at night, but Murinae doubted they’d see a fraction as many as they did during the day.  If the pokemon here acted the same as her fellow pokemon from Route 1, they would leave them alone while sleeping.  The young pokemon that fought established packs in an attempt to be invited to them generally did so while the pack was awake.  Ambushing a group that was mostly asleep was cowardly, and only the honorable would be worth inviting.  They would continue this pattern even with human-led packs.  Still, Murinae kept watch as ordered, though she did so from a relaxed position.  

Inferno, on the other hand, looked terrified.  He paced, circling the tiny campfire, adding in tiny sticks to keep it exactly the maximum size that the humans had told him.  Between looking at the fire constantly and sitting within the makeshift walls, he was doing very little to keep watch.  “Inferno,” Murinae called out softly, “You aren’t doing any good exhausting yourself.  Sit down and just listen for noises.”  

“Okay,” he whispered.  The charmander sat very close to the fire.  He began to poke at it, fire-resistant scales letting him move around the logs so long as he was careful.  Every few seconds he’d hear the soft wind rustling through the trees and stand up and stare into the darkness in that direction.  Murinae sighed and began ignoring him.  Alizara was also awake, sitting with her back to the logs in a defensive curl, a camo-print blanket around her shoulders.  

Alizara had been very upset, and that bled over to the rest of the team.  Murinae hoped that her trainer would get over it soon.  She liked fighting, and wanted to be able to enjoy it completely.  The thrill of battle, the feeling deep in her muscles that meant she was getting stronger with the experience of combat.  All pokemon did, because that was what pokemon did.  It wasn’t just human teams that fought, though their kind of fighting was far more often fatal than the wild version between packs.  Even that was worth it.  I don’t think I would have gotten even this far if I’d joined a rattata pack, Murinae thought.  How many rattata get to see trees like this?  So big that human nests could be dug out of their trunks.  They were invisible in the darkness, but she’d seen them while in her pokeball.  

Murinae sighed and got off of her lookout perch.  “Are you okay?” she asked her trainer.  Humans and pokemon didn’t speak the same way, but the general idea would come across.  

“Do you resent fighting for humans?” Alizara asked after a moment, looking away from the fire.

“No!” The rattata shook her head furiously.  “Fighting is what we do.”  After a few moments of silence, she leapt into Alizara’s lap.  “You’re a good trainer.  I’m way stronger now than I ever would have gotten alone.”

“What I did to those pokemon…” Alizara said then paused, trying to put her thoughts into words.  “The trainer’s pokemon, and the wild ones we’ve hunted.  They were just like us.  Trying to get stronger.  Exploring new cities and forests.  People.  Living, thinking beings.”

“Like what that crazy old lady was saying?” Murinae scoffed.  She thought her impression of the worm-eater woman was spot-on, standing on her hind-legs and mimicking the sound of her voice.  

“Every time I get into a pokemon battle now, I see myself.  A… a version of myself, another me.  They have interests, goals, dreams.  Maybe not the same as mine, but that kind of makes it worse.  Every time they die, something unique goes away from the world.  Their experiences are lost forever.”

“Pokemon die,” Murinae said simply.  “They would keep doing it even if you stopped.  Even if all trainers stopped.  Do you mourn when you pick berries?  They’re all unique too.  Each has a different pattern of color, spots, and worm bites.  Places where they grew into the branch a little, or got lopsided somehow.  But they’re all close enough to be interchangeable, and more will always grow to replace what you pick.”

Alizara lapsed into silence.  Murinae could tell she didn’t agree.  Hopefully, she’d realize that Murinae was right and stop moping.  The rattata decided that humans were just a naturally whiny species.  Always thinking and pondering at things that no sane creature would worry about.

As Murinae predicted, no pokemon came out to attack them.  It was even quieter here than in Route 1, with so little moonlight to encourage nocturnal exploration.  The bug-types in the forest probably couldn’t see as well in the dark as rattata, even if they had the moon.  She swore she heard something rattata-like shuffling in the bushes, but it didn’t approach.  

“Hey, I think I figured out what’s wrong with your brain,” Murinae said, jumping up excitedly after a while of unbroken silence.  This frightened Inferno, who meeped nervously before realizing it was her.  

Alizara raised an eyebrow.  “What’s that?”

“How do humans have their children?”

Alizara looked at the rattata with a shocked expression.  “Well… it involves a male and a female.  The male fertilizes the female by-”

“No!  Hahaha, no.  That’s not what I meant.  I mean, you only have a few, instead of a whole bunch.”  Murinae had never thought of how many adults seemed to be in the village compared to human children, but now it struck her as incredibly odd.  Most pokemon were young, since they fought and killed each other off.  A hundred hatched rattata would slowly fight each other until only the two strongest remained to breed.

“Yes.  Most families don’t have very many children.  Maybe two or three throughout their entire lives.”

“Two or three births, or two or three that live to adulthood?”  

“Births.”  Alizara seemed to get her meaning.  “What you’re saying… that’s something that some scientists believe in, and they call it the r/K selection theory.  In this theory, pokemon are said to use ‘r-selection’, meaning you lay lots of eggs and let the pups grow up alone and a few will end up surviving.  Humans do k-selection, meaning we start out with only a few, but keep them alive.”

“Ah-ha!” Murinae said triumphantly.  The first part of her theory was correct.  “And you live a really long time, too.”

“Yes.  I’m only barely considered an adult, but I’m already older than most non-legendary pokemon can get.  Grandfather says it has something to do with the near-magical powers that pokemon have, to control fire or move mountains.  The spirit shines so brightly that it burns itself out, or something poetic like that,” Alizara explained, getting curious.  “Now, what does this have to do with my brain?”

“It’s perspective.  Instead of seeing a kind of thing as important, you see a individual example of a thing as important.  You instinctively don’t like having to replace things, since so much of what you are and have is harder to replace.”  Murinae considered a bit more, “That’s probably why you make strong wood-and-rock nests instead of leaf ones, too.”

“Perhaps.  And your instinct is to do the opposite, because of your biology.  But which one is right?”

“Depends on what you’re doing?” Murinae suggested.  “Right now, your goal is to be a pokemon master.  My goal is to be the strongest I can and see a bunch of the world.  That means you better think and do whatever you need to in order to accomplish it.  Crying over the failure of your enemies Is. Not. Helping.”  She punctuated this by nudging her nose into Alizara’s arm in emphasis with each squeak.

“You’re right,” Alizara said reluctantly.

“So you think you can lead us against other trainers so we can be the strongest?”

“Yes, I think I can.  As long as you and the others want to keep going, I’ll lead you.”

“Good.  Now it’s probably halfway through night, so you should wake up Azure and go to sleep.”

-----

Azure watched the forest gradually lighten around him.  Phyton was lounging, with Toxin sitting next to him to act as an extra set of eyes.  The bulbasaur kept scooting away from the kakuna, who clicked happily at a joke that Azure was too far away to have heard.  

His team was in great shape, the night spent resting having made them more than ready to tackle the rest of the forest.  They didn’t even fight a single battle.  Maybe now Liz won’t be so nervous about traveling out of the cities, he thought, then shook his head.  No.  She’ll always be nervous.  Liz would still be ambling around Route 1 if I wasn’t there to drag her off.  

It was morning, and Liz was still sleeping.  Not surprising.  Liz was a deep sleeper until she got at least 7 hours.  Azure started thoroughly killing the fire, then packed up his half of the camp supplies.  

When everything was stored in his pack, he nudged Liz.  “Hey, wake up.  Liz?”  She mumbled in her sleep, and he whistled loudly to startle her awake.  “Time to go if you want to reach Pewter before nightfall.”  

“I’m awake,” she mumbled, but didn’t get up.  

“Fine, let the weedle get you.  I’m going on ahead.”  He turned around and walked away, feeling only a little guilty.  She’ll be fine, Azure told himself.  Inferno said that Murinae had said that the wild pokemon wouldn’t attack her unless she was ready.  Besides, Liz beat him before, and had more pokemon than him.  She could handle herself.