Inheritors

Part 5

He handed the adult his sandshrew. There was no need to do the same for the baby vulpix, so he kept that as he headed down the long passages, making his way to one far-flung room. The building was sprawling as a nature of its function, the lodging rooms spread far apart. They were not wasteful, though, so they filled up most of the space between with inert objects, thoughtless things that would cause no trouble: stored food and stacked medicine, books old and new, machinery. They were thoughtless things, so he paid them no mind. The room itself was small and five-sided, hewed out of the solid rock of the volcanic island.

He left out the vulpix. Pokemon needed time outside their pokeballs to mature. If he wanted it to be able to battle, he'd need to keep it out now. It was afraid a moment, which he dismissed as foolish as he changed out of his clothes. It sat quietly on the bed, now simply puzzled by its surroundings, and then it curled up against his side and they went to sleep.

He woke to find its mind filled with hungry, insistent thoughts. Half-awake with a child's indignation at the interruption, he threw out a query and one awake adult nudged his attention in the relevant direction, adding a slight chide at his unkempt thoughts.

He teleported the milky formula into the room and offered it to the vulpix, the fragments of his dream still tangling around his thoughts and making him groggy. He curled back up as the vulpix lapped, feeling a sort of content confusion and then the physical sense of it nosing his side, climbing over his leg and settling inside the crook of his tail.

Deus woke more smoothly in the morning, fed the vulpix again, retrieved his sand, and left for Pallet. He had the presence of mind to recall the vulpix before starting out.

He passed an outcropping before the mainland proper, and stopped. He could feel the faint spray of the ocean at his back where he'd landed, so he hopped across the sand into the thicker grasses further in before releasing the vulpix again. Its thoughts were of cold ground, so he picked it up. He carried it as he explored.

It turned out there were tangela there. Deus looked at them speculatively, feeling through the mind of the vulpix as he did so. No, it couldn't use fire moves yet, the capability a phantom feeling, sections of its mind holding the potential but the links to the body still undone, not unlike the six-sectioned partitioning in place for what was currently a single tail. Idly, he reached through and tried to move one, and saw the fur on a section of its tail ruffle, like it was dislodging a fly. Then the vulpix shook itself all over, thoughts filled with a puzzled sort of disapproval over what had just happened.

He doubted the sandshrew would have any chance against even the smaller of the tangela. He did want a grass pokemon, though... He reached out for the closest tangela, walking it back and forth. It was strong but frustratingly limited in its range of motion, with short stubby legs and only a few of its tendrils able to detangle from the main mass. Their coordination was terrible, no fine motor control and almost numb in sensation. He released it again, no longer interested, and recalled the vulpix so he could continue on his way to Pallet.

The city of Pallet, of course, was little different than Fuchsia, and so Deus didn't pay the same sort of attention as he had in Cinnabar. Instead he headed to the western area, looking for a new pokemon. He came upon another colony of nidoran and settled down with the vulpix in his lap to watch them for a time.

He finally selected a hyperactive male, mostly on its own merit but in part because the sandshrew had been male and the vulpix female, and this would continue the budding pattern. He stopped projecting nonexistence and released the sandshrew.

"Attack that one," he told it, directing its attention to the one he'd chosen. The sandshrew hesitated a moment, then charged into the scattering nidorans, cutting off the retreat of the male. It halted and made a feint to the right, as if to continue flight, then jabbed sharply with its horn at the sandshrew. They traded blows, the speedier sandshrew darting around and landing glancing blows, while the nidoran held its ground and tried for decisive hits. When it seemed to be tiring, Deus lobbed a pokeball at it. His third pokemon.

Nothing of importance was further west, just old ruins they had little interest in. There were some ditto to be found if he went far enough, but they'd be hard to find. Easier on all counts to wait and try for one that lived in more accessible places further on.

Besides, his current pokemon were more than enough to handle for the moment, Deus decided. Three would be enough for now, though it was less than half a full team. They would be hard enough to get used to, especially if he was keeping out the vulpix so much.

A glance over its tail showed that the fur had become ruffled at the tip, the first stage of splitting. It was still white, though the tips of its ears had begun to tint a very faint pinkish color.

His early impatience had lessened. The importance of the journey is the journey. He made his way at a far more sedate speed than his extended run through the Fuchsia forests, seeking out other trainers and pokemon for battles and stopping to feed the vulpix when it became hungry.

Despite his promptings, the sandshrew still lacked the coordination to kick sand accurately enough for a sand attack, and also had the bothersome tendency to interpret the order as a chance to burrow into the ground instead. It needed a lot more practice battling.

The nidoran was more pugnacious, but persisted in ignoring his orders to hold back or wait, throwing itself forward with all the undeserved confidence of a drunken brawler. After a few iterations of this, Deus stopped healing it and it rapidly gained a better respect for caution.

He ended up staying there for two days, remaining close enough to Pallet that he could return each night. There wasn't, in his estimation, any reason to continue at the moment, since he didn't intend to catch new pokemon for a while. Less admitted, he also felt better staying close to an area filled by adults while he became used to having pokemon, before setting out into the wilder areas.

And, after two days passed, he felt confident enough and familiar enough with the area, and with the pokemon, to continue along into the forest.