Lucki

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The path started to get worse, returning to the mix of crags and plummets she'd traveled earlier. For a while it led through a low valley, the sides sloping upward and dotted with trees and small shrubs.

Lucki heard a rustling above her. She glanced toward it, then jumped back, narrowly avoiding the duskull's nightshade, which struck the path before her. She yelled, startled. The brown-grey, skull-faced round pokemon started to float closer, beginning another nightshade attack. "Go, Silver!"

The petite squirtle sparkled into being, just in time to be hit by the wave of dark energy.

"Hit back with water gun!" Lucki ordered.

Silver climbed to her feet, inhaled and shot a bullet of water into the requiem pokemon, sending the floating pokemon tumbling through the air. It stabilized, righted itself and began to float back. A second water gun passed through it without effect.

"What is this?" Silver asked, sounding slightly nervous.

"It's just a ghost type," Lucki replied distractedly, thinking. "They can turn intangible."

The duskull floated closer, and Silver backed up a pace. "What should I do?"

"Let me think. Uh, try an ice beam," Lucki said, trying to remember squirtles' full moveset.

Silver focused, gathering the energy and then sending a shimmering ice beam at the ghost type. The attack passed through, freezing the side of the crevice. The duskull shivered.

"It didn't work!"

"You need a dark type move to hit an intangible ghost. You should be able to...Try using bite."

Silver looked from side to side across the path, as if she was hoping some alternative would present itself, or at least a way out. "But I don't know how!"

"Don't be like that, it's not hard," Lucki said. She should be experienced enough to know bite by this point. "You saw the wartortle use it. Just open your mouth and bite it."

Silver stood still.

"Come on, Silver!" Lucki yelled, frustrated.

She didn't react. The duskull approached closer. The tiny turtle shifted nervously on her feet, then launched herself at the ghost type, snapping her jaws shut on one edge. The duskull shuddered, pulling itself loose and leaving a chunk of its body in Silver's mouth, which quickly dissipated into the air.

The duskull seemed to frown. It shuddered and let out an eerie groan as it sank into the ground. Lucki waited several seconds to see if it would reappear. When did didn't, she figured it must have decided to flee the battle. Still, I should probably leave Silver out for a bit, in case it's just waiting for me to recall her. She started walking again.

Silver took a few steps, then stopped dead. She stood perfectly still, staring upward without a sound. Lucki followed the squirtle's gaze, and saw the broad nest of a swellow in a cleft half-supported by a broad tree and half the cliff wall. A mother, because from under her breast poked the small, curious navy heads of several taillow. The swellow was watching them alertly, ready to fight if they attacked. She shifted to shelter her young under her wings, hiding them from view.

"A swellow mom," Lucki said. "Cute, huh?"

Silver began to cry.

Lucki didn't know what to do. She stared dumbly for a moment. "What's wrong?"

"I never even," Silver said, her voice sad. Under the translator, it was a miserable sob. "She laid an egg and they t-t-took I they." Her voice hiccuped. "I have brothers and sisters I'll never who. Who don't know I exist. I never even saw -" Silver sobbed louder. "That wartortle was the first one I ever saw. She doesn't even know I exist. Did she - did she – care?"

"It's okay Silver," Lucki tried. "I-"

"Why did you pick me!" Silver screamed, the calm sad voice of the translator contrasting horribly with the desolate wail underneath. "You saw I was small and weak and scared. You saw I wasn't a fighter. Why did you pick me?"