Shadow
The story of a timid Dratini, caught as a Game Corner prize, who finds the perfect human trainer and, to his great distress, falls in love with her.

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Thumbnail art by kenket, used with permission
Audio DOES NOT COMPLETELY MATCH the text (something like a 1-2% difference) as it represents the fifth draft or so, whereas the final text is the sixth or seventh. Probably won't be a problem after Chapter 5 ...


___ Level 25 [continued] ___

At the waterfront, Rita laying on her new Leavanny silk cloth (it was beneath the minders to go and fetch it, but so they offered), Gaia basking, Tanwen sitting as to seem the only one attentive, Dyna building sand over Torus—only he, he thought, thought at all about Runa, there buying iced tea from a stall. A few children looked, pointed to Gaia: a pink Dratini on the beach! they would say. (They scattered when the Arcanine sniffed.)

Dyna looked at him approaching. “[I found a shop that sells Everstones,]” she said, itching her wool—the sand was all inside it, he saw, but she seemed not to notice. “[I’m gonna ask Runa for one.]”

He said, “[Don’t you want to evolve?]”

She harrumphed and placed a shell on Torus’s nose, who was very still. “[It’s for Rita,]” she said, looking to see she didn’t hear. “[She’s desperate to evolve into a beautiful Ninetales, you know? But I’m thinking if she makes Runa get her a big bow or something, I’ll stick it inside.]”

That was rather harsh, he thought, just because Rita debated her. But what was it he had heard about the stones? There was a documentary series with, yes, Steven Stone, the one Runa mentioned in the Corner. She knew him personally, saw his family’s whole collection of stones on a visit, perhaps, old friends of the Pondelores. “[Don’t Vulpix need a Fire Stone to evolve?]” he said.

Dyna put another shell on Torus. “[So?]” she said.

“[But—]” he said. “[But Everstones don’t affect evolutionary stones.]”

Dyna paused, seemed to think it over—and then Torus teleported away, and the sand and shells fell into a heap.

“Flaaf!” she said, and turned to him. “[Do they work on Dratini?]” she said.

“[Y— Yes,]” he said.

And she said, “[Maybe I’ll stick it in a Poké Puff, you know, the kind you snarf whole? Stop you getting bigger. You’ll thank me.]”

They were all cross with him, he knew, thought he was a waste to the team, slowed them down, took away Runa’s attention. What if he never evolved, never became strong enough? and being far too great a liability as they battled more and more difficult trainers, as permitting a Dratini to stay became impossible, Runa would lay a hand on him and, For the sake of the others, she would say, so as not to disrupt their dreams—

Now Runa was returning with a jug; and as though he hadn’t just spent hours alone with her, he rushed toward her (quite beyond all shame now). She asked what it was, wiped his eyes (he was absurd), asked who had teased him; then Dyna threw her shell and called him a snitch, and his denial Runa only took as making it worse, and now she looked at Dyna. So he spoiled things; so he bust up the team again, he thought. But Runa always said just the right thing—How would you feel if you were nearly carried off and your own family only made fun?—and Dyna, though accusing her was really unjust, though Runa didn’t know what was said, only folded her arms and took a strong interest in the sand.

Once everyone had a drink from the pitcher Runa said they ought to decide on the gym.

“We don’t have to,” she said—“it’s only for motivation. This is the Kanto break so the gym is nearly empty, and we’ll get plenty of practice in any case. But if we’re feeling ready, in a couple weeks we can try for the badge.”

Tanwen looked at each of them consequentially, took another share from the pitcher: it was for her that Runa even considered it, thought of committing them to serious battles that to her were only more experience and growth but to Tanwen were the whole point of it. In a Steel-type gym she would shine glorious, make her mark, she said; and wasn’t it both fair and far past time they got a badge, she being with Runa for eleven months already and accomplishing nothing but to bloat the team? But water was just as well, Runa said, against the Steelix, bred from the old leader Jasmine’s—Gaia would be centre as well.

Tanwen looked at him. “[Be nice if we had another water user,]” she said. He turned pink, looked away. But that was the trouble: they needed three for the leader match, according to the conditions.

“[It’s not his fault,]” Gaia said. “[We’ve hardly seen water for over a year.]”

“[Water’s everywhere. You’re water-egg types. It should be easy,]” Tanwen said.

“[You don’t know anything about controlling water,]” Gaia said.

But Tanwen was correct: Dratini ought to have a grip on water right from the egg, or wasn’t that a dragon’s strength, a grasp of many elements? And yet while Gaia could throw up a surf now whenever she liked, drew it right through the ground and rock, he could not turn over a cup.

“I think any of you could evolve soon,” Runa said, “but there’s no need to rush it. We’ll only go if there’s enough who feel ready.”

Rita looked at him. That was all: she looked, then away. So why, he thought, did he feel so thoroughly rotten? It was the team, the those who feel ready, meaning those who could actually battle; and there were only two she could rely on for that. Any other team (and she already cared for six Pokémon!) would have a surplus of choice; yet here Runa had to work it out, as with Dyna (helpless against the Steelix), Rita (no help at all), Torus (no help against anything serious) all excluded, where did that put Runa? But there was more to it, this feeling. It was what Rita said before, on the way to Olivine. Runa had mentioned the gym and Tanwen was adamant they battled, despite the team’s weakness, and Runa was saying they ought not to rush, that their growth was what mattered, and after a minute Rita turned to him.

—Do many Pokémon get this?

—Get what?

—This. Runa’s way.

—It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Runa’s the best!”

—O, a wonder, yes. Because when you can afford the finest vitamins and minerals any science can produce, whole herds of Blissey for breakfast eggs and teams of chefs to prepare them, even to buy a gym outright and not just own its badge but lead it too—with all that, the best you can do is to beg your Pokémon, if it wasn’t an imposition, if it only pleased her, whether she might consider growing up a bit before a Steelix blasts her all the way to groundwater.

Whether her view was secretly changing, whether it was all a bluster or not, Rita was horrible to Runa and didn’t deserve her. And he argued, said Runa only cared more than any human, and didn’t force; and Rita had looked across her nose and said, if Runa only wanted a Dratini-shaped doll who trilled when she pressed him, she might have gone to the Super Mart.

“We can’t battle without three,” Runa said. For with only two of five battlers wanting it, that was not a consensus, but with three, Runa would follow their want in it.

But—and Gaia said always to ignore Rita—but was this really how it ought to be, a trainer negotiating with her Pokémon? For if Runa was the wisest (and didn’t she train them?) it was right that she decided. Humans appointed leaders precisely to avoid this sort of debate; parents, if she saw herself as one, reasoned with their young but in the end their word was final. And none of them spoke, as she looked to each of them—skipped him over. He looked away—and with all the others saying nothing, looking between each other … But this was intolerable, he thought, everyone feeling it, what they did to Runa, drove her to doubt or to force them, for didn’t others only obey everything their trainer said and yet they were happy and grew? He had to do it, he thought—volunteer. The assembly of every apparent circumstance in three months built to this instant, demanding he offer for Runa. But what would they say?

It’s not a good idea before you’ve learned water, seriously.

You’d be pulverised. We don’t need you wrecking our battle. Leave it to fire.

O, you’ll give the girls a nice breather, I’m sure, that whole second.

Dyna raised her hand and looked at Tanwen, as if to say, Now shush up.

Chance again missed him: he let it pass. He would never be a great battler to Runa; would never rise at all in her reckoning, just the one who nearly lost himself in the woods from his own stupidity, for even Dyna who didn’t care at all was more willing to put herself on the spot. And once Torus evolved, he would be firmly in fifth, and with Rita discounted, still last of all.

He lay out on the sand in Runa’s shadow: so he would always be. And did Torus look—? But he was only meditating.

[chapter continues in next part]