Inheritors

Part 2

Neoteny is found throughout nature in many species making the transition to greater intelligence. While typically described as a developmental slowing or delay, such terms are deeply misleading.

The area beyond Fuchsia was lightly forested, interspaced with open sections of green meadow or dry ground. He could feel the minds of various local pokemon all around. Part of this was the challenge, though: it wasn't right to simply find one and make it come to him. Instead he focused, reversing things so instead of his mind passively listening, it pulled inward and broadcast something akin to refracting light around him, becoming invisible to their minds. Radiating his nonexistence to any pokemon he encountered, he set off to watch them through his own eyes.

GThere were some birds, but he had no real interest in flying things, finding them bland and a bit absurd in their clumsy insistence on wings. The beedrill he came upon next he considered even less suitable, looking at the bugs with an aloof but disgusted disdain as they tended their eggs and pupae, and he didn't even spare a glance for the weedle he passed, the small things chewing thoughtlessly at leaves. A pack of nidoran argued in excited, sharp sounds, oblivious to his presence, but after some consideration he decided against them for the moment.

Not long after he came to a small open area where the soil changed to something drier and looser. A sandshrew poked its head up amid open soil and some rocks, and he walked over to get a better look. He watched it dig industriously through the sandy soil and decided it would make a good pokemon.

He tossed the black pokeball. The sandshrew had the most amusingly exaggerated look on its face the instant after the ball hit, a comically dismayed and disbelieving expression as if it couldn't fathom how this had happened.

A relatively good description, as of course it couldn't. It was a sandshrew.

He picked up the pokeball and then unfettered his mind and let it stretch outward again to search, brushing against the loose thoughts of the other children, most similarly questing for someone who had completed their first task.

Another boy was nearby. He headed in the boy's direction, as the boy headed toward him. Presently they met physically.

"Sen," introduced the other boy, as he said, "Deus."

Sen had a second pokeball on him, a plain white one, indicating he'd captured another pokemon already. Deus wondered if he should have delayed the first trainer fight similarly, then pushed the thought aside. He had wanted a battle. There would be time for captures later.

He released the sandshrew as Sen opened his own black pokeball housing his first pokemon.

It was a female nidoran, looking a bit worn but still in decent condition. The sandshrew and it stared at each other.

He said immediately, "Scratch," knowing that whoever reacted first could get a free hit in. Sen gave the same order. The nidoran moved first, charging forward and rearing up to swat at the sandshrew, which ducked and twisted sideways. The nidoran twisted to follow, and the second hit struck it across the face. It let out a chattering squeak and smacked back with its own yellow paw. They traded blows like this for several minutes, and eventually the nidoran slumped to the ground, panting and dazed.

Sen recalled it and sent out the next pokemon, a somewhat sleepy-looking oddish. Like the first it looked like it had already battled, presumably against the nidoran earlier. After the sandshrew landing a scratch attack or two on it, the oddish managed to wrap its leaves around the sandshrew's side and execute an absorb attack.

The sandshrew shuddered and then went limp, unconscious.

The oddish was recalled and they traded compliments and politeness before parting ways, Sen heading off directly while he first bent and touched one hand to the sandshrew's side, focusing on recovery. It opened its eyes and got to its feet.

It stared at him, its mind radiating anxious confusion. \\I'm capture-\\ it stammered, words simple and crude. \\How'd you? Why you want what do you happen now I'm.\\

"I am a trainer," he informed it. "So you are my pokemon now." He tapped the starting pokeball and watched it sucked back into the black sphere, then considered his options.

He could remain in the area to look for another pokemon, or he could start toward Cinnabar now. He hesitated, tail tip flicking from side to side above his shoulders. Another pokemon...seeing Cinnabar...Cinnabar, he decided. He pulled his mind in, molding and binding it into a clumsy approximation of the rounded smoothness of an adult's containment, and feeling pleased and grownup, he started south, bounding in long, psi-enhanced leaps.

He reached the shrubby plains between the woods and beach before long, and spied a lone doduo in his path. He'd been going too fast to pay much attention to notice most pokemon during his travel through the forest, but the plains were more open, and his eyes narrowed at the sight of the two-headed bird. He'd left the beedrill be, but this was a greater irritant. He took one further leap, coming to a halt near it, and in a burst of childish annoyance, released the sandshrew again and ordered it to attack.

Again, the sandshrew didn't react swiftly, giving the doduo time to bob both heads and then peck at it before it swiped the other pokemon across one face.

The bird was the stronger fighter, and before long the sandshrew was nearly beaten while the doduo was only half injured. He stepped over to touch the battered sandshrew with one hand and recover it a second time, ordering another attack as he pulled his arm back. It returned to scratching and tackling, and finally the two-minded bird collapsed.

Deus recalled his sandshrew and looked at the now unconscious pokemon a moment, feeling pleased. Then he continued toward Cinnabar.