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
Please forgive my attempts at French.
Thanks for reading!

—

Level 35 [continued]

Not that he wanted to be near others, he thought, stretching out, but he ought. The other girls were in the garden, sitting separately; Rita had gone out to lie on the wood, as the autumn sun was still high enough to pass the interior wall, while Dyna snuffed around the bushes and Tanwen sat out on the stone. (They wouldn’t want him near.) The Golduck, Jeanmarie, was still sleeping on the chair. He wouldn’t bother her; but Runa would be some hours yet, he thought, so lacking anything else to do, he would wait for her to wake, that at the very least he spoke to all the champions. As Runa asked that he make friends, he would lie on the sofa near. There was a pitcher of some bright blue drink next to the Golduck, with a chunk of ice that matched the shape as if it thawed in from the sides, which once or twice she stirred from her nap earlier to turn and take a sip.

Presently she yawned and looked at him. But wasn’t it too forward, he thought, laying near before they were introduced? She scratched herself and didn’t speak. (It was a mistake to leave the bed at all, he felt.)

She said, “[You’re that Dragonair.]” Quite a mistake, he thought.

She said, “[You like ice cream?]”

“[Um,]” he said, “[yes.]”

She said, “[So you like cream.]”

“[Um,]” he said. Didn’t she see his dish?

She took the pitcher, poured a glass and, with a blow of white breath, refroze the thing entirely. “[And you like ice,]” she said.

Perhaps he made a noise; across the room, Diana said, “[Don’t scare him, Jeanie! He’s Runa’s.]”

“[Oh, that’s no fun,]” Jeanmarie said, sitting up and stretching, scratching. “[I have a way with dragons, is all.]”

“[A … a way?]” he said.

“[She’s a real genius for ice,]” Apollo said. “[Didn’t you see us in the final?]”

And he had to get out of bed, he thought, and be a fool for the double-league champions! Of course they all saw the championship matches, a close thing as well, everyone fainting but Jeanmarie and Apollo, who never fainted once in their careers—knocked out half Lance’s team by herself, her signature Ice Beam, and bashed up the number-one Dragonite in the world for Apollo to finish : a genius, they called her, with a power greater than if she had the type.

“[But I’m fond of dragons,]” she said—she, the destroyer, sitting now on his sofa and holding his tail—“[really. It’s just we battle so often, often it’s a cold thing. You look surprised. You think it’s odd we’re not like Nero. He’s the odd one. He hatched leering.]”

They were none of them as he expected, he thought; and was it very wretched that he wished, in fact, they were a little harder? Runa’s method was entirely for Pokémon and their dreams, so that they might be very happy, and yet her team (himself, of course, excluded for other reasons) would hesitate to say, if one asked them, that they were completely happy. Yet even though Manda only aimed at battling, ordered them about, so all her Pokémon seemed content. Ought not those Pokémon who were most controlled be least happy, and those with the greatest liberty be happiest?

“[I don’t—]” he said, and paused. He mustn’t be the fool again. “[It— It’s just really big you can do Manda’s sort of training. I’d never manage.]”

“[Really big!]” she said. “[Maybe it’s just Manda’s direction. I don’t have much of an ethic—nor Apollo.]”

“[What’s that?]” Apollo said, leaning back on his sofa.

“[Just your predilection for a good lay over battle,]” she said. “[Shadow says he couldn’t cut our training.]”

“[Oh, I don’t know,]” Apollo said—“[with a little help, he might! I wouldn’t mind a Dragonair about. Maybe you’d think about swapping a while, and—no—maybe I’ll swap with that Typhlosion a bit, eh, try it a while with you and Runa? You wouldn’t mind another lady, would you, ladies?]” And Diana produced a spark, he saw, right between her cheeks; the Charizard laughed and rubbed his neck.

Jeanmarie looked back at him and said, “[So she’s been using her method on you: no commands. How is that?]” She leaned closer. “[I mean Manda’s hard, yes. We train ten or twelve hours a day. It’s how they’ve always done it, les Pondes, la première famille de Pokémon—plus de champions, after all, than any other family. But it’s all in moderation—hard work, good rest. That’s us. What’s it like with Runa?]”

What could he say? he thought. He could hardly enlarge Runa as a trainer when he was speaking to a champion. And weren’t Golduck partially psychic? Did she see something inside him? But she only looked at him with mild interest, as like an unusually mottled egg.

He said, “[It’s … well, I don’t know other training. But if I didn’t have Runa—I mean, her way, her, her philosophy … She says it’s a trainer’s purpose to, to help us do what we want in life, and only battle if it helps. She says to make us happy is what a trainer’s for.]”

“[Sounds chill,]” she said; she looked at her hand. “[How are the battles?]”

“[We haven’t lost yet,]” he said, “[and we’ve got two badges! I mean, that’s … nothing to you, but it’s not bad!]”

And she put on a smile and said, “[It’s not bad. But here’s a secret: Most teams aren’t very good, and gym leaders are only meant to screen out the bad ones. If they kept getting stronger, how could anyone make eight badges for the tournament? There’s big business in that. No, they’re not supposed to be top tier—they’re like Watchogs. They’re filters, not supposed to grow, while every one of you can. You’ll get your badges, y’a pas de lézardon.]”

So he was in the club, he thought, where other trainers and Pokémon were easily put down, and everyone knew secrets and spoke sophisticated dialects—as if the whole thing were planned, the title and everything! He said, “[I … I never thought of it that way. We … We’re not really proper battlers, though. I mean most of us battle—we owe it to Runa—but she says not to worry about badges.]”

Jeanmarie stopped smiling. “[Most,]” she said.

Oh, he thought—Diana and Apollo had said nothing, but were they only being polite? It had to seem wretched to a champion that not all of them battled, that Rita only used Runa and became a dead weight. (They didn’t need to know about his first few weeks.) He said, “[R— Rita doesn’t. But Runa says she doesn’t have to to, to grow.]”

Jeanmarie looked away to the garden. “[Are you entering the championship?]” she said.

“[Runa says it’s up to us,]” he said. “[We don’t really know, yet.]”

She looked a long while, watching the others outside. And as he thought himself forgotten, as he wondered if he might remove his tail and go, she said, “[What.]”
“[I—]” he said. But what did she mean?

As if she was deciding whether to believe a thing, whether what he said could possibly be accurate or he was only joshing her, she looked at him and said, “[That Typhlosion said you only train four hours a day. In eighteen months, you got two badges. And yet she’s evolved both you dragons, and all the rest are fully evolved, aren’t they?]”

But what did she mean? he thought. “[Torus isn’t evolved yet,]” he said.

“[Isn’t he coming through Bill?]” she said; and now she was sitting up, he thought, oh, and getting cross for arguing. “[Look—it doesn’t matter—what I mean is you don’t make sense. Pokémon grow slowly even when they’re in the gym every day. She’s had you Dragonair, what, six, eight months? And you’ve evolved. Dragons take years to evolve. Something’s gone right—and it’s not battling. What is Runa doing?]”

Perhaps it was her only context, he thought, wins and contest; after so long with Manda they thought of nothing else. Was it that Runa treated them differently, and somehow that evolved the energy? Some trainers were very kind to their Pokémon while others treated them like tools; but even the kindest trainers, Runa said, who loved their Pokémon, only thought of them as friends and not as people.

He said, “[I don’t know—maybe her training’s different, but I don’t know. I just know Runa says she thinks of us like humans, and, and she says that’s how it ought to be, and that’s the best way to, to be close. And that’s what makes a good team, she says.]”

Or family, he thought, as Runa really put it; but family seemed a hard word around the Pondelores and their Pokémon. Jeanmarie looked at him a long while, and finally she turned and stood. “[Closer than Manda, you mean,]” she said, taking her drink. And as the Blissey Maria came in and approached the others, she excused herself, and went out toward the garden.

It was all a mistake, he thought, waking up, coming to Saffron City, ever letting Runa leave his side! Didn’t she say he might come but, looking at him directly, that he would be very bored, and she would rather he had fun apart? No, he thought, he never ought to have left; he should have stayed with Torus in Goldenrod, come over the network with Bill. But now (how rotten through he was!) he felt a knawing in his gut, even though he stuffed himself already, even though he felt it on his skin: a rotten disappointment to Runa: he wasn’t fit to be in their company.

Maria was taking orders, marching about. She said, “[There’s something you want—say.]”

He would wash it all away, he thought, as Runa did with a book and a cup of sencha. “[Just a tea, maybe, thank you,]” he said.

The Blissey’s eyes seemed to overflow with pleasure; she performed a half spin toward the door. “[Just as Apollo!]” she said. “[I shall double every quantity of gyokuro and cake!]”

No use at all, he thought, as she rushed away, nor could he help it: without Runa he was just a quivering, gnawing rot. He left for the garden; some time in the water, some time alone until she came and held him, would help.